Chinese Literature Challenge 2011

I discovered the Chinese Literature Challenge from Nancy O's blog at The Year in Books and am participating. Here are some of the rules, but you can click on the title to reach the site in order to sign up.

The challenge starts and ends on Chinese New Year, February 3, 2011 to January 23, 2012. You can however join in anytime. Books written by a Chinese or Chinese-American author or books about China (incl. Hongkong and Macau) or Taiwan are the target. Read at least one book and write a review about it. If you don't have a blog, it's also fine to post your review on Goodreads or Librarything.

Here are my books so far; click on title for the review
1. Red Jade by Henry Chang, a mystery
2.Dragon Chica by May-Lee Chai

Book Review: Cat Sitter among the Pigeons by Blaize Clement

Title: Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons: A Dixie Hemingway Mystery
Author: Blaize Clement
Publisher: Minotaur Books (January 4, 2011)
Genre: pet sitter mystery, cozy
Source: Library
Rating: 4/5

The men in the backseat released their hold on me. One of them turned his head toward me and spoke through the slit in his mask.
"I guess we made a mistake." He sounded hopeful, as if he thought I might forget the whole thing.
The other one said,"Vern, what're you going to do with her?"
I wanted to know that myself. (ch. 3)

Comments: I always enjoy the pet sitter mysteries by Clement. Her character, Dixie Hemingway, lives on Siesta Key (fictional, I think) in Florida and takes care of pets twice a day, early in the morning from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m., and again in the afternoons. Her charges range from regular cats and dogs, to parrots, iguanas,  etc. You read about the different animals she feeds, walks, and grooms, in the six books in the series. Dixie draws the line at snakes, however, and hands over those jobs to other pet sitters. She often comes across dead bodies (of humans) while doing her job and solves these mysteries as a great amateur sleuth. Her love interest is the detective in the town, Guidry.

Product Description:  "In the sixth installment of the mystery series, Dixie is caring for the cat of a prickly old man whose granddaughter shows up with baby in tow. Dixie desperately tries to save this young woman and her infant from murderous con-artists ready to kill in order to hold on to the millions they stole from naïve investors. The villains, though, are not run-of-the-mill criminals; they are among the socially prominent movers and shakers in Dixie’s town.

Dixie must confront her greatest fears and try to save the lives of the innocent, both two-legged and four."

About the Author: This is the sixth novel in BLAIZE CLEMENT’s Dixie Hemingway mystery series. The author lives in Sarasota, Florida.

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to choose two sentences at random from your current read. Identify the author and title for readers.

"What I'm doing when I'm writing poetry is I'm making a little side salad. Just the right amount of sprouts on the top, maybe a chickpea or two. No bacon. Maybe a slice of egg.  It doesn't feel like writing at all."
(ch. 3)

The Anthologist: A Novel by Nicholson Baker is a book I found by happy chance at the bookstore, just at the time I began to make an occasional side salad, bits of poetry. People who write and read poetry on the web are hugely supportive, never nasty, and find good things to say, no matter what you write. I am enjoying this book in small bites.

Goodreads book description: "The Anthologist is narrated by Paul Chowder -- a once-in-a-while-published kind of poet who is writing the introduction to a new anthology of poetry. He's having a hard time getting started because his career is floundering, his girlfriend Roz has recently left him, and he is thinking about the great poets throughout history who have suffered far worse and deserve to feel sorry for themselves. He has also promised to reveal many wonderful secrets and tips and tricks about poetry, and it looks like the introduction will be a little longer than he'd thought.

What unfolds is a wholly entertaining and beguiling love story about poetry: from Tennyson, Swinburne, and Yeats to the moderns (Roethke, Bogan, Merwin) to the staff of The New Yorker, what Paul reveals is astonishing and makes one realize how incredibly important poetry is to our lives. At the same time, Paul barely manages to realize all of this himself, and the result is a tenderly romantic, hilarious, and inspired novel."

Book Review: Zero Day: A Novel by Mark Russinovich

Zero Day: A Novel
by Mark Russinovich
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (March 15, 2011)
Genre: cyber terrorism thriller
Source: Phenix Publicity review cooy
Objective rating: 3.5/5

Goodreads book description: An insidious cyber-terrorist attack threatens to destroy the Western World in this debut by a leading expert on cybersecurity .
 
Over the Atlantic, an airliner’s controls suddenly stop reacting. In Japan, an oil tanker runs aground when its navigational system fails. And in the Midwest, a nuclear power plant nearly becomes the next Chernobyl.

At first, these computer failures seem unrelated. But Jeff Aiken, a former government analyst who saw the mistakes made before 9/11, fears that there may be a more serious attack coming. And he soon realizes that there isn’t much time if he hopes to stop an international disaster.

Zero Day presents a chilling “what if” scenario written in the vein of Richard A. Clarke and Daniel Suarez.

Comments: You can tell that Russinovich knows about computer security and security risks, from his detailed descriptions of things that could go wrong if hackers were to do the ultimate damage to computer programs and systems. It is chilling if you imagine it as something even remotely possible. The book seems to be a warning that cyber terrorism could be a real risk, in the ultimate sense, if it endangered transportation, energy sources, economic and business data, and even production of goods.

Those interested in computer systems and computer security will find this book interesting and informative. The average reader may find its technicality somewhat challenging.

Sunday Salon: Books, Poetry, and a New Language

Welcome to the Sunday Salon. Click on the logo to join in!


