‘Swallows and Amazons’ by Arthur Ransome
In many ways this is the ultimate children’s adventure; it has pirates, natives, exploration, tension, scary scenes, humiliation, exhilaration, excitement, battle, peace-making, new enemies, new friends and, above all, independence and freedom from the normal world.
In Swallows and Amazons the protagonists inhabit two worlds. In the first John, Susan, Titty and Rodger Walker are family members bound by the usual restrictions that brothers and sisters have on holiday in the Lake District with their mother and not-yet-toddler sister, Bridget. However, they then discover Swallow, a small sailing dingy in which they sail to Wild Cat Island and set up a base. With their island base firmly established, the adventures come thick and fast.
At first they discover some opposition with the children of another mysterious dinghy named the Amazon. However, the crew of the Amazon turn out to be the children of another well-off family named the Blackett’s and they soon become great friends, holding cookouts, having boat races, sitting out sudden storms and designing flags for each of their crews.
The story is excellently told, although some might say it is a little long and that the use of sailing slang might be a barrier for most children. The terminology and mature language may also be an obstacle to young readers.
However, I would argue otherwise, for surely just as the widely read Harry Potter series has introduced children to a world of muggles and quidditch, so too can Swallows and Amazons introduce children to the language of the ocean.
Which makes me wonder what the many Harry Potter readers would think of Swallows and Amazons?
Given the age of the book, which was published before the second world war, it has aged remarkably well. Arthur Ransome’s conversational style doesn’t feel like a clunky old black and white movie that some books of this time have. The writing is a little old in one or two places but these few patches don’t spoil the overall delivery, nor do they interfere with the pace or the overall awesomeness of the story! – Becs
‘Miles to Go’ by Miley Cyrus
The worst part of Miley Cyrus’s autobiography (and yes, I must add, a sixteen year old has written an autobiography) isn’t the unbearable shout-outs to Daddy or the irritating shout-outs to her friends and family or grateful thanks to everyone (and I do mean every single person) who’s ever helped her in her career. It’s the fact that the book is kind of, actually, good. It really hooks you and despite the giant text, the picture sections and the sickly sweet ‘advice’ for her readers, the book is actually surprisingly…good. Gosh, it really hurt to type that.
The book starts out with Cyrus at the beginning of her sixth grade year (which is like our primary seven), which is when she first auditioned for Hannah Montana. She tells tales of her being bullied in school, which sort of rubs the whole ‘look at me, I’m so relate-able’ nonsense in your face, but sometimes I did feel genuinely bad for her, and the way she turned to her music and writing to help her get through her tough times was kind of sweet. She also babbles about how hard it was for her to get the part of Hannah Montana (since the producers wanted her for another part or something … I wasn’t really paying attention) and how important her family is to her, which, let’s face it, is super boring to read about. And even though she’s lived a rather atypical teenage life to say the least, she still prattles on about first boyfriend rubbish and tween drama to show she’s “just like you!” But if I’m perfectly honest, she’s sort of funny, and she’s actually not a bad writer. At all. Don’t get me wrong, I wish she was, because it’d be way more fun to rip into her rather than write a review about how nice and normal she seems, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Interspersed throughout the text are little side notes written in fake handwriting, commenting on her own writing, which are really quite cute. There are also lists breaking up the story — things like “Fifty things I Want To Do Before I Die” and “Ten Things That Are Really Important to Me” and “Favourite Foods.” As much as I hate to admit it, there’s something sort of heartbreakingly sweet and endearing about a girl who puts peace in the Middle East and attending prom on the same list.
I didn’t know a whole lot about Miley Cyrus (whose real name is actually Destiny Hope) before reading the book for the show, and I still don’t. Also, I begrudgingly give her a lot of credit for writing a book by herself. Even though I’m sure her editor had to rewrite whole sections of it, she didn’t have a ghost writer, which puts her above both Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton when it comes to celebrity authorship. Not that that’s difficult, mind you, but still, it should be praised. At least now we know the poor girl is literate. – Becs
‘The Winter’s Tale’ by William Shakespeare
First performed 1611, the play follows a tragedy of jealousy. It begins with two childhood friends; Leontes, King of Sicilia and Polixenes, King of Bohemia. Polixenes is visiting the kingdom of Sicilia and enjoying his time as he catches up with his old friend, Leontes.
After nine months, Polixenes misses his own kingdom and his son. Leontes desperately attempts to get Polixenes to stay longer, but is unsuccessful. Leontes then decides to send his wife, Queen Hermione, to try to convince Polixenes. Hermione agrees and with three short speeches is successful. Leontes is extremely puzzled as to how Hermione is able to easily convince Polixenes. Before long, Leontes is consumed with paranoia that his pregnant wife is having an affair with Polixenes and that the child may not be his own. Leontes orders Camillo, a Sicilian Lord, to poison Polixenes.
Camillo does not follow the orders of Leontes, however instead, warns Polixenes and they both escape to Bohemia. Leontes then arrests Hermione on charges of adultery and conspiracy against his life. While in prison, Hermione gives birth to a daughter. This time, Leontes orders Antigonus, a Sicilian courtier, to dispose of the infant.
Hermione is tried. During the trial, the Oracle at Delphos pronounces her innocent. Leontes defies the oracle and immediately receives word that his young son, Mamillius, has died of grief, a fulfillment of another prophecy of the Oracle. Hermione faints and is reported to have died. Leontes laments his poor judgment and promises to grieve for his dead wife and son every day for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, unaware of Leontes’ change of heart, Antigonus follows Leontes’ earlier instructions to abandon Hermione’s newborn daughter on the seacoast of Bohemia. Hermione appears to Antigonus in a dream and tells him to name the child “Perdita” which is derived from the Latin word for “lost.” Fortunately, Perdita is rescued by a shepherd and his son known as “Clown”. There is a large amount of money with the baby and the shepherd is now very rich.
What follows is a 16 year gap. Time enters to announce it.
Leontes has spent the sixteen years mourning his wife and children. In Bohemia, Polixenes and Camillo become aware that Florizel, the son of Polixenes has become infatuated with a shepherdess. Disguised, they attend a sheep-shearing festival and confirm that the young Prince Florizel plans to marry a shepherd’s beautiful young daughter Perdita, who has no idea and knows nothing of her royal heritage.
Polixenes objects to the marriage. When he threatens the young couple, they flee to Sicilia, aided by Camillo. Polixenes pursues them. With the help of a comic named Autolycus, Perdita’s heritage is revealed. She also reunites with her father, Leontes. The kings are reconciled and both approve of the marriage of Florizel and Perdita.
They all go to see the supposed statue of Hermione kept by Paulina, widow of Antigonus, lady of Hermione’s court. The statue apparently comes to life and is revealed as the real Hermione who went into hiding to await the fulfilment of the oracle’s prophecy that she will be reunited with her daughter. She is “reborn” into her marriage with Leontes and overall it’s a pretty sickeningly happy ending…just how I like it. – Becs
‘The Inspector General’/ ‘The Government Inspector’ by Nikolai Gogol
The Inspector General was fist staged in 1836. It is a political satire on corruption in the Russian Empire and was based on a story told to Gogol by fellow Russian genius Pushkin, in which some country folk mistook him for a government official. The play is set in a small Russian village headed by a bunch of horribly corrupt officials. They learn that a government inspector is coming to town and begin preparations. Two land owners, Dobchinski and Bobchinski, who have an air of tweedle dee and dweedle dum about them. Report that they saw a man from the capitol in the hotel looking very unamused. The mayor rushes to the hotel to find Hlestacov, and his servant Ossip. Hlestacov is a minor civil servant and is more than a little frivolous with his money. Ossip describes him as buying a pair of trousers for four hundred and selling them on for twenty five when he runs short.
The following events are a hilarious comedy of errors. Hlestacov is immediately taken as the mayor’s special guest and everyone can’t rush to bribe him fast enough. But he of course states ‘I never take bribes…but if you could give me a loan…’ he rakes in quite a bit and when Dob and Bob (as I will henceforth refer to them) come to speak to the inspector, they are greeted with ‘you got any money?’. Then come the townsfolk with other offerings demanding the mayor be ejected from office. However Hlestacov, having no authority whatsoever preoccupies himself with trying to simultaneously woo the mayor’s daughter and wife.
There are some moments of great hilarity in this play. I first heard of it through my drama studies because this play kind of marked the beginning of the Russian renaissance. And Gogol is considered one of the greats of Russian Theatre, even though he was actually exiled towards the end. The play was subject to harsh criticisms because it spoke out in some ways against the imperialist regime, but it managed to slip the censors because the posh folk could just enjoy how stupid the poor people were being, and it was largely about corruption which most people agree is bad. I think at times, it can seem a bit stiff though. However I often find that with translations, it was also a vary American translation, so it was kind of weird it being quite formal sounding and then using say abbreviations that don’t seem to quite fit in provincial Russia, like ‘whyn’t’ always seems very American to me. -Julie
‘I Am Number Four’ by Pittacus Lore
I Am Number Four, which is now a Steven Spielberg-produced film, looks expensive. It is the first in a six-book series pseudonymously written by the surprising pair of newcomers, Jobie Hughes and James Frey. It’s a bit of a shame, then, that all this money spent in search of the next big teenage crossover smash has gone to a perfectly decent action-adventure that firmly refuses to be anything more.
Number Four is 15-year-old John Smith, his most recently chosen name in a life spent moving house every few months and constantly changing his identity. He is one of nine Garde who secretly came to Earth as children after the destruction of their home planet, Lorien, by the evil Mogadorians. The Garde develop superpowers in adolescence and are trained by their adult “Cepan” in an effort to one day retake Lorien from the Mogadorians, who are still avidly searching for them.
Fortunately for everyone, Loriens look human, and after a move to extremely rural Ohio, John starts the process of fitting into a new school yet again. This time, though, he’s starting to feel like a real teenager, which means catching the eye of pretty Sarah and also the unwanted attentions of Mark, high-school quarterback and Sarah’s former boyfriend, who wastes no time in jealously tormenting him.
But John is threatened by greater dangers than just bullying. Each of the nine Garde were numbered and bound together by a charm. They can only die in the order of their numbers, and as I Am Number Four opens, Number Three has just been killed. The Mogadorians will be coming for John now, just as his superpowers – called Legacies and, frankly, pretty arbitrary in nature – start to make themselves known.
I Am Number Four is written with energy and fluidity and it moves impressively fast, yet it’s essentially just a collection of action set-pieces and logic and clarity tend to slip in the later sequences.
That slippage points to a larger problem. Rarely have I read a book that felt so made up on the spot. The forward momentum isn’t enough to disguise the fact that very little time seems to have been spent on the backstory. The science is laughable (everything from planetary sizes to evolution seems to have been written down as a best guess), until finally the writers just give up and call Lorien “magical”. Why are these aliens with superpowers bound by amulets and charms? Because they are, that’s why. I would certainly hope that this is a case of the authors being rushed rather than skimping because the book is “only” for teens.
This has far-reaching effects. I Am Number Four is a competent and entertaining thriller, but it has no deeper resonance, a resonance which was key to the runaway success of both the Harry Potter and the Twilight series. Even John’s teenager-as-alien allegory doesn’t work, because he’s handsome and confident, with superpowers and a beautiful girlfriend. Which is totally what teenage life is like for everyone, not!
I Am Number Four will probably be a hit and the movie has certainly helped. But will it sell the millions the publishers are hoping for? I’m not so sure, because to be honest it makes the possibly most fatal mistake – both in the story it tells and the effort it expends in telling it – of not taking being a teenager very seriously. And teenagers, you may be surprised to learn, are likely to notice. – Becs
‘James and the Giant Peach’ by Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach was Dahl’s first children’s book. It centres around young James Henry Trotter, whose parents are tragically eaten by a rhinoceros. He is subsequently sent to live with his Aunts Spiker and Sponge, who are just terrible people. Spiker is a tall skinny hag, and Sponge is a short fat one. It seems to be a theme in Dahl that children are left in the care of people that really shouldn’t be in charge of children. Anyway, whilst sobbing at his misery one day, James meets a man who emerges from the bushes and offers him a gift. By normal standards, this is a bad situation. However it turns out the crazy bush man is actually magic so it’s all fine. Reading over this scene it is actually quite sinister actually, phrases like ‘beckoning to James with his finger’ and ‘I’ll how you something wonderful’ are thrown around. However I really must stress this situation is an exception and this weird old man is actually a positive force. The old man then gifts James a bag of…not sweets but magical crocodile tongues! Yay! I don’t know if that’s better or worse but go with me here.
Well, James unfortunately trips and falls and loses his magicky things that would have solved all his problems because hey, it’s magic. However all is not lost! Just as the old man promised, they work their magic on whatever they meet first, and one of those things is the old dead peach tree in the garden of Aunt Spiker and Sponges garden. Suddenly a peach appears and just keeps right on growing until at last it is as big as a house, Spiker and Sponge are delighted to cash in on this and soon start charging tickets, with James of course reaping none of the benefits. That is until one night James ventures out into the night and discovers a tunnel in the peach, he, like any self respecting child would, climbs through. When he reaches the pip, he discovers a troupe of giant insects who had obviously found themselves some magical crocodile tongue. We’ve got Grasshopper, Centipede, Ladybird, Spider, Earthworm, Glow worm and Silkworm. True, the names are obvious but you don’t need a terribly original name when you’re a giant anthropomorphised centipede do you? Now, the peach breaks from its branch and they all embark on a marvellous adventure, just as the old man in the bushes promised.
But this is only the beginning of their adventures, they travel across oceans, face sharks, rope themselves some seagulls and travel through a cloud city for a while and encounter some very inhospitable cloud men but still make time for a bit of a sing song now and then in Dahl’s amazing verse sang by the incredibly sassy Mr Centipede. What’s more, Dahl even sneaks in some learning for the children. This is largely due to the insects just being really smug ‘Oh I’m a centipede I’ve got a hundred legs’ just to have the earthworm tear him down with a no you don’t you’ve only got forty-eight. So the book is also peppered with some interesting factoids regarding creepy crawlies. And to finish off this adventure they land right bang on top of the Empire State Building. The beloved characters then truly live the American Dream and all make a name for themselves and contribute amazing things. James himself lived in the hollowed out peach pip and is always willing to tell his story to anyone who cares to drop by.- Julie
‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’ by Judi Barrett
It’s no wonder that Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett is a bestseller, with more than three million copies sold since it was first published in 1978. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a children’s picture book that features an imaginative and amusing story, which is made even more enjoyable because of the illustrations by Ron Barrett.
One of the things I particularly like about this picture book is the way the tale is framed at the beginning and end. The book begins with a young girl’s description of a family breakfast at which her grandfather accidentally flips a pancake onto her brother Henry’s head. According to the girl, “That night, touched off by the pancake incident at breakfast, Grandpa told us the best tall-tale bedtime story he’d ever told.”
Up to that point, all of the illustrations in comic-style are sketched in black ink only. However, once Grandpa’s story starts, all of the illustrations are in colour, with the black sketches filled in with watercolours. This is very effective in moving the reader from reality to fantasy. It reminds me of the fabulous film The Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy’s life in Kansas is in black and white, but when she reaches Oz, it’s all in colour.
Grandpa’s story is full of drama, adventure, and humour as he tells the story of the tiny town of Chewandswallow where there aren’t any food stores because all the food the residents need comes down from the sky at mealtimes. Instead of rain or snow, for example, soup or mashed potatoes might come down. In order to be prepared, everyone in the town carries their dishes, forks, spoons, and knives with them whenever they go outside.
Everything is fine in Chewandswallow until the weather starts getting worse and worse. Violent storms bring giant servings. A huge pancake covers the school, giant meatballs damage homes, and the residents finally decide they have to leave. They make rafts out of giant peanut butter sandwiches and sail to a new land. There they have to get used to going to the store for food, but they never again have to worry about getting hit by a giant meatball.
As the story ends and Grandpa tells the children goodnight, the illustrations revert to black ink on white pages. However, at the book’s end, there’s a touch of colour. The morning after the story, when the children are out sledging, the illustration shows a yellow sun starting to rise behind the snowy hill. To the children it looks like a giant serving of mashed potatoes with “a giant pat of butter on the top.”
Ron Barrett’s imaginative illustrations expand the story greatly. For example, the story only states that “something flew through the air headed toward the kitchen ceiling . . . and landed right on Henry.” However, the illustration shows the dog running after the cat, bumping into Grandpa and knocking over a chair, so now we know not only what happened but why Grandpa lost control of the pancake he was flipping.
The most fun comes with Ron Barrett’s illustrations of Chewandswallow. One of my favourites accompanies a simple description of some of the foods that blew in one day at lunchtime. The illustration shows the dining room of a restaurant. The sign on the door says, Ralph’s Roofless Restaurant. The owner greets a family at the door while diners frantically try to catch the frankfurters that are falling from the sky. What fun!
I recommend Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs for 4 to 8-year-olds, as well as for older kids. It’s a wonderful book to read aloud. -Becs
‘The Three Investigators’ by Robert Arthur Jr.
‘The Three Investigators’ is an American juvenile detective book series first published as “Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators.” It was created by Robert Arthur, Jr., who believed using a famous figure like movie director Hitchcock would attract attention and the three Investigators are Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews. Most of the mysteries involve investigation of baffling phenomena (e.g. an ancient Egyptian mummy that apparently whispers and a human skull that seems to talk).
The original series ran from 1964 to 1987 and comprised 43 books. The first ten books were written by the creator, Robert Arthur, and the other authors were William Arden, Nick West, Mary Virginia Carey and Marc Brandel.
Jupiter “Jupe” Jones, the First Investigator, is a former child actor named Baby Fatso, but he hates when people bring it up. Jupiter is intelligent, stocky and has a remarkable memory and deductive skills. Jupiter’s parents died on a case so now he lives with Uncle Titus Jones and Aunt Mathilda, who run a salvage business.
Jupiter is not exactly fit and is a bit plump but his past acting ability benefits him frequently in mysteries because he can act older than he is, perform imitations of people when necessary and act less intelligent to extract information from potential suspects. Jupiter is a prolific reader and inventor and frequently invents a device that is necessary to make solving a mystery easier. Jupiter has a knack for usually seeing clues at the right angle to solve an unsolvable mystery. He also likes to play pranks on the other two investigators. Because of his intellectual side, Jupe is adept at using big words and frequently uses them to his advantage, particularly to seem older, annoy Pete, and startle adults. Jupe hates to let go of a mystery, which frequently means that he drags Bob and Pete along for the ride.
In Germany, Jupiter Jones is called Justus Jonas.
Peter “Pete” Crenshaw, the Second Investigator, is an athletic youth who dislikes dangerous situations, but is nonetheless reliable as the “action member” of the team. Pete loves and cares for animals, and is fond of uttering the exclamation “Gleeps!”. His father is a special effects man in Hollywood and Pete is a frequent companion of Jupiter on stake-outs and other field trips, particularly in the earlier mysteries, when Bob is unavailable. While he may not have the intellectual ability of Jupiter, Pete is nonetheless viewed as an equal in the stories and is able to point out Jupiter’s own shortcomings (usually in a comical fashion).
Robert “Bob” Andrews is the Records and Research Investigator. Bob is studious, meticulous and wears glasses. His father is a newspaper man and occasionally gives Bob helpful hints. Early in the series, Bob is hampered physically by a leg brace he wore, due to multiple fractures inflicted when he rolled down a hill. This handicap demoted him to a more studious and less physical approach to investigation. Bob works part-time in the local library, suiting his role as data collector. Bob also serves as the clue-bearer for many of the adventures, because of his research at the library.
The investigators, who are thought to be around 14 years old, are typically introduced into a mystery through a client or by accidentally stumbling upon something unusual. The boys encounter baffling, sometimes misleading clues and danger before finally solving the crime. A major strength of the series is that the boys have to work to find and understand clues with limited resources, unlike other contemporary series in which serendipity and coincidence, play a frequent role, and whose protagonists have more access to wealth, equipment, and adult authorities. The last chapter of each book is an epilogue in which the investigators sit with Alfred Hitchcock, reviewing the mystery and revealing the deductions through the clues shown earlier in the book.
In 1989, ‘Random House’, the publishers, revamped the series, calling it The 3 Investigators — Crimebusters Series. The investigators were now 17 years old, could drive and were far more independent. The stories continued to contain an abundance of detecting, but with the addition of more action. The series was well received, but was halted in 1990 when legal disagreements between Random House and the heirs to the Arthur estate could not be resolved. By 2005, the disagreements were still not settled.
