Prizes!

The cover of The Analects, giving you a sense of the artist's style.

I worried that the challenge post was becoming too long, so here are the prize choices.

I’m living in Taiwan right now, which I think influenced me quite a bit in coming up with this challenge!  Because of that, I am offering some Chinese books: comic book versions of classics.  Oh yes.  They’re by the excellent Taiwanese artist 蔡志忠, and I can offer you one of the following: 論說、孫子兵法、聊齋志異.  If you are consumed by a desire to have a different story, I’ll see if I can find it for you, but these are the ones I know I can get in my bookstore, and the first two are quite funny, for all that they’re philosophical texts.  Let me repeat: these books will be written in traditional Chinese characters, but the art is very cute and fun.

If you can find no use for something like this, you can choose a book from the read-a-thon’s prize pool.  Second and third place will get a postcard from Taiwan, with Chinese writing if they want it.  Please contact me via the “email me!” link in the sidebar.  Thanks for playing!

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Titular absurdities

This challenge always cracks me up, and I’m proud to say I’ve got two long ones this time!  I guess I’m feeling more creative than before…

Both are four books long, and the first one requires no additional words of any kind.  Without further ado, I present this mystic mantra:

Sacred hearts ghost-walk the world inside the ear, the eye, and the arm.

Well, lawd-a-mercy!  Crazy things are going on everywhere!

Bless me, Ultima! The starfish and the spider rendezvous with Rama on the island of Dr. Moreau!

Actually, the last one sounds like it could be a code phrase from Captain America.  Was that movie awful or was it awful?!

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Intolerance

It’s finally happened: I’ve run into the problem of intolerance here in Taiwan.  Yesterday was my first day volunteering at the central library, and that’s when it took place.

You guys, I am an uptight and judgmental bitch, it seems.

I’ve had some experience working in libraries.  I volunteered a bit at my old library in the US and I worked off debt in my high school’s library and I worked for three years in college at the science and engineering library.  I know my way around bookstacks, and I know how to shelve.  The Taipei Municipal Library’s children’s English library is ridiculous and I can’t abide it.

On the bright side, being in the children's library means I never have to stand on a stool...

They just put things on their shelf, but not in any particular order.  It works for really small sections, but some categories take more than one shelf, and that’s when it goes all to hell.  I assume it was to make everything quicker, but it absolutely increases search time, and for me at least, wildly lengthens my shelving time.  This is a very dorky problem and I don’t expect people to understand, but I wanted to vent so I don’t say something out of place to the sweet and neverendingly giggly librarian.

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Sunrise, sunset

It’s the end of the read-a-thon and I pretty much had my nose or ears buried in a book except for three hours between 6 and 9am. The final challenge is just a good wrap-up, so here goes.

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
I had trouble at 6am, when I had been awake for nearly a day save a quick nap just before the kick-off of the read-a-thon.  I believe that was hour 10 or 11.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?
I find a good humorous book is an excellent choice.  Mary Roach always does it for me, delivering facts and funny about interesting topics.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the read-a-thon next year?
Make sure comments work across all blogs.  Blogger has the potential to be a really unfriendly platform, and I couldn’t participate in at least one challenge because of it.  Also, the number of challenges focusing on romance or supernatural romance seemed higher than one might expect.

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s read-a-thon?
The challenges were mostly pretty good and my personal scheduling was way better than last year, although it still left something to be desired.

5. How many books did you read and what were the titles?
I read 4 books: I finished Catch-22 and Witches Abroad, but I also worked on Packing for Mars and The Return of the King.  I also read a bit of Cracked now and again!

6. Which book did you enjoy most?
It’s hard to say, although I guess it’ll have to be Packing for Mars. Not only did it make me giggle, it also flies by!

7. Which did you enjoy least?
Hyperion.  I only persisted because I went out walking and had no other audiobook choice.  Towards the end of my stroll it started to improve, and I’ll probably finish it because I do a lot of walking here, but as it stands, I’m not reading the next books in the series.

8. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?
I think I will definitely go for it again in October, since I’ll be preparing to go home and I’ll really be under pressure to clear out my bookshelves!  I might host a mini-challenge or cheerlead for an hour or two.

While I read for 21 hours out of 24, my actual reading time was closer to 15.5 hours due to participating in read-a-thon events and other necessary tasks such as food.  I’m still really satisfied with this, and consider it to have met my goal.  Goals for next time: read less library or other borrowed books, and more of my own mess!

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Catch-22

Two-word verdict: Endlessly frustrating.

I have been told Catch-22 is a modern classic, one that at least one friend has already told me he loved, but I can’t see the art.  The humor is black–which isn’t usually a problem for me–but so bitter, and Heller seems to glory in writing the most contradictory characters I have ever had the misfortune to encounter.  Complex characters are great, but these aren’t complex; they’re just lists of adjectives with a hearty helping of idiocy.

