Book Description
This here be the first ever “graphical novel book” by Craig Thompson. It was winnning a Harvey Award, no less. It documentates the once upon a time in our fishing village town and a short turtle lad name of Chunky, last name Rice.
Mister Chunky Rice be living in the same rooming house likewise myself, only that boy be restless. Looking for something. And he puts hisself on my brother Chuck’s ship and boats out to sea to find it. Only he be departin’ from his bestest of all friends, his deer mouse, I mean, mouse deer chum Dandel.
Now why in a whirl would someone leave beyond a buddy? Just what be that turtle lad searchings for? I said you best read the book to find out. Merle said, “Doot doot.”
Customer Reviews:
Sweet, sweet, poignant and sweet.......2007-08-10
It's been a while since I read this, but it still echoes in my memory as such an amazing, deceptively simple tale of crossing paths and lonely hearts. Chunky Rice, our turtle hero, is dealing with the longing for the unknown and the pain of leaving the life that is familiar but not satisfying some deep need.
It says so much with so little, and expresses some of the subtle agony of life so beautifully.
drifting.......2007-07-10
I expected something more straightforward from Thompson, after having read "Carnet de Voyage". This was a pleasant deviation from my expectations. The loose, non-definitive style and characters' longing paralleled the unpredictability of life and unattainability of one's desires; the characters stories would seem to finish off or carry along another character's story. Non-linear sequencing and flashbacks fit well with the theme of an unpredictable voyage, haunted by regret and sadness. What makes this book beautiful are the vast differences between characters and the way that they interact.
Poignant story of leaving and love.......2007-03-24
Good-bye Chunky Rice by Craig Thompson is the tender story of the eponymous turtle who leaves his beloved mouse friend Dandele to go away. Where Chunky Rice goes is never defined, but he is driven by his need to leave. The story is told with many flashbacks and cut-aways to supporting characters. The strange man who helps Chunky with his luggage is a pathetic man whose abuse by his father and siblings has left him haunted. Dandele speaks in beautifully turbulent poetry comparing her anguish at the loss of Chunky to the stormy waves of the sea. She tosses countless bottles into the sea, pouring out her heart in hopeful and hopeless SOS's to Chunky. Meanwhile, Chunky is on a small ship with a crude captain, conjoined twins, and a slatternly cook. The storm the ship encounters on the way seems almost too metaphorical for the changes in the passengers' lives. While the artistry is almost a little too charming, the story's dreamlike telling is compelling and poignant. I look forward to reading more of Thompson's works.
I Previewed This Book and It is Very Stunning!.......2006-09-06
This book is very stunning in art, and bold colors on the cover.This book is perfect for somebody that passed away or just departed from a trip that wants a quick read. I think Goodbye ChunkyRice is a little pricey for such a short book,but is a beautifully written story in It's short number of pages. Even If you like It or not It will still be unforgettable and that's what matters! So go out and buy It and snuggle up in a quiet place, and watch the story takes It's toll, and on you!
Not so much..........2006-05-30
This is the third graphic novel that I gave a shot and I'm not impressed. It was cute and okay, but the storyline was lacking and unfinished.
I enjoyed the expressions and pictures, but could not get past the lack of storyline. It is possible that I am just not a graphic novel person.
Book Description
Match wits with the 70,000 certified geniuses of Mensa, the high-IQ society!
Puzzle fans have bought more than 650,000 copies of the Mensa Genius Quiz series-the only books that let readers "match wits with Mensa," comparing how well they do against members of the famous high-IQ society. Here, in a giant omnibus edition, are four best-selling titles: The Mensa Genius Quiz Books 1 & 2, The Mensa Genius Quiz-A-Day Book, and The Mensa Genius ABC Book. Here are more than 800 fun mindbenders to exercise every part of your brain-word games, trivia, logic riddles, number challenges, visual puzzles-plus tips on how to improve your thinking skills. All the puzzles have been tested by members of American Mensa, Ltd., and include the percentage of Mensa testers who could solve each one, so that you can score yourself against some of the nation's fittest mental athletes.
Customer Reviews:
Parting with the critics.......2006-03-19
I must part with the critics. I enjoyed this one tremendously. Great fun. Recommended.
A brief comment.......2005-12-04
This book by well known and long-time Mensa member Marvin Grosswirth complements the several books that Dr. Abby Salny has put out. There's enough variety in the types of questions to keep just about anybody entertained, although a few of the questions I'm not used to seeing on the older, more traditional IQ tests. Supposedly almost a quarter of a million people have bought the various Mensa Quiz books, which is interesting, because Mensa's membership (I being one) has been gradually declining for a couple of decades. Overall a good book of puzzles, brain teasers and IQ questions to keep those mental muscles in tune, which is important--one of the most important things brain scientists have learned over the last several decades is that the brain is very much like a muscle--either you use it or lose it.