Eleven novels were published in the Crime Busters series, which was launched by one of the series’ favorite authors, William Arden.
Ulrich Krauße translated one of the novesl into Latin and in 2011 the book “De Tribus Investigatoribus et Fato Draconis” became a bestseller among Latin students. – Becs
‘Men Should Weep’ by Ena Lamont Stewart
The idea of a three-hour drama about a hard-pressed Glaswegian family enduring a life of grinding poverty in a Glasgow tenement during the great depression of the 1930s seems like a pretty grim way to spend an evening, however you would be quite mistaken.
The play is set in a Glasgow tenement in the 1930s and reminds us what economic hardship really means. There have been plays in the past about working-class life before ‘Men Should Weep’; however what makes Ena Lamont Stewarts’ play so unusual is that she views the subject from a woman’s perspective. Her heroine is Maggie Morrison who nourishes a brood of children, an ailing mother-in-law and a jobless husband. And her troubles soon multiply. Her youngest son is taken to hospital, her eldest son, Alec, returns home with his quarrelsome wife after their tenement collapses and her flighty grown-up daughter, Jenny, stalks out of what she terms a “midden” to seek a better life.
Yet what makes this a fine play is that Ena Lamont Stewart neither sentimentalises Maggie nor treats working-class life as unbelievably grim. Maggie herself may be tough, but she is capable of bursts of heated anger and, although Maggie’s husband says “all we’ve done wrong is to be born into poverty”, the play is filled with a wild humour. Lamont Stewart creates a host of characters from a prim sister who views all men as “dirty beasts” to the mother-in-law who moans that her biscuit has chocolate only on one side, and also prying neighbours who might have wondered right in from desperate housewives, except devastatingly poor.
An initial draft of the play was apparently written in just 3 days and was much darker in nature but was rewritten to the relatively lighthearted version you can see today.
Overall the play remains a landmark play in British drama and, if men should weep, it is because Ena Lamont Stewart was in fact discouraged from ever writing a successor to this wonderful play. – Becs
Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde
Lady Windermere’s Fan is a play by Oscar Wilde and is filled with all his typical wit and charm. Lady Windermere is wife to Lord Windermere and a highly moral woman who is devoted to her husband and he to her. Or is he? Yeah he is. However rumours are flying around that Lord Windermere has been cavorting with the less than reputable Mrs Erlynne. After breaking into her husband’s record book Lady Windermere discovers her husband has been making several large payments to Mrs Erlynne and Lady Margaret believes the worst. Things are made worse by the fact that Lord Windermere then demands his wife invite Mrs Erlynne to her birthday ball so that she may re enter society. As the plot unfolds we discover Mrs Erlynne’s surprising past and why it was Lord Windermere particularly she turned to for help…
Now, Lord Windermere is a nice guy, devoted husband and father all that guff, which to me makes him a little dull. But we also discover Lady Windermere has another admirer in Lord Darlington who is fiercely devoted to her but a bit more of a rogue. It is Lord Darlington that utters that famous Wilde quote ‘I can resist anything but temptation’. The Victorian audience would likely want Lady Windermere to stay with her husband and keep her reputation and all that jazz, I personally would have run off with Lord Darlington.
The play also has an amazing set of secondary characters that provide most of the humour. Two notables are The Duchess of Berwick and her daughter Lady Agatha. In the entire play Lady Agatha’s only line is ‘Yes, mamma’ and it makes for some hilarious scenes. It makes for a very interesting character in Agatha I think, because on the surface she’s this very dutiful daughter but you can tell she’s got her mum sussed.
The play’s premier was a success and Wilde greeted his audience when they shouted for ‘author’ with the following speech:
“Ladies and Gentlemen. I have enjoyed this evening immensely. The actors have given us a charming rendition of a delightful play, and your appreciation has been most intelligent. I congratulate you on the great success of your performance, which persuades me that you think almost as highly of the play as I do myself” Julie
‘Catching Fire’ by Suzanne Collins
‘Catching Fire’ is the thrilling sequel to the equally mind blowing novel ‘The Hunger Games’ set in post-catastrophe North America where the evil Capitol city selects two teenagers each year from the twelve outlying districts to fight each other to the death in an arena with the victor receiving money and stability for life. ‘Catching Fire’ continues to follow the life of Katniss Everdeen, who obviously won the games, however things have changed back home and Katniss is having troubles fitting in at her new home in Victory Village. Gone are the days of hunting with her best friend Gale who now works in the mines during the day, so she has to hunt alone.
To further complicate things Katniss’ defiance in the Hunger Games has begun to stir up rebellion among the districts and they are making her their symbol. If you have not read ‘The Hunger Games’ but intend to do so then please cover your ears now. At the end of the games when only Katniss and Peeta remained, they threatened to swallow poisoned berries so there would be no winner, this of course would cause chaos amongst the viewers in the Capitol and so the government let them both win. Now, in ‘Catching Fire’, late at night the day before she and Peeta are due to leave on their victory tour of the Districts, Katniss is visited by the President who threatens to kill her and everyone she holds dear unless she can prove during the tour that her actions were caused by blind love towards Peeta and had nothing to do with rebelling against the Capitol.
The second book of the Hunger Games takes the action out of the arena and into the political field and we learn a lot more about their world. The fabulous stylists from the first novel also return and add to the overall enjoyment of the book, especially with their precise and hilarious agenda.
A load more happens in the story but I won’t spoil the surprises for you!
The characters continue to be well developed, especially Katniss in all her lovely and frank teenagerness as she continues to be caught in more than one conundrum. The other supporting characters also take shape and often have surprising depth and twists to their personalities or back stories, which really kept me captivated.
The stakes are definitely higher in this book; it’s no longer just about 24 teenagers trying to kill each other and more than satisfies the readers urge to know what happens after the Hunger Games. Overall Catching Fire is a thrilling sequel with a formidable and oh so human female protagonist caught in a love triangle as her world is about to burst into a flaming war of liberation. – Becs
‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens
‘David Copperfield’ has captured the hearts and imagination of generations of readers since the day of its publication. Charles Dickens chose the main character, funnily enough named, David Copperfield, to describe his own life, thoughts and experiences. This is the reason why several readers describe this classic to be an autobiography of Dickens himself. Born after the death of his father, David is looked after by his young mother and caring nurse, Peggoty and his childhood is one of joy and love. However his mother soon re-marries and life for David is turned upside down. David’s step-father and his evil sister believe that David is a wicked boy and swear to bring him up in a civilized manner. After isolating him from his mother and beloved nurse, they pack him off to boarding school where he is bullied daily until an older boy named Steerforth takes him under his wing. His timid mother has no say in any of these affairs and is left lonely and disheartened and after the death of her next child she eventually dies of grief. On his mother’s death, David is compelled to give up his education and is sent off to work in London, where he befriends Mr.Micawber, a jolly man with a large family but who is in serious dept. When the Micawbers leave, David is once again alone and he decides to seek refuge under the roof of his aunt, Betsey Trotwood, whom he has never seen once since the time of his birth. The old woman resents David deeply for she despises almost all men and longed for a niece who would share the same name as her but instead she got David. Nevertheless, she places David under her care along with her maid, Janet and her friend, Mr. Dick, who is rather eccentric to say the least bit is one of the sweetest characters in the novel. She then sends David to another school whilst staying with a family friend and his daughter, the very beautiful and clever, Agnes. One of the greatest mistakes David ever makes in his life is marrying Dora Spenlow. Dora, with her beauty, innocence and childish ways captures David’s heart but after they marry he realises that he can never discuss any real life matters or problems with her for fear of hurting her very delicate feelings. In some parts of the novel Dickens has a way of greatly reducing the suspense of the book. For instance, he describes David and Agnes to be in love with each other, yet also describes David as being in love with Dora. So clearly David must end up with Agnes, so it seems quite obvious that Dora will have to die in order for them to be together. However there are many, many, many more incidents in the book that you could never guess would occur but that I will not mention for fear of ruining the story. The saddest event in ‘David Copperfield’ has to be the death of Steerforth, the older boy who took David under his wing at school and who David finds years later in London. These lines from the book brought tears to my eyes: ‘I saw him lie with his head on his arm, as I had seen him lie so many times at school.’ And I know that I just spoiled a part of the book but you still don’t know the circumstances surrounding his death and Dickens makes it pretty clear from the start that something terrible will occur in relation to Steerforth, who is quite a rascal but I somehow still loved him. Overall ‘David Copperfield’ is an amazing, and very long, story of basically the whole life of a poor little boy and his struggles with the world. There are so many characters and all of them described in such depth that I don’t really have time to discuss them all but you’ll just have to take my word for it that when you read it you will feel like you are there! – Becs
‘Alone in Berlin’ is based on the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel. In the novel, the very everyday Otto and Anna Quangel, having just lost their son in the occupation of France begin leaving post cards with anti-Nazi slogans around the city. Otto is a reserved, intelligent man who keeps mostly to himself which is probably why he settles on a kind of understated rebellion because he knows he has to be pretty sneaky about this. These everyday heroes are so admirable because they know full well the dangers of what they’re doing which makes it all the more harrowing for the reader when their efforts ultimately fail. Like all heroes of any worth their only motivation is to try and preserve some human decency in the world and show evil people that they don’t have absolute power no matter how much it may seem that way. Anna first asks Otto ‘isn’t it a bit small’ when he tells her his plan. However Otto replies if they are caught they will both lose their lives. Anna realises ‘no one could risk more than their life’. This was one of the many moments I was holding back tears. And it takes a lot for me to cry at a book. Trust me.
What makes this book so important is that it’s so real, and raw and insightful. It is based on a true story, written by a man who lived as a civilian in Nazi Germany only eighteen months after the end of the war. It conveys the bitterness, the fear, and the hope of the people. But it is also important, not just in literary terms. In the afterword by Geoff Wilkes we see how much of the author was poured into the novel. Each and every character has something of him in them; even the villains. Although in the novel there are few real villains. There are mostly the corrupted and the cowardly. As well as the Quangels the book has so many rich and diverse characters showing you a pretty good view of society in Nazi Germany. There’s an atmosphere of being totally defeated, most people are only out for themselves just because that’s the only way to live for them. It shows you the worst of society; the brainwashed servants of the state for example Baldur Persicke, Otto’s cellmate, homicidal maniac turned delusional maniac (he thinks he’s a dog) and there’s the deadbeats like Herr Borkhausen who quite frankly is just rubbish. But you also get the best; Eva Kluge although a member of the party in the beginning she is only a member so she can keep her job and at enormous personal risk to herself she leaves the party when she discovers that it’s turned her son into a monster, Anna and Otto of course, the judge that takes in the Jewish woman in their building, even Borkhausen’s brat of a son gets some redemption. The book is very much about ordinary people in situations we can’t even imagine
Fallada was the definition of a tortured genius. He lived most of his life with almost every possible addiction. He struggled with guilt over feelings of selling out to the Nazis. He had been divorced, then re-married to a fellow substance abuser and spent much of his life in and out of mental intitutions. ‘Alone in Berlin’ is made all the more meaningful with the knowledge that so much of the writer’s soul has been poured into it. Julie
‘Finding Violet Park’ by Jenny Valentine
Finding Violet Park is Jenny Valentine’s first novel and has an everyday hero at the centre in the form of 15 year old Lucas Swain, who is tormented by his parents’ marital problems. Well, his mother’s at least as his father is either dead or has bolted – that’s her marital problem. Lucas however blames his mother, if not for his dad’s disappearance then for remaining its victim, and he idealises his absent father (even down to wearing the clothes he left behind) and he feels generally out of sorts with the world until a chance encounter with an urn in an office changes his life.
The urn contains the ashes of one Violet Park; it has languished for four years on a shelf in the office after being left on the back seat of a taxi. Feeling compelled to rescue it, Lucas sets out to uncover the identity of Violet Park and put her properly to rest. Meanwhile a similar process is taking place in his relationship with his imagined father, and the two stories collide when Lucas discovers that his louche journalist dad had met and interviewed the concert pianist Violet Park and, what’s more, that her death may connect with his disappearance.
Finding Violet Park is a wonderful debut for many reasons, one of them Lucas. The book so brims with his mordant insights, for example:
“When Dad went, the thing that bound us was the lack of Dad … in a weird way, the hole he left was the glue.”
You really begin to marvel at the perceptiveness of a teenage boy, until you remember that it’s actually the voice of a woman twice his age.
Sometimes Lucas is a little superior and knowing, but for the most part the book is astute about relationships and is very moving in its depiction of a broken family trying to mend itself and it wears its psychological insights lightly. The book focuses on an encounter between old and young, the development of Lucas as he moves from a teenager’s condescension towards the ‘old’ to empathy with the trials of ageing, and the novel is full of bitter-sweet observations.
Adolescents dreamed up by adults are almost always supersensitive and articulate about their instability in society. What marks this book out is not just its charm, warmth and wit but also the skill with which Valentine braids together the father thread and the detective one without either quest feeling laboured. Indeed the plot is so well controlled that you never anticipate the clever ending, but behind it all there’s a serious theme: Lucas has to give up his individual fantasies of family life before he can accept and appreciate his own flawed family. In this respect, Finding Violet Park traces a journey we all have to make. – Becs
‘Sabrina Fair’ by Samuel Taylor
This is a play written and set in the 1950’s. The title refers to the main character Sabrina Fairchild, the chauffer’s daughter to the wealthy Rhode Island Larabee’s. The Larabee’s have two sons, Linus and David. David is the younger, and Sabrina is also in love with him but can it ever be, her being the chauffer’s daughter and all? Yes! Yes it can because she has just returned from five years in Paris working in the US overseas office and is all glam and smart and sophis. However, upon returning she begins to wonder if it’s the younger Larabee brother she’s after all. Then of course there’s the French suitor who followed her home from Paris…
The play is amazingly funny because of the characters. I particularly liked Sabrina’s father, who said he wanted to be a chauffer so he could have more time to read. And he’s one of if not the most intelligent character in the play. There’s also just a lot of situational comedy. For example Sabrina injures her ankle…which suitor tends to her. Just reading the situation of three men passing around a girl’s ankle because they’re not sure who should do it was hilarious, so I would probably be rolling in the aisles if I saw it as a live performance.
The play was developed into a 1954 film starring Audrey Hepburn, Humphry Bogart and William Holden. The play however has several revisions to the plot which caused the playwright to quit the project all together. The very basic plot is the same; Sabrina goes to Paris, she is in love with David but oh no is she in love with Linus. But aside from those very basic details it’s a totally different thing. Not that I don’t love the film, which was then remade much to my outrage in 1995 starring Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond and Greg Kinnear. It also has a song by Sting. I’m sorry, but of the trailer I saw, Julia Ormond is certainly no Hepburn and as much as I enjoyed Harrison as Han Solo and Indiana Jones he’s just no Bogart. But that has nothing to do with the play. If you should wish to read the play you may have to shop around a bit for it but it is available from the Dramatists Play Service Inc. sold on amazon.- Julie
‘The Devil Wears Prada’ by Lauren Weisberger
Set against the backdrop of high fashion in New York City, ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ by Lauren Weisberger is the story of Andrea Sachs, a recent graduate from Smith College whose dream it is to write for ‘The New Yorker’. After spending some time abroad with her boyfriend, Alex, Andrea contracts dysentery, loses twenty pounds and returns home to recover. Little does she know that losing twenty pounds off her already slender frame makes her a perfect candidate to work at Runway magazine, a fact she realises after half-heartedly dropping her resume off at every magazine publisher in the city and getting a call back from the extremely trendy fashion publication. Although Andrea has no desire to work in fashion, publishing or otherwise, she takes the job as Editor-in-Chief Miranda Priestly’s junior assistant after being assured that, after a year of service, she can pretty much secure any job she wants in the city.
Before she knows it, Andrea is thrust into a world which she barely knew existed. Each person working at the magazine is skinnier than the next, everyone dresses in the trendiest (and most expensive) clothes imaginable, and Miranda Priestly expects her assistants to work fourteen-hour days doing menial jobs such as making sure her coffee is the right temperature and wrapping Christmas gifts. To make matters worse, Miranda is ungrateful, rude, spoiled, and does not accept her employees, especially her assistants, making any mistakes.
As much as she hates Miranda, Andrea continues to do her job, holding out hope that a job at The New Yorker is only months away. However, as she continues to put in long hours, her relationships with her boyfriend, best friend and family as well as her self-esteem begin to suffer. Events culminate when she must travel to Paris with Miranda and make a decision between her job and the rest of her life.
Packed full of references to designers, models, clothes and glamour, ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ would certainly be interesting to anyone who is a part of or who wants to become a part of the high fashion industry. – Becs
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johan David Wyss
This novel follows a family who are marooned on an island after the rest of the passengers and crew abandon them on the ship (thanks passengers and crew). However they survive and go on to prosper so there. The family consists of Father, mother their three sons Fritz, Jack and Ernest. They are also later joined by a girl named Jenny. However it seemed pretty easy going on the island, it was more an island paradise than a desert one. The island was home to a great variety of animals, most of which would never be caught on the same continent together including pangolins, porcupines, capybaras, camels, monkeys, lions, leopards, tigers, bears, onagers, peccaries, wild boars, tapirs, mustangs, kangaroos, elephants, hyenas, wolves, giraffes, jackals, walruses, platypuses, koalas, wombats, dingos, zebras, bison, rhinos, hippos, and moose (thank you Wikipedia)I’m pretty sure there was an ostrich as well. And their monkey called Knipps. But the family do have some troubles but they triumph over their adverse situation and are able to make a fairly decent life there on the island. The rename it New Switzerland in true European creative style and they build themselves a cosy wee home; it’s the jungle tree house we all wish we had, and it kind of kicked Tarzan’s to the kerb.
This is a pretty classic adventure book; romance, man versus nature, quests, discovery. All that jazz. However the novel was written by a Swiss pastor and thus it conveys a lot of Christian values. It also serves as an educational book (boo!) because it serves as a natural history lesson. There’s a lot of ‘look at this obstacle we must face, how can we overcome this natural obstacle?’. Despite its educational values it is a good read, it is exciting and the family are likable as are their many pets. The book was edited and published by the author’s son. There have been two sequels to the book ‘Willis the Pilot’ accredited to EITHER Johan Wyss or Johanna Spyri author of Heidi. There was also Second Fatherland written by Jules Verne. The book took a lot of inspiration from Robinson Crusoe, in fact that’s where the novel get’s its name; the family’s name is not Robinson, rather they are meant to be the Swiss family version of Robinson. Despite this and the fact Robinson is not a Swiss name most film adaptations give them the name Robinson cause the title totally implies that that is their name.-Julie
‘Lassie Come-Home’ by Eric Knight
As I both cry easily and am a dog lover there really was no hope for me when I sat down to read Lassie Come-Home: I fell in love instantly. It is a classic book for children written in 1940 , has been published in 25 languages, has never been out of print and has inspired several movies, a radio show and a long-running TV show.
The book centres around Joe and his parents who live in England in the village of Greenall Bridge and have a beautiful collie named Lassie. Every day when school is almost over, Lassie trots over to wait for Joe. Their wealthy and powerful neighbour, the Duke of Rudling, however, wants to buy Lassie for a show dog but Joe’s father won’t sell her.
Yet, the Great Depression has hit the village hard. Joe’s father, like most of the men there, used to work in the coal mine but it recently closed. Now there’s barely enough money to feed the family, let alone a big, healthy dog. One day Joe gets out of school and Lassie isn’t waiting for him. When he returns home he learns the terrible truth that his father had to sell her to the Duke because money was so short and Joe is naturally heart-broken.
But a few days later Lassie is back outside the school, waiting for Joe. He is thrilled but he soon learns that she escaped and must go back to the Duke’s kennels as the money the Duke paid for her has been spent and can’t be repaid. Lassie now belongs to him. However, she again escapes and again she must go back.
Lassie gets out a third time, but after Joe and his father give her back to the Duke, she doesn’t return. Joe’s father then explains that the Duke has taken her to his home in Scotland and plans to keep her there.
Lassie, who doesn’t realise how far from home she really is, yearns to go find Joe. So, when she sees her chance to escape, she takes it and her long, dangerous journey back to England begins.
