November 2011 TIOLI: Animal Mentioned on Page 50

Here's the thread that goes with the main challenge for November, 2001: Read a book with at least one animal mentioned on page 50.

If your book is already about an animal, this challenge is not exactly one for a brain surgeon. Most likely, you'll find that animal mentioned on page 50.

However, this separate thread is more about how to go about identifying hidden animals on page 50 of the book you really want to read. Hidden animals are not always that easy to spot, especially those that cross two (or more) words in the narrative. Share your hints for finding them here.

Enjoy!

Now...let's head back to the main TIOLI page.

For ease of navigating, here's the wiki page as well (...just in case you, like me, keep finding more and more hidden animals). :)

ETA: Now that I'm thinking about it, a link to the wikipedia page highlighting that animal may be a fun option. Go ahead and do that, if you'd like. This is not required if you don't want to do the link.

ETA2: On the wiki, an "actual" animal is a complete word in the text that is also the name of an animal. An "embedded" animal occurs when the name of the animla is only part of one word in the text OR across two or more words in the text.

Oh! I didn't think about hidden animals. I was about to chastise you harshly for choosing such a tough challenge. Back in a bit...

:D

Got one! In Red by Magdalena Tulli, the latest book published by Archipelago Books:

"When isolated bullets stopping whistling overhead..."

You are so sneaky, Ms Chu.

I was thinking back on how much fun the previous challenge was - the one in which there had to be a city listed on page 17. We all learned about cities that we didn't even know exited beforehand. This may also happen with animals.

Here's the list for the book I chose

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
actual - sheep, cattle, lamb, geese, pony, rabbit, jay, fox, bear, horse
embedded - hen, gull, pen, ass, ray, cat, ox

I think I was quite lucky that there were lots of actual animals listed on the page, I very well might have missed some embedded animals.

> 4

You are so sneaky, Ms Chu.

Tee hee!

> 6

actual - sheep, cattle, lamb, geese, pony, rabbit, jay, fox, bear, horse
embedded - hen, gull, pen, ass, ray, cat, ox

OMG!! That should take up the whole wiki page! :)

Can I use asp, a historical term for snake?

> 9

Can I use asp, a historical term for snake?

Absolutely! That was in my example on the main page.

ETA: That term very frequently shows up in crossword puzzles.

>10 SqueakyChu: Great. I'll add 1Q84, the new book by Haruki Murakami, then. ("was planning")

I found another one!

In Comedy in a Minor Key, I just found a (an?) ewe in "...for a change of scene, he went faithfully..."

ETA: and another one...

There's an ass in this one... :)

"This afternoon too will pass."

Hooray!

ETA2: and yet another:

hen!

"...with him when she had let him in on something"

ETA3: and still another...

a moth (the same moth that majkia found!)...

"...his mother following behind him..."

In Midnight Tides someone mentions mother. Lucky for me! Embedded Moth

Ah - some good tips here. Off to look at my TBR...

Found one! p50 of Fordlandia includes the word pussyfooting.

My RL book club is reading The Shadow of the Wind in November. On page 50 I found I took a swig from the bottle he offered me. It tasted of diesel oil laced with vinegar (yum). Then I googled gar and found In American English the name gar (or garpike) is strictly applied to members of the Lepisosteidae, a family including seven living species of fish in two genera that inhabit fresh, brackish, and occasionally marine, waters of eastern North America, Central America, and the Caribbean islands. Go gar fish!

> 16

Gar are interesting fish. They are long and needle-like in form. We used to see them frequently when we went fishing. Come to think of it, I haven't seen gar for a very, very long time!

Good catch, Joyce! No pun intended, of course. :)

I've taken the liberty of adding some additional links to challengers' entries in my challenge in the interest of our education about animals.

For example, who here, beside calm, knew that a pen is a female swan? I didn't! I thought it was a writing instrument! :)

Thanks, Madeline, that looks good.

I was very happy to find on p50 of Helen Dunmore's The Betrayal, "But next time I see that Weasel...", although I realised it wasn't quite such a coincidence as I originally thought, since 'the Weasel' is the nickname of one of the characters.

I'm able to add Jack London's The Road as on pg 50 they are travelling to Buffalo.

I've added Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz ("She therefore made up her mind to swallow her pride").

I will go with Hemlock and After by Angus Wilson:

"No, darLING"....."didn't wANT'...."who CRABs the"...."ElizabeTH RUSHed"

There are actually four LINGS and three ANTS to board the ark with the Crab and the Thrush!

For those of you who are doing this challenge, I strongly urse you to go back and look for more hidden animals (especially those that go across words in the narrative).

At first glance, I thought I had one animal on my page 50. In reality, I found four more well-hidden animals!

I'm going to be reading Shanghai Girls by Lisa See for this challenge.

My obvious animal is duck - as in the sentence, "He wears a white duck suit.

So far I have also found the following embedded words:

grasp
peasants
assume
happening

One more book: The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam: "'Mare-see,' Zaid said. 'That's thank you in French.'"

Oh, this is hilarious!

I have three books that fit this challenge, all of which have a real animal on p50 but not one of which has an actual animal.

