Green Reading

We’ve all bought recyclable bags, turned off our lights for global energy-saving ceremonies, replaced our appliances with newer energy-saving models, and favored organic produce and cosmetics over conventional mass-produced items. There’s a whole load of buzzwords to go with the “green movement”: energy efficiency, sustainable development, carbon footprint, climate change, and all that jazz, but very few people actually understand what ecology is.

Get a Grip on Ecology by David Burnie is a handy compendium of green knowledge that explores ecology — the fascinating study of the network of relationships between living things and the environment, printed on recycled paper in green and black ink. I actually spotted it at a bargain bookstore, thought it looked interesting, then cheapo me thought it was too expensive and wishlisted it on BookMooch instead. A copy soon came up and was sent to me a few weeks later.

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Chunkster Challenge

I’ve been meaning to join the Chunkster Reading Challenge ever since my book blogger friend Jo blogged about it, and because I’ve just started a real chunkster of a book (Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, in case you’re wondering), I’ve decided to formally join the challenge.

I’m an escapist reader by nature so I like thick, meaty reads, which is perfect for joining  the Chunkster Reading Challenge, a challenge for “readers who like their books fat and chunky.” The challenge defines a chunkster as “450 pages or more of ADULT literature (fiction or nonfiction).”

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The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

A couple of months ago, I blogged about how much I enjoyed the first two books of The Mysterious Benedict Society, and I recently got to read the third book in the series, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

If you’re not familiar with the “prisoner’s dilemma,” it’s a problem involving two prisoners who are physically separated and offered a deal by their captor to betray their fellow prisoner and get off scot-free. The book opens with Sticky and Kate in one room and Constance and Reynie in another, in a “prisoner’s dilemma” type of test supervised by Rhonda Kazembe, one of Mr. Benedict’s assistants. They had three options:

(A) If both teams remain silent, all of them receive extra kitchen duty for one day.

(B) If both teams betray each other, all of them would receive extra kitchen duty for one week.

(C) If one team chose silence and one team chose betrayal, the traitors would get of free while the other team would be kitchen slaves for a whole week!

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The Really Tiny Book Light

Reading in the dark has not been the same for me since my trusty Harry Potter Lumos Lightwedge went out of commission — two of the batteries have leaked shut down both of the narrow terminals and I still haven’t found a way to take them out without destroying the device. I’ve contacted the Lightwedge people and they said it’s outside the warranty and they don’t even make the Lumos anymore.

In my search for a substitute, I came across “The Really Tiny Book Light” at National Book Store and decided to get the Tiny Pink so I could get some nighttime reading done once again, especially since the past two months have been crammed full with out of town business trips.

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FFP April Book Discussion: The Hunger Games

I’m rarely absent for the Flips Flipping Pages monthly book discussions (I think I’ve only missed three so far), and the April book discussion on The Hunger Games was one of those I didn’t want to miss. You all know I’m a big fan of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series, and I’m one of the thousands of fans eagerly waiting for the final installment, Mockingjay, coming out on August 24.

Peter was assigned to moderate this month, and he did an A-1 job, lining up a paintball tournament a la Hunger Games, which, from the looks of it (check out the cover photo collage), was a highly exciting affair, where Marie’s team triumphed.

The discussion was already well under way by the time I got to R.O.X (Recreational Outdoor eXchange) on Bonifacio High Street, Asia’s biggest outdoor superstore which proved to be a fitting venue for our discussion — HG fans, think of it as your ultimate cornucopia! — and we were glad they very kindly accommodated us for the discussion.

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