For anyone who loves dogs this will capture your heart and for anyone who cries easily, have tissues handy at all times. The author, Eric Knight, also portrays Lassie realistically, not with the thoughts of a human, but with the instincts, yearnings and fears of a dog.
Much of the dialogue is also in a Yorkshire dialect and Scottish brogue, which I found really charming and I would recommend this book for anyone aged 10 and up. -Becs
“A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee William
This classic American play focuses on two sisters; Blanche and Stella Dubois and Stella’s brutish husband Stanley Kowalski. Incidentally it is Stanley that first screamed the name Stella, thus beginning the cliché. The play is set in New Orleans and Blanche comes to stay with her sister after their estate is lost. Stella tries her best to accommodate Blanche as she tries to remain a Southern Belle however Stanley doesn’t like that! That could be the beginnings of a kick ass sitcom unfortunately it takes a different turn and a number of skeletons are removed from closets. Stella is stressed, Stanley is mean and Blanche is eccentric shall we say. And she is far from the virtuous, delicate and downright posh lady she believes herself to be. The Kowalski household quickly loses their supply of booze upon Blanche’s arrival. There is also the (kind of) lovely Mitch, who strikes up a romance with Blanche. Blanche is by far my favourite simply because of the meatiness of her character. Now bringing it back to the theme, Blanche is very much a character of endings and beginnings. She loses her estate of Belle Reve; marking the end of her life as a privileged woman. She begins a life with her sister, one that is more than a little dysfunctional. The play also has more than a couple of twists.
As mentioned this is an American classic and gave Marlon Brando one of his earliest breaks when he was cast as Stanley. He wasn’t the directors first choice but when Brando went to William’s house and did a fan dabby dosey reading as well as some house repairs he got the job. He went on to portray Stanley in the 1951 alongside Vivien Leigh who also played Scarlet in Gone with the Wind. Some nice Hollywood trivia for you there. Williams praised the film but said it was marred by the fact they had to change the ending to a more ‘Hollywood’ version. However the material cut from the original 1951 version has now been replaced in the DVD release staying truer to the source material.
‘Tally’s Blood’ by Ann Marie di Mambro
“Tally’s Blood” was the unpleasant nickname Scots gave the raspberry sauce that Italian ice-cream-makers put on their produce. In Ann Marie di Mambro’s drama, it is also a reference to the suffering of the Scots-Italian community during the Second World War.
The play centres on the cafe of Massimo and Rosinella Pedreschi. The couple are childless but are bringing up Lucia, the daughter of Rosinella’s dead sister, in Scotland, trying to create a new life for themselves.
The action spans from 1936 to 1956 and focusing mainly on two frowned-upon liaisons. The first between Italian Scot, Franco Pedreschi and the fully Scottish, Bridget Devlin and the second between Lucia and Bridget’s brother Hughie.
The story is set against a backdrop of varying tolerance to immigrants. During the war Franco’s harmless, popular brother Massimo is victimised, has his cafe ransacked by a mob and is arrested as an enemy alien and interned in Canada for four years.
The toughest job in terms of acting would probably fall on the person playing Rosinella, who embodies the central theme of prejudices in cultures. At the outset you feel quite attached to her as she struggles to bring up her dead sisters child but as the play goes on she begins to become rather annoying as she continuously insists that Italians can only marry Italians, which is just evil in my opinion as Lucia and Hughie are clearly perfect for each other (although Lucia also gets on my nerves sometimes).
Ann Marie di Mambro is also a writer for EastEnders and River City. And Tally’s Blood certainly has much in common with soap opera – with its clearly drawn out characters and resolvable crises and although I don’t watch Soap Operas, I found Tally’s Blood very compelling, brilliantly written and extremely funny (despite the war)
Overall the play is brimming with warmth. The young Lucia and Hughie are adorable, you even feel a great connection with the apparently irresistible, flirty Franco as well as the kind and well meaning Massimo and you learn to hate the ne’er-do-well Luigi, Lucia’s father, who basically abandoned her to go off and get remarried and have five sons. – Becs
‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ by C.S. Lewis
The famous series by C. S. Lewis follows the history of Narnia and the exploits of the Pevensie children, although eventually the children change. Voyage of the Dawn Treader has no Peter and Susan but does have Edmund Lucy and their cousin Eustace Stubb. And that book has one of the best opening lines ever ‘There was a boy called Eustace Stubb, and he almost deserved it.‘ As you may have guessed Eustace begins as a bit of a brat but after being turned into a dragon he’s all good. And Eustace eturns to Narnia in ‘The Silver Chair’ and then finally all of the children return for ‘The Final Battle’ but they don’t come back until the end. That book largely follows an ape and a donkey.
The Narnia series also contains books without any Pevensie’s or Pevensie relations, such as ‘The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe’ prequel ‘The Magician’s Nephew‘ which fills a lot of blanks, such as White witch: Origins, how they heck did that lampost get there? and why on earth a wardrobe would take you to a magical land. (I know it’s magic but you still gotta wonder right?). And ‘the horse and his boy’ is really randomly about a boy who finds a Narnian horse and they have crazy adventures. That comes after Lion, Witch and Wardrobe and I think is a nice interlude in the Narnia series.
The Narnia series can be enjoyed by anyone regardless of age because they’re such classics. I definitely recommend you read the series in it’s entirety, keep yourself up to date on your Narnian history people! -Julie
‘Making Money’ by Terry Pratchett
It’s quite far in to the Diskworld but only the second Moist von Lipwig story. I didn’t read Moist’s other book, about the post office that was adapted for tv recently. And you can follow the story but I would recommend reading it, because there’s some parts I would have followed easier if I had known the background. Especially since it’s a Pratchett and therefore can be hard to follow what with all the storylines flying around.
The chairwoman of the bank has died leaving 51% of the shares to her dog and leaving the dog to Moist, making him the de facto new chairman. So Moist is left to fix the bank because the money is kind of worthless and people have started using stamps as currency. There’s also various other things going on like the attempt to locate the ‘four golden golems’ in Um.
As you know I’m a Pratchett fan, but I don’t think it’s his best. I much prefer Pratchett when he’s writing about magicy things. He described Making Money as a fantasy and non fantasy because “we’ve agreed that these numbers of conceptual things like dollars have a value.” But of what I’ve read I much prefer his earlier books because they’re much more magicy.- Julie
‘Millions’ by Frank Cottrell Boyce
The story is set in Ireland in the last 17 days of the old, British sterling money, before it was replaced by the Euro. Everyone therefore has 17 days to spend, or exchange, their pounds and pence for Euros, before the old money becomes worthless. At just that time, a huge bag of money falls out of the sky – or maybe off a train – into the hands of a very special little boy named Damian.
Damian is the narrator in this story, and within the first few words of his narrative you really do fall in love with him and he makes you giggle on nearly every page whilst somehow, simultaneously, filling your eyes with tears on a number of occasions. Although Damian is one of the sweetest boys ever invented, his Dad still has his work cut out for him. Damian aspires to become a saint and this means that he wants to do good at every possible moment. It also means that he knows everything about saints, talks about them a lot (which, in some situations, makes you squirm), and even talks with them now and then. And when over 200,000 pounds sterling falls right on top of him, there’s a lot of good he can do – and a lot of trouble he can get into.
In the trouble department, Damian is helped by his older brother Anthony, whose mind is as fixed on material things as Damian’s is on the things above. To Anthony, beyond playing cash Jenga, a sackful of cash that has to be spent in two weeks means a lot of sugar, a lot of toys, a lot of favours from other kids at school, and possibly a bit of real estate speculation.
Meanwhile, a real creep – maybe the one who stole the money in the first place – is on the boys’ trail, closing in every day. Tensions rise as the cut-off date for the old pounds draws nearer, and so does ‘the bad guy’. The boys also begin to wonder more and more who they can trust with their secret, and whether their dreams for the money have a chance of coming true.
The book is many things at once. It is a touching story about a family pulling itself back together after the tragic death of Damian’s mother. It is also a fantasy-adventure on multiple levels – first, the “what would you do with millions of money” fantasy; but also the bit about the saints and spirits who commune with young Damian. Could they be real? Or is his brother right when he says that Damian is a loony who should be locked up? But clearly he is not. Damian may not be going about sainthood the right way, but he is an unforgettable, good little boy, and his story will fill you with joy.
The book has also been made into a major motion picture and the books paperback cover has an adorable picture of the actor who played Damian, who I feel was perfect for the role.
In this case it’s also like the old chicken-or-egg question. Which came first, the book or the movie? As it seems that the book was still being written when the movie was being filmed. Yet I suppose it doesn’t matter as the same author wrote both the book and the screenplay. So for once, when I say that I liked the book better than the film, I can’t blame the screenwriter for changing it! The film was still excellent but I feel that Damian is really a character who has to be imagined, and believed in, rather than seen. – Becs
Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
Danny is a young boy, who lives with his father in a lovely old gypsy caravan that’s painted beautiful colours and is just magical. And they run a quaint little filling station and fix cars together and it’s just so lovely I can’t even describe it. The villain of the book takes the form of one Victor Hazel, a rich landowner with the biggest collection of pheasants in the county, and he holds a great big pheasant shoot every year. Danny’s home is the only piece of land that Mr. Victor Hazel does not own, and he is determined to ensure he gets it.
We discover that Danny’s father is an expert poacher; he used to occasionally help himself to a few of Mr. Hazel’s pheasants. But he wasn’t the only one, Doc Spencer poached although he was more of a salmon man, and even the vicar’s wife is in on it. But Danny’s father comes out of retirement and begins to teach Danny his trade secrets. Although this pastime is illegal and dangerous it does feed the poor family also Hazel is evil so he doesn’t deserve all those delicious pheasants. Anyway, Danny and his father concoct a cunning plan to humiliate Mr Hazel and poach every single one of his pheasants right before the big pheasant shoot. The secret to their success; pheasants love raisins and I will say no more.
This book, although perhaps not my favourite Dahl, kind of epitomises him. It’s chock a block with stories from Dahl’s childhood for example when he got caned in school and his single parent marched straight down to the school to complain. It has Danny’s father telling him bedtime stories about a Big Friendly Giant (sound familiar) and it has some grown up Dahl as well. In fact the book basically follows the plot of one of Dahl’s adult short stories entitled ‘The Champion of the World’ funnily enough, but Danny’s story is so much better. And Dahl himself indulged in some poaching. And can I just say, Danny’s dad is up there with one of my favourite literary characters. He’s so whimsical but not in excessively so. The think that sums up this book I think, is the quote about Danny’s dad being an eye-smiler, he rarely smiles with his mouth but you can tell when he’s happy because he’s smiling with his eyes. ‘He had brilliant blue eyes and when he thought of something funny, his eyes would flash and if you look carefully, you could actually see a tiny golden spark dancing in the middle of each eye. ’ Is that not beautiful?- Julie
‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins
Now, again, I know that I’ve done this book before but I read it quite a while ago and it’s still one of my favourite books so I’m doing it again and you can’t stop me!
Basically The Hunger Games are an annual spectacle in which a group of children are forced by the government to fight one another to the death on TV. It is a chilling, bloody and thoroughly horrifying book but it has created a huge buz in America, almost as big as the early days of Twilight. Stephen King is also a major fan as well as Stephenie Meyer.
The Hunger Games is set in an unspecified future time when things have gone pretty spectacularly badly for humanity. The world, or the bit of it we can see, is dominated by a ruling caste who live in luxury in a city called The Capitol. The rest of us live like peasants in 12 districts that are strictly cordoned off from the Capitol and from one another. To put it plainly, life in the districts sucks: it’s mostly hard labour – mining coal and farming and working in factories and in dismal conditions.
To make things even more dismal, once a year each district is required to give up two of its children, chosen by lottery, and enter them in The Hunger Games. The kids are dropped into an enormous arena strewn with traps and hazards, with a heap of weapons and supplies in the middle. The last child alive wins a lifetime of luxury and celebrity. The action is filmed and broadcast to the entire world and there can only be one winner.
We experience this ordeal through the eyes of Katniss Everdeen, a resident of District 12, a harsh, cold region mostly given over to coal-mining. She is a passionate 16-year-old who hates The Capitol and is devoted to her family and she volunteers for the Games to take the place of her 12 year old sister Prim whose name was drawn in the lottery. Katniss is a skilled hunter and a master with a bow and arrow. She doesn’t like to kill. But she doesn’t want to die either.
After a life spent in freezing poverty, Katniss, for once experiences pleasure such as warmth, food and pretty clothes – but with such intensity that it almost becomes unbearable. Suzanne Collins also brings a cold, furious clarity to her accounts of physical violence. You might not think it would be possible, or desirable, for a young-adult writer to describe, slowly and in full focus, a teenage girl getting stung to death by a swarm of mutant hornets but somehow Collins did it. However, rather than being repellent, the violence is strangely hypnotic. It’s fairy-tale violence like The Brothers Grimm – not a cheap thrill but a symbol of something deeper. One of the key purposes of the book is to condemn us to enjoy the action in the arena just as The Capitol does and, despite ourselves, we do.
The series is a trilogy so obviously Katniss does survive the first novel and in a way is the winner of the Hunger Games but there is a brilliant twist and the next two novels are just as good as the first. – Becs
‘The Cry of the Icemark’ by Stuart Hill
Now I know I have reviewed this book before but that was for Vampire week so I didn’t really talk about the story but more about the characters (and the vampires really aren’t in it for long) also, this is one of my favourite trilogies and I am refusing to let it end!
The hero of the novel is 14-year-old Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield, and the story tells of her efforts to protect The Icemark (ruled over by her fierce-looking-but-kind-at-heart father, Redrought) against the army of an evil empire by forming alliances with various groups of people and animals and supernatural beings, before facing the psychopathic General Bellorum in a mighty showdown. If Thirrin’s name makes you laugh then be assured that there is also humour throughout the story and her name gets even longer as the story progresses. Assisted by many wonderful adult characters (both human and non-human), Thirrin finds that her greatest ally is the boy Oskan Witch’s Son. His title also changes as his true powers become more evident.
Stuart Hill draws a great deal on Norse, Roman, Greek and Anglo-Saxon mythologies and, seemingly effortlessly, weaves them together into a surprisingly believable unbelievable world. The result is a supremely satisfying read which really deserves to be called a page-turner.
Now, if I start giving examples of the humour, you might be under the impression that the story is packed full of jokes and it really isn’t, after all it is about a war, but when comedy is used, it’s generally done extremely well. Also, if I play up the magical elements or start talking about the Vampire King and Queen in the Land-of-the-Ghosts, or of the giant snow leopards or the noble Wolk-folk, these too would create a false impression that it’s a silly fairytale. However it is the blend between all these elements that is the key; it’s the skill with which Stuart Hill brings the words to the page and the characters and situations to life that makes this book so amazing.
However, I must also give a word of caution. There is a great deal of death, violence and cruelty to be found in the novel and although the recommended reading age 12 plus, I really think that you could still be quite a bit older. But don’t just take my word for it that the book is violent, here is a small extract:
“Thirrin looked down on the blackened and oozing body… His face was unrecognisable, his hands had completely burned away, his wrists mere stumps that smoked gently…”
Overall, Stuart Hill’s writing is never over the top and although he has created an amazing world he is never overly precious about it, in fact he destroys many parts over the course of the trilogy. Yet, even though some of the world is destroyed, it is still a place I like to re-visit and spend time with the characters that are so well developed that you begin to believe they are 100% real, despite some being talking snow leopards. – Becs
‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ by J.K. Rowling
‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ tells the story of an unloved and seemingly un-extraordinary little boy who finds out, at the age of eleven, that he’s a wizard and is invited to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Rescued from a cruel aunt and uncle and a hideous cousin who have hidden his true identity (and the fate of his witch and wizard parents, who were killed by the evil Lord Voldemort when he was a baby), Harry makes friends with a humorous boy from a large but poor family of wizards, named Ron Weasley, and a stuck-up overachiever named Hermione Granger who is the first witch or wizard to come out of an otherwise Muggle (non-magical) family. Together the three of them solve mysteries and brave dangers, with the aid of a cloak of invisibility, a magic mirror, the magic they’ve learned in their first year at Hogwarts, and their own pluck and cleverness.
The characters are very charming. Ron gets all the funny lines, his older twin brothers Fred and George are spirited class clowns, sneering classmate Draco Malfoy is atrociously villainous, gentle giant Hagrid is funny and touching, and other students, professors, ghosts, and goblins are fantastically fun. Harry’s Muggle relatives are cartoonishly awful, Professor Snape is a classic comic book villain, and Lord Voldemort is like the embodiment of the “dark side of the force,” but for all that, there are still real lessons in the book — like the power of love.
Also, there are some great monsters in the book, for example werewolves, unicorns, giant three-headed dogs, dragons, centaurs, poltergeists, ghosts and a man with two faces. There are vines that try to strangle you, chess pieces that try to kill you, flying winged keys and moving paintings and pictures as well as other wonderful things that are imagined such as ‘Gringots’ where witches and wizards keep their money, Owls being how they send messages to each other and ‘Diagon Alley’ being where they shop. All of it is guaranteed to make you love the world of Harry Potter and never want to leave.
The film too, I feel is a very accurate representation of the book. I can’t remember much in the book that wasn’t in the movie. Overall it’s a very enjoyable tale, well told, and home to the fantasy life that every child imagines during the boring and un-magical stretches of Muggle childhood. Harry essentially has a double life. During the summer he’s practically held a prisoner in his aunt and uncle’s house where he is treated worse than a dog. But during the school year he’s a celebrity, a star athlete, a champion of good against evil, and a very decent and loyal friend. – Becs
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
This is the third book in the series, and the only one not to really feature Voldemort. The plot revolves around this idea that the supposed serial killer Sirius Black (emphasis on supposed) is on the loose and out for HP’s blood. I see this book as the point where the series starts to get a bit grittier, although there is some heavy stuff just with the character of Voldemort, murdering sod that he is, the idea of a proper, mental case serial killer on the loose on a school to me almost seems more scary than Voldemort, who is a bit more exaggerated just because of the kind of character he is. So I think this is the book that saw the series start to grow up with it’s audience.
As well as Sirius Black we see some other new characters and creatues introduced, like the amazing Remus Lupin, and the Dementors, who suck away your happiness, as if school wasn’t bad enough already you know what I’m sayin’? And because you have Sirius and Lupin in the mix we find out a lot more about Harry’s parents past because they were old school chums. We also get some time travel in this one, which shook it up a bit, you always get a bit of mystery in the Potter series but I think just randomly having time travel is interesting because the mystery is different.
Of the first three in the series Azkaban took the least time to write, taking only 1 year compared to Philosopher’s Stone 5 years and Chamber of Secret’s 2 years. And Rowling also stated writing Prisoner of Azkaban was “the best writing experience I ever had…I was in a very comfortable place writing (number) three. Immediate financial worries were over, and press attention wasn’t yet by any means excessive.”- Julie
‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ by J.K Rowling
‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ is the fourth Harry Potter novel. Again, it covers the next year in sequence of Harry’s education and growth. It is one of the longest books in the series and the evil that Harry faces is more awful than ever, his relationships are more complicated and the plot thickens even deeper around him.
It begins with the Weasley family’s comically disastrous arrival toward the end of the summer to take Harry with them to the Quidditch World Cup, where things start to go very wrong. Then the school year starts and it turns out that Quiddich — the one thing at which Harry is really good at — has been called for the year, and instead they’re joining together with two other wizarding schools (Beauxbatons and Durmstrang) for the once-in-a-century international goodwill games called the Triwizard Tournament. Each school is to be represented by one student, one “champion” who will compete in three challenges, and whoever gets the highest total score wins the cup for his school and a cash prize for himself. Any number of students from all three schools can apply to be the champion, but in the end one from each school must be chosen by a magical “goblet of fire.”
The champion for Durmstrang is Viktor Krum, a very young and aloof international Quidditch star whose skill and heroism in the recent World Cup game has made him a super-celebrity, though (ironically) his team lost. He is also a love interest for Hermione, which torments Ron greatly, who — although it’s never openly admitted — is obviously in love with her. Playing for Beauxbatons is a mesmerizingly beautiful girl named Fleur Delacour, who is a blood-relative of a race of siren-like creatures, and whose school is led by a female half-giant who soon steals Hagrid’s heart. Since no one under 17 is allowed to enter the contest, Harry is ruled out and the “goblet of fire” spits out the name of the champion for Hogwarts as Cedric Diggory, a tall, handsome, popular fellow from Hufflepuff House who is the only Quidditch Seeker ever to have beaten Harry.
