mblum's 75 Books Challenge: A Prelude to Failure and Total Collapse
Talk 75 Books Challenge for 2012
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1mblum
This will be the first LibraryThing challenge of any kind that I have participated in, and for right now it's the only one I feel like signing up for. I considered the 50 books in a year challenge, but what am I if not an over-aimer. Read a smaller number of books in a year and be able to pat myself on the back, or attempt to read 75 and struggle and fight for success and potentially unravel into a babbling mess. If we do not push ourselves past our boundaries, then our boundaries are permanent.
Have I ever read 75 books in a year? No. Have I even ever read 50 books in a year? Probably not. Am I so busy that I cannot even imagine finding time to read that many books? Yes, but dream unreasonably big since the journey is the thing of real value.
I am working as part of a team who have started a high school south of Guadalajara. As in any start up organization, we all have to be flexible, resilient, and willing to learn. I am teaching (which is new for me), helping with administration strategy, and building and organizing our library system. We have just finished our first semester in business and are entering our second semester with 10 students. I have learned so many hitherto unknown forms of stress and have gone from a clueless teacher to a semi-competent one in a short time. It is, as with all things in this operation, an ongoing learning experience. If you would like to know more about our educational efforts, please message me and I will be more than happy to get you more information.
So... the protagonist: a young man, well-traveled and well-educated, a habitual overachiever, travels to Mexico to start a school, something which he had no idea how to do, and armed with determination and dreams of doing something worthwhile he ventured forth into the realms of education, management, marketing, law, library science, calculus, literature, geography, professional development, and getting along with people. Having to leave two suitcases of books at the airport due to an inability to pay exorbitant bag fees, he starts a library with the small fraction of his collection that he has brought and 7 dilapidated boxes of Spanish-language books that had once belonged to someone's alcoholic uncle. Spanish-language textbooks have been slowly added, and freely available eBooks play a supplemental role.
The setting: a house converted into a school where our educational dreams are meeting the cold reality of the business world, with the result being a hopefully lasting and excellent educational institution.
The plot: The young man who never really has any free time at all because he is pursuing all kinds of educational excellence, will accept the challenge to read 75 books in a year. He will make some progress due to the number of academic and educational books he will read as part of his continued professional development. He will know from the start that 75 books is an unrealistic number, however, the same thing that makes him believe that educational excellence is attainable doesn't allow him to doubt his ability to read an unrealistic number of books in a year. He will struggle and curse in his pursuit of this goal, however, in the end his will be the fate shared by tragic heroes. Complete and irreversible madness. Or not...
Prologue:
The only book finished in January of this year:
Woyzeck, by Georg Buchner
Books in 2012:
1. Woyzeck (Georg Buchner)
2. Miss Lonelyhearts (Nathanael West)
3. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)
4. "Rommel?" "Gunner Who?" (Spike Milligan)
5. Antony and Cleopatra (William Shakespeare)
6. Lysistrata (Aristophanes, Ian Johnston translation)
7. The Black Company (Glen Cook)
8. Shadows Linger (Glen Cook)
Have I ever read 75 books in a year? No. Have I even ever read 50 books in a year? Probably not. Am I so busy that I cannot even imagine finding time to read that many books? Yes, but dream unreasonably big since the journey is the thing of real value.
I am working as part of a team who have started a high school south of Guadalajara. As in any start up organization, we all have to be flexible, resilient, and willing to learn. I am teaching (which is new for me), helping with administration strategy, and building and organizing our library system. We have just finished our first semester in business and are entering our second semester with 10 students. I have learned so many hitherto unknown forms of stress and have gone from a clueless teacher to a semi-competent one in a short time. It is, as with all things in this operation, an ongoing learning experience. If you would like to know more about our educational efforts, please message me and I will be more than happy to get you more information.
So... the protagonist: a young man, well-traveled and well-educated, a habitual overachiever, travels to Mexico to start a school, something which he had no idea how to do, and armed with determination and dreams of doing something worthwhile he ventured forth into the realms of education, management, marketing, law, library science, calculus, literature, geography, professional development, and getting along with people. Having to leave two suitcases of books at the airport due to an inability to pay exorbitant bag fees, he starts a library with the small fraction of his collection that he has brought and 7 dilapidated boxes of Spanish-language books that had once belonged to someone's alcoholic uncle. Spanish-language textbooks have been slowly added, and freely available eBooks play a supplemental role.
