Book Awards II Challenge

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Rules:
*Read 10 award winners from August 1, 2008 through June 1, 2009.
*You must have at least FIVE different awards in your ten titles.
*Overlaps with other challenges are permitted.
*You don't have to post your choices right away, and your list can change at any time.
*'Award winners' is loosely defined; make the challenge fit your needs, keeping in mind Rule #2.
*Have fun reading!

My list:
1. The Uglies Trilogy - Scott Westerfeld (2006 BBYA nomination) 22 December 2008
2. Ella Minnow Pea - Mark Dunn (2002 Borders Book of the Year) 23 November 2008
3. Neuromancer - William Gibson (1984 Nebula Award for Best Novel, 1985 Hugo Award for Best Novel)
4. The Tale of Despereaux - Kate DiCamillo (Newbery Medal)
5. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman (Newbery Medal)
6. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card (1986 Hugo Award)
7. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Díaz (2008 Pulitzer Prize) 2 November 2008
8. The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents - Terry Pratchett (2001 Carnegie Medal)
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (2003 Costa/Whitbread)
10. An Abundance of Katherines - John Green (2007 Printz Honor Book)

5 down, 5 to go!

1% Well-Read Challenge: Memoirs of a Geisha

Title: Memoirs of a Geisha
Author: Arthur Golden
Genre: Historical Fiction
Published: 23 September 1997
Pages: 448
Rating: 9 / 10

This was the first book I chose to read for the 1% Well-Read Challenge. I have wanted to read this book for YEARS - I can remember being in college and seeing a copy at the bookstore, and I have no idea why I didn't pick it up then. I got my current copy in a BookCrossing trade a few weeks ago, but I had to finish another book first (actually, a few books: the literary crack known as The Twilight Series and The Host), and by the time that I finished I had discovered the 1% WRC and decided to use Memoirs as part of that. So it all turned out pretty serendipitously.

Alright, plot: Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel about a young girl named Chiyo who is sold by her father to the Nitta okiya, a geisha house in Gion. Her biggest obstacle to becoming a geisha is Hatsumomo, the Nitta's only profitable geisha and Chiyo's first rival. Hatsumomo antagonizes Chiyo and apparently ruins her chances of ever becoming a geisha, but then (spoiler alert!) some other stuff happens, fate intervenes, and Chiyo is able to renew her training and eventually becomes pretty successful. It's an interesting story, and although the ending was a bit too Chairman ex machina, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

To be honest, I found the novel a bit daunting at first - the print (at least on my copy) is really tiny, and it seemed like it would take forever to get through. But the chapters were really short, and once I got into the story it was hard to put it down. The premise is that the novel was dictated to an interpreter by a real geisha, and I found it very believable - not that I'm a geisha expert or anything. But the characters are incredible! Chiyo's voice is very realistic, and Golden's writing style is lyrical. I'm a little sad it's his only novel. According to my post-reading researching (Google + Wikipedia), he interviewed several geisha for background information, and was sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by one (Mineko Iwasaki) because he named her as a source in his acknowledgements. She then went on to write a completely different account of life as a geisha (called, appropriately enough, Geisha, A Life), which is about to go on my Amazon wishlist.

Next up: Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

Other Reviews:
Kim L

1% Well-Read Challenge

Click here for the main page
Rules:
*Read 10 books in 10 months from the book 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
*May change your list and may cross-post with other challenges
*Runs May 1, 2008 - February 28, 2009

My list:
1. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden 21 May 2008
2. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick 30 June 2008
3. Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis 31 July 2008
4. Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote 21 September 2008
5. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
6. The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
7. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
8. Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
9. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
10. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh

4 down, 6 to go

Updatey

My baby sister* got married this weekend! And I only cried, like, 60% of the time. Mostly while I was trying to give my toast, which was really embarrassing. And it's preserved on video for all eternity! Or at least until HD-DVDs become obsolete.

So, one thing down...next up is graduation on Friday. I don't really HAVE to do anything for that, but I was given a chance to rework some of my assignments for a better grade. I already have my job lined up for next year (I just need to sign my contract...) so my summer will be spent working occasionally, getting lesson plans together, and participating in the 1% Well-Read Challenge**. My last challenge didn't do so well, but I'm thinking this one will fare better. Hooray! More info to come.

* She's actually 25, but you know what I mean.

** I've already read quite a few of the books on the 1001 List, so I'll be more like 2% well-read. Nyah-nyah.

...Why would you want to put it there in the first place?

A couple of weeks ago, my supervisor at the grocery store gave me this little quiz:
1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference; all the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend?
4. There is a river you must cross. But it is inhabited by crocodiles. How do you manage it?

Many versions of this "assessment" are available online. I even found one at Car Talk. Ready for the answers? Here they are:

Question #1: Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.
Question #2: Wrong Answer: Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant and close the refrigerator.
Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your actions.
Question #3 Correct Answer: The Elephant. The Elephant is in the refrigerator! This tests your memory.
Question #4: Correct Answer: You swim across. All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting! This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

According to Andersen Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong. But many preschoolers got several correct answers. Andersen Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of four-year-olds.

Which is funny and (I hope) meant to be a joke. The way my supervisor explained it, though, was that someone actually used this quiz during hiring interviews, to determine whether or not potential employees "thought outside the box." At the time, it really annoyed me - for the rest of the day, I wondered what kind of irresponsible jerk would use that as a basis for hiring someone - but now I'm thinking she probably just misheard it, or (more likely) she received it as an e-mail forward and the original story got all telephoned to hell.

For the record, I missed three questions. Does that make me dumber than a four-year-old? Hmm...

I'm a Labrador Retriever!

One of my fellow MAT students sent out this quiz, and I took it as a joke. But I thought it was pretty cool that it pegged my likely career as "teacher," especially since I was just offered a job at a high school today.

Bugs the Easter squirrel

Happy Easter! Today was very eventful. Mom and I were up before the crack of dawn to go to sunrise service, and Liz, the Chad, and Hunter came up in the afternoon. After a thoroughly exciting Easter egg hunt, Liz, Mom, Hunter, and I played Monopoly (longest game EVER, especially when you let a 3rd grader play banker), while Ralph and Chad supervised the smoker (ew). A baby squirrel, which had fallen out of tree, wondered up to Chad. We didn't touch it (rabies and whatnot), but he managed to get it into a bucket and we left it under a nearby tree with plenty of acorns. He seems to be doing okay. Meet Bugs, the Easter Squirrel:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

What better way to celebrate than by dying your dog's fur green?



Poor Hercules. Sadly, I think he's getting used to it. He had a green head for several months last year.

In other news, I have an interview at the high school on Wednesday. Whoo!

Happy Pi Day!

Today was Pi Day, and I almost didn't realize it. mental_floss has a post with lots of neat pi facts. I celebrated Pi Day by participating in a π Run, a 5K (3.14 mile) run - or walk, in my case - to help raise money for graphing calculators at a local high school. And then I went and had pizza and beer, completely negating all the health benefits. Oh, well. It was good practice for the Peachtree Road Race, which I'm hoping I'll be able to do this year.

FREE NEIL GAIMAN BOOK!

I know I haven't posted in a while (all one of you who actually read this), and I will probably get around to posting something of substance soon. But until then, go here and read Neil Gaiman's American Gods. It's one of my favorite books, and if enough people read it, he might post more for free!

Update: BoingBoing has posted the link, too, a some very compelling reasons as to why it's not such a good idea.