Ah, the end is in sight. Manila International Book Fair starts tomorrow, you guys... to those living in the metro, be there or be square ;-)

Again a quick one... or make that two. I'll give you a teaser from the book I'm currently reading, and another from the one I'm currently proofreading.

As for the first: I think the first book I ever read from this author way back when I was a teenager was Touch Not the Cat. Yes, I bought that one because of the title. I got to like it so much I looked for all her other books!

Now I am currently re-reading The Moon-Spinners, an oldie but a goodie from one of my favorite authors, romantic suspense pioneer Mary Stewart, perhaps better known for her Merlin Chronicles which starts with The Crystal Cave. Yes, this book has been turned into a movie.

As for the second: I am also proofreading a series of essays for a book called More Hispanic Than We Admit: Insights into Philippine cultural history, and the teaser from this book comes from the essay I saved for last, which is about one of my favorite, although obscure, historical figures-- Rajah Sulayman (1558 - 1575) the last king of Manila. It is hard to believe that he was only 17.

I am still not quite sure what happened at that moment.
For some reason that I cannot analyze, the sight of the big white bird, strange to me; the smell of the lemon flowers, the clicking of the mill-sails and the sound of spilling water; the sunlight dappling through the leaves on the white anemones with their lamp-black centers; and, above all, my first real sight of the legendary White Mountains . . . all this seemed to rush together into a point of powerful magic, happiness striking like an arrow, with one of those sudden shocks of joy that are so physical, so precisely marked, that one knows the exact moment at which the world changed.
-p. 15, The Moon-Spinners by Mary Stewart

Spanish historian Montero Vidal eloquently chronicled the response of Rajah Sulayman. He said: "May the sun cut me to pieces and blind me, and may I fall as one drunken before the eyes of my women, if I should at any time henceforth become the friend of the Spaniards." After receiving Legaspi's message asking him to submit to the King of Spain, Sulayman said: "At the mouth of the Channel of Bancusay, I await you in battle."
-p. 46, "Rajah Sulayman, Spain, and the Transformation of Islamic Manila" by Professor Julkipli M. Wadi, in More Hispanic Than We Admit: Insights into Philippine cultural history edited by Isaac Donoso Jimenez (and proofread by moi, LOL)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!