TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!
  

My Teaser:

 

I'm still reading this book, so this week's teaser is another one from the book. 

 

 

"Trying to remind himself that this is just an experiment, he continues raving, "You're messing with my head, man, my head! This is an experiment; that contract is not serfdom! You have no right to fuck with my head!"" ~p.77, Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil

 

 

 

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays post, or share your 2 Teasers in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks!

Cyber Cinderella by Christina Hopkinson

I've been reading a lot of heavy books lately, and I just felt like having a little light, fun, book to relax with, especially with how busy this December has become.

Cyber Cinderella is about this ordinary woman, Izobel Brannigan, who googled herself one day out of curiousity (which of us haven't done that?), and then found a website dedicated to her.

She isn't a celebrity, or even remotely connected to one, she hasn't done anything particularly worth noting, she's just an ordinary person. And yet the website dedicated to her seems to be saying otherwise. Izobel is a little bit flattered, but mostly freaked out. Does somebody have a crush on her? Or did she have a stalker? Who is this person who have been following her and taking 'pap' (papparazzi) shots of her and putting them on the website?

The suspense almost killed me while I read the book, wondering who the website creator was. The writing itself was ok, and the book as a whole was enjoyable, but it was the suspense that got to me! I just literally couldn't put the book down, I kept turning the page, hoping that the next one would tell me who the person was and then I'll be content to go to bed and finish the book the next day.

I finally found out who it was, and I ended up finishing the book too anyway. It's a fun read, but I didn't exactly get to relax because I was too curious and wanted to find out whodunnit it a hurry. Oh well, on to my next read then.

Not another challenge! I can't seem to stop! I am getting quite worried that I'm signing up for too many...

 

Mission: Read 12 books you deem "dangerous." between January 1st and December 31st 2009. They may be banned or challenged books, new-to-you genres, books that seem to inhabit a permanent space on your stacks, or authors you're afraid of. The possibilities are endless! If it's dangerous to you, it's challenge-worthy to us!

 

For more information, go to the Challenge blog.

 

I'm taking this one up because there are some books on the recommended list that I plan to read anyway, but I do have to add more later that I didn't plan to read. That's ok though, that's what challenges are about. =)

 

So here's an incomplete list of books I'll be reading for this challenge so far.

 

Updated (1/22/09): I've finalized my list of books and the reasons I want to read them. This is going to be an exciting challenge!

 

1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - I've started and stopped this book about 3-4 times, I think it's time to finally finish it.

2. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - Because it's a banned book and it's controversial. (Finished 2/15/09)

3. Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan - He says our ancestors were reptiles.

4. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin - He says our ancestors were monkeys.

5. The Descent of Women by Elaine Morgan - She says maybe we are naked apes, or maybe we are hairy porpoises.

6. The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell - I tried to read this once before but it made my head hurt will all the thinking. But I want to try it again, because it's good to think.

7. Paradise Lost by John Milton - About Hell and all that. Dangerous reading, I'm sure.

8. The Heart of Wicca by Ellen Cannon Reed - The basics on traditional Wicca, completely different from what most people believe Wicca to be. (Finished 3/2/09)

9. Fantastic Voyage by Ray Kurzweil - Non-fiction about prolonging your life to the point of living forever.

10. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser - It's scary to think of what our eating habits are really doing to us, and very to think of changing our habits. (Finished 2/27/09) 

11. Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder - Tried this many years ago but never finished it. Guaranteed to make me think though.

12. Moby Dick by Herman Melville - This book daunts me and I just really want to face my fear of reading it. =P

One Red Paperclip by Kyle Macdonald

 

A few years back I heard about this guy who started with one red paperclip and traded his way up to finally get a house.

 

I was definitely intrigued, and more than a little curious, but somehow I must have forgotten about it because I never followed up on it.

 

Recently, just last year actually, he published a book on it, and I finally bought the book yesterday. I read it until late last night and finished it late this evening with tears in my eyes.

 

It's an amazingly inspiring story, and really kind of overwhelming, in fact. But reading this book and seeing Kyle's attitude, I'd have to say that he was just the right person to pull off this stunt. He's got so much charm, humor, and enthusiasm for what he was doing, you can feel his charisma ooze off the pages.

 

His blog is still up, I just checked, and now he's putting the house he got up for trade. This whole book is an adventure, and I guess he's ready for another adventure. I'm definitely interested in seeing what happens next.

 

I can't say enough how amazing this whole story is, and how inspiring, and how dreams that may seem outlandish and impossible can actually come true.

 

This is how the cover of the book looks like, simple and effective.

 

Go get the book, read it, and be inspired to LIVE.

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!
  

My Teaser:

 

I found this at a bargain bookstore on Sunday, and it caught my attention because I'm interested in human psychology and what makes people do the things they do.

