In what we hope will be a regular feature on the Avalon.ph blog, we are doing a series of blog post profiling some of our customers. Our very first Featured Customer is Louella Suque. She’s an Avalon.ph customer for more than a year now and is happy to share with us her thoughts about her book collection.
– What is your most memorable purchase/s on the website and why?
My most memorable purchases would have to be my acquisition of hard-to-find books such as TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Sylvia Plath’s Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams and Anne Sexton’s poetry paperback. Avalon.ph has all these great, hard-to-find titles and I’ll admit to going insane each time I browse through the books up for sale. As a matter of fact, at one point, I ended up buying 12 books in one go.
– Share with us your adventures in reading, discovery of new authors and the evolution of your interests:
My mom, from the time I could properly read, made sure that I read classics. The first novel I read from cover to cover was Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist, at age 8. My interest evolved from adventure classics such as Tom Sawyer and Dr Doolittle to Sylvia Plath’s poetry and then a bit of Irvine Welsh by the time I reached high school. It is an endless desire to learn and discover. I read not just for the sake of education but more for leisure.
– What is in your collection?
Of course, being the Sylvia Plath enthusiast that I am, I have every single Plath book in my collection. I also love JD Salinger and I have all of his books including not just one but three copies of The Catcher in the Rye, counting a vintage copy from 1951, a gift from a friend who found it in an antic shop.
I also love Jack Kerouac and am looking forward to exploring the works of other Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs.
– Which books currently in stock on the website do you highly recommend?
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein. I always believe that picture books are also written to be enjoyed even by those pass the age of twelve. Shel Silverstein’s poetry is humorous, clever and witty. His books are a great escape from the ho-hums of a dull weekend afternoon or a pleasing way to conclude a chaotic work day.
– Name one author that people should start reading. Why?
Reading Vladimir Nabokov means intellectual orgasm. If all the other writers have only one selected word, adjective or a single cliché metaphor to describe, for instance, the experience of eating an apple or kissing a girl, Nabokov has multitudes. Reading him is not just an intellectual exercise but a pleasurable awakening of one’s mind’s eye.
– Your taste in music and books. Any connections?
I have always loved the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Tori Amos and Fiona Apple. Radiohead and Pearl Jam, I seem to personally associate with a JD Salinger piece or even a Hemingway or a Palahniuk: the bites of realism and sting of sarcasm is there. I always imagine Sylvia Plath listening to Tori Amos the whole day. Plath and Amos, female artists, tackle feministic issues in their own chosen art forms: music and poetry.
– Lastly, share with us a favorite quote from any of your favorite books.
“He is ugly and sad… but he is all love.” — Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)
– Thank you very much Louella!
Louella, a Multimedia Arts major, is a creative writer, one time independent filmmaker and an active cultural worker for cinema. She also collect coffee cups since she was in high school.
Skype: evilloulou
Twitter: evilloulou
Blog: http://evilloulou.tumblr.com
Note: If you are interested to be an Avalon.ph featured customer, just send us an e-mail through this link. Thank you very much.