Surely the answer is 5.5.......2005-08-16
The question asks "How many horses did the owner SELL", not how many did he get rid of.
Assuming (although not stated) that he ended up with no horses left:
To the first purchaser, he SOLD 3.5 and GAVE AWAY 0.5.
To the second, he SOLD 1.5 and GAVE AWAY 0.5.
To the third, he SOLD 0.5 and GAVE AWAY 0.5.
So the total number of horses he SOLD is 3.5 + 1.5 + 0.5 = 5.5
THE ANSWER IS 7.......2005-05-12
The orginal question that was posted should have indicated that there were no horses left at the end of the day. Without that qualifier, there can be no definitive answer.
If the Merchant has 7 horses when he sees his FIRST customer, then sells half (3.5) and adds half a horse (0.5), then he has sold to the first customer 4 horses, leaving him with 3 horses.
Then, the Merchant goes to his SECOND customer, and sells half his horses (1.5) and adds half a horse (0.5) then he has sold to the SECOND customer 2 horses, leaving him with 1 horse.
Finally, the Merchant goes to his THIRD and FINAL customer, and sells half of his horses (0.5) and adds a half a horse (0.5), so that the Merchant has sold to the THIRD and FINAL customer 1 horse, leaving the Merchant with ZERO horses.
Three transactions, selling half his total plus 0.5, ending the series in zero.
The total number of horses is 7.
The answer is "3".......2004-12-18
If you only turn two transactions, the answer is three, not 7. I didn't read the book, so I do not know how the question was asked, but the way the poster wrote it only shows two transactions, and therefore the answer is 3 Horses.
**of 3 horses
One half = 1.5 plus a half = 2 (one horse remaining). Half of that horse plus a half equals 1 horse. So 3 horses in total.
Customer Reviews:
Mensa Genius Quiz-A-Day Book .......2007-05-25
My husband and I got this book to do together. We enjoy solving the quizzes and finding out the percentage of Mensans who got them correct. We gave it 4 stars because we think there are too many word puzzles. We were hoping for more number puzzles.
Smart Remarks:.......2007-04-11
I bought this book prior to my taking the aptitude test that got me into Mensa. It was both fun and helpful and I at least felt a little smarter coming out the other end. I would recommend this book to anyone contemplating taking any similar test or just for a fun and challenging read. I sent this and a couple of other Mensa books to my niece and nephew. It went over pretty good with everyone in the family.
Fun book, and then some comments on high IQ's.......2005-11-27
I've belonged to a couple of high-IQ societies, including Mensa, in the past, and once talked to Dr. Salny over the phone about IQ equivalents for the MAT, or Miller Analogies test, which was the one I qualified on for Mensa. Dr. Salny, who was at the University of New Jersey at Rutgers the time, was very helpful in that regard and I wanted to mention that.
This is a great collection of puzzles put together by Dr. Salny to help you keep your mental muscles tuned up, whether you're a Mensa member or not. In fact, one of the things we've learned about the brain over the last 50 years is that in many ways the brain is truly like a muscle--use it or lose it.
I was a grad student in the brain sciences and also formally studied the IQ and psychometrics area for a while, and I had some comments about the problems with testing high IQs that I thought I'd post here, especially on the problem of testing very high IQs above 150 or 160, particularly for adults.
Various writers, researchers, and members of other high IQ societies have attempted to solve this problem by constructing their own tests and standardizing them. They also claim to be able to standardize these high-end IQ tests using various special procedures and statistics. However, the problem of standardization for these sorts of tests has really never been resolved very well. Hence, many claims of IQ's that high are really just that--claims. That isn't to say that people who score high on things like the Mega test or the Langdon LAIT and so on might not have IQ's of 180, just the reliability and accuracy of such scores isn't that great.
The other problem is that the human brain is quite complex and we really don't know how to adequately test its capabilities except in the crudest sense. Most IQ tests examine a half dozen factors at most (although the well-known DAT, the Differential Aptitude Test, looked at 9 factors, but then it was technically an aptitude test and not an IQ test) and there are actually dozens or perhaps hundreds of factors involved. The eminent cognitive psychologist and psychometrician, J.P Guilford's Structure of Intellect model postulated 120 different types of intelligence (most if not all of which I find more convincing than the more standard factor models).
Another problem is the factor subtests still correlate highly with each other; for example, the typical verbal subtest correlates at the .75 level with the math subtest, although the spatial ability tests seem purer. A .75 "r" or correlation means that half the variance in one test is accounted for by the variance of the other (since the variance is the correlation coefficient squared). Hence, the factor subtests aren't very "pure," as they say, and correlate too highly with verbal skills which is too narrow a subset of skills and also is likely the most socio-economically influenced.
