Take the Meilaender Challenge #3: Read a book!

So maybe you weren't up for reading the Psalms. Or learning a foreign language. Or maybe you are just still looking for more to do. So here is one more idea to keep you from twiddling your thumbs and playing with your phones all day, the third (and final) Meilaender Challenge: Read a book! What the heck... read a bunch of books!

This is another chance at eternal renown. I will publicize the names of any student who reads more books than I do before the end of final exams on May 5. Okay, it's a little more complicated than that, but here are the rules:

1. Only books count that are not assigned for class. (Or, in my case, that I have not assigned to my students.) In other words, this is extra reading, beyond what you have to do for class anyway.

2. You may re-read a book that you have read previously, but only if you have not read it within the last two years. (If you aren't sure, use your best judgement.)

3. The books must be of at least 80 pages. If you are currently in the middle of a book, you may count it as long as you still have 80 or more pages to go.

4. But I don't want you only reading really short books just in order to beat me. Maybe you were hoping to read War and Peace or Middlemarch or Democracy in America in the month of April. So I will actually award two prizes:

one prize for the person who reads the most books; and
another prize for the person who reads the most pages (but they must still be in books of at least 80 pages).

So: I publicize the names of all students who manage to beat me (in # of books and/or # of pages), and in addition to that fame and glory, there will be small prizes for the student who reads the most books and for the one who reads the most pages.

5. You are on the honor code for keeping a list of books and pages that you read.

Finally -- you can beat me on this one. You really can. I have a lot to do. I am also responsible for five children, which you are not. (At least, I don't think so.) This is your big opportunity to whoop Meilaender. Such chances do not come around often...!

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