But then, the unheard-of happens: the goblet spits out a fourth name…Harry Potter and thus the plot begins with Harry having to compete in a tournament which was clearly rigged for him to get into, but why? Clearly evil is at play once again at Hogwarts.
I may have already given too much away, so I’ll say no more about the plot, other than to mention a few general things. First of all, this book is really where the relationships between the now teenaged characters begin to mature. The characters are brilliantly described and they talk and interact like real people, albeit unusually entertaining ones, and it’s really possible to believe in them and to love or hate them.
The magical world of Harry Potter grows more and more complex and filled with interesting features, people, and dangers — and it stays consistent with itself, and makes itself seem that much more deep and alive in the process. It’s not really a light-hearted story and certainly not an empty-headed adventure; this is a very smart tale of the ongoing battle between good and evil and the irreversible damage it wreaks, even on the innocent and good. And things can never be the same as they were before after any of the adventures. The story builds and develops, and each instalment grows out of the one before it, even as the characters themselves grow and the landscapes around them become more vivid and real. – Becs
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
This is the sixth and longest book in the series. It begins when Harry and Dudley are attacked by Dementors and Harry saves them, only to have to attend a disciplinary hearing for the use of underage magic. We see that the Ministry and much of the magical world still refuse to believe that Voldemort has returned and so little Harry is getting a bit of a rough time of it. It is hear that we are first introduced to the fantastic character of Dolores Umbridge, who although not as evil as Voldemort, is still pretty mean. She forces poor Dumbledore to flee from Hogwarts and steals his job, she evicts Professor Trelawny and she basically rules the school like a police state. Not cool. Hogwarts is a place of magical fun and hijinks.
The order of the phoenix is an organisation run by Dumbledore in order to fend off the Dark Lord. And because of this you get all your favourite secondary characters brought together in one marvellous room. You get Lupin, Mad-Eye Moody, Tonks and perhaps most importantly Sirius, who as we now know is not a crazed murderer but Harry’s loving godfather who was framed. Phew. -Julie
Cartoon City by Ferdia Mac Anna
The front of Cartoon City depicts a painting of a Doc Martin boot with pictures of guns, flowers, champagne and footballers on it. I am intrigued, I turn to the blurb, for me it evokes a screwball comedy with a lovable scamp for a hero and a devil may care sidekick/old school chum Pat to match. Miles, wanting to impress the pretty Mia, tells her he’s a gangster. He then becomes embroiled in a murder plot to kill Mia’s father and get away with a cool million in unmarked bills.
Miles was not a lovable scamp. The blurb does not mention that he’s trying to impress Mia whilst he is still with his current partner; the mother of his child. He also makes little effort to conceal his budding romance with Mia. No matter how many times he says it’s a sham common-law marriage, that doesn’t give him a free pass to sleep around. He causes immense grief for his family including his lovely mother, and if he were any good at being a gangster he would keep his family out of it. Were Miles a lovable scamp I may have been able to let the murder thing slide, after all he’s just a loveable scamp in a zany comedy. Unfortunately I found all of the characters thoroughly unlikable. I couldn’t even feel much sympathy for Miles poor partner, because she’s portrayed as the stereotypical nagging wife who drags him to group couples therapy. Turns out Pat is a truly terrible friend, and Mia arranges for her father to be murdered. He’s given the label ‘Psychodad’ but we’re not actually given any solid evidence that he was evil. Crime lord yes, evil no. As we know from movies gangsters can be very lovable.
Not only are the characters very unlikeable, I found Mia and Miles’ fling was pretty vulgar. I can handle vulgarity, open a Vonnegut book at a random page and you’ll find something. But Cartoon City didn’t seem to have it for any good reason, and it wasn’t handled well at all. There’s lots of praise for Ferdia Mac Anna on the back page, and I can’t judge him on a single book, but I personally would not recommend Cartoon City.- Julie
‘Stoneheart’ by Charlie Fletcher
The front cover of the book really grabbed me, there is a mighty stone dragon perched atop the title of the book which is above the clouds at either dawn or dusk as the background is yellow and orange with the London eye protruding slightly above the clouds, so I thought, wow, that looks interesting. The actual book, however, not so gripping. The story itself is a really good idea but the writing and over use of description, in my opinion, leaves the action really slow and dry.
It begins with a school trip to a London museum, and a lonely, frustrated boy named George. George is having trouble fitting in, he misses his Dad (who is dead) and he doesn’t see much of his mother either (she’s an actress). Then an encounter with a bullying classmate and a heavy-handed teacher pushes George into a rebellious mood, and he takes it out on a stone dragon’s head carved on the front of the museum. The next thing he knows, George is running for his life, chased by gargoyles, dragons, salamanders, and other images graven in the form of beasts and monsters.
For a young boy all of this should be pretty confusing, but somehow he doesn’t really think about it in any great depth but simply takes it for granted that he is being chased by statues, maybe it’s because if he wants to survive, he mustn’t dwell too much on his confusion. He has fallen into another London, a world below or beside the world most of us see. In this under-London, statues can walk, talk, and even kill. The good ones, shaped like people, are called spits, and they have something akin to a human soul. The bad ones, called taints, have nothing inside but a ravenous hunger. The taints of London are after George’s blood, and he has only a night and a day to atone for the crime that started it all.
George is joined by a heroic statue of an army gunner, and a girl named Edie who has her own powers and problems. However, no one else can see the statues moving, stalking, and fighting over George. As he searches for answers to what he must do to end his danger, George deals with creatures that straddle the line between spit and taint, between good and evil – and an enemy of flesh and blood who would willingly sacrifice George’s chances of survival in order to free himself from a curse.
If it wasn’t for the way the author over uses description, the plot would be quite a thrilling adventure, full of magic, menace, mystery, and non-stop, high-speed action. The idea itself is also really original but I found myself re-writing parts of the novel in my head, which shouldn’t really happen. However, if you love description and want to visit this new London, then this book is your ticket and if you want a return trip, you can read books two and three of the trilogy, which funnily enough, I haven’t done. – Becs
‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger
This is considered the ultimate coming of age novel and it’s mostly associated with teenagers despite it first being published as an adult book. The novel is told from the perspective of protagonist Holden Caufield. Holden gets kicked out of his prep school and has a wee adventure in the city getting drunk and being unbearable lonely.
The book gets its title from the Robert Burns song ‘Comin’ through the Rye’ and Holden mishears a lyric and thinks it’s ‘catch a buddy comin’ through the rye’. He imagines catching children who are playing next to a cliff in a field of rye. He essentially wants to save children from growing up but he later kind of abandons this idea and the role of catcher and caught is kind of switched between him and his younger sister.
From its publication in 1951 there has been continued controversy surrounding the book. It’s been criticised because of swearing, some sexual content and for undermining family and moral values. In 1960 a teacher was actually fired for giving it as reading to his class, although he was later reinstated. It seems pretty tame by modern standards but for the time it was pretty offensive to some sensibilities. There has also been controversy surrounding the book because John Lennon’s killer was arrested with the book on his person which led many people to believe the book had a corrupting influence.
A confession on my part, I didn’t enjoy the book. I really didn’t like the character of Holden I didn’t feel I could relate to him at all. I would recommend the book to boys more than girls because I think they would get a lot more out of it. Although I usually quite like books that would seem to appeal to boys more, I felt that Holden was whiny and pretentious which is not something I like to see in a protagonist.- Julie
‘Stormbreaker’ by Anthony Horowitz
The book begins with a bang when 14- year-old Alex Rider is woken in the middle of the night to a knock on the door and a policeman informing him that his uncle has died in a tragic car accident, however, apart from being obviously devastated, he also becomes immediately suspicious. But as far as Alex knows, his uncle Ian had been a simple banker and a very careful man. He was also Alex’s only living relative.
Following up on his uncle’s fate, Alex discovers that the car is at a junkyard and is sporting dozens of bullet holes and blood on the seats that proves his uncle was murdered. So who killed Ian Rider and covered the act up? And why?
Alex’s quest for the truth introduces him to Alan Blunt, a spymaster for Britain’s MI6 espionage agency. Caught while seeking further information, Alex is blackmailed by Blunt into becoming the youngest spy to ever work for MI6.
Herod Sayles, a multi-millionaire, is giving away thousands of his newest computers, Stormbreaker, to the children of London’s schools. Ian Rider was investigating the man and those machines when he was killed. If Alex doesn’t agree to undertake the mission, Blunt promises that he will be sent off to an orphan’s home, and that his housekeeper and best friend, Jack Starbright, will be deported back to America.
Before he can adjust to getting blackmailed, Alex is sent on a three-week crash course training with SAS commandos. Yanked out of training, Alex is thrown headlong into the grinning jaws of death where he will meet a spectacular array of villains, including Mr. Grin, who has had his face disfigured during a throwing knife accident in a circus, and a huge jellyfish.
Anthony Horowitz is a very successful writer of novels and television shows. His latest Alex Rider novel, Crocodile Tears, was released in 2009 bringing the total number in the series up to eight. The series has exploded internationally, bursting on to the scene and grabbing the reading public of all ages. A movie based on Stormbreaker was also released in 2006. In addition, Horowitz has written television and movie scripts for Poirot and Midsomer Nights, and he has created his own television shows, Murder In Mind and Foyle’s War.
It’s thus hardly surprising that I absolutely loved Stormbreaker. Most readers who love action and spy fiction will devour this dynamic book in a single sitting or two – otherwise they’ll be in extreme agony waiting to see what happens next.
The book is exciting, easy to read and hard to put down. The breakneck pace of the story draws the reader on, and the simple use of the language makes it that much easier to read just one more page, and another, and another.
However, the simple writing evokes full images, cast and settings. And there are twists and turns aplenty in the story.
Alex is very likeable, and he’s very much like James Bond might have been imagined at that age. Not only is he quick and mildly sarcastic, but he gets a cutting-edge tech GameBoy equipped with spy gear, zit cream that eats through metal, and a yo-yo that doubles as zip wire, serving him as well as Spider-Man’s weblines.
Overall, Stormbreaker is an excellent read for anyone interested in action adventure novels and spy stories. – Becs
‘The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain’ by Charles Dickens
This is a novella about a chemistry teacher named Mr. Redlaw, a wee bit bitter;a watered down Scrooge. It’s even Christmas (was Dickens obsessed or what?). So Redlaw is haunted by this phantom, not a ghost of anyone in particular but it’s described as looking just like him so I guess it’s more of a metaphor. Anyway the phantom asks Redlaw if he would like all of his sad memories and sorrow removed. As I imagine many people would, he accepts the ghost’s offer and the ghost adds that he must pass on this gift to others. Sounds fine and dandy so far. Except Redlaw finds that he is now just really angry, he’s losing humanity and he’s doing it to other people as well.
So with his gift Redlaw infects everyone around him including his servants the Swidges and some neighbours the Tatterby’s. THe secondary characters are just amazing, theey are some of the funniest characters I’ve ever come across. I think Dickens uses repetition to amaxing effect because it emphasises the little quirks of his characters. For example Swidge senior ends almost every sentence with ‘And I’m eighty seven!’. Of the Tatterby’s my favourite has to be little Johnny who gets kind of a rough time of it because he’s left to care for his baby sister, but he doesn’t care at all because he’s so devoted to his little sister (aw). But because the secondary characters are so pleasant to be around it makes it really upsetting when you see them so bitter, like Mr. Swidge renouncing his son George or Mr. Tatterby complaining about how fat his wife is getting. Thankfully it’s a happy Dickens ending and not a soul crushing one. We learn that we need to remember our sorrows so that we can forgive those who wrong us and move on with our lives. Redlaw forgot but didn’t forgive and so was left with a bunch of unresolved issues (put simply)
Soem notes on style: the novella has an amazing opening line: ‘Everybody said so’. And that’s it, so you’re immediately hooked because obviously you want to know what everybody said. Again in the opening you get like three pages of lead up where every sentence starts with ‘when’ which really builds up the tension to when we meet the phantom. Just that word ‘when’ completely sets the scene without boring us and also creates this sense of fate because it seems like these are the only set of circumstances that this stroy can occur.-Julie
‘Count Karlstein’ by Philip Pullman
In Karlstein village, huddled on the mountain slopes below gloomy Castle Karlstein, there’s a tale of terror often told: of Zamiel, the Demon Huntsman, who rides the mountains with his Wild Hunt of skeleton huntsmen and phantom hounds. No one quite believes the story — but no one quite disbelieves it either.
If the name of Zamiel, the Demon Huntsman, doesn’t send shivers down your spine now, it will after you have read this book.
The Demon Huntsman usually conducts his business on All Souls’ Eve, the day when we are all supposed to pray for the souls of the dead. But if you ever think you could do with a bit of supernatural intervention to help your worldly ambitions come to fruition, don’t strike a bargain with Zamiel … He’ll remember you, and come a-hunting.
This is exactly what has happened to the evil Count Karlstein who now has a bit of a problem with Zamiel whom he struck a bargain with ten years ago, and it is now payback time:
‘This year,’ said Count Karlstein, ‘I have to provide a human prey -’
A gasp (oily) from Snivelwurst; a gasp (stifled) from me, and I clung to the little tin candlestick with both hands as I strained to hear what Count Karlstein said next.
‘A living human,’ he went on, ‘or two, complete with soul. Now,’ he said briskly, and I heard a chair being pulled across the wooden floor and the creak of the ancient floorboards as the count settled down in it – ‘the question, is who shall it be?’
‘Ah, yes, a very vexing question, I can well imagine, your grace. Who shall it be? Indeed! A sorrowful task, picking the right merchandise,’ said Snivelwurst carefully. He wasn’t sure what Karlstein was up to, and he didn’t want to say the wrong thing.
‘To be sure, Snivelwurst. But in this case there’s only one thing for it. It’ll have to be my nieces.’
How cruel! His nieces are Lucy and Charlotte and a nicer pair of girls you couldn’t come across. Thankfully however, Hildi the maidservant overhears her master’s wicked plan to give Zamiel his orphan nieces. Horrified she rescues the girls and hides them in an abandoned hunter’s hut. But Charlotte is tragically recaptured by Count Karlstein’s oily henchman, Arturo Snivelwurst, and Lucy vanishes. With the help of her brother Peter — who is wanted by the police for poaching — and the girls’ indomitable teacher, Miss Augusta Davenport, Hildi sets out to free Charlotte and find Lucy. Can she succeed? Will Peter be arrested before he can win the Grand Shooting Contest and become Chief Ranger of the Forest? And what will the Demon Huntsman do when he discovers he has been deprived of the victim he has been promised? You will just have to read the book to find out. Overall it’s a rip-roaring tale of drama and suspense, suitable for reading under the bedclothes. – Becs
‘Complete Ghost Stories’ by Charles Dickens
So, someone says two words to you, these words are ‘Dickens’ and ‘ghost’ you think ‘oh a Christmas Carol’ but I think many of Dickens’ great ghost stories have been overlooked because everyone thinks of the novels first of all. I think Complete Ghost Stories published by Wordsworth Classics would be a really good way of introducing yourself to Dickens because they’re bitesized chunks that can contain humour and horror alike.
A little explanation of exactly what the book contains; there are a few select chapters from Dickens’ novels The Pickwick Papers, which is almost a collection of short stories in itself. We also have one chapter from Nicholas Nickelby. It also contains his novellas A Christmas Carol and The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain but I won’t be talking much about them (Haunted Man is getting saved for next week you see). The rest are short stories many of which were first published in Dickens’ own magazine ‘All the Year Round’.
Obviously, Dickens was a genius and I am not about to refute that fact, but I found some of the stories I just didn’t get. ‘Haunted House’ and ‘Well Authenticated Rappings’ are the ones I’m thinking of particularly. I thought Haunted House started off excellently but went a bit mental about half way through. And as for Rappings, went completely over my head; I think I may have to re-read that one just to try and make some sense of it. Speaking generally I would still recommend the collection because most of them were fabulous.
Many of the highlights for me were actually the chapters from the Pickwick Papers, so that’s going on my to-read list, The Queer Chair and The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton especially. Now the Queer Chair is an interesting one, because the eponymous chair turns into a lecherous old man for much of the story and convinces the tenant of his room that he should marry the landlady. Goblins is about a man who on Christmas Eve (small note, Dickens was really obsessed with Christmas, like half of these stories are set at Christmas) is drinking alone in a graveyard and is kidnapped by some goblins, pretty simple plot but when he is returned he decides to turn his life around and leave town and the interesting part is you get told the legends that came about in the town because of him and the rather funny results when he returns to the town many years later. Of the random short stories my highlights had to be Captain Murderer and the Devil’s Bargain and A Child’s Dream of a Star. Captain Murderer I think because it seemed very exaggerated fairy tale like, Grimm’s fairy tale not Disney fairy tale so actually quite dark. Child’s Dream is completely different, it’s much more bittersweet and pretty devoid of humour unlike most of the other stories. I part of what makes some of these so good is that they’re written as if it is just a guy relaying that facts so it kind of makes it more believable it’s just a man telling us what happened he’s often not sure what happened he’s speculating I think the ones that are best for this feature are The Signalman and Mr. Testator’s Visitation. Thus ends my ramblings.- Julie
‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens
The very title of the book indicates Dickens’ genius, it is good at attracting public attention but also, being the most famous novelist of the day, conveying his inner need to meet all the expectations he raised. It first appeared in instalments prolonging the audience’s excitement and expectations to the series of surprises which accompany the unfolding of the plot. In no other of his romances does Dickens immediately stimulate and baffle the curiosity of his readers. He stirs the dullest minds to guess the secret of his mysteries. The plot of the romance is also universally admitted to be the best that Dickens has ever invented. The plot of Great Expectations is also more intricate than any of his previous stories. Dickens can observe characters fantastically, switching with ease from the cold hearted Miss Havisham and Estella to the pathetic Pip overcome with his idealisms.
Dickens narrates the story as Pip and so we are given a finer and deeper observation into the character’s lives and a clearer perception into Pip’s world. The characters of the novel also show how deeply it has been contemplated and they all fit perfectly to each other and the story. Individually they also rank among the most original of Dickens’ creations. Magwitch, Joe Gargery, Jaggers, Wemmick, Pip, Herbert, Wopsle, Pumblechook, Estella, Biddy, Mrs Joe and “the Aged” Miss Havisham are just a few of the characters his genius has invented (but you will just have to read the book to find out who they all are!)
Pip, the hero, from whose mind the whole story takes its form, is expertly characterised. He is weak, dreamy, amiable, apprehensive, aspiring, inefficient, and overall the subject and victim of Great Expectations and his individuality is spread throughout the whole narrative.
Estella is often cited as Dickens’s first convincing female character. She is a supremely ironic creation, one who darkly undermines the notion of romantic love and serves as a bitter criticism against the class system in which she is has been raised from the age of three by Miss Havisham to torment men and “break their hearts”. Estella of course wins Pip’s deepest love by practicing deliberate cruelty. Unlike the warm, winsome, kind heroine of a traditional love story, Estella is cold, cynical and manipulative.
The mad, vengeful Miss Havisham, a wealthy dowager who lives in a rotting mansion and wears an old wedding dress every day of her life, is not exactly a believable character, but she is certainly one of the most memorable creations in the book. With a kind of manic, obsessive cruelty, Miss Havisham adopts Estella and raises her as a weapon to achieve her own revenge on men.
Altogether I can undoubtedly say that Great Expectations is a masterpiece. – Becs
‘The Magic Finger’ by Roald Dahl
This is a particularly special review for me this week due to the fact that the first ever Roald Dahl book I ever read, was indeed the Magic Finger. Your basic plot, there’s this family called the Gregg’s, and they’re hunting mad you see. You’ve got Mr. and Mrs. Gregg, plus their two sons Phillip and William. Our narrator is the girl on the neighbouring farm, the owner of said Magic Finger. Now the owner Magic Finger punishes the wicked and the teachers that are mean to her. The Magic Finger was unleashed upon the Gregg family because they’re being a bunch of meanies to all the ducks they straight up shot.
The Greggs wake up the next morning very short and with wings. At first they think the wings are pretty cool until a group of four people sized ducks take over their house and all its contents…including their guns. This is a story teaches us valuable lessons about justice, fair play and that when the little girl from the neighbouring farm tells you to stop hunting, you bloody well do it.