That having been said, ironically, the most egregious criticism of IQ tests is that you can show that the most complex IQ test known is only about 10-15% more accurate in predicting, say, college grades, than a 40 item, 20-30 minute vocabulary test.
And finally, for the coup de grace, the most famous IQ study of all time, the Lewis Terman study at Stanford in the last century, tested tens of thousands of kids and then followed 1400 of them with IQ's of 140 and over throughout their lives. A couple of dozen were as high as 180. Although a distinguished group in later life in that many of their achievements were impressive, there were no Nobel Laureates in the group. In fact, they passed over two of them--Luis Alvarez and William Shockley--who didn't test high enough to be included, both of whom later won the Nobel Prize in physics. Oops.
The second coup de grace is that research has shown that further IQ points above 120 is not as important as good social intelligence in ensuring success in life. And an IQ of 120 is enough to do anything--with few exceptions-- such as being a physicist or mathematician. After all, James Watson, co-discoverer of the DNA helix and Nobel Laureate, only had an IQ of 118. And in another classic study by Getzels and Jackson, children who were high on tests of creativity with average IQs of 120 had grades as high as those less creative with average IQs of 140.
Another thing you can see right away from visiting a few of these high-IQ society web pages and reading the discussions there, is that many of these people (most of them are men) are obsessed with the IQ business and about which test is the best, who has the highest IQ, and who gets to belong to the most exclusive societies. This produced an odd competitive race as various people attempted to form ever more rarified and exclusive and cliquish groups. There have been literally dozens of these, but most have never gone anywhere and died out after a few years, or never even got off the ground.
They also get into various inter-society and internecine debates, as I said, about who gets to belong to which high-IQ society on the basis of which test, each one claiming their test is the best, when, as I said, there really isn't any way to validate them that accurately. They've even gone, in one case, to the trouble of suing each other about the issue of the legitimacy of the testings, since few of these people are licensed psychologists. It really is a tempest in a teapot and they should go get a life. The whole thing would be funny were it not for the fact that they take the whole thing so seriously.
Of course, to some extent this is the pot calling the kettle black since I have belonged to a couple of these societies too in the past, but I also see the silliness of it all, not to mention, as I said, that it seems that for the vast majority of these people this is the only real distinction they seem to have.
FUN.......2005-06-20
This is a very fun book for those who can't get enough of logic puzzles. There is a wide variety of puzzles in this book. Buy this book and you too can look forward to solving a puzzle a day!
Tremendous.......2001-01-11
"A quiz a day keeps the friends away!" quip the editors in their light-hearted introduction. This book from the MENSA organization has everything the budding ego-masseur/masseuse needs. Fantastic.
Customer Reviews:
Try a "mind challenge" ! It's a new way to think........2000-03-25
This very interesting book is the fourth volume in the popular "Mensa Genius Quiz" series, and the best one according to me. The quizzes are completely amazing.. I now look at the words in a new way!
Customer Reviews:
More quiz fun from Mr. Grosswirth.......2005-11-30
This the second book of quizzes from Mr. Grosswirth, a well- known and long-time Mensa member, who probably goes back 40 years with Mensa. The questions range greatly in variety and difficulty, and there's enough here to challenge anyone from a neophyte test taker to a more experienced, battle-scarred IQ test veteran (like me :-).
The question of IQ is a fascinating one, and the problem of accurately measuring human intelligence, despite over 100 years now of research on the subject, is still not resolved. One problem is that progress in the brain sciences over the last 50 years has given us a different perspective on intelligence, and one that current IQ tests really can't address. For example, the brain is really an amazingly complex network comprised of 14,000 major and minor brain centers, and each one contributes some function, some big, some small, to the overall integrated functioning of the brain and of intelligence.
So far there is still no IQ test that assesses the true functional integration of the brain, although one could claim that Spearman's G, or general intelligence factor, first proposed by Spearman back in the 20s, is a proxy for that. Also, in the same vein, J.P. Guilford's structure of intellect model divided intelligence into 120 different discrete abilities, and most intelligence tests usually only assess three or four different factors. The DAT or Differential Aptitude Test measured 9, and was better than most in this regard, but technically, it is an aptitude test and not an IQ test, since IQ isn't the same as aptitude, since an IQ test is supposed to measure "non- crystallized intelligence."
And for you old-time psychometrics guys out there (like me, sort of), remember the great L.L. Thurstone's "orthogonal matrices with varimax rotation?" (basically an early form of analysis of variance).
