BiblioAddict The First Step on the Road to Recovery

On brothers, latrines, closing out the city, starting the big machine, and uncovering the hidden brain:

No excuses for my two-day silence.  Onwards and upwards, folks!  Besides, I’m feeling pretty good since I just polished off China Mieville’s The City & The City.  I’ll say only that I liked it, because I’ve found that the less I say about a book before I’ve posted my post-read rambles, the most likely I am to actually to post my post-read rambles. So tonight is for catching up on the memes I missed this week, the first of which occurred on Tuesday: Teaser Tuesdays!

The following paragraph is taken from Brothers by Yu Hua:

Baldy Li had never met his birth father, since on the day he was born his father left his earth in a fit of stink.  His mother told him that his father had drowned, but Baldy Li asked, “How? Did he drown in the stream, in the pond, or in a well?”  His mother didn’t respond.  It was only later, after Baldy Li had been caught peeping and had become stinkingly notorious throughout Liu Town – only then did he learn that he really was another rotten melon off the same damn vine as his father.  And it was only then that he learned that his father had also been peeping at women’s butts in a latrine when he accidentally fell into the cesspool and drowned. – page 3

Brothers is the epic and ribald story of Baldi Li who navigates the changing world of China from the Cultural Revolution to reform and globalization.  According to the back of the book, this novel is hugely popular in China despite – or perhaps, because of – its very irreverent take on Chinese cultural.  This may have had something to do with why it was short-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize and the winner of the Prix Courrier International Winner.  When I saw Brothers in the bookstore I was instantly drawn to it.  It’s been a long while since I’ve read a book set in China.  In fact, I can’t remember the last book I read set in China so this will be a real treat to read once I get around to it.

Now on to the second meme I missed this week, Library Loot!  Well, unfortunately there isn’t very much to report here since I haven’t made any trips to the library within the last week.  Given the fact that I already have more than a few books I’m trying to speed through before the due date, I guess that shouldn’t be much of a surprise.  Now that I’ve wrapped up The City & The City, I need to get cracking on Big Machine by Victor LaValle and The Hidden Brain: How our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives by Shankar Vadantam, both of which are due back in the library in the next five – yes, five – days.  I swear this library thing is going to give me a heart attack.

Before I sign off, I should say that though I didn’t make it to the library this week, I did pick a free copy of Linchpin: Are You Indespensable? by Seth Grodin yesterday.  My company gave it out to everyone at an office-wide event yesterday.  I’ve seen this book around and I gotta say I was really happy when I heard they were giving out copies to everyone.  Of course, when am I ever not happy when someone’s giving away free books?  In any case, since there are some things that I’d like to change about my professional life at the moment, it looks like this may have arrived at just the right time.

And that’s all, folks.  I have some serious speed-reading I need to get back to.  Happy reading, all.

* Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B at Should Be Reading

* Library Loot is a weekly meme co-hosted by Eva and A Striped Armchair and Marg at Adventures of an Intrepid Reader.

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