The theme of bedtime stories meant only one thing to me and that was Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl started his career as a short story writer but began publishing stories he told his children, so for any parents out there bedtime stories don’t have to be books, you can make up any old thing and it may delight children the world over. The Magic Finger has a moral that’s pretty damn obvious but remains entertaining.- Julie
‘Alfie’ by Shirley Hughes
I’ve been trying to put my finger on why I love Shirley Hughes’s Alfie books so much. Why should the everyday tales of a four-year-old boy and his toddler sister Annie Rose so lift my spirits just as much now as they did when I was 5.
But when you’re a teenager busily rushing through each day with the constant goal of simply reaching the weekend, there’s just something so reassuring about the colourful drawings of simple things like playing in the garden which are packed into the Alfie books. It’s like a mirror image of your childhood and for a moment you’re transported back to a time of no worries and imaginary games.
Words and pictures merge seamlessly in the simply devised Alfie books. Shirley Hughes, now 78, wrote and illustrated her first Alfie book in 1981. Twenty years on, Alfie and Annie Rose are still respectively four and one-and-a-half years old but show no sign at all of aging.
In the painstakingly detailed illustrations, everything is messy and muddled: mothers look tired and unkempt in their uniform of baggy jumpers and leggings, flicking back strands of un-brushed hair as they push snotty-nosed toddlers in buggies weighed down with shopping. Hallways are strewn with shoes, socks, anoraks and discarded toys; in the kitchen shopping bags wait to be unpacked, while tables overflow with breakfast dishes and babies in highchairs busy themselves by smearing food over every available surface.
Dad is slightly irritatingly, always sitting reading his paper. But, it’s a minor gripe. Mostly, everyone looks happy – cheerfully resigned to the mess of early childhood.
Shirley Hughes is a magical storyteller with an instinctive understanding of the mind of the toddler.
It’s all about the “little things” that dominate their lives. It’s about realising your new wellies are the wrong way round when you’re out splashing in puddles; it’s about getting locked out of the house with your mum when you’ve been shopping and are tired and hungry; it’s about hearing a dripping from the attic that turns out to be a burst pipe when Mrs MacNally’s Maureen from over the road is babysitting for you; and it’s about going to a birthday party for the first time without your mum.
Hughes also interchanges between Alfie and his mum perfectly:
“You and Annie Rose are going to be at the party, too, aren’t you?” asks Alfie.
“Oh no,” says mum, “I’ll take you to Bernard’s house and Annie Rose and I will go to the park and come back to collect you when it’s time to go home.”
“But I want you to be there,” says Alfie.
I have never had such an appealingly realistic picture painted in my head before of the small dramas that enliven the world of the stay-at-home mum where one day is pretty much the same as the last, but in which an episode of getting accidentally locked out by your four-year-old is something worth talking about at the end of the day.
And that is Shirley Hughes’ particular skill; she makes the ordinary extraordinary. In ‘Alfie Gets In First’, a window cleaner nearly saves the day by climbing up his ladder to let himself in an open window. But just in time Alfie manages to turn the lock and let everyone in. On the last page, Alfie, his mum, Annie Rose, Mrs MacNally, Maureen and the window cleaner are sitting cosily round the kitchen table with tea and biscuits – the perfect celebration for the perfect little hero.
The milkman, the window-cleaner and the dustman all play walk-in parts in these mini-dramas. Everybody is doing a day’s work – just like those long-suffering mums pushing small children round in buggies. It’s just all so ordinary. And that’s what sets these stories apart from the rest. – Becs
‘The Man Who Was Thursday’ by G.K. Chesterton
This metaphysical thriller follows undercover policeman Gabriel Syme’s efforts to bring down the London anarchist council. Syme, however soon discovers he is not the solo crusader he thinks he is, in fact he’s not even part of a duo he is not the only undercover policeman on the council. Syme begins a discussion with open anarchist poet Lucian Gregory he convinces him to take him to the anarchist council meeting and our young hero manages to get himself elected onto the council of seven, with codename ‘Thursday’
Despite the plot revolves around an anarchist plot to, funnily enough, induce anarchy the primary thing you will gain from this novel is the humour. It’s a very surreal book, no one is who they think they are, not even the villain Sunday. It is a very enjoyable read but one critique I think is the ending. It went totally over my head and I didn’t really get any reading satisfaction from it. Not in a ‘this is so deep my mind is blown kind of way’, in a ‘I don’t get it kind of way’. Although you would expect a crime/thriller novel’s ending to be the most important part of the book, I think for this particular book it’s more about just enjoying the humour, and discovering the hilariously clueless undercover detectives and seeing exactly how much Sunday has got the drop on them. There is actually a pretty good chase scene building some good tension towards the end, I think it only really faltered in the last few pages. Admitedly not a great point to falter.
Like much of Chesterton’s work it contains some Christian elements, with some ideas of rebellion etc. It also explores anarchy quite in depth which was interesting, it explores what constitutes a true anarchist. There’s some fingerpointing with some ‘You’re not a true anarchist! I am the only true anarchist’ ‘s thrown in. -Julie
‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ by Agatha Christie
At the beginning of the novel we are introduced to Emily Cavendish who has inherited Styles Court in Essex from her late husband who is the father of John and Lawrence Cavendish. She is now recently remarried, however, to the much younger Alfred Inglethorp whom the Cavendish boys do not like. John Cavendish invites his old friend Arthur Hastings, who has just returned home from fighting in the First World War, to recuperate at the house where he spent many happy days as a young boy. However, when the new Mrs Emily Inglethorp dies by poison, Hastings urges John to secure the assistance of Hercule Poirot who is a well-known Detective of Hastings’ acquaintance and who, as a Belgian refugee from the War, is living in the nearby village of Styles St Mary. What remains is to discover how Poirot will uncover the mystery.
We meet the main characters of the Poirot novels, who fans will later come to love, including Lieutenant Arthur Hastings who narrates the tale and, like Dr Watson in the Sherlock Holmes novels, provides the role of a slow-on-the-uptake, slightly foolish person who Poirot can explain things to. Inspector Japp is also present to essentially carry out Poirot’s suggestions whenever a formal police presence is required. And of course the funny little Belgian detective is introduced with a description that enables readers to picture him very well:
He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. Even if everything on his face was covered, the tips of moustache and the pink-tipped nose would be visible. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police.
Poirot’s superior intellect and detecting abilities are also evident from the very beginning of the book as he immediately spots vital evidence in the room where Mrs Inglethorpe died and starts to make connections between events that no one else can see the significance of. The logic and cleverness of Christie’s best plots is already present in the book, her first ever published novel.
We also see Christie’s characteristics populating the story with an array of interesting people, almost all of whom have motive for committing the crime in question, so that readers will normally choose several culprits as they progress through the book. Is it John Cavendish whose wife Mary appears to be consorting with a German spy? Or Cynthia Murdoch who works at the hospital pharmacy and has ready access to poisons? Or Alfred Inglethorp who wishes to be rid of his much older wife?
In some ways the classic whodunnit has become clichéd these days but Agatha Christie was one of the original creators of the genre and this country house mystery with its overabundance of clues, red herrings and plot twists remains as engaging and suspenseful today as when it was first published. The Mysterious Affair at Styles was written, reportedly as part of a bet, in 1916 and published in 1920. It really is immensely impressive how high it ranks in Christie’s extensive collection given its age. I doubt there are many authors who have produced such a solidly accomplished first novel that is also perfectly readable and enjoyable ninety years after its release. – Becs
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchet
This is one of Pratchett’s renowned Diskworld novels. It follows the trials and tribulations of the worlds first female wizard, who inherited her magic from a dying wizard who thought she would be the eighth son of an eighth son, which would bring some major mojo. Unfortunately young Eskarina was born female. Not wanting to rock the boat but equally not wanting to waste some perfectly good magic Esk is initially trained up as a witch by Granny Weatherax, the most respected witch on The Disk. This soon proves to be a colossal failure because she’s got too much magic to be a simple witch. Granny grudgingly attempts to gain Esk acceptance into the prodigious Unseen University but only manages to get her a job as a servant.
Equal Rites displays a number of differences between witches and wizards. Wizards have all the magic, but witches have all the sense. Young Esk, has both. The wizards of the Diskworld are a rather pompous lot, who stick to what they know and are very stubborn, typical men. But the book isn’t a hate mail to men, we have some good yins, Simon the wizard in training for a start. A wee bit of a visionary who with Esk is revolutionising the magical world as we know it.
As you know our topic this week is boys are wimps, and my justification for this is that the wizards of the Disk are afraid of a little girl with a magic staff. They fear change, although to be fair living in the University has its dangers what with all that magic flying about and books absorbing people. The book is only the third in the very long Diskworld series. It deals fairly competently with the ideas of feminism and is the first in the series to have Granny Weatherwax as a main character, it was the start of Diskworld branching out into different stories and characters. If you’re on the lookout for a lightish read with a whole lot of hilarity and some memorable characters this book or indeed any Diskworld is the way to go. -Julie
‘The Good, the Bad and the Dumped’ by Jenny Colgan
Jenny Colgan is an author of chic-lit fiction and has written 9 books as well as 2 under the pseudonym, Jane Beaton. Her first book was published in 2000 and prior to this she worked as a hospital secretary and then as a standup comedian for a very short time. She now lives mostly in France because her husband Andrew is a marine engineer and works a lot round there and they have three children. Wallace who is four and likes trampolining and making loud announcements about how he will run the world when he is Spiderman; Michael-Francis who is nearly two and likes singing lalala, tucking bears under his arms and peering dubiously at new food, and finally Delphie who is brand new and likes sleeping.
Jenny’s interests include; Doctor Who, fountain pens, bicycles, spotify, facebook, pink wine, trampolines, Mitchell & Webb, her blackberry, margaritas, Japan, Converse, stripey things, the Edinburgh Festival, youtube, Buffy and Angel, Haagen Daz and playing the piano quite badly.
At the outset of ‘The Good, the Bad and the Dumped’ the centre character, Posy is delighted when her boyfriend Matt pops the all important question, but she doesn’t seem to feel as excited as she thought she would and this makes her wonder if the relationship is 100% quiet right. With a plan in mind she decides she will look up some of her major Ex’s who have had an impact on her life so that she can know that marriage is definitely the right thing for her and Matt. Especially as there is one Ex she is not quite sure if she is over! However thing’s take a turn for the worse when, at her engagement party, her best friend slips out that Posy is researching her Ex’s and Matt, obviously very hurts ends, the engagement.
Suddenly Posy is devastated and realises that Matt was the one for her after all. But, how will she now convince him that she really does love him and will it help to actually carry on with her mission to track down her Ex’s?
Posy is quite a likable character in one way as you can see how vulnerable she is, especially as she was hurt by an Ex boyfriend, but at the same time she is a bit annoying because I know that when I get engaged I will be overly excited whereas her reaction was a bit lame, and then she wasn’t even excited about planning or looking forward to the wedding!
Matt plays a fairly small part considering he is the man Posy gets engaged to and at first he comes across as quite romantic but then he seems to change and be a bit less caring and wimpy but, then I suppose if you found out your fiancée wasn’t seeming to be bothered about marrying you then you would feel a bit put out!
Posy’s friend Leah and Posy’s sister Fleur feature quiet heavily in the book. Leah seems a nice enough person but, I really didn’t take to Fleur as she just came across as really lazy.
Loads of Posy’s Ex’s also feature in the book, some being more central to the story than others but it is normally quite funny.
Overall, this is a classic Jenny Colgan style book – it is easy to get into and very easy to read and there is no intense brain work needed to enjoy it. I read a couple of reviews on the book before I started it and there were quite a few people who seemed to find that there were loads of editing errors and yes, this is true and they really should have been noticed before it went to print but, it didn’t really detract from my enjoyment. The main error is that the blurb on the back of some copies states that Posy’s surname is Sutherland and then in the first chapter it clearly states that her surname is Fairweather. However, if you are a big fan of her books then in all honesty this won’t bother you. – Becs
‘Serve the People!’ Yan Lianke
This was published in 2005, set in 1967 Communist China under the dictator Mao. It centre’s around two lovers and is a political satire that was banned in it’s native China but became popular underground. Four of Lianke’s books have been banned in China, but he’s generally quite a respected author despite this. ‘Serve the People!’ has been published in Japan, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands as well as English. The plot is about forbidden love of the worst kind: a soldier in the ‘People’s Liberation Army’ (Wu Dawang) is seduced by his commanding officer’s wife (Liu Lian). Tut tut.
In terms of political criticisms the book doesn’t really target any specific aspect of the society but rather the society as a whole, you get more of a sense of subtle oppression. Mao is like a father figure/god and people parrot quotes from his book, and statues and pictures of him are everywhere. To deface an image of Mao during the ‘Cultural Revolution’ was punishable by death. Which doesn’t really sound very culturally revolutionary to me. One of the most memorable scenes in the novel when the two lovers accidentally smash one of the statues of Mao, are initially very concerned and then have a feeling of liberation and have a competition to see who can destroy the most images of Mao in the house. I think that displays the extent of the influence that Mao held over the people, that ripping a book was such a sacriligious act. Although a work of great political satire, I found ‘Serve the People!’ a tad racy for my likes. I found that much of the time I was encroaching on the couple’s private time; of which there is much.
The style of the novel is very interesting though, the narrator is an omniscient one, and often actually refers to how the story is being constructed, whilst giving updates on the plot the narrator says ‘our story is doing this’ and ‘the characters had not yet realised’ and things of that ilk. Overall I did enjoy the novel, the writing is good and there’s some moments of really good romance and humour and emotion and what have you. I would recommend it, but due to the intimacy of some of the scenes maybe not to everyone.- Julie
‘The Thief Lord’ by Cornelia Funke
Are you devastated by the end of the Harry Potter books? Then fear not, German author Cornelia Funke has been called the “German J.K. Rowling”.
It’s pretty inevitable that comparisons will be made between The Thief Lord and Harry Potter and there are some similarities. In The Thief Lord, Prosper and Bo are both orphans unhappy with their adoptive family but the novel is set in a very different location than Harry Potter: the streets, canals and landmarks of Venice in Italy, where the brothers Prosper and Bo have fled to to avoid being split up by their aunt who only wants to adopt only the younger brother Bo. A detective named Victor Getz is then hired to track down the two boys. And so the adventure begins…
After being chased by Victor they are about to give up and turn themselves over hungry and no place to stay. However just before they are about to give up they are discovered by another orphan girl named Hornet. She takes the two boys to her gang’s hide out in a deserted movie theatre. Along with two other boys Riccio and Mosca, they settle in to live. Their leader is an older boy named Scipio, who calls himself the Thief Lord but he doesn’t live with them, instead he mysteriously comes and goes. He robs elegant houses, brings the loot to the orphans and lets them sell the items to a local unethical shopkeeper, Barbarosa.
Soon, however, Barbarosa makes an offer to Scipio. One of his clients wants a very personal theft committed and anyone who calls himself the Thief Lord should be perfect for the task. Prosper is suspicious of the offer but nevertheless Scipio decides to accept the “commission”. However, the results of the theft are beyond any of their imaginations.
The Thief Lord really is one of the most charming older children’s stories I’ve ever read. Scipio’s dark secret isn’t too surprising but the consequences of the theft and the general story are mindblowing. The Thief Lord is a typical ‘good children versus wicked adults’ tale but there is a magical twist at the end that leaves the reader feeling that justice has been served.
The Thief Lord is a modern day fairy tale that will warm “the cockles of your heart” and throughout the novel the author beautifully describes the charms of Venice which she described in an interview as one of her favourite places, and many people have in fact written to her to say that they have visited the Italian city after reading The Thief Lord.
But Funke doesn’t allow this descriptive element to get in the way of character development. The reader comes to know and care greatly for the young protagonists, the bunch of colourful runaways, and the sympathetic detective Victor.
In my opinion it is on par with Harry Potter. – Becs
The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
This is the last in the Three Musketeers Saga, which includes ‘The Three Musketeers’ ‘Twenty Years After’ and ‘The Viscount de Bragelonne’ however because Viscount is so large it’s usually split into separate volumes: Vocomt de Bragelonne, Louise De La Valiere and ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’.
Not knowing any of this, I proceeded to read the last book in the series first. Although I always recommend you read series in order I found it fairly easy to get by. So the book follows Aramis’ (on of the 3) plan to replace the reigning King Louis, with his imprisoned twin Phillipe. Louis and Phillipe’s father didn’t want there to be any dispute over the throne when they grew up so he had Pillipe taken away and raised elsewhere, never knowing he was a prince. However Phillipe begins to uncover things (he still doesn’t discover who he was though) and he is put in prison and forced to wear a mask so that no one go ‘wow, he looks jolly like the king don’t he’. Reading it, I thought it didn’t really seem to have a point, like you expect Louis to be evil and that’s why he’s being replaced, but he’s just a bit mean at times. I did still enjoy it, the action sequences are flawless and there is some good humour in it, largely through Porthos, the party animal of the musketeers. One of my favourite parts of the book was when he told Aramis that he was fattening up his maservant to be the same size as him because he hated going to the tailors. But the humour is very much outweighted by some pretty harrowing moments with the musketeers, because this is kind of their last hurrah so it can get pretty emotional at times, something I think could be even more so if you had read the books in order. But anyway I found it difficult to find a point to the book, like you expect the treasonous plot to play a bigger part than it does. But again, knowing it’s part of a much bigger series it makes more sense. It’s part of the musketeer chronicles rather than a stand alone book.
It’s also based on a true story which I had no idea about, there was in fact a French prisoner who wore an iron, or sometimes velvet mask when he was travelling. So as you can imagine there are a lot of theories as to who he was. As well as speculation that it was the king’s brother, it’s also been suggested it was Louis XIV real father, as in not Louis XIII, if you know what I mean. Also speculations it was General Vivienne de Bulonde and the illegitimate son of Charles II of England.
So I really enjoyed this, it’s got a good mix of emotion and action with some humour thrown in. I do think it would be beneficial to read them in order, or even one of the previous ones before jumping right in with the last instalment. But if you can’t be bothered you can get a lot of entertainment with a minimum of confusion.-Julie
‘The Dream Master’ by Teresa Breslin
Theresa Breslin has been writing books since 1988 and in that time she has become one of the most prolific children’s fiction authors around. Her work is easily distinguishable by the way she makes the child the centre of the story in a believable way. Her outlook is childlike and this makes her stories very engaging especially for younger readers. Her books seem to comprise all the essential ingredients for successful child fiction. The heroes are often children that are slightly marginalized in their own lives whether it is through bullying at school, dysfunctional family or more general teenage worries. There is also a familiarity about the settings, average households and average schools in average towns but inevitably these ‘ordinary’ children find a way to have extraordinary magical adventures.
In ‘The Dream Master’ we are told the story of Cy an ordinary boy living in an ordinary town. When Cy sleeps like millions of other little boys, he dreams of exciting adventures in faraway places. One day he wakes from a dream about ancient Egypt with the feeling that he has not finished the dream off properly. In his dream a small Egyptian boy named Aten is about to be executed and Cy feels it is up to him to save him. But you can’t control a dream…or can you. With the help of a very odd companion, the ‘Dream Master’ a rude and mischievous dwarf with magical powers that appears from nowhere, Cy manages to re-enter the dream and try once again to rescue his newfound friend Aten. From this point on Cy ‘s life becomes anything but ordinary as his dream world and his reality become intertwined. In a classical time-slip type plot Cy begins an adventure in ancient Egypt while Aten tries to come to terms with the modern world leading to an exciting conclusion with a clever final twist.
Theresa Breslin writes in a very clear, funny and engaging style that is perfect for older children as well as younger to access the fantastic story she creates.
She makes her characters believable both in the way they speak and act. The story is well structured but not too complicated. In her description of the ancient Egyptian world we get the feeling that she has done her research thoroughly something which many children’s authors neglect in the misguided belief that children will not know the difference. Of course when it comes to ancient Egypt as with other subjects like Dinosaurs or medieval times kids are often far more knowledgeable than their parents!
The story is arranged in short chapters each ending on dramatic moments guaranteed to keep you wanting more. The language is pretty simple and the text is rather large but come on, it is mainly a children’s book.