In Broome Stages, I have a garden with dog-roses, and in The Lovely Ship I have someone saying, "You an't one to bear malice."

But my favourite is the third volume of The English Rogue, where some very disreputable women are described as "flounder-mouthed, draggle-tailed, dirty pusses". :)

> 27

But my favourite is the third volume of The English Rogue, where some very disreputable women are described as "flounder-mouthed, draggle-tailed, dirty pusses". :)

Yeah. I like the last one best as well! :)

I'm not quite sure what "flounder-mouthed" implies. Then again, perhaps I don't really want to know. :)

Would that be talking out of one side of your mouth as in lying?

I have an idea it's much worse than that...

I have an audio version of Swan Thieves so no pages numbers. Does anyone have a copy and can they tell me if there is a mention of swans on page 50?

> 32

Cheli, audio books don't count because they don't have pages. This challenge is for a real books only.

Trust me. There are many hidden animals of page 50 of most books. You just have to look for them.

By the way, if someone is totally unable to read a "real" book (visual impairment, for example), please let me know, and I *will* figure out how to make my challenge work for audio books. In the meantime, everyone else, stick to real books. Please and thanks.

Very clever challenge, Madeline. Who would have thought so many animals lurked within our books.

I've chosen Twilight in Italy by D.H. Lawrence for this challenge and page 50 shows the obvious "HORSE-mouth grinning" and the less obvious "PERCHed on a bench".

Ooooo, found another two references in The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Obvious,"birds" - not so obvious "tHE Nerve"

I'm joining the group that's reading The Night Circus. I found some more animals in this book on my book's page 50:

"It was something to be explored.

"Chocolate bats with impossible delicate wings."

"He could only nod when his mother asked..."

"...if his parents had let him."

"There were still so many more."

"...consoled with promises."

Please note: You may *not* use a live (or dead) bug for my challenge if you happen to find a real one of those on page 50!

:D

Yuck!

LOL!!

To those of you doing this challenge, I say go back and look more closely for embedded animals on page 50. They are there. They're just hiding! :)

If you've only discovered one animal so far, I'm almost 100% sure you'll find more animals, the harder you look.

Hint: Check out the animals found by others doing this same challenge and update your listing (but only if you so desire. This is *not* mandatory!).

While looking for an Orange Prize book to read for the month I found disobedience by Naomi Alderman. On page 50 are accountants and Shabbat. I looked pretty well but didn't find any others, however, my daughter will assure you, I am not the most observant of people.

I am adding Certain Prey by John Sandford to this challenge. I have found the following:

When he's got every dime, he'll still have the tape, and he'll start looking around for somebody to sell it to.

I'm adding another two (must stop now):

De Niro's Game has "like a lion in the fox's den"; The Idea Of Perfection has "Henry Henderson's the name. Call me Chook"...

Can you use the same letters twice for different animals? If so, >11 kidzdoc: kidzdoc has a wasp.

In my planned read, Maggie Cassidy, Mouse is someone's nickname and for those who wonder how "pigeon" can be embedded, the actual word is "pigeonshit". Good old Kerouac.

I got "ass" from "...it was so cold..."

> 43

Can you use the same letters twice for different animals? If so, >11 kidzdoc: kidzdoc has a wasp.

Sure! They're two different animals. Good observation!

In The Way I See It by Temple Grandin:

1. associations
2. When
3. mother
4. ...only after a teacher had explained...
5. The child will need to ad more...

Wow, you're good, Madeline.

> 46

This is fun! More fun than I even expected. :)

ETA: I found that this is a also great way to force a book into a TIOLI challenge - something that a few challengers have been trying to do all along. LOL!

I was delighted to see that my first book for November, The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay has the word " horse" on page 50! I have completed reading The Virgin Cure.

My first book for this challenge is a collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories and poems, which contains an actual "Ourang-Outang" on page 50, outdated spelling notwithstanding. Alas, this animal sighting turns out to be a bit of a spoiler!

I checked my recent read Term Limits by Vince Flynn for animals on page 50. I was so busy looking for hidden ones that I almost overlooked the actual dog mentioned. *grins*

There were also some hidden ones:

assassin (multiple times! Don't you love that word :D)
asphalt
heels
when

English is not my first language, so I'm sure I missed some, even with the helpful hints in this threat. Still, I'm quite proud of myself for finding the eel in heels. :D

I was sure I'd find an animal somewhere on p 50 of The Bethlehem Murders but it's a blank page!!! Sigh. Now I'm watching the wiki to see when there's a gap for the first book in a series...

Very cool challenge though.

> 50

I was so busy looking for hidden ones that I almost overlooked the actual dog mentioned.

LOL!!

> 51

I was sure I'd find an animal somewhere on p 50 of The Bethlehem Murders but it's a blank page!!!

I guess all the animals left. :)

I've added a few titles to this challenge, my favourite so far was A Five Year Sentence because the main character is a Miss Hawkins and is there in print on pg 50.

I am adding a book to this challenge that I just finished early this morning. The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman. On Page 50 are the following embedded words:

Hen, moth