(Sorry about that; I just had to put that blast from the past in there. :-))
Finally, the worst criticism of present-day IQ tests is that a simple, 20-minute vocabulary test can be shown to be 90% as accurate as the longest omnibus and multifactor test, a rather embarrassing fact considering the thousands of man years of effort that have gone into creating some of the most famous and heavily standardized IQ tests. Related to this fact is that the math subtests typically correlate at the .75 level with the verbal tests, which is quite high and should be lower so that a purer factor loading is achieved, although some of the spatial subtests only intercorrelate at .5 with math and verbal. And then there's the fact that the best predictor of college grades (and even of overall success in life) is high school grades, not an IQ test or even the supposed college exams like the SAT.
Research efforts have shown that once one reaches an IQ of 120, further IQ points above that level are not as important as social intelligence, something that has come to the fore in recent decades. Unless you want to be a physicist or something, an IQ of 120 is enough for almost any degree or job in life. President Bush probably doesn't have an IQ of more than 115 or so, and look where he got. And the co-discoverer of the DNA Helix, James Watson, has an IQ of 118.
Creativity is also a major factor in school and life success. A classic study by psychologists Getzels and Jackson showed that creative subjects with an average IQ of 120 had grades just as high as high-IQ subjects with an average of 140. And studies also show that creative people are happier than those less creative.
All this shows that while IQ tests are interesting and are useful in many ways, we still don't know how to really measure intelligence except in a very basic sense.
Well I found out I'm smart. but maybe not Mensa stuff.......2002-05-26
I recall years ago being what I thought was a smart person, but was treated in school like a dummy or just average intelligence.
However I always thought someday I'll show em what I can do. As it turned out I wasn't gifted, at least not IQ 140 or more, but fairly close to Mensa level. I have taken quite a few of the IQ tests on the web and scored 138 on one, but 119 on another. So why not pump up my mind as I would muscles? That's why I brought the Mensa Genius book. I rather suspect however that true genus may be IQ 180 and up with creative talents. In any event this book will help you discipline your mind to solve problems, some of which are tedious.
The one element I dislike about this book is its chapters on culture. I mean for pity sake what 20 year old IQ 160 is going to know a damn thing about Teapot Domb, Richard Nixon or what an Italian opera house is called ? Talk about cultural bias!
However the more straight forward and reasonable numeric and verbal puzzles I think do test intelligence, although I suppose one needs have read to do vocabulary items.
The book is fun, but I am sad to say too culturally or should I say cultishly biased for true measures of intellect. None the less good minds will knid the book challenging and perhaps warm them up for the Mensa exam, which I understand costs about 300 dollars, and you must score 132 to be considered in the high IQ club.
I bet Micheal Jordon would not pass any of these tests, but his gifts speak for themselves as being outside what Mensa is looking for.
Am I Mensa material? Maybe not with all those strange culturally biased questions Mensa loves so much, but the book was a fun read and did sharpen my problem solving skills. I recommend it if for nothing else than recreation.
White Caps on Gray Matter.......2001-05-18
There seem to be several different categories of people who purchase books such as this: Those with superior intelligence who use these exercises as a kind of intellectual aerobics inorder to "stay in shape", those with above-average intelligence who are curious to know how well they can "do", and those with lesser intelligence who think that purchasing the book and completing the exercises will somehow make them brighter. (Perhaps there is another group whose members purchase the book and display it prominently but complete no exercises.) In recent years, I have purchased a number of these books and consider this one to be among the best. (Yes, thanks for asking, I completed the exercises but how well I did is not relevant to this review.) For whom do I recommend this specific book? Anyone who is curious to know what the exercises involve, how well she or he does when completing them, and (of greatest interest to me) learning WHY her or his responses are correct or incorrect. Completing exercises in several different books also reveals certain patterns of thought which stimulate the mind to approach a given problem or question from different perspectives. For example, what do the answer choices share in common? What is missing among the options offered? Over time, we develop certain mindsets. For example, we tend to see only what we expect to see. So-called "brain teasers" force us to perceive a given problem or question differently. The brain is a muscle which, like all other muscles, needs regular exercise. Books such as this provide that.
Fascinating and Fun Read.......1999-07-12
I really enjoyed this book. It was a fascinating read. I really learned a lot. I hope to try out more of their books.
Customer Reviews:
The Rainmaker.......2000-04-04
The book is indeed a resplendent make of a hard and thoughtfulwork.The way Grisham amkes his plots move,hmm......that's simply incredible.The down to earth and utilitarian characters make the novel sound even more intresting.Kudos to John Grisham
Customer Reviews:
Thinking of situations in an entirley different view........1997-05-07
The Mensa Genius Quiz book got us to wreck our minds with each riddle. The ones about liars and truthtellers town were even challenging when one had to explain the solution. My friends and I once spent hours because a friend of mine still couldn't figure out how the solution worked. It allowed you to think about the answers to riddles in an entirely different way looking at things all twisted, backwards, and upsidedown with no possibilities excluded
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Carnet De Voyage (Travel Journal)
Epileptic
Ghost World
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
