Read-a-Thon Mini Challenge Hour 21: Mad Libs!

Hey, everybody! Welcome to the Hour 21 Mini-Challenge! We–Mia and Jessica–are happy to host you guys as we continue on our collective reading journey! We’re so close to the end I can taste it. How about some Read-a-Thon style mad libs to keep your brain awake?

Here’s what you’re gonna do:
1) pick a paragraph (not too long) from the book you’re reading
2) remove some/most of the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and either
3a) get a friend (in person, over the phone, over the internet–whatever!) to fill in the words for you mad-libs style or
3b) fill them in yourself from the spoiler-texted word list below
4) post your hilarious paragraph on your blog and link us to it or leave it in a comment here!

Easy, right? Here’s an example: I started with this paragraph from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell:

It was the habit of Mr. Norrell and Jonathan Strange to spend the hour before dinner in Mr. Norrell’s library and it was in this room that they received his lordship. Childermass was also present, ready to act as clerk, counselor, messenger or servant just as circumstances should require.

I asked Mia for three people, a measure of time, noun, type of room, verb, and four jobs. After plugging everything in, I got:

It was the habit of Mike Tyson and Ada Lovelace to spend the fortnight before watermelon in Mike Tyson’s kitchen and it was in this room that they slipped his lordship. Stuart Little was also present, ready to act as fishmonger, busboy, investment banker or chauffeur just as circumstances should require.

It made us both giggle like mad, and we hope it’ll do the same for you!

Here’s a list of some words if you don’t want to or can’t bother someone (feel free to adapt as necessary, e.g. making nouns plural or changing verb tense):

Adjectives

bookish
rotund

bodacious

tasty
flatulent

greasy

sneaky

humid

Adverbs

pedantically
suggestively

listlessly

cruelly

awkwardly

weirdly

busily

grumpily

Nouns

Read-a-Thon
cookie

tricycle

yacht

text message

band-aid

cupboard

pantaloons

Verbs

read
slump

groove

smack

fling

tickle

punch

promise

We’ll run the challenge until hour 24 and winners will receive a book of their choice (worth up to $10) from the Book Depository. Go ahead and get libbing!

Happy MLK Day!

Allison Morris sent me this infographic timeline of MLK’s life from Online College Courses if you’re rusty on the basics!

 

Level two is learning some of his less famous views, the ones that don’t get talked about as much. TransGriot has you covered with three short videos. Go watch now!

(I’d give recommendations for MLK books, since this is a book blog, but MLK was such an amazing orator that you really should just go listen to him speak.)

Why I Love YA (Beth Revis’s huuuuge giveaway)

First of all, Beth Revis, who wrote Across the Universe, etc, is doing a HUGE giveaway of about 50 signed YA books.

Wow! The contest runs all through November, so go check it out and spread the word.

Beth wants us to write about why we love YA, which I’m happy enough to blather on about even without the chance to win 50 books, so: I love YA because it’s not pretentious, because it’s original, because it’s romantic, because it is full of characters I wish I was friends with. I love YA because the plots move instead of stagnate, because some of the best authors out there write YA, because of reasons.

I love YA because it’s so, so good.

Hour 14 & Mid-Event Meme

Hour 14! Mia and I have made guacamole, completed our mini-challenge (you guys are so awesome we decided to give away TWO prizes), and still have not done a huge amount of reading. >.<

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired? I’m still going pretty strong, though I’m sure that will soon change. In one hour, we’ll have been up for twelve hours.
2) What have you finished reading? NOTHING. Augh. I made good progress in Dresden, but then I had to set it aside and have flitted a little since then. I’m settling into A Fountain Filled With Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming, but I don’t want to commit cause if I do it’ll probably be the only book I finish.
3) What is your favorite read so far? A Fountain Filled With Blood, so far! Love Clare and Russ.
4) What about your favorite snacks? Guacamole, definitely! So delicious.
5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love! Not yet. Sometimes afterwards I’ll go through and find blogs, but it’s already too hard to balance reading with mini-challenges! If I add social stuff, I won’t read a page!

Now, Mia! It’s your moment to shine!

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired? Actually, not yet! I was a bit this morning (even though we didn’t get up at the very start of the Thon) but I’m pretty well-energized now.
2) What have you finished reading? I haven’t actually finished anything yet–the nonfiction was going slowly, so I switched to a quicker read, which I’m about 2/3 of the way through.
3) What is your favorite read so far? I’ve liked both Wait Till Helen Comes (for its campiness) and Local Babies, Global Science (for its insight into infertility technology in Egypt).
4) What about your favorite snacks? That guac kicked ass. I would show y’all a picture if my computer were working properly! Unfortunately, the wireless card is on the fritz so we’ve had to borrow my boyfriend’s Macbook Air.
5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love! Madelaine, one of the winners of our Hour 10 Mini-Challenge, has a really fun tumblr that I’ve enjoyed checking out–the picture of her kitty sleeping on her legs makes me go “aww.”