 

This book is based on the results of an experiment where a group of students were placed in a mock prison. The study had to be terminated in less than a week, because the 'guards' had become sadistic and the 'prisoners' pathological.

 

The basic premise is that a good person, if put in a certain situation, can become evil and do things that they never thought they were capable of. Zimbardo asks us to think twice about our own capability to do evil, and to ask ourselves if we would really be capable of horrible acts when put in the right (or wrong) situations.

 

Quite honestly, I already know that if I had to, I could do anything to make sure I survived, because I have a very strong survival instinct. But of course, just because I can doesn't mean I will. There are always grey areas, and it always depends on individual situations.

 

 

 

"He is dumped into the Hole - with the distinction of being its first occupant. The guards show that they are united about one principle: they will not tolerate any dissent." ~p.51, Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil

 

 

 

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays post, or share your 2 Teasers in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks!

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

 

I was intrigued by this book because it featured Charles Dickens' Great Expectations as a huge part of the story.

 

I've read the abridged children's book when I was younger, and I watched the movie. I keep meaning to read the original unabridged book, but just haven't gotten around to it. I'm hoping to read it next year for the Casual Classics Challenge though.

 

Anyway, Mister Pip is set in an island in Papua New Guinea, torn by civil war. The inhabitants of the island are trapped and caught between the rebels and the soldiers, and it seemed like they were all just waiting to die.

 

Until Mr. Watts, the only white man on the island, starting reading Great Expectations to the children. Matilda, the narrator, is a 13-year-old girl for most of the story, and she tells about how Great Expectations affected how she thought and what she believed, and how it caused a conflict between her mother and Mr. Watts.

 

Ultimately, that conflict led to tragic consequences, and you can't help but feel that it was such a waste because it could have been avoided.

 

I don't want to give away too much, but it did make me think about myself and my own 'ethics', as in, 'what would I do if I was her?', and that's part of the beauty of this book.

 

Whenever a book features another book as a big part of its plot, it usually demonstrates the power a single book has to affect and sometimes change a person's thinking, ideas, attitude, and life. Mister Pip demonstrates how powerful Great Expectation was in affecting the lives of all who lived on that island, and at the same time, Mister Pip itself affected my own thinking while I was reading the book.

 

I like books that make you think, and even if you end up not agreeing with what a certain book says, the fact that it made you think at all is a good thing. I also like books that feature other books, and this one did both beautifully. I recommend it to anyone who ever had a book affect their life strongly.

 

My TT this week is 13 fun facts about fairy tales, and I made the TT graphic above to match. =) Without further ado, here's my Thursday Thirteen: Fun Facts about Fairy Tales.

1. In the original fairy tale, the prince renamed Thumbelina "Maia". The bird who rescued her dropped her into a field of flowers, and she landed on the flower that was occupied by the prince. He fell in love when he saw her, and said "Thumbelina" wasn't a name beautiful enough for a princess, so he renamed her "Maia".
2. The literal meaning of the name "Rumplestiltskin" is "little rattle stilt", rattle stilt being a type of goblin.
3. In the original version of "Sleeping Beauty", the prince's mother was an ogress and loved to eat children.
4. The prince didn't introduce his new bride to his parents until they had already had 2 children. The ogress almost got them, but her plan was thwarted and she hurled herself into a pit of serpents that ate her alive.
5. In the original Snow White, the queen eats the heart she believed belonged to Snow White.
6. The queen was punished by being forced to wear red-hot iron shoes that she had to dance in until she fell down dead.
7. The Brothers Grimm have written exactly 211 fairy tales.
8. They were not only renowned for their fairy tales, they were also scholars in the area of linguistics. Grimm's Law, which relates to how word sounds can change over time, is attributed to them.
9. It is a popular Arab myth that anyone who reads all of The 1001 Arabian Nights will go mad. This myth is similar to the legendary condition known as ‘the motif of harmful sensation’ which states that a person can be harmed by experiencing extreme sensations, this probably comes from Greek mythology in stories such as “Medusa” and “The Basilisk.”
10. The flying carpet in one of the most enduring images in The 1001 Arabian Nights and it is affiliated with many stories, but contrary to popular belief, Aladdin never flew on the magic carpet. Prince Housain in “The Three Brothers” is the only person to fly on the magic carpet.
11. The 1001 Arabian Nights inspired Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who is most famed for composing “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” to write the nationalistic symphonic suite “Scheherazade”.
12. 2 roses, 2 pearls, 2 diamonds came out of the good girl's mouth in 'The Fairy Gifts' when she said 'I beg your pardon for having loitered so long, Mother'. When the bad girl came home, the things that came out of her mouth were a viper and two toads!
13. The oldest surviving manuscript of "Beowulf" was written by an Anglo-Saxon in 1000 A.D. The owner of the manuscript, Robert Cotton, gave it to a British museum after a fire came close to destroying it in 1731. However, some scholars believe that the poem could have been written as early as the seventh or eighth century.