It’s a rainy Monday and I hope you are all safe and warm wherever you are!
It’s been two weeks days since we opened nominations for this year’s Filipino Readers’ Choice awards! Have you nominated your favorite book this year? If you haven’t, then this is the time to nominate!
Some reminders:
- More than one person can nominate the same book — so if the book you want to nominate is already in the list below, it’s okay if you want to nominate it again. We like reading your reasons. :)
- Remember that the qualified books are books that are published in the Philippines from January to December 2012. If your nomination does not fit this criteria, it will not be included in the list. Books written by a Filipino author but are published in another country and distributed here are not included, unless a local publishing house picks it up and distributes it locally.
- For books published in a series, only the books that were published within the time period specified in the criteria will qualify. (example: Trese # 1-4 was published in 2008-2011, but the fifth book was published in 2012)
- Self-published/independent books (print or electronic) are welcome, as long as they’re published within the time period.
Here are the first batch of nominees:
Children’s picture book
- Mga Saranggola sa Tag-ulan (Kites in the Rain) by Eugene Evasco and Bernadette Solina-Wolf (LG&M Corporation)
Chick lit
- Interim Goddess of Love (Interim Goddess of Love # 1) by Mina V. Esguerra (Bright Girl Books)
- That Kind of Guy by Mina V. Esguerra (Summit Books)
- From This Day Forward by Marla Miniano (Summit Books)
Novel in English
- In My Mother’s House by Joni Cham (Central Books)
- Voices in the Theater by A.S. Santos (Flipside Publishing)
Comics / Graphic novels
- Trese 5: Midnight Tribunal by Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo
- Gwapoman 2000: Ang Huling Baraha by Aaron Felizmenio
Short story anthology
- A Bottle of Storm Clouds by Eliza Victoria (Visprint)
- Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 7 by various authors, edited by Kate Osias (Kestrel DDM and Flipside Publishing)
- Shades of Gray Vol. XV by various authors (De La Salle College of St. Benilde)
- Under the Stacks by Saul Q Hofileña (DSH Publishing)
Essay anthology
- Subversive Lives: A Family Memoir of the Marcos Years by Susan F. Quimpo & Nathan Gilbert Quimpo (Anvil)
- Tibak Rising: Avtivism in the Days of Martial Law edited by Ferdinand C. Llanes (Anvil)
- Bakit Di Ka Crush ng Crush Mo by Ramon Bautista (PSICOM)
- Lovestruck: Singles Edition by Ronald Molmisa (OMF)
Congratulations to the nominees! We still need a bit more nominees for Children’s Picture Books, Novel in English, Novel in Filipino, Comics/Graphic Novels, and Poetry, so be sure to send your nominations for these categories.
Is your favorite Philippine published book in 2012 not there on the list? Then go and nominate it! You can still nominate books until August 23, 2013. And do share with your friends, okay? :)
Filipino ReaderCon 
“Chick lit”? Seriously? As opposed to what, “dude lit”? And that’s supposed to be, what, everything else? You might want to find some other way to categorize those titles that isn’t gendered or condescending.
Hello, J! Thanks for visiting the page and commenting! While we do agree that the term “chick lit” is highly gendered, we’re using it as one of genre fiction’s popular categories, as used by publishing and book marketing, specific to a certain type of book. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_lit.
Although you’re right, “chick lit” as a term and as a genre may well be on its way out. (http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/05/chick-lit-is-dead-long-live-farm-lit/275643/), though it’s likely some other marketing category shorthand will replace it. We’re constantly looking for ways to improve the awards so that it represents all the possible books that might be nominated. Hence, thank you for the feedback, and if you have concrete suggestions, we’d highly welcome them.
By the way, in case you’re interested, the “opposite” category for chick lit is usually called lad lit (http://www.britishcouncil.org/china-arts-literature-ladlit.htm).