Okay, y’all, back to the grindstone! (Bookstone? Grindbook?)

Three Booklinks and a (Funera)link

1. Have any of you heard of the Humble Indie Bundle? It bundles indie video games – some well known, some not so much – for a pay-what-you-want price with the money going directly to developers and charities (in whatever proportion you prefer).

Well, now, the Humble Bundle has come to the book world. Pay whatever you want to get six DRM-free books by well-known SF&F authors (detailed below) or pay above the average (at time of writing, $11.54) to receive those six books plus Old Man’s War by John Scalzi and Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Like the video game bundles, you decide how much money you want to go directly to the authors and how much to the chosen non-profits (The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which protects individual’s digital rights; Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, SFWA, which supports SF&F authors in a variety of ways; and Child’s Play, which gives video games and gaming systems to children’s departments in hospitals) and, if you so choose, how much to kick back to the Humble Bundle to pay for operating costs like bandwidth.

The books you will receive for paying ANY PRICE (links go to Amazon so you can read up on them):

Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow
Pump Six by Paolo Bacigalupi
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Invasion by Mercedes Lackey (making its digital debut!)
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

If you pay more than the average, you will also receive:

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (making its digital debut!)

Let me repeat that all of these books are DRM-free and that the money goes directly to authors and non-profits in whatever proportion you choose. I’m so happy to see the Humble Bundle make its bookish debut. They have already sold over 25,000 bundles! I can’t help but think some of those 25K at least are not great readers and I hope this bundle creates some new habits! The books overall look great – I loved Magic for Beginners and have been wanting to read Zoo City and Old Man’s War for ages. I’m definitely going to be picking this bundle up after my next paycheck – this deal is good for the next two weeks.

(Since I can’t leave any endorsement without a criticism, let’s see some books by POC next time, eh? You’re killing it on the women front (4/6 or 4/8 depending on which bundle you go for!), but as far as I know, none of those authors are POC.)

2. Well, that got a bit long cause I’m so excited about it, but my other links for today are almost as worthy of your attention. First up, Smart Bitch Sarah wonders if we are returning to the secretive, elusive hero in our romances. I love having about equal time given to both hero and heroine POV, so I hope this trend doesn’t spread past paranormals!

3. Janine at Dear Author gives the reasons, with examples, why she as an adult loves to read YA. My favorites are “YA often goes to dark places, but typically still retains some optimism,” “YA is [often] romantic,” and “There’s some good writing in YA.” Can I get a hell yeah?!

4. Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard kicks the opposition leader’s ass for his misogyny and sexism. It is a beautiful thing to see, but Justine Larbalestier breaks down Australia’s poor coverage of this historic speech.

First Draft of the Revolution

Word-based stories are what we deal in here at NBP. While those are usually in the form of books, other types exist and today I want to share an interactive story with ya’ll. It’s First Draft of the Revolution by Emily Short, who is rather famous in IF, interactive fiction, circles for good reason. First Draft is particularly exciting to me because it is an interactive epistolary story. Instead of entering commands like in traditional IF, you “help” the various characters write letters to each other. The particular brilliance of First Draft is that you get a lot of story and character while editing, many things that don’t end up in the final versions you send. It is excellent and honestly made my day. Go play it! It won’t take long!

Cheap book alert!

The first three Temeraire books by Naomi Novik are available for $9.99 in ebook form at Amazon and Barnes & Noble (possibly other places too). Mia and I have both really enjoyed what we’ve read of the series, so check it out if you’ve been holding off!

Wild Seed by Octavia Butler (A More Diverse Universe)

Like a couple of others, I decided to (re)read Wild Seed for Aarti & Co’s More Diverse Universe Blog Tour. Any regular reader of NBP knows that diverse reading is important to me, so signing up for the tour was a no-brainer. The real question was what to read. I have several SF&F books written by POC that have been on my TBR for a while (A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, Who Fears Death, etc), but I’ve been meaning to reread Wild Seed for years so that I could continue on with the rest of the Patternmaster series which I haven’t read. Since it’s been on my TBR list for the longest, Wild Seed won.

Anyway, tl;dr for why I chose Wild Seed. Onto the book itself!