I bought the hardback copy from a book sale when I was 11 for 50 pence although it originally cost £10.99. I was pretty much attracted by the front cover as the illustrations really must be applauded. There are no pictures inside as part of the story but each chapter heading comes with small black/white illustrations to give you a flavour of what is to come. I know the saying goes you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but in this case your initial judgement would not be a wrong one.
This is an excellent children’s book and deservedly won the Carnegie Gold Medal for children’ literature. I would say that the story is suitable for all ages although the reading age required is probably 8+
Two sequels to this have also been published ‘DreamMaster Nightmare’ and ‘DreamMaster Gladiator’. The time slip theme continues one set in Viking Britain and the other in the Roman Empire. Although the same characters appear, each book can be read in its own right. – Becs
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood
Following a coup that leaves the government of the United States dead, a fundamentalist Christian regime establishes the state of Gilead in New England. Immediately all women’s rights (to vote, to own property, to make any decision) are revoked.
The constant civil war that followed the coup (and continues in the background of the novel) has left swathes of the USA blighted and the majority of women infertile. Inspired by the biblical tale of Rachel and Bilhah, Gilead decrees that all fertile women are forced to act as Handmaids, essentially surrogate mothers who will bear the children of infertile couples.
The novel takes the form of a memoir by one of these Handmaids, an unnamed woman who is only ever identified as Offred. Because she was her husband’s second wife, her marriage was declared void and her young daughter taken away from her. Never learning the fate of her husband, she is inducted into a training camp for Handmaids where she is indoctrinated by cattle prod-wielding Aunts. ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is composed of her memories of the camp, the time before the coup and her stay in the house of the commander. These memories combine to build an extraordinary portrait of an ordinary woman in extraordinary circumstances. The portrait of Offred is complex, contradictory and totally beguiling. Rather than the bitterness and rage we could plausibly expect, instead there is almost a sense of boredom:
“We were on some kind of pill or drug I think, they put it in the food, to keep us calm. But maybe not. Maybe it was the place itself. After the first shock, after you’d come to terms, it was better to be lethargic.”
Throughout the novel Atwood repeatedly superimposes two crucial themes — paranoia and betrayal. In a newly formed theocracy where women can lose all rights to jobs, property, family, name, and self in one swift coup, it is not surprising that Offred wonders whom to trust and how much. After she loses both her job and her personal bank account, the mutually satisfying husband-wife relationship with her husband Luke that produced a little girl instantly withers. In a matter of days, Offred’s forced submission to rigid patriarchy allows Luke to control her money and requires that she depend on him for fulfillment, support, and protection. Eventually her private thoughts turn even her husband into a pseudo-enemy — just another male stealing her rights.
The Handmaid’s Tale can be read as a cautionary tale, not in the sense that Atwood believes a similar turn of events could come to pass but rather as a reminder not to forget woman’s rights are a fairly recent development. In Offred’s memories of before Gilead, she is dismissive of her radical feminist mother, believing her to have become irrelevant and this fairly brutal irony is the heart of the novel. – Becs
‘Shades of Grey’ by Jasper Fforde
‘Shades of Grey’ is set in a post-catastrophe world that is rule-bound, respectable and very 1950s-English where the characters all refer to the catastrophe, nicely, as “the Something that Happened”. The high-concept part is that colour works differently in this world. Different people can see different colours, and these perceptual variations have resulted in rigid social hierarchies: Purples are the highest in the spectrum and have the most power in society; blues are second, then greens, yellows, oranges, reds and finally the despised “greys” who are treated like slaves. For reasons not made clear in the book, natural colours are waning from the world, and artificial colour is mined from pre-catastrophe residue and synthesised to add colour to towns and gardens. Colour is not only a valuable commodity; it’s also a medicine and an intoxicant. For example, staring intently at certain shades of green – “chasing the frog”, as it is called – is the equivalent of taking drugs and, as with drugs, overdosing can have deadly side-effects.
It is an ingenious if implausible concept, which is not a criticism because I love implausible fiction and a kind of pleasant implausibility has always been at the heart of most of Jasper Fforde’s work. His Thursday Next books, which I am yet to read and can’t wait to start, won over many readers precisely by their off-kilter, Monty Pythonesque charm and ‘Shades of Grey’, while not laugh-out-loud funny, is very agreeably and pleasantly eccentric, cleanly written and brilliantly characterised. The colour spectrum also enables some mild satire about class relations, but the book is more interested in the peculiar nooks and crannies of its own quirky world-building: a world where spoons are fantastically prized, swans and carnivorous trees prey on people and where night is the ultimate terror.
I would say that you need to fall at least a little in love with this new world to enjoy the novel and the first few chapters are rather filled with narrative and description, desperately needed to establish this insane world and allow the reader to understand what the heck in going on and you will be extremely grateful for it as the novel unfolds. The young protagonist of the story is Edward Russet, who putters around his world trying to obey the rules whilst always coping with a gnawing knowledge that this world is wrong, and the reader slowly builds up a picture of how things work. The second half is a lot more gripping and a climactic expedition to collect colour from a deserted town becomes page-turningly exciting. For me, the ending was completely unexpected, but then again I am rather slow at guessing plots so you may clock what is happening half way through but I certainly didn’t. There are also two sequels to come, so you won’t be too devastated when the novel ends as there is more to come!
I finished it with a spinning head after going over the plot again in my head as there is rather a lot to grasp and if you don’t fully understand what is going on, don’t worry, just go with it and hopefully by the end things will be clearer. Fans of Japser Fforde, of whom there are many, will certainly find shades of greatness in ‘Shades of Grey’ if not shades of gold which is why I am doing it for my dissertation! – Becs
‘The More You Ignore Me’ by Jo Brand
Overall it is a funny, unstructured and dark novel about a girl named Alice, growing up in the country. Or perhaps it’s about Gina, Alice’s psychotic mother. Or maybe it’s about Alice’s father Keith and his secret lukewarm passion for the local GP. Or perhaps it’s about Alice’s friend Mark, whose father wants him to be a macho man. Overall, it wobbles a bit – you’re never quite sure who’s at the centre.
The book is set in the middle of hillbilly Herefordshire, where the only hurricanes that happen come from Gina’s family, especially her scary older brothers, Wobbly and Bighead, who are poachers, wild men and the terror of the village. Then, at the other end of the social scale, the thuggish leader of the huntin’, shootin’ set is disgusted that his sensitive son Mark is hanging out with young Alice.
There are loads of high points in the novel but one of my favourites is when Alice and her hippyish, very English dad try to get Alice’s mother, Gina who is clutching a guinea pig in the nude, down from the roof. A social worker driving through the countryside then sees the grinning Gina bouncing along the road on a Space Hopper on her way to find Morrissey, whom she has become obsessed with him after Alice played her some Smiths music.
As a whole, the book tells the story of how Alice coped with the loneliness and worry of growing up with an ill mother. Most importantly, as I’m sure the teenage Alice would see it, we are shown the birth and life of her obsession with Morrissey of The Smiths. In his music she finds escapism and comfort and in him she finds a figure to adore. Her friends can’t understand her fixation and her mother understands fixation a little too well. Morrissey sings with such sensitivity and angst that surely, Alice thinks, if she could just meet him and tell him her story he could help her and she could help him.
There is much to like in this book. The characters are funny and believable. There are many moments when you feel for a character as if they were more than words on a page and that is a great achievement. It seems all the sadder when you remember that Jo Brand is drawing on her experiences in a real psychiatric hospital in which she once worked as although the characters may be fictional, the inspiration is not. Sadness, however, is not the defining emotion of this book. There is an abundance of sweetness and happiness and wit. Don’t read it if you simply want to be rolling around in stitches. Do read it if you want a novel with a serious heart, balanced by a humorous tone which is maintained throughout.
If you’re a fan of Joe Brand, you’ll probably love it and it’s very easy to read. It’s not based on Jo Brand’s life but her mother was a social worker, and Jo herself worked as a psychiatric nurse, so the psychotic behaviour is brutally realistic. – Becs
‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the title of the first of five books in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams.
The namesake of the novel is ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, a fictional guide book for hitchhikers which was inspired by the Hitch-hiker’s Guide to Europe written in the form of an encyclopaedia.
This great adventure begins when the Vogons– the galaxy’s most tiresome bureaucrats – come to demolish the Earth to make way for an interstellar bypass. Saved from the destruction is one completely average Earthman named Arthur Dent and his friend, Ford Prefect, who turns out to be a roving reporter for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Soon, Ford and Arthur team up with another surviving human named Trillian and her boyfriend, the two-headed, ne’er-do-well president of the galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox. Together they make off with a starship powered by the forces of improbability, a paranoid android named Marvin, and the first clues that will lead them to unravel the answer (but not the question) of Life, the Universe, and Everything. On the way, they stop at a trendy point in space-time known as The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and, while investigating the sudden reappearance of the Earth, receive the profound message So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. Finally, the series wraps up with a new edition of the Guide, in which Earth is listed as Mostly Harmless.
If I told you much more I would spoil some of the best jokes you’ll ever read. But just for a teaser, you’ll learn God’s final message to his creation; you’ll discover the name of the awesome being who designed the fjords of Norway; you’ll unravel the cosmic significance of cricket, the all-important uses of a towel and the true location of the Domain of the King. You will be thrilled with the discovery of a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue, the fact that mankind is only the third-most-intelligent species on Earth, and a system of mathematics that exists only in Italian restaurants. You will also learn the advantages of having a universe tailor-made to suit you, and the disadvantages of having a sense of perspective. You will hear some of the worst poetry ever written and finally you can note down the recipe for a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.
Also, you may be interested to know that the secret to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss. In other words, some of the most magical things can happen to completely mundane people, and the greatest adventures can be had by complete losers like you and me. Isn’t that nice to know?
The deliberately misnamed ‘Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy Trilogy’ consists of five books: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979), The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, the Universe and Everything (1982), So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984) and Mostly Harmless (1992). On 16 September 2008 it was also announced that Irish author Eoin Colfer is to pen a sixth book. The book, entitled ‘And another Thing…’ was published in October 2009, the 30th anniversary of the publication of the original novel. – Becs
‘Slaughterhouse 5′ by Kurt Vonnegut
This is a war/black comedy/sci-fi novel, and manages to take the best features from all of these genres. Billy Pilgrim is an optician, previous prisoner of war, alien abductee and for a time one of the planet Tralfamador’s best exhibits in the zoo. Billy is being described as being ‘unstuck in time’. There are a number of incidents in the novel with Billy being ‘unstuck’, he is simultaneously in several places and several points in his life. On his wedding night he’s also on Tralfamador, he’s also back in Dresden POW camp in WW2.
The Tralfamadorians are an interesting people. They, like Billy, don’t live life in a line. They live it all at once. Time is not a line, but a singularity. They know how the universe will end but won’t do anything about it because for them, it’s already happened. They like to dwell on the happy moments of their life, like the pleasant time seeing Billy in the zoo. They also don’t view humans as having two legs, but see them as a sort of millipede, with baby legs at one end and old man legs at t’other. These people also have five sexes, but they can’t be identified by humans because ‘they were only sexually active in the fourth dimension’. Billy’s interactions with the Tralfamadorians are so insightful. They’re very philosophical, with ideas of looking at history as a whole, and the issue of free will (apparently humans are the only race with this concept). But then you also have these incredibly harrowing images of war and it’s effect on people’s humanity and it’s ability to completely break people and the horrors in it that you don’t even think about. It’s a book that forces you into caring because you want desperately to tell these aliens that we do to have free will and we can so change things! In my opinion anyway…
Billy’s war experiences are based on Vonnegut’s own in World War Two, a lot of it directly taken from his experience as a prisoner of war, right down to the imprisonment in a meat locker name of Schlachthof Fünf or ‘Slaughterhouse Five’.
This novel also contains Vonnegut’s recurring character Kilgore Trout, who appeared in Slaugherhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, God Bless You, Mr Rosewater, Jailbird and Timequake. Trout is a sci-fi writer, who Billy first discovers after his experiences as a prisoner of war. He then meets Eliot Rosewater in hospital and Rosewater is Trout’s most avid, and perhaps only fan. Billy reads Trout’s entire collected works. The author informs us that one of the alien races created by Trout are remarkably similar to the Tralfamadorians. I love the way that Vonnegut always blurs the line between gritty realism and completely ridiculous. – Julie
‘Sense and Sensibility’ by Jane Austen
The book was originally entitled ‘Elinor and Marianne’ and although it was changed, the book is still about the same two sisters. Elinor is the eldest of the three Dashwood girls and believes in restraining her emotions with good sense. Marianne, like their widowed mother, wears her heart on her sleeve and would regard a lack of “sensibility” (meaning outward demonstrations of emotion) as a betrayal of her true feelings. Throughout the book both sisters are tested in love and the hope of marriage and each learns the limits and drawbacks of her philosophy.
The girls’ father wished, on his deathbed, that they be well taken care of. Nevertheless their hypocritical half-brother and his greedy wife have done as little as they can for Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters. Supported by a meager income, the ladies move to a cottage in Devonshire, owned by a distant cousin who occupies the nearby manor house. There, in a series of visits, dinner parties and country walks, they get mixed up in a romantic comedy that strains Elinor’s composure and runs Marianne through the emotional mangle.
Edward Ferrars the adorable and adoring gentleman (portrayed perfectly by Hugh Grant in the adaptation) is in love with Elinor, but he can’t marry her because:
(a) his snobby mother wouldn’t approve the match.
(b) he is already promised to an even less suitable girl named Lucy.
The despicable Lucy puts Elinor in the painful position of having to give comfort to the person who is breaking her heart. But she won’t let on since, as always, she doesn’t want to make anyone else feel worse, especially since Marianne shows every sign of dying from a broken heart thanks to a handsome scoundrel named Willoughby.
Also, amongst all these men, we can’t possibly forget Colonel Brandon, who in spite of his advanced age of thirty-six, seems to have romantic intentions toward Marianne.
So, half way through the novel there are already numerous problems facing each character:
The humble and sweet Edward Ferrars must risk being cut off entirely from his family fortune and adopt the life of an impoverished clergyman, in order to love Elinor.
Colonel Brandon, the well-to-do man with a sad secret in his past, wants nothing better than to make Marianne his wife.
Mrs. Ferrars is only interested in marriage in terms of family pride and glory.
But one thing you can count on is that what becomes of Elinor and Marianne remains in suspense until near the end of the novel and it will challenge their views on whether feelings should be suppressed with sense or expressed with sensibility.
As a main character, Elinor Dashwood doesn’t have quite the same sparkle as Elizabeth Bennet. But overall it was still a very enjoyable novel, filled with amazing characters, perfect observations of the attraction and repulsion of social classes (mainly orbiting round the supper table and the drawing room), and finally the complex laws that govern the late-18th-century world of feminine emotions, manners, morals, money, rank and personal honour. It also has loads of subtle humour, for example:
“(Mrs Ferrars’) family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resuscitation of Edward, she had one again.”
There is a longer section on this in the book and I laughed my head off. Overall Austen’s books view reality entirely from the point of view of young women. In Austen’s time, social convention prevented women from discussing social and political issues. So the focus is entirely on the human dynamics of men and women relating to each other. Plus, Austen herself knew so little about what men discussed among themselves that there isn’t a single scene, in all of her works, in which a female character is not present [Fact] haha. – Becs
‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley
This book is about one of literature’s first mad scientists. Doctor Victor Frankenstein, obsessed with the idea of creating life he creates, you guessed it, Frankenstein’s monster. Remember the monster has no name. After the creature is brought to life, Frankenstein immediately views it with revulsion. (Perhaps he should have thought of that before he made an eight foot man made of dead bodies). The monster is abandoned he finds a family living in a remote cottage. The monster learns to speak from observing the family and is devastated at being rejected when the blind man’s family sees the monster. The monster begins exacting revenge on his creator by murdering a bunch of people and eventually confronts Victor asking him to make him a wife. Victor, being a tad upset that most of his family is now dead, thus decides it I his life’s mission to destroy his creation. I won’t spoil the ending because the tension of the book is crucial in it’s enjoyment.
This novel was very revolutionary, it was among if not the first in the gothic genre and some of the earliest book with sci-fi elements. Shelley, who was only 18 then Mary Wallstoncraft was visiting Lord Byron with her lover Percy Shelley (future hubby). To amuse themselves during ‘The Year without Summer’ 1816 the party of writer’s decided to each write their own supernatural story. Mary Wallstoncraft came up with Frankenstein. This was also the night when John Polidori was inspired to create ‘The Vampyre’ having heard Byron’s effort.
The book is very interesting because of the ideologies behind it. Obviously most of the film versions of the novel do have the monster as a lumbering beast, ignoring the fact that the monster had serious abandonment issues and learned to talk, and was in some ways a very tragic figure (apart from all the killing of course). But what chance did he have, he was damn ugly, and his creator didn’t even give him a name. He had nothing to give him any identity man! Shelley’s novel was concerned with a number of things, like the dangers of the Industrial Revolution, a creator’s responsibility to his creator, and she incorporated many of her mother’s ideas who was a vocal feminist.- Julie
‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ by L. Frank Baum
As we all know, this became the 1939 film starring Judy Garland, I therefore won’t dwell on the plot too much because, well, you’re lying if you tell me you’ve never seen it before. There are, as always though a few choice differences between the book and the film. One being that the ruby slippers, perhaps the most iconic things in the film, are not present in the book. They are in fact silver shoes. The Good Witches of the North and South were also merged into one Glinda in the film. The main bones of the plot remain the same however; Dorothy from Kansas has her house carried to the magical land of Oz in a cyclone, she meets some magical folk, asks the wizard for a favour, kills the witch, discovers the wizard is a fake but then it all works out in the end.
The book however has a much more detailed picture of Oz, the munchkins of the North South East and West all have their own cultures and names, as well as a multitude of other people such as the hammer heads and the town made of China (my favourite of these fleeting characters is Mr. Joker, who is made of China and keeps breaking himself by standing on his head). Another feature I liked was the fact that throughout her travels Dorothy acquired a whole lot of magical accessories; silver shoes, whistle of the field mice, golden cap. You know, the usual. There is also less blatant favouritism of the scarecrow, Scarecrow rules the Emerald City, Tin Man the Land of the Winkies, Lion the giant forest.
This is a children’s book, but it’s still ok to read it if it’s considered a classic. Thank you loophole! Besides, it is a good story, and those who appreciate whimsy can certainly enjoy it. Baum wrote 14 Oz books in total, and other authors continued the history of Oz, not to mention Gregory Macguire’s ‘Wicked’ showing the story from the Wicked Witch’s point of view. Baum began the series telling the story to children and when he was asked what this magical place was called, he took the name from a filing cabinet labelled O-Z. Baum was passionate about writing, causing much grief to his wife when he woke up in the middle of the night and write on the wallpaper. He wanted the stories to be as engaging as possible for the children, he made sure that the book had amazing illustrations and it had colour illustrations, almost unheard of at the time and it paid off because it was a giant success, spawning a second print and a musical play (where he in fact made most of his money) – Julie
‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare
‘The Tempest’ is Shakespeare’s moving and beautiful last play and proves, yet again, that Shakespeare is our contemporary.
The overall message is a feel-good one: that love and forgiveness triumph over hatred, plotting and revenge. Shakespeare also explores the use of spirits and magic in a remote island setting, also attracting younger audiences.
The plot revolves around Prospero who is living on an island with his daughter, Miranda, served by a spirit, Ariel and a slave, Caliban. Once Prospero had been the Duke of Milan, but this was seized from him by his brother Antonio and he was forced into exile. Now Prospero invokes magic to lure his enemies to the island and into his power with the intent of righting the wrongs of the past.
In the plays opening, Prospero’s brother, Antonio is shipwrecked together with Alonso (King of Naples), his brother Sebastian and his son Ferdinand. Sebastian is ambitious and plans to kill Alonso so that he can become King of Naples. When Miranda and Ferdinand fall in love, however, the united future of Milan and Naples looks assured, and the futility of all the various plots, past and present, among the older generations becomes apparent. In parallel with this storyline, it emerges that Caliban has a prior claim to the island that Prospero has seized and is seeking revenge. His attempts towards this provide humour and he is in due course pardoned by Prospero who by the end of the play is intent on relinquishing his powers and retiring. Many believe that Prospero was Shakespeare.
Within the play there is entertainment in the form of the singing and dancing of nymphs to celebrate the love match. I found this section quite tedious to read, but in a performance I’m sure it gives the producer a lot of scope for imaginative and stunning visual effects.
