Book Challenge Update: The Great Mahjong Book

I have completed another challenge component for my One, Two, Theme Challenge.  I'm quite enjoying the challenge.  Is nice to be compelled to read some non-fiction I normally wouldn't.  For this entry I read The Great Mahjong Book: History, Lore, and Play by Jelte Rep.  Jelte Rep is not Chinese.  He is from the Netherlands, but has a deep (its obvious from the book) love of Mahjong.  I became interested in Mahjong from the book "Thirteen Orphans" by Jane Lindskold. The title is actually a Mahjong hand and the magic in the book is all visualized using Mahjong.  Anyway its a fun book (I recommend it) and got me interested in Mahjong.

The Great Mahjong Book contains both history and how to play the game.


HOW TO PLAY THE GAME:

Thirteen Orphans

 I must say I don't think I could just pick up and play Mahjong right this minute.  If I had both the book and a Mahjong set I think I would have a fighting chance. The book has beautiful color pictures of different hands and the rules from all different Mahjong variants.  It also provides great tables on how to score etc.  If I was really committed to learning Mahjong I would buy both a mahjong set and this book.  I think they would work great together.  It also provides so many variants that you could get people play what seems to be a wide range of playing styles all on the same page.

HISTORY OF MAHJONG:

lots of tiles . . .

The history sections are mixed in with the game variants.  So, each countries version comes with the history of Mahjong in that region.  This both works and doesn't work.  It becomes a bit spotty to read.  I would have preferred a book with two halves.  One half history (and more of it because its super interesting) and one half how to play the game (wherever you might be).

OVERVIEW:

Full sets come in cool boxes!

Overall the book was interesting and pretty fun to read.  I don't think Mahjong will stick in my head, but it is clearly a good companion to have for playing the game.  If you want to know more about Mahjong I would suggest this book.  The tone is light and easy to read . . . plus its interesting.

Recently I've been really into Jane Lindskold.  I started with and really really liked the first few Firekeeper novels.  Particularly I like Through Wolf's Eyes, which really set up the characters well. 

I love good characters and the Firekeeper novels have that in abundance.  The issue came with the latter novels (there are 6 total) when I feel the plot get a bit scattered and I didn't necessarily care what was going on any more.  That being said, characters were still great.  As I got into these books I decided to try some of her other books. 

Next, I tried Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls.  This is an urban sci-fi futuristic fantasy, which is not usually my thing.  Unsurprisingly, I didn't love it.  It was well written just not really perfect for me.  But, I decided to try another of her novels as I did enjoy the novels of firekeeper so much.  This got me to The Buried Pyramid, which I loved. 

Great characters and a great plot with lots of mystery.  The mystery doesn't seem to pushed either, which is always nice.  Its a kind of historical fiction fantasy hybrid.  I personally like that about the book, others might find it strange.  (If you do like it you may also want to try Socery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia Wrede, which is hysterically funny).  Then the breaking the wall series came out and I must say I love them more than the Firekeeper series.  The first book is called the Thirteen Orphans.

The characters are fantastic and the plot is rich and interesting.  Its a fantasy set in contemporary times, but done perfectly in my opinion.  The magical world of the character is based a lot on Chinese myth and moh-jong, which if interesting to read about in its own right.  The book actually takes place in the US.  I'm really enjoying the series and highly recommend them.   just finished the second book so I feel confidant in my recommendation of the series. 

If you like to read my actual reviews of these books you can over at LibraryThing.