From Amazon (that link is to just Wild Seed, but I would recommend, if you are interested, in instead getting Seed to Harvest, the compilation of the four Patternmaster books): “Doro is an entity who changes bodies like clothes, killing his hosts by reflex — or design. He fears no one — until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is a shapeshifter who can absorb bullets and heal with a kiss…and savage anyone who threatens those she loves. She fears no one — until she meets Doro. From African jungles to the colonies of America, Doro and Anyanwu weave together a pattern of destiny that not even immortals can imagine.”

The good: I love this book. It explores many of the same themes of other Butler novels: race, gender, sex, power. Butler also explores what it means to be truly immortal, in Doro’s case, or effectively immortal, in Anyanwu’s case. She explores the loneliness that each experience and their differing ways of dealing with it. She explores the relationship between morality and mortality. Wild Seed is about the relationship between Doro and Anyanwu, and is really a prequel to the rest of the series, so there isn’t an arcing plot. I’m fine with that, enjoy it even, but beware if you’re the type of reader who wants a big bad to fight or whatever. I should perhaps mention here that the next section will have spoilers, but given the not-so-plotful nature of the book, I don’t think it will ruin your experience. Still, don’t read the next section if you hate spoilers!

The rough: Many (most? all?) of Butler’s novels have an at least partially uncomfortable sexual and/or romantic relationship and this is no exception. Anyanwu and Doro are very different people and, truthfully, the one thing that keeps them together is that they are the only two immortal people they know of in the world. Doro’s lack of empathy, his obsession with his breeding program, and his ultimate power mean that he uses people, including Anyanwu, in very gross ways. I don’t blame Anyanwu for growing to hate him, and I don’t judge her for growing close to him again, in the end. If I was immortal in a world where almost everybody and everything is mortal, I don’t know that I could forever stay away from another immortal person. Anyanwu realizes this for herself and realizes that her only real choice is to either let herself die (which she can do, and which Doro cannot) or live with him. She chooses the latter and I refuse to belittle her choice. And I strongly disagree with Fangs for the Fantasy that that choice makes Anyanwu a long-suffering mammy. (I also disagree that Anyanwu and Doro’s ability to change sex, whilst still retaining their gender, and having relationships with women and men respectively is in any way excluding LGBT experiences and, in fact, is inclusive of trans* experiences. I do think Fangs for the Fantasy makes an important point about Anyanwu’s healing and what the books says about disability and the problems therein, but I do not think there is as much erasure/negativity as they are saying. I will have to think more on it. Anyway, head on over and see what they had to say!)

The bad/overall: For me, there is nothing, really, to say here. If you like book plots to have a distinct arc, you may have trouble. If you are sensitive to or triggered by race/gender/sex issues, I would recommend it only with extreme caution. Otherwise, I highly recommend it to everyone. If you haven’t read any Butler at all, you are seriously missing out! Get thee to the library/bookstore!

Links

Two pairs of Justine Larbalestier posts, one educational: How to Write a Novel/Writing Your First Novel and one that made me go, “Oh holy hell YES Iloveyousomuchmarryme”: Please, Please, Please, Give Your Protag Friends, a Sibling, Parents/Girls Who Hate Girls (make sure to read the comments, especially for the last one).
Muslim girls in YA fiction, in particular a new book called Rebels by Accident by Patricia Dunn.
That’s five whole links, but because four of them are by one person, I asked Mia for a link to help fill out the post:

Dylan Meconis breaks down ten common mistakes by the ill-informed in comics criticism.

Would you describe brushstrokes as “paint patches” or a song bridge as “transition verse?” Would you call a fictional plot an “event structure” or a pas de deux a “two-person dance?” No, you would not, because you’re a professional, and you make it a point to understand the terms that define the medium you are concerned with. Nor would you spend overmuch time in a review defining these terms for readers, since it behooves you to assume that they are already interested in what you are talking about (and are capable of looking up terms they don’t recognize).

 

What Kind of Reader

I came across these two lists by the Atlanic via bookshelves of doom, and just had to share. I can’t pick just one that I am, not even one from each list, because like Walt Whitman, I contain multitudes.

From the first list, I identify with three types. One: the Cross-Under, obviously. Two: the Delayed Onset Reader #1 and somewhat relatedly, three: The Bookophile. (Though to be clear, I do not love books more than reading, but I do love books as objects aside from their content.)

From the second list, I have shades of being Easily Influenced, though I think it’s more that I’m a hard sell without a recommendation from a blog or person I trust. Going along with that is also a dash of Sharer, but the real winner here is It’s Complicated. “Each book means a new type of reader exists in your soul; you refuse to be defined or categorized.” Yup, that sounds about right.