Outside of their chapters, the characters are generally indistinguishable, even after the adjectives Heller has so generously lavished on them.  The non-linear nature of the story only adds to the confusion.  In addition, the utter lack of admirable characters or even characteristics is quite depressing.  This must have been to add humor, but I kept thinking of the Daffy Duck cartoons where he does nothing but frustrate an innocent through deliberate stupidity, or the Grover bits on Sesame Street where, in his willful ignorance, he succeeds in aggravating people almost to tears.  Yes, Catch-22 is making me dredge up my half-remembered childhood television issues.

On the bright side, Snowden’s death, when it finally came, was very well-written and gave me a little insight into Yossarian at the last.  Too, while I was irritated by the depression brought on by the never-ending stupidity and slavish bureaucracy, it was a little refreshing to read a World War II novel not populated by noble deeds and great men.  The greatest generation can be bad for the ego…

I’ve finished a “work of literature,” and I don’t have to worry about it any more.  Also, I now know precisely what catch-22 means: you can only understand Catch-22 if you read it, but you can only read Catch-22 if you don’t want to read it.  Or something like that.

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The boys from Brazil learn to write Chinese characters reading Lolita in Tehran

I suppose they’re reading Lolita in Chinese in Tehran?  I’ve read two out of three of these, although not during the read-a-thon.

Thanks for the fun challenge, Kate!

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Read-a-thon II

Hello, gentle readers.  As you may have noticed from the rest of the site, I’m blogging from Taiwan, Taipei to be specific!  I plan to spend as much of the read-a-thon as possible in pajamas, I hope to include one audiobook in my schedule so that I can keep reading when I go out for food, and I have forgotten my cell phone battery at work again, so I expect to sleep too much during this 24 hour period.

I have three main books in my stack, but a plethora of others to dip into if I need a break.  My only goal (and this is not just for the read-a-thon, but rather for my time in Taiwan) is to not take home any unread books.  Unfortunately, only one of my planned books is a personal possession; most are library books!  Perhaps I need to change my plans…

Although I participated in last year’s April read-a-thon, I had only just moved to Taiwan and was so discombobulated I didn’t know what I was doing.  I have much more of a strategy this year, and have even given up hashing this week to accommodate the read-a-thon.

My first rallying cry: Victory over Catch-22!

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June gloom

June gloom arrives early in Taipei, and is remarkably inconsistent.  May is the drab month here, but we’ve had some remarkably bright (and hot) days– just never on the weekend!  I lie; yesterday was quite nice, but I procrastinated going out to a nearby national park to go hiking and just enjoy nature because I thought it would be easier to do it today after dragon boat practice.

I woke up bright and (over an hour) early this morning to a power outage and the jackhammering of generators.  Since I couldn’t go back to sleep, I decided to stay up to take a cold shower to mitigate the 5am humidity and pack my purse for the day (hiking and work out clothes in the bag, dress for city wandering on me, tape to protect my hands– forgotten, washcloth to dry off with after practice– forgotten).  Somehow, I still wound up arriving at the MRT station a little to late to walk to practice, so I grabbed a cab and wasted 115元.  On the bright side, I didn’t sidetrack through a construction zone or shimmy under a fence today, which is more than I can say about last Sunday.

Practice went well despite increasingly heavy rain from 9am on, and afterward, I walked barefoot through the pouring rain with some teammates to the closest MRT.  It was excellent!  After talking with Rebecca, I decided to kill some time at Taipei 101 where there’s an excellent bookstore with a wide selection of English books.  I hadn’t been there before, but I got directions and set off.  Unfortunately, I set off in the wrong direction and had to hop out and retrace my steps back along the blue line.  It was a little irritating, but it cost me nothing but time.

Let me tell you: Page One is awesome.  I spent over 1500元 and I only regret it a tiny bit.  Their only flaw is that they don’t have enough cushy chairs.  The food court at Taipei 101 is also awesome, and I had a lunch I couldn’t finish for about $3.  The soup was an intriguing mix of guts and starchy vegetables topped with cilantro (I love how popular it is here!), and the rice with meat sauce and vegetables with meat sauce were delicious.

I met up with Rebecca and Steve and we went to Miramar to see Shrek 4.  I wasn’t too keen on the choice, but it was the lesser of 8 or 9 evils, and turned out to have a few good laughs.  It was also really nice to see my friends again, and it topped off a good day perfectly.

Parentheses overuse!  I do apologize.

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Read-a-thon update

I only read just over 100 pages, which is pretty abysmal for me.  It’s just that I had so many things to do (successfully completed most of them!), but the reading breaks were welcome.

Next year will be excellent, I’m sure!

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A silly sentence

I only brought about 15 books with me when I moved to Taiwan, and two of them had titles that were already full sentences!  (“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” and Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All.)  This shrank my pool of possibilities even further, but I’ve come up with something that’s not too bad.

The fish boy of Orchid Island is big in Japan!

Amusing, at the very least!

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