Towards the end of the play, once love and freedom have triumphed, the reader or audience are left to ponder just how much of what we have read or seen was in any sense “real” and to reflect with Prospero (and with Shakespeare) on the outlook of diminished powers in retirement and old age, so you are never sure if it is a truly happy ending.
As with much of Shakespeare’s work, there are timeless themes within the play that still hold a relevance to today’s audiences and questions that remain unanswered over the centuries, for example:
To what extent should any individual wield power over another?
To what extent should one culture enforce itself upon another?
To what extent should youth respect the wisdom of age?
Shakespeare doesn’t offer solutions, only observations, however we get to see characters acting foolishly and others acting wisely, so we have the freedom to judge and act for ourselves and Prospero, at the very least, shows us how to accept our personal limitations with dignity. – Becs
‘Whispering to Witches’ by Anna Dale
‘Whispering to Witches’ is the funny, scary and exciting story about a lonely boy who rides a train into the middle of a magical adventure with good and bad witches. Although this sounds like a description of Harry Potter, you will be in for a surprise. Apart from some of the same standard of witch equipment, such as brooms, and a similar flair for creating character names the similarities between the stories go no further.
The story centres around Joe Bink who is alone on the train from London to Canterbury, not because he doesn’t have any family but because his father had to go to Scotland on short notice and so Joe must spend the Christmas holidays with his mother, stepfather and seven-year-old half-sister. The adventure begins before he even gets off the train thanks to a magical duel between several of the other passengers. He then rides on an enchanted tricycle which leads him straight to the Dead-nettle Coven.
Even though Joe himself has no magical talent, he is soon thrust into the role of the hero as an evil witch is trying to gain control of a terrible power that has for long been considered to be lost. At the same time, a mysterious burglar has been breaking into one coven after another, stealing the strangest things and only Joe and a young, trainee witch named Twiggy have a clue what’s going on. This puts them in great danger, first of all as it forces Joe to choose between saving his father, who has become lost in a blizzard and helping Twiggy, and in the end it seems the whole future of witchery lies in the hands of a bitter enemy.
If you are into magic I think you will find this book a refreshing alternative to Harry Potter. The magic has a similar quirkiness, yet in its details it is quite different. From a broomstick that needs therapy, a game called the Spillikins of Doom, a midnight market for magic folk, a National Museum of Witchcraft and a race of nearly invisible wind sprites, to some adorable and adoring cats, the book abounds in wonderful details, all linked together by friendship, adventure and mystery. I would recommend it for 12+. – Becs
‘Soon I Will Be Invincible’ by Austin Grossman
“This morning on planet Earth, there are 1,686 enhanced, gifted, or otherwise superpowered persons. 678 use their powers to fight crime, while 441 use their powers to commit them. 44 are currently confined in Special Containment Facilities for enhanced criminals. Of these last, it is interesting to note that an unusually high proportion have IQs of 300 or more — eighteen to be exact. Including me. You really have to wonder why we all end up in jail.”
This book is about superheroes and supervillains, the best kind of heroes and villains. When hero golden boy Corefire is missing, the Champions reform as Doctor Impossible (a sufferer of Malign Hypercognition Disorder aka evil genius syndrome) escapes custody after his twelfth attempt at world domination. Doctor Impossible splits the narration with cyborg Fatale, newest member of the Champions. Here’s a sample of Doctor Impossible’s thought process “When life gives you lemons squeeze them hard, make invisible ink, make an acid poison, fling it in their eyes”
In the same vein as Watchmen although substantially less hardcore, Soon I will be invincible creates a superhero world that manages to create (somewhat) believable world filled with superheroes with character depth. Grossman creates characters with personal relationships that run deeper than the characters know themselves. By far Doctor Impossible is the best character. He is funny, thoroughly insane and a lot of the time you see his point of view. Doctor Impossible pays homage to the great mad scientists like Lex Luthor, but is much more entertaining. Fatale is our gateway into the lives of the Champions, she is feeling a little bit of an inferiority complex being on a team of the greatest superheroes in the world, and her just being a rookie, brought in as a replacement for a deceased member of the team (although does a robot who activated self destruct to save the world count as deceased?) Fatale is closest to Lily, the other new recruit; a reformed supervillainess and Doctor Impossible’s ex-girlfriend…awkward much?
The novel draws inspiration from both DC and Marvel comics,but is not a parody. The three Champion founders; Corefire, Blackwolf and Damsel, are based on DC characters Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. And the Champions organisation istelf is based on Marvel’s The Avengers. There are also references to the concepts of the Golden Age, Silver Age and Iron Age. A reference to the ‘ages’ of comic books used to describe the different eras for example the Golden Age is identified as 1930′s to 1940′s. – Julie
‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ by Baroness Orczy
Set in the early days of the French Revolution the novel follows Percy Blakely a foppish English lord who through his mastery of disguise, smuggles French aristocrats out of France thus saving them from the guillotine. Percy leads the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel consisting of 20 men ‘one to lead, 19 to obey’. The Scarlet Pimpernel takes his name from a small red flower which he draws as his signature. The Scarlet Pimpernel paved the way for other disguised superheroes with misleading true identities such as Zorro and BATMAN. Percy even invents a rhyme to demonstrate how marvellously funny he finds the whole situation, similar to Bruce Wayne’s ‘Ha! That crazy Batman’ charade:
‘They seek him here, they seek him there
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere
Is he in Heaven, is he in Hell
That damned elusive Pimpernel’ (note the black and white film didn’t say hell)
Percy is married to Marguerite, a Frenchwoman. However they have become distanced since Percy found out that Marguerite was indirectly responsible for the deaths of some French dudes. Marguerite on the other hand is disillusioned with her husband’s foppish ways and fantasises about the Scarlet Pimpernel. Not knowing they are in fact ONE IN THE SAME! Marguerite is blackmailed into helping Citizen Chauvelin catch the Pimpernel, as he threatens her brother Armand. Chauvelin discovers the Pimpernel’s true identity and sets a trap, meanwhile Percy sets out on a daring quest to save Marguerite’s brother.
The novel is filled with amazing characters, it’s action packed and well written. However, my love of Batman has probably tinted my view of the book. Evidently I have a taste for seemingly selfish playboys who are secretly superheroes… – Julie
‘Hunting Unicorns’ by Bella Pollen
Admittedly, trying to describe this book it may not sound like one a lot of people are interested in ‘a book about the fall of the British aristocracy’. The book shows us a family with more skeletons in their closet, a pair of alcoholic parents, a crumbling estate, and a grandpa with a dodgy story regarding the war. Yet Hunting Unicorns, for me, primarily shows that preconseptions about the upper class can be wrong. The book isn’t a horribly biased love story about ‘the good old days’ and it doesn’t demonise the lords and ladies either.
The book is narrated by Daniel (or Viscount Bevan, if you prefer) and Maggie (an extreme left wing journalist assigned to do a fluff piece about the Lords nd Ladies of Britain). Daniel is brother to Rory, and son to Audrey and Alistair. He is also unfortunately dead. Daniel dies in the first chapter and then narrates while watching over his family. Maggie is an American and desperate to use this assignment to expose the British aristocracy.Her initial views are what most of the readers would think, there’s no point in the aristocracy and they are cold and pompous. However as the book progresses Maggie and the reader begin to see the charm of the people of the upper clases (especially Rory… if you know what I mean:)) the sense of loyalty to family. The book is very funny, the humour primarily coming from the interactions between Britain’s old families. Maggie once asks one of the Lords about his sex life, he at first refuses to talk about it, but concedes ‘I’m really rather fond of sex’ to which his wife replies ‘I wish you’d told me dear, so am I.’ Or when Maggie sees one of the little girls in one of the estates crying, Maggie sees a girl who has just lost her pet rabbit, her only friend, her one escape from this cold and loveless worldof the upper classes. When in realitythe Butler informs the room that young Artemis is upset that ‘Miss Posh’ and ‘Master Beckham’ may soon be parting ways. Young Artemis’ mother wants to let her know ‘I’m sure, um…Oasis will be a a stronger band because of it’ an incident that ‘apart from the Butler) could have really happened in any house.
I must stress however that Hunting Unicorns did not spend a book telling funny stories about the upper class. There are some incredibly emotional parts and some wonderful characters. When Maggie finds a photo of Granndpa standing with Hitler, she knows she has discovered something big. Exposing Nazi sympathisers to the world. Hard to believe seeing the sweet and eccentric Grandpa we have seen thus far. We find out the truth, that Grandpa met with Hitler once in 1938, the abdicated Prince Edward trying to cut a deal with hitler to get his throne back and so sent his favourite cousin. But the minute the war started Grandpa signed up, he knew he made a mistake and he fought for his country. He got medals not for his rank but for his bravery and the family kept it hushed up not because of their position but to protect him from the hatred that would innevitably follow.
Even if you read this novel and have your opinions completely unchanged I still believe it is a good read. Try and just enjoy the story, enjoy the characters, enjoy the humour, enjoy the romance! But definitely enjoy it. – Julie
‘Lion Boy’ Zizou Corder
It’s hard to know how to characterize Lion Boy. Is it Science Fiction since it’s set in the not too distant future? Or is it fantasy since the young hero can speak to cats? I went with Science Fiction, since the authors sometimes attempt to explain the many wonders in the novel with science.
Lion Boy is written by a mother and daughter using a name based on their pet lizard; Zizou. It is the story of Charlie Ashanti, a boy who can talk the language of cats. Charlie, whose mum is English and dad is African, moved to England when he was a baby. Not long after this, an incident occurred where a leopard scratched him and blood was exchanged, which gave him his special power. Charlie attends a private school but is well acquainted with a boy names Rafi Sadler, a trouble maker only a few years older than him. When Charlie comes home from school to find his parents, who are both scientists, missing, the only clues are what the local cats tell him and a strange note left by his mother. He is taken into the care of Rafi Sadler but after one night in his flat, Charlie decides to run away in search of his parents.
Charlie goes in search of his parents whom, he is told by the cats, are being taken to France. Along the way he falls into the hands of a floating circus, which happens to be heading to Paris and his skill with the lions (who are part of the cat family) is marvelled at. Unfortunately, the lions hate their life aboard the circus ship under the hand of their sinister lion trainer and Charlie adds the quest of helping his new friends to his already difficult journey.
Overall it is an absorbing tale and you really can’t help but to like Charlie and feel for him as a small kid out in a big world, desperate to save his parents. It is a good adventure tale with its own unique flavour and I would recommend it to 10-14 year olds. It could also make a good bedtime read-aloud and it even includes the music for the songs that come up.
The idea and the story overall is very good but the target audience is extremely apparent. For example, there are numerous meaningless swear word substitutes, ie. Bliddy, plackett, sniking and crike. Although I can understand not wanting to include profanity, there are enough real words in the English language that could have been used without resorting to nonsense. The adventure, although a great idea, is somewhat far fetched. As Charlie’s adventure proceeds, I found it increasingly hard to believe that a boy from a fairly sheltered, middle-class background could do the things he does. I’m not talking about his talking to cats, which is part of the brilliant idea, but the street smarts required to escape captivity, make his way across a city, lie to the police and join the crew of a circus ship. We are also not made aware that anyone realises that Charlie is missing, for example friends, relatives, his tutor of even the authorities. Similarly, Charlie’s kidnapped parents are both supposed to be top research scientist, on the verge of a major breakthrough, so it seems very strange indeed that nobody is shown to be concerned by their disappearance.
However there are numerous good points in Lion Boy’s favour. The best are the cats that are more interesting and plausible than the human cast and often get better dialogue. The cats’ stealthy association with Charlie gives a glimmer of something more worthwhile to come as the trilogy progresses. The same is true of the murky conspiracy which resulted in Charlie’s parents being kidnapped. So it could yet form the basis of a good story in the next two books.-Becs
‘Jake’s Tower’ by Elizabeth Laird
Elizabeth Laird was born in New Zealand in 1943. Her father was a ship’s surgeon and both he and her mother were Scottish. In 1945, she and her family returned to Britain and she grew up in South London.
When she was eighteen, Laird started teaching at a school in Malaysia. She decided to continue her adventurous life, even though she was bitten by a poisonous snake and went down with typhoid.
After attending the university in Bristol, she began teaching English in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and she and her friend would hire mules and go into remote areas in the holidays. Laird also worked in India for a summer and has visited Iraq and Lebanon. She claims to dislike snakes, porridge and being cold but enjoys very dark chocolate, Mozart, reading and playing the violin in the Iraq Symphony Orchestra.
She explains on her website that “Jake’s Tower came to me right out of the blue. I felt as if Jake himself had tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to tell his story. It was as if I was watching a film and was allowed to see it only bit by bit. Every morning I would write down the story that had bubbled up inside me and then have to stop and wait, until the next part came. I don’t know where Jake came from. When I’d finished the book, he seemed to turn and wave goodbye, then walk away from me into the mist.”
Jake’s Tower is a Young-adult fiction novel about a young boy named Jake whose every day life can be a struggle due to his mother’s horrible and violent boyfriend, Steve. To escape the struggles, Jake dreams of having his own tall tower where he can be peaceful and safe. In his pretend tower he daydreams of his dad, who gave him a hug and a fluffy duck when he was born. Although almost certain that he will never see him again, Jake hopes that he might somehow get to meet him one day. One day when the struggle of his life gets too much for both himself and his mum, they run away to Jake’s grandmothers house (his dad’s mum). She has never believed that Jake is her son’s son until she meets him now and, seeing the resemblance, she helps protecting him from the danger that he is involved in. It’s a very short novel so I apologise for the short review but I can’t give too much away. You just have to believe me that this is a brilliantly written and touching book with a surprising twist and will lift your spirits. It was also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Children’s Book Award. – Becs
‘How to Be Lovely’ by Meissa Hellstern
‘How to Be Lovely’ takes its name from one of the songs from Audrey Hepburn’s film with Fred Astaire ‘Funny Face’. This is not a book on beuty tips, not novel, and it’s not a biography, but it does give you all you will ever need to know about Audrey Hepburn, my personal hero. This book gives you quotes from Hepburn, her children, her co-stars, her mother and a whole mess of other people as well as summaries of what was important to her. The book is split into seven chapters of the most important things when considering the life of Audrey Hepburn: Happiness, Success, Health, Love, Family, Friendship, Fiulfillment,Style, Fame, Humanity.
The thing that I like about this book is that it doesn’t give you ust the facts of her life but rather the essence of her being. And it doesn’t portray her as the perfect human being (although they very easily could have) they show you the amazing parts of this person: her talent, love and selfishness for her family, but we also see a woman who didn’t think she was anything special, she smoked when she was stressed and was just a bit bewildered about how she got all this fame. – Julie
‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ by Sophie Kinsella
I honestly never thought I would review another seriously sounding chick-lit book, fortunately I discovered ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ by Sophie Kinsella which, apart from being centred around clothing, does provide some very good financial advice.
The main character, Rebecca Bloomwood, is a recent college graduate and a financial writer for Successful Savings. You would therefore think that she would be a financial expert. However, it turns out that this is initially not the case and her love of shopping for clothes and the finer things in life seems to overpower everything else…including her common sense.
Becky is filled with a great deal of excitement when she shops. Purchasing a Prada bag leaves her exhilarated and when she is feeling down, shopping lifts her spirits. The problem is that her income doesn’t quite cover her bills. In fact, it falls very short and this, naturally, is causing her some bother. But how does this great financial expert handle her own money problems? She ignores them; she pretends they don’t exist; she doesn’t even read the bank statements, instead, she throws them away unopened believing that if she doesn’t receive the bill then she cannot be held accountable.
Becky makes excuse after excuse for her need to purchase items and her inability to pay her bills. The few times that she does actually communicate with the bank are when she creates ludicrous lies as excuses. For example, she tells them that she is suffering from glandular fever on top of two broken legs or that she has found God. She even attempts to bribe them with dinner invitations. No matter what the excuse, it is always quite hilarious (although perhaps not to the bank).
Becky is so desperate at one point that she decides the lottery is the only answer to all her problems:
“I wouldn’t aim to win the jackpot of course – that’s completely unlikely. But one of those minor prizes. There seem to be heaps of those going around. Say £100,000. That would do. I could pay off all my debts, buy a car, buy a flat … Actually better make it £200,000. Or a quarter of a million. Or, even better, one of those shared Jackpots. ‘The five winners will each receive £1.3Million.’… One point three million should see me straight?”
When the lottery doesn’t pan out (what were the odds?), she takes her Dad’s suggestion; frugality. She buys a book entitled ‘Controlling Your Cash’, which seems like the answer to her prayers. She begins by cutting out expensive lunches (meaning an hour of shopping, followed by a quick overpriced cappuccino and biscotti). Instead she packs a cheese sandwich and a bottle of juice, devours them in five minutes and, desperate to fill the remaining 55 minutes of her break, a ‘brilliant idea’ occurs to her; she needs a cookbook in order to do some home cooking, doesn’t she? So off to the shops she goes…again.
As the story unfolds, the ability to shop lessens as her dept grows and Becky is left with a black void. Her situation is dismal and she feels desperate. In fact, she feels so bad that she decides to go to the shops and purchase something for herself! She starts out selecting a t-shirt, then a gown, then a robe and by the time she is at the check-out counter she has accumulated a large pile of clothing. However, this time when the clerk runs her card, she doesn’t feel that sense of exhilaration, excitement and accomplishment as she normally does, because this time, her card doesn’t work. None of her them do, in fact all her accounts have been frozen.
With every failed attempt to save, make money or marry the 15th most eligible bachelor in London, she consoles herself with another expensive but oh-so-fabulous trinket – perpetuating her habit and her troubles. At each turn, Becky sinks deeper and deeper into debt and dishonesty. However, just when she has sunk as low as she can, Sophie Kinsella resurrects and redeems her… I don’t want to spoil the ending for you but I’ll just say that there’s a multimillionaire involved who could give Prince Charming a run for his money. – Becs
‘Wolf Brother’ by Michelle Paver
In Wolf Brother, the first of a series of six books by Michelle Paver, the reader is transported back 6,000 years into a truly ancient Europe where tribal identity is the principal meaning of life and the magic of creation itself is still near to the surface of reality.
Although this book is correctly considered to be “fantasy,” the book gives an extremely well-researched look into the little that is known of the millennia-old cultures of the region. It creates a brilliant image of a magical world where all living things have a spirit and can communicate with one another. The different tribes are also fascinating with their numerous customs and hierarchies. Each tribe also wears the fur, skin or feathers of their tribal creature.
Sent on a mystical mission by his dying father, our hero, twelve-year-old Torak, is alone for the first time in his life. After losing his father to the ravages of an unnaturally large bear, Torak finds himself on a desperate mission to save his prehistoric world from soul-eating demons. He has spent his life on the run, isolated from his clan for reasons that unfold with the plot. But his tribal identity soon makes itself apparent through his uncanny ability to communicate with an orphaned wolf cub.
Torak is possibly the only surviving member of the Wolf clan and his journey takes him through territories whose dangers, both human and supernatural, are unknown to him.
Inevitably Torak is often compared with Harry Potter, like Harry, Torak is special: he has a destiny and an enemy he must defeat at all costs after a pursuit spanning a number of books. Although you can’t exactly imagine the two boys teaming up; for a start Torak would smell pretty awful. Michelle Paver is also unafraid to luxuriate the ‘yuck’ factor, for example the characters feast on elk hoof soup, dried deer heart and boar guts.
Torak, the wolf cub named Wolf and Renn, the girl who helps them on their journey, each tell their version of events in different chapters. Personally I love the chapters from Wolf’s perspective as he doesn’t know the correct names for things and so uses description, for example he describes ‘fire’ as ‘the-bright-beast-that-bites-hot’. He also refers to Torak as ‘pack-brother’ and humans as ‘taillesses’.
I really enjoyed the book and its sequels and in the words of BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE ‘it is a gripping tale that rings true to our understanding of that distant time.’ – Becs
‘The Merchant of Venice‘ by William Shakespeare
This play was written between 1596 and 1598. The plot centers around three plots, Antonio (the merchant of the title) and Shylock the romance of Jessica and Lorenzo, and the romance of Portia and Bassanio. The main plot is supposed to be that of Portia and Bassanio, but four hundred years later Shylock is recognised on spellcheck and Bassanio is not.
