" In the fifteenth century, Gutenberg's movable-type printing press revolutionized the world of publishing. Previously, books had been so scarce that it was not uncommon for a library to have only a handful of bound Latin manuscripts, chained to a desk. Beach reading was rare and required furniture movers. After Gutenberg, millions of books on all subjects were published, some of them highly influential, 'great', or at least very long. ...
In Japan, meanwhile, the seventeen-syllable haiku began to emerge. Developed by Zen monks possibly suffering from attention deficit disorder, these poems were packed with keen insights on frogs and cherry blossom yet short enough to be recited in a single breath. Japanese readers could experience and savour the finest haiku of Basho in its entirety (three lines), while Western readers of, say, John Milton's Paradise Lost (10,000 lines) were still staring at the title page.
This collection attempts to combine these two breakthroughs."

To go out on a bookray. I'll wait a week or so and see who is interested, then sort out the order.
So far we have:
GateGypsy (Canada-anywhere)
lauraloo29 (Canada-anywhere)
kiyoitsukikage (Poland-prefer Europe)
LeishaCamden (Norway-anywhere)
dripitspal (US-anywhere)
livrecache (Aus-prefer Aus)

Posted to GateGypsy today.

Arrived in the mail today, hurrah! I'm in the middle of another book ATM, but will read this one over the weekend, for sure, and should be able to mail it off as soon as I get lauraloo's addy.

This was an entertaining and very quick read. I got a good giggle out of plenty of these poems, though they're far more irreverant than most haiku try to be. **smiles** I even had to copy down some of my favourites!

It's in the mail to lauraloo29 as of this morning!

Arrived safe and sound today. This will not take me long to read. :)

Some of these are very cute. Some books I've never heard of. :) One of my favorites is Gulliver's Travels.

This will on its way next week to Europe. Thank you for sharing!

It's here, thank you!!!

The book was really enjoyable. Some of my favourites are The Iliad, Oedipus Rex and The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire :D

RELEASE NOTES:

Off to the next person!

This book arrived in the mail from Poland yesterday. I can already say that it looks hilarious. :-D I read quite a few of the haikus yesterday and they had me laughing out loud. Unfortunately I had to put the book away as I had to go out (''had to'' see a movie with a friend; Korean monster flick ''The Host'', definitely worth seeing) but I will take a much closer look at it this weekend. Thanks for sharing, everyone! :-)

I can't believe it's taken me this long to journal this book ... !! I'm sorry for being so slow, but better late than never, I hope. :-) Hopefully my ten stars and glowing review will make up for my tardiness.

I LOVED this book!!! I am so glad I joined this ray. If I had been the last on the list, I think I would have kept it. As I'm not, I think this will be the first BC book I've had and read and passed on and then bought my own copy off. I cannot BELIEVE that this book is out of print ... !! Praise Jebus for amazon marketplace sellers! ;-)

This book is just a tiny little masterpiece, I think it's completely hilarious. I've read a number of the poems out loud to friends (one of them BCer Skyfire20, the others not BookCrossers - yet ;-) and everyone's found them hilarious. I hope to get some more laughs out of it ... if no one minds terribly, I will bring the book to my writers' group meeting on Friday, and to the Oslo BC meetup on Sunday. I'm sure there will be appreciative listeners there. :-) This is a book that should be read by every lover of literature. Sure, not all the poems are equally good. How could they be, there are a hundred of them. But they're mostly very clever, and the ones that are really good are really extremely good. (For my favorite, see below. :-) It does help to have read the books in question, but you don't have to have read them to enjoy the poems, as long as you have a basic knowledge of the plot of the book. Ideally, you should probably have read them, I think, in order to appreciate how clever the poems really are.

(I've read 17 of the 100 books.)

Because they are clever, very clever. You really need to read them pretty thoroughly (I sat down and read the whole book closely on Monday, August 6th) in order to really see how clever the poems are and how incredibly difficult it must have been to write them. You only have the seventeen stanzas, and using them you have to express something that's funny *and* also sums up the book - not only its plot, but its, what should I call it, its ... soul, if books have souls. Something that will make anyone who's read them, or who's familiar with their plot and history, say Yes, that's it ... !!

I'm very impressed with David Bader. He's clearly a very intelligent man, with a great sense of humor. I want a sequel ... !!!

Here's my favorite, as hard as it was to choose one.

AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION by Thomas Malthus.
People multiply,
food does not. The good news is
there are wars and plagues.

:-D

I will PM dripitspal for his/her address, and will send the book off next week. Thanks for sharing this little gem with us all, VeganMedusa!!! And thanks to all the participants for keeping the ray moving this far. :-)

It took a few days to hear back from dripitspal, but now I have gotten a response and unfortunately s/he is a bit swamped with books at the moment and would prefer to be skipped. I will PM livrecache and hope to hear from them soon.

OMG, my dream has come true ... ! :-o

I heard back from livrecache and s/he also wants to be skipped - s/he accidentally signed up for two rays for this book :-D and so has read it already. So now I am in fact the last on the ray ... ! :-o

Now I am confounded. What to do?? I would SO love to keep this little gem. But what will VeganMedusa think of that?? I can definitely get some more journal entries for it as I know several people, BookCrossers and otherwise, who would get a kick out of reading it (and who I can browbeat into journalling it ;-). VeganMedusa, will you be furious if it ends up in my Permanent Collection afterwards ... ?? If only I had something from your wish list I would happily send it to you in trade. Maybe you can take a look at my AVL shelf. :-)

Oh, little book, what will your fate be ... ??

I've been forgetting to journal ... ! I should have journalled on Friday when I heard from VeganMedusa. She is a kind & generous soul ;-) who has made my dream come true regarding this book. It will be allowed to stay with me in my Permanent Collection - where it will be deeply cherished ... !! :-D Hopefully some other Oslo BookCrossers will want to read it too. Watch this space. :-)

Thank you so much, VeganMedusa!!! I'll PM you for your address when I've read 'Why Waco'. :-)

RELEASE NOTES:

lunacia was interested in this at the last Oslo meetup, so I brought it with me to meetup today to see if she still wanted to read it. Yup! :-)

Jannike may want to read it afterwards.

VeganMedusa, I started reading 'Why Waco?' yesterday ... ;-)

Got this from LeishaCamden at the Oslo meetup today, and am very much looking forward to read it!

Unless Jannike wants to read it next, it will be handed back to LeishaCamden.