Snow has melted,  but expect another freeze today and rain turning to slush. Will Monday roads be slick? Hope not. I have errands to run!

Did more than I thought I had over the week, though it's not as much as I would have liked! Slowing down with book reviews as I also am trying my hand at writing poetry, both on my poetry blog and in my journals!

Book reviews this past week:
A Red Herring without Mustard, the most recent  Flavia de Luce mystery
Fashion Unraveled, a how-to do fashion/craft business book tour
Thieves of Darkness, an international thriller
I Love a Broad Margin to My Life, a teaser and book description.
A Blog Hop featuring a look at a new travel memoir set in Nepal, Little Princes.

I finished reading a new Blaize Clement pet sitter mystery, Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons: A Dixie Hemingway Mystery (Dixie Hemingway Mysteries) and gave it four out of five stars.

One of my favorite book of poetry, one I go back to time and again, reading wherever the page opens, is an anthology of easy-to-read poems: Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keilor. Another is The Giant Book of Poetry edited by William Roetzheim. Definitely relaxing to read. I recommend it when you don't have time to tackle a long novel but want to read some one's opinion or feelings or observations on a variety of topics. Surprising how many poets have similar experiences and reactions. And of course, I love the way they express themselves.

I am now reading Red Jade: A Detective Jack Yu Investigationby Henry Chang, a mystery set in a big city China Town.  I've also just finished  the ARC of Zero Hour, a cyber terrorism thriller by Andy McNab and will be doing a review. On Feb. 24, I'll be doing a TLC book tour and posting a review of a travel memoir, Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth. Please come back and look for it!

Would you believe I'm also trying to learn Japanese so I can communicate with my 3 year old grand daughter. Here's the book and CD that I'm listening to: Berlitz Japanese in 30 Days (Berlitz in 30 Days) (Japanese Edition). So far, I how how to end a sentence so that it becomes a question. I also know how to say goodbye, sayonara, with the proper intonations, so that it sounds like Japanese!  I'm slowly getting used to the sounds, stops, tones, etc.

What have you been doing over the long winter week?

Book Review: A Red Herring without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley

A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel
by Alan Bradley
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press (February 8, 2011)
Genre: mystery
Source: Library
Rating: 5/5

Comments: Bradley has done it again, another perfect mystery featuring that precocious and witty 11-year-old sleuth, Flavia de Luce. The books seem to be getting better and better and Bradley is hard at work on his fourth in the series!

In A Red Herring Without Mustard, Flavia befriends a tired old Gypsy woman at an annual fete and invites her to park her caravan on her father's property in a secluded and grassy bend of the river. When the Gypsy woman is attacked in the night and seriously injured, her head bashed in, all eyes turn suspiciously to Flavia who was the last to see her. A murder occurs on her father's property soon after, and Flavia becomes involved in the case of a missing baby the Gypsy was supposed to have kidnapped and carried off many years earlier.

Flavia dodges the attentions of her father and sisters to carry out her sleuthing in the village, day as well as in the early hours of the morning. With her trusty bicycle, Gladys, the 11-year-old glides through the village and uses her sleuthing skills, her insatiable curiosity, as well as her knowledge of chemistry to track down clues and put them together to solve the mysteries.

Told in the first person, the narrative moves swiftly, as Flavia moves from one thing to the next and takes us on her journeys with her. Witty and observant, her words are delightful and full of clever images that make the book much more than just a good plot. If you enjoyed the first two in the series, then A Red Herring will be an even better treat.

Book Tour: Fashion Unraveled by Jennifer Lynne Matthews

Title: Fashion Unraveled - Second Edition: How to Start and Manage Your Own Fashion (or Craft) Design Business by Jennifer Lynne Matthews
Paperback: 408 pages
Publisher: Los Angeles Fashion Resource (December 10, 2010)
Source: review copy from author
Objective rating: 4 out of 5

Jeniffer Lynne Matthews is a designer for Porcelynne Lingerie and a successful business woman. In a second edition of her book, she has rewritten her steps on planning and creating a fashion/craft design business.

Comments: A very useful how-to publication for entrepreneurs of fashion/crafts who are thinking of starting a business. It takes you from a general plan to details of marketing, customer base, production, sales, laws and regulations, with case studies, a sample business plan, and more. If I ever decide to take my jewelry making hobby to the next level, I'll surely use this book.

Product Description:  Fashion Unraveled offers an inside look into the operations of a small fashion design business. This book offers tips, tools of the trade and valuable insight into the industry. This book will guide one through the business implementation process. Fashion Unraveled also features several designer interviews, including a Q&A with British designer Timothy James Andrews and couturier Colleen Quen.

About the Author:  As an educator at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, Jennifer Lynne Matthews, saw a need to educate her students on how to start their own businesses. Matthews wrote the first edition of Fashion Unraveled in 2008 and completed the second edition in 2010. Understanding the concerns of her students entering the job market, Matthews developed her book to help create an entrepreneurial alternative. Matthews, also a lingerie designer and entrepreneur, attended Florida State University and Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Matthews opened her business, Porcelynne Lingerie in 2002. The book is based on Matthews’ experience from opening to sustaining a successful business. She brings the knowledge of running a small business and her expertise in the industry into her book and her classroom. Matthews has won numerous awards for her designs and has received worldwide accolades for her work. (Amazon)

For more information on Jennifer Matthews and her work, see http://www.fashionunraveled.com/ and http://www.porcelynne.com/

Virtual book tour by Tracee L. Gleichner
Pump Up Your Book
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