The setting: a house converted into a school where our educational dreams are meeting the cold reality of the business world, with the result being a hopefully lasting and excellent educational institution.
The plot: The young man who never really has any free time at all because he is pursuing all kinds of educational excellence, will accept the challenge to read 75 books in a year. He will make some progress due to the number of academic and educational books he will read as part of his continued professional development. He will know from the start that 75 books is an unrealistic number, however, the same thing that makes him believe that educational excellence is attainable doesn't allow him to doubt his ability to read an unrealistic number of books in a year. He will struggle and curse in his pursuit of this goal, however, in the end his will be the fate shared by tragic heroes. Complete and irreversible madness. Or not...
Prologue:
The only book finished in January of this year:
Woyzeck, by Georg Buchner
Books in 2012:
1. Woyzeck (Georg Buchner)
2. Miss Lonelyhearts (Nathanael West)
3. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)
4. "Rommel?" "Gunner Who?" (Spike Milligan)
5. Antony and Cleopatra (William Shakespeare)
6. Lysistrata (Aristophanes, Ian Johnston translation)
7. The Black Company (Glen Cook)
8. Shadows Linger (Glen Cook)
2mblum
Review of Woyzeck (Georg Buchner):
This is the first featured text in the English Literature class I am teaching this semester. The play was unfinished, and as a result different versions feature different endings and scene order is a matter of editorial or directorial preference. The version we are reading has 25 scenes and is about 55 pages long. It is not too difficult for the students to comprehend and has garnered some interest. Wozeck, the protagonist, a poor soldier who is submitting himself to scientific experimentation for additional income, slowly deteriorates and slips into madness when he suspects his common-law wife to have been unfaithful to him. Overall, it is an interesting play with a considerable amount of depth for discussion, although it is not too long or difficult to read.
This is the first featured text in the English Literature class I am teaching this semester. The play was unfinished, and as a result different versions feature different endings and scene order is a matter of editorial or directorial preference. The version we are reading has 25 scenes and is about 55 pages long. It is not too difficult for the students to comprehend and has garnered some interest. Wozeck, the protagonist, a poor soldier who is submitting himself to scientific experimentation for additional income, slowly deteriorates and slips into madness when he suspects his common-law wife to have been unfaithful to him. Overall, it is an interesting play with a considerable amount of depth for discussion, although it is not too long or difficult to read.
3fuzzi
Starring your thread!
I'll be watching your progress, or lack thereof.
Don't worry about possibly not reading enough books, just do what you can. You can't succeed if you don't every try because you're afraid to fail (add additional pep talk/motivational speech here)....
:)
I'll be watching your progress, or lack thereof.
Don't worry about possibly not reading enough books, just do what you can. You can't succeed if you don't every try because you're afraid to fail (add additional pep talk/motivational speech here)....
:)
4mblum
Just finished Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West.
5drneutron
Welcome to the Challenge and LT! I think it's wonderful that you've found something crazy and ambitious and worthwhile to do. Keep us posted on how things go!
6ursula
I kind of feel the same way, so I'll be poking my head in here to encourage you (or commiserate). Although I have read 50 books in a year previously (but it's been quite a while), and I do technically have enough time, there seems to be always something else that I find myself doing. Best of luck to you!
7mblum
It is now June. I have read some books since my last posting, so I will take this time to update this thread and my list.
Books I have read since my last post:
+Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)
+"Rommel?" "Gunner Who?" (Spike Milligan)
+Antony and Cleopatra (William Shakespeare)
Books I am currently reading:
*Lysistrata (Aristophanes, Ian Johnston translation)
Books I have read since my last post:
+Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)
+"Rommel?" "Gunner Who?" (Spike Milligan)
+Antony and Cleopatra (William Shakespeare)
Books I am currently reading:
*Lysistrata (Aristophanes, Ian Johnston translation)
9mblum
I've been reading different kinds of books lately. Found the time. I'm into The Black Company series by Glen Cook. Read two in the last week. I like them very much and I am continuing to read. I am almost finished with the first trilogy, the so-called "Books of the North".
Read:
The Black Company, Glen Cook
Lingering Shadows, Glen Cook
Reading:
The White Rose, Glen Cook
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
Read:
The Black Company, Glen Cook
Lingering Shadows, Glen Cook
Reading:
The White Rose, Glen Cook
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
