B-Day Buddy

A fine surprise from my B-Day Buddy along with some lovely trinkets...it must be a 6 month B-Day gift as my Birthday is January 10th and she sent some lovelies then too! Thanks a bunch ColoBlu6!

Well, unfortunately I've never gotten around to reading this nice RABCK sent to me from my Birthday Buddy, Coloblu6. I have so very many books on my Mount TBR that if I had any sense at all (I don't) I should never accept another book from anyone for several years. That being said, it ain't happenin'(the emphasis was on *should*) and I've been offered a book off my wishlist from another BookCrosser. I'm sending this one to her as a trade. Maybe someday it will re-appear in my life so I can read it...maybe not. It does look really funny and gets quite good reviews from other BookCrossers.

Best wishes to all who encounter this book.
Cheers,
Poobah1 :^)

Books…Love ‘em and Leave ‘em.

Thank you so much! I am glad I had a book on your wishlist, I've heard of this book title and thought it sounded really interesting and weird.

Oh no! I'm sorry that you didn't get a chance to read it, once Lumbermoose and I read it I will see if you are ready for it and I could send it back to you.

I have the same problem, so many books I might never get to read them all, but I am going to try my hardest to do it! I usually read over 300 per year, but I bring in new ones and that is not so good... ;-D

Book Description: At 26, Troost followed his wife to Kiribati, a tiny island nation in the South Pacific. Virtually ignored by the rest of humanity (its erstwhile colonial owners, the Brits, left in 1979), Kiribati is the kind of place where dolphins frolic in lagoons, days end with glorious sunsets and airplanes might have to circle overhead because pigs occupy the island's sole runway. Troost's wife was working for an international nonprofit; the author himself planned to hang out and maybe write a literary masterpiece. But Kiribati wasn't quite paradise. It was polluted, overpopulated and scorchingly sunny (Troost could almost feel his freckles mutating into something "interesting and tumorous"). The villages overflowed with scavengers and recently introduced, nonbiodegradable trash. And the Kiribati people seemed excessively hedonistic. Yet after two years, Troost and his wife felt so comfortable, they were reluctant to return home. Troost is a sharp, funny writer, richly evoking the strange, day-by-day wonder that became his life in the islands. One night, he's doing his best funky chicken with dancing Kiribati; the next morning, he's on the high seas contemplating a toilet extending off the boat's stern (when the ocean was rough, he learns, it was like using a bidet). Troost's chronicle of his sojourn in a forgotten world is a comic masterwork of travel writing and a revealing look at a culture clash.

My Review: I really enjoyed this book! There were parts of the book that I skimmed because it was a bit boring, but all in all, it was a fun read. I honestly can't imagine doing this for 2 days let alone 2 years. The things you might take for granted like TV, movies, books, newspapers, meat other than fish, fresh fruits and vegetables, toilets, air conditioning, etc. I watch Survivor every season and think "Look at those poor souls, starving, being eaten alive by bugs, taking a bath in the ocean, etc." This is pretty much the same except they had a cinderblock house to live in.

Favorite quotes from the book:

"I also knew that there were villages on Tarawa. Islands with villages conjure up the Mediterranean for me and so I imagined that there would be village squares with charming little cafes occupied by people looking fabulous in Armani and passionately arguing about coconut varieties, revealing that despite years of multicultural awareness training I still remained an ethnocentric dunderhead."

"The Polynesians worshipped the god Rongo, and what Rongo liked was human flesh. The sails of their war canoes were creatively decorated with the likeness of a human head, called 'te bou-uoua.' There was another crest called 'tim-tim-te-rara.' This translates as drip-drip-the-blood, a reference to the heads driven on stakes that Rongo liked to see scattered around like knickknacks."

"In the late afternoon, after a hard day of thinking, I usually went biking. Sometimes I turned left and went down the atoll, and sometimes I turned right and went up the atoll, but mostly I wished I had somewhere else to bike to because frankly biking up and down an atoll every day for two years does little to alleviate island fever."

"Alas, on Tarawa I lived in a state of ignorance not known to westerners since the advent of papyrus. I often found myself approaching other I-Matangs. (I-Matangs is the word for outsiders on the island.) 'I'll trade you my December 1978 Scientific American-it's about this new thing called computers-for your March 1986 Newsweek. I'd like to relive Iran-Contra for a spell.' "

Lumbermoose decided not to read it.

Sending to Poobah1, since she hasn't had a chance to read it yet! Enjoy!

Thanks, Jenny! So thoughtful of you to send it back for me to read. It does intrigue me and I hope to get to it soon.

Well....along came a "Tag" game...so I've never gotten around to reading it once again! This one now goes out to eparks in PA. Best wishes little book!

Caught for next year's 666 challenge, but will temporarily pass on to BC friend so she can read it, for this year's 666.

This was a very funny book (although I actually thought his other one was funnier), and I reviewed it on my blog: http://bethslistlove.wordpress.com in a couple spots. I wil now make it available to other 666 and around the worlders to grab for their challenges.

Enjoy the book. I really had fun with it.

Finally it's here. I had a few problems obtaining it from my ex-husband, as I'm in the middle of a divorce and things are a little bit tense and complicated. But I'm glad it's here and it will probably be read, after I finish my current read.

Almost six years later and I read it! I first thought I might not like it, because of some Goodreads reviews. But I read it and it was okay. And adventurous. The author hails from the Netherlands, as do I, so that was the identifying with hero part for me. All in all, an okay read and finally ready to move on.

In de boekenkast bij de mediatheek.

Hallo daar, vinder! Als je dit leest, heb je een boek gevonden. Gefeliciteerd! Hopelijk is het iets dat je leuk vindt; zo niet, dan heeft het je toch tenminste hier gebracht en dat is ook wat waard. Je mag het boek gerust doorgeven aan iemand anders, of zomaar ergens achterlaten. Ondertussen was je toch maar mooi nieuwsgierig genoeg om op deze site te komen kijken. Kijk gerust wat rond. Veel plezier!
Als je het boek ook wilt volgen dan kun je je het beste aanmelden als nieuwe bookcrosser (Engelse pagina) ----- http://www.bookcrossing.com. Ik zou het erg leuk vinden als je mijn naam (dutch-book) wilt invullen als Referring Member, dan kan ik zien dat je ook een geregistreerde bookcrosser bent geworden.
Oh ja, er is ook een Nederlandse website voor als je nog meer wilt weten over bookcrossing. ---- http://www.bookcrossing.nl/




BookCrossing: the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.

Guess what - you've caught a travelling book! Welcome to BookCrossing, where you can follow the journeys of books released into the world.

How it works: The book in your hands has been registered on BookCrossing and has been assigned a BookCrossing ID number (BCID). Since you've caught and entered the book's BCID, you may make a journal entry below - let us know how and where you found it, maybe even tell us what you thought about the book, but most especially, let us know that one of our books is in good hands (if you wish to remain anonymous, you may opt for the AnonymousFinder option).

It's completely free to join, and I hope you'd consider placing dutch-book as your referring member.

BookCrossing is free to use, fun, and can be anonymous! READ AND RELEASE! Happy reading!