Shylock is a Jew, and therefore hated by most of Venetian society. Antonio (a man who spits on Shylock on the street) asks Shylock for a loan so that Bassanio may pursue his love Portia. Shylock rightfully asks ‘why should I?’ (except more Shakespearean) and Antonio says if he lends money to an enemy at least he can take revenge if he doesn’t pay up. Shylock and Antonio draw up a contract saying if Antonio does not pay up, Shylock will have his pound of flesh. Literally. An actual pound of Antonio’s flesh.
In the play Shylock is meant to be the villain, yet modern audiences will most likely sympathise with him a lot more than the original audience. The play is best remembered for the ‘hath not a Jew eyes’ speach:
“Hath Not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs…If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh If you poison us do we not die? If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
Stirring stuff. Obviously the play can be read as highly anti-semitic. But what I love about Shakespeare is that it’s so controversial and there are always a million theories about each play. A lot of people think that this play was actually very progressive. Yes, Shylock was the villain, but we see some humanity. In the end, Shylock is humiliated, his properties stripped and forced to convert to Christianity. For a Shakespearean audience it was very unuasual to see a Jew portrayed in a play, let alone in a main part, and the audience would definitely be surprised to see a Jewish character who was even a little bit more than a stereotype. – Julie
‘Buddha Da’ by Anne Donovan
‘Buddha Da’ is Anne Donovan’s first novel, although the Scots writer has already published a well-received short-story collection. It is a hard-edged, soft-centred domestic comedy novel with a message of tolerance and compromise and written in a Glaswegian dialect. The book takes a mostly light hearted look at what might happen when two vastly opposing worlds and ways of life come into contact with each other.
Following a chance meeting with a Buddhist monk in a Glasgow sandwich bar one lunchtime, painter and decorator Jimmy McKenna starts to develop an interest in Buddhism and begins to visit a meditation centre and go away for weekend retreats. His wife Liz works in an office and they have been happily married for years and have an 11-year-old daughter, Ann-Marie. When Jimmy, well-known for his passing enthusiasms, suddenly develops an interest in Buddhism, no one takes it seriously. Normally Jimmy is a man not indisposed to getting drunk at parties and making a fool of himself, he was also previously an atheist. Now, suddenly, he talks sincerely in the kitchen about karma and clarity. Liz is furious when he misses Ann-Marie’s appearance in the school play to go and see a visiting Tibetan lama, and even more so when he declines the annual New Year’s Eve family drinking session in favour of sitting on his own and meditating and her patience finally runs out.
Jimmy moves into the Buddhist centre, dosing down in the meditation room whilst Liz embarks on a lustful affair with a young philosophy student she meets at a party, and it’s left to Ann-Marie to provide the balance. Fortunately she is a generous enough spirit to establish the harmonising influence that finally leads to a kind of resolution between the two sides.
Meanwhile she is growing up and discovering new things for herself; moving away from her old crowd and making friends with a Sikh schoolmate. You can also tell from the very first lines that Anne Marie loves her Da:
“Ma Da’s a nutter. Radio rental. He’d dae anythin for a laugh so he wid; went doon the shops wi a perra knickers on his heid, tellt the wifie next door we’d won the lottery and were flittin to Barbados, that wis daft stuff compared tae whit he’s went and done noo. He’ turnt intae a Buddhist.”
The other thing you’ll notice by the bottom of the first page is that it may not be the easiest book in the world to read. All the dialect looked really hard going so I skipped ahead and opened a few pages at random. Yes, it is like that all the way through! However, as the book progresses you begin to notice that Jimmy and Liz have a different dialect; it’s just as broad Glaswegian but somehow older and softer. It’s hard to say how or why the voices are different, but they are, Anne Donovan is just that good a writer! But don’t worry, it ceases to be ‘hard going’ very quickly. The rhythm of the speech is catchy and you can hear the lilt, you might even end up thinking in it.
At first I thought the book would be a serious examination of multi-cultural Britain. However that is certainly not the case, much as anything it’s a mickey-take at those who take cultures too seriously…an affectionate reminder that whatever ‘community’ we’re from, we’re part of a wider one. We all have our crossovers from one to another and that’s how it should be. If we’re willing to follow through, as Jimmy does, we can learn a lot, and then take a view on how much of it is relevant. That’s the point of the novel; religion shouldn’t be about mindless acceptance; it’s about following your path and deciding if you want to change it. It is – to use the Buddhist expression – about being mindful.
Overall it is fun-filled little book. Jimmy plays the stereotypical Glaswegian dullard as he enters the parallel worlds of the genuine faithful Buddhists and his continuous faux-pas are a delight. Ann-Marie is insightful beyond her years, raising sharp questions on gender and morality in ways that also raise a smile. Liz struggles on, holding onto her own faith without belief, and to her belief without trust. The characters have that underlying naivety which somehow makes the whole thing work with a complete absence of cynicism.
However to the question of, ‘is it going to teach you anything about Buddhism?’ I’m afraid the answer is no, not if you’re a complete novice as you’re likely to miss some of the references, however there are one or two moments of enlightening; pay attention to the detail and you might pick something up, but that really isn’t the point. The point is that what matters in this world is how we respond to each other. It is about family and friendship; it is about balancing the self and the duty; it is about how we make choices and why and it is about our continuing right to explore and our responsibility to consider others as we do so.
It is a book to be read for pleasure and if it speaks to you – then that’s a bonus! The book was also shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and the Whitbread First Novel Award and Anne Donovan’s second novel, ‘Being Emily’ was published in 2008. – Becs
‘The Story of God’ by Robert Winston
Professor Doctor Lord Robert Winston (known from some fabulous BBC science series) holds honorary doctorates from fourteen universities. He was a scientific advisor to the World Health Organisation’s programme in human reproduction from 1975 – 1977 and the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science from 2004 to 2005. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College and researches male germ cell stem cells and methods for their genetic modification and has published over 300 scientific papers in peer-review journals.
As if on a stroll, the reader is lead through ideas from the calculated estimations about pre-historic divine experiences to the invention of Buddhism and Hinduism. Winston also seconds some popular ideas about the Messianic tradition, the historic Jesus and the birth of the Church. He also offers some wonderful insights into Islam, the Enlightenment and finally the scientific age, where Winston lives and defends embryo research. Among the arguments that Winston offers in his introductory chapter in defence of the general Divine Idea are brilliant bits of thought; unfortunately some ideas are quite controversial:
Winston writes, ‘God and science are essentially two totally different ways of looking at the natural world, though each gives important insights into the nature of the other.‘Through ‘The Story of God’ Robert Winston comes across as being charming, adorable and immensely intellectual. Winston’s personal journey into the world of science and religion is strongly slanted towards a Jewish experience of what he calls the ‘Divine Idea.’ Winston is a Jew himself but as he writes for a predominantly Christian audience, he talks about Christianity the most, and in a truly endearing fashion. Robert Winston is simply a very nice guy, who admits to not understand any of the religions and even has major trouble believing in anything by means of reason. But then he finds himself deeply attracted and moved as he attends Temple and, on occasion, Church services. Winston experiences God but can not make any system that is driven by scientific reason to lift up the veil of God’s concealment. For the scientist that he is, this makes for a wild paradox that has left a few mad and others angry. However Winston, wide-eyed like a child with an IQ of 200, simply continues asking questions: How come there are so many religions? How come religions are everywhere and all the time? How come so many religions came up with the same imagery? Could there be an inherent sense of God imbedded in the human mind and a standard vocabulary of religious jargon?
However it can be argued that Religion and science are indeed alike as both try to come to terms with the world around us and both teach mankind how to live. Religion and science even equally require the faith of those who profess them; both utilize logic to minimize the margin of error and both lean heavily on inspiration and imagination. It should therefore never be forgotten that religion is an ‘art of knowing’ just like science, and science requires belief before proof and faith in that proof, just as religion does.
But despite its few slight inconsistencies Robert Winston’s ‘The Story of God’ remains one of the most charming books about everything out there.
‘Alone in Berlin’ by Hans Fallada
This novel (published by penguin) was written almost immediately after World War Two. It is an incredibly realistic book because the feelings of the author come through so much. It was written during a time of hope, when the wounds were still open. And Rudoloh Ditzen (under the pseudonim Hans Fallada) remained in Germany throughout the war unlike many writers.
‘Alone in Berlin’ is based on the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel. In the novel, Otto and Anna Quangel, having just lost their son in the occupation of France begin leaving post cards with anti-Nazi slogans around the city. As their campaign continues it becomes less about grief and revenge and more about the realisation that the country they live in is corrupt and cruel, and if theey are to have any decency they have to take some sort of a stand. Anna first asks Otto ‘isn’t it a bit small’ when he tells her his plan. However Otto replies if they are caught they will both lose their lives. Anna realises ‘no one could risk more than their life’. This was one of the many moments I was holding back tears. And it takes a lot for me to cry at a book. Trust me.
What makes this book so important is that it’s so real, and raw and insightful. It is based on a true story, written by a man who lived as a civilian in Nazi Germany only eighteen months after the end of the war. It conveys the bitterness, the fear, and the hope of the people. But it is also important, not just in literary terms. In the afterword by Geoff Wilkes we see how much of the author was poured into the novel. Each and every character has something of him in them. Even the villains. Although in the novel there are few real villains. There are mostly the corrupted and the cowardly.
Fallada was the definition of a tortured genius. He lived most of his life with almost every possible addiction. He struggled with guilt over feelings of selling out to the Nazis. He had been divorced, then re-married to a fellow substance abuser and spent much of his life in and out of mental intitutions. ‘Alone in Berlin’ is made all the more meaningful with the knowledge that so much of the writer’s soul has been poured into it. – Julie
‘The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order’ by Samuel P. Huntington
Well! As I think we established some time ago, I am not an avid reader of anything based in reality so current affairs and politics is not a genre that I would normally choose – apart from Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope but unfortunately he isn’t standing for election here. Can you imagine if he was though…!
In preparation for today I had a look at the book shelf for inspiration. History is one of my favourite subjects and I know that so much of the history we have studied is political both in terms of how political decisions have shaped world events and there is often some slant in the way we are taught and what is focussed on. Like the time we have spent studying appeasement and apparently that is going to be removed or toned down in the curriculum next year. The book I am going to talk about interested me because it is about how the world looks like it might be re-shaping itself politically now that the Cold War is over. It has the rather daunting title ‘The Clash of Civilisations and the remaking of world order’ by Samuel P. Huntington (The P stands for Phillip and he is an American Political Scientist, fancy) I have to shamefully admit that I have not read this from cover to cover but what I have learned has interested me but not half as much as it has frightened me! Basically the book explains that the West –all the western powers and their colonies that they controlled was the world and ‘the west were able to dominate because they had been quicker off the mark with their industrialisation and using brute force to rule over other parts of the world. Then all the wars caused a bit of a re-shifting and redefining of the goodies and the badies. Democracy – good, communism –bad and countries were either on our side or on ‘theirs’. It seems that at that time Civilisations were defined by their ideologies not the colour of people’s flags or skins…pretty much.
Anyway Huntington argues that now that the cold war is over and a lot of barriers have been lifted in trade, this has actually given rise to a new clash between people. Not just on the lines and territory of a map but that an ever growing number of people are going to identify themselves by their culture and that although multiculturalism has lots of gains for the host countries – when push comes to shove this pluralism will mean that people identify more with their culture and with people who share and understand that culture. He predicts that wars in future, and who gets to dominate, will be influenced by sheer numbers and that the old tactics and methods of the west are just not going to equip us to withstand the changes.
The book contains lots of tables and graphs all pointing to influence, output and birth rates declining in western countries and the exact opposite in Muslim, Sinic and Latin nations. It tells that about 20% of the worlds population speaks a Chinese language and that there is a huge ‘youth bulge’ emerging in Muslim countries (Whereas the only bulges appearing in the west is the growing older population and our waistlines!!!) He warns that the western countries, particularly America need to define what a western identity is and reinforce the message stating ‘We need to be the United States but we are slowly turning into the United Nations’ and warns –look what happened to the USSR when the ideology of communism didn’t bind them together anymore. But he does give some positive messages….all is not lost…, ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, Christianity, the rule of law, human rights and cultural freedom were the very things that made it possible for the west to become modern and great. He suggests that we stop trying to shape other countries and identities and stop destabilising the affairs of other regions of the world. Maybe we should keep studying appeasement and just get better at it?
Could I just add that these are not my views but simply what is expressed in the book and that no wonder I like fiction/fantasy! Haha – Becs
‘Thatcher and Sons’ by Simon Jenkins
I have another book that was on the bookshelf that I haven’t read from cover to cover but I will have a stab at talking about! There are a couple of reasons that I thought this might be too topical to miss and why I feel ok to talk about it without having studied it. The book is called ‘Thatcher and Sons, A Revolution in Three Acts’ – and it has nothing to do with her biological son Mark so the front cover helpfully shows her striding along followed by her heirs and successors; John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. If anything drew me to pull out this book (apart from it being Politics week) it is maybe the fact that even although her time in office was well before I was born I am amazed by the strength of feeling that the uttering of her name seems to have with quite a number of adults that I know well- I better not name them. Much tutting and spitting usually follows – so whatever she did it must be quite memorable. The other reason is that he the author makes some comparisons to Norwegian politics – and I am half Norwegian.
The book is basically an account of her time in office with all the highs and lows. She got a war but unlike the Iraq war it was a popular war (the Falklands) where it was our sovereignty that was being challenged (apparently it would have cost less to buy another island in the Bahamas and move all the occupants of the Falkland islands with big resettlement packages and apparently some of that cost is still in that huge big deficit which they say needs to be filled). She also sold off lots of assets, didn’t stand for striking, used a lot of North Sea revenue, gave people the right to buy their council houses so they would have a mortgage and stop striking, and tried out something called the Poll Tax in Scotland which was a disaster. Anyway that finished her off so another Tory became PM – John Major. He sold off even more things but not very successfully because he didn’t get a very good price for the stuff he sold, like the railways. They also did some serious mucking about with the health service and the NHS but they liked the police who seemed to spend a lot of time in their cars (that is when people stopped calling them plods apparently). So finally the Conservatives lost the general election and in came Tony Blair but apparently he didn’t only not undo some of the things that had been done but he kept going – well there wasn’t a lot more to sell off but he kept centralising power to Westminster (apart from the bits that got devolved and we got a Scottish parliament) and apparently Gordon Brown has just done more of the same. The more the state takes responsibility for policing, schools, hospitals, health and social services the less responsibility people take for themselves and the more they look to central government to fix it. The biggest point that the book seems to make is that Thatcher might have started it but that even she did have some respect for some of the old institutions and safety valves that make sure real democratic processes are protected and that in the years since these mechanisms have been so eroded that we almost have a democratic dictatorship – apparently if you study politics you would know that this is called a pastiche. The Norway bit in summary seems to be that Norway was run on a participatory self government model for hundreds of years. That means all the local regions were accountable to the people who lived there with a central overseeing power. But as they became more affluent they let all the power drift back to central government – people who had been activists stopped spending so much time on it and because they have proportional representation there are usually very little changes to the elite politicians, technocrats, bankers and lawyers – but at least they don’t have a huge deficit.
Jenkins also reminds us that politics never delivers endings because time isn’t static so you never get to the right way of doing things but that the pendulum has swung way too far this time. His view appears to be that it will be a really hard job to turn some of these changes around and that it will take someone with the same determination as Margaret Thatcher to do it. – Becs
‘The Taming of the Shrew’ by William Shakespeare
It was made into the musical ‘Kiss Me, Kate’ and the teen comedy ’10 Things I Hate About You’. ’10 Things’ was pretty loyal, it was modernised with more laughs and less, um, spousal abuse. The original play follows the courting and marriage of Katharina (the Shrew of the title) and Petruchio. Katharina’s father, Baptista, has declared that his younger daughter, Bianca, shall not marry until Katharina does. Petruchio, hearing Katharina has a large dowry and decides to marry her. ’10 Things I Hate About You’ sounding pretty loyal so far yes? Meanwhile Bianca’s many suiters set out to woo her and Petruchio sets out to tame his impetuous wench by…verbally and pshychologically abusing her and threatening to beat her! Oh what a romp!
A number of arguments have arisen on Shakespeare’s motivations for writing this. In my 1993 Wordsworth Classics edition (that’s right, the book is as old as me) this play gives an introduction into a possible interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s most controversial plays. It tells us that the real message was not spousal abuse but one of political obedience in a time of upheaval. Yet there seems to be a lot of negative reactions to it. It even spurned a sequel by John Fletcher ‘The Tamer Tamed’ in which Petruchio remarries after Katharina’s death and gets tamed by his new wife. Take that! Playwright George Bernard Shaw described Taming of the Shrew as ‘altogether disgusting to modern sensibility’ whereas Conall Morrison viewed it as a cautionary tale, he thinks Shakespeare was saying ‘look at this man abuse his wife, isn’t it terrible’ rather than ‘look at this man abuse his wife, isn’t it hilarious’ after all, Shakespear also wrote Romeo and Juliet, considered the greatest romance of all time. Other critics view it as something that is simply not to be attempted to translate into the real world, they give their evidence for this as the framing device Shakespeare uses of a drunken man tricked into thinking he is a lord, then he watches the ”Taming of the Shrew’. The fraiming device therefore says ‘detach yourself from this, it’s not real and it’s not meant to be’
Your enjoyment of this play is very much dependant on your interpretion of it. And it is interesting to see how many different views there are. Hard core feminists, however, should probably stay away, as it could cause them to go on a man hating bloody rampage. Just saying. – Julie
‘Rebecca’ by Daphne Du Maurier
When ‘Rebecca’ was published in 1938 by Victor Gollancz, Du Maurier became one of the most popular authors of the day. ‘Rebecca’ is considered to be one of her best works and some observers have noted parallels between it and ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Brontë. Much of the novel was written while she was staying in Alexandria, Egypt, where her husband was posted at the time.
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” is the books often quoted opening line and from here the narrator, who is name remains a mystery, recollects her past. While working as the companion to a rich American woman holidaying on the French Riviera, she becomes acquainted with a wealthy Englishman named Maximilian de Winter (Maxim for short). After a fortnight of courtship, she agrees to marry him and then accompanies him to his mansion, the beautiful West Country estate Manderley.
However upon their arrival at Manderley she realises how difficult it is going to be to lay to rest the memory of her new husband’s first wife, Rebecca. Rebecca is understood to have drowned in a sailing accident off the coast next to the mansion a year before, but her memory has a strong hold on the estate and all of its inhabitants and visitors, especially the domineering housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, one of literature’s most infamous female villains.
Mrs. Danvers, who was profoundly devoted to Rebecca, tries to undermine the new Mrs de Winter, suggesting to her that she will never attain the sophistication and charm that Rebecca possessed. Whenever she attempts to make changes at Manderley, Mrs. Danvers always describes how Rebecca ran Manderley when she was alive, continuously implying that the new Mrs. de Winter lacks the experience and knowledge necessary for running an important estate such as Manderley. Thus she becomes terrified of Mrs. Danvers’ imposing manner and always complies with her suggestions.
Lacking self-confidence and overwhelmed by her new life, the protagonist commits one faux pas after another, until she is convinced that Maxim regrets his impetuous decision to marry her and is still deeply in love with the seemingly perfect Rebecca. The climax occurs at Manderley’s annual costume ball when Mrs. Danvers manipulates her into wearing a replica of a dress shown in one of the portraits in the hall. Little does she know that the same costume was worn by Rebecca the previous year, shortly before her death.
It is the morning after that Mrs. Danvers finally bluntly reveals her contempt and dislike for the second Mrs. de Winter when she takes her on a tour of Rebecca’s bedroom, her wardrobe and luxurious possessions, which Mrs. Danvers has kept intact as a shrine to Rebecca. As they stand at Rebecca’s bedroom window Mrs. Danvers encourages her to commit suicide by jumping from it, however her futile attempt is thwarted at the last moment by a disturbance created by the discovery of a shipwreck on the beach near Manderly. A diver investigating the condition of the ship discovers that it is the remains of Rebecca’s boat.
The revelations from the shipwreck lead Maxim to finally confess the shocking truth about Rebecca to his new wife…
‘Rebecca’, when first published had a print run of 20,000 and was a popular success. However, it did not receive critical acclaim. The Times said that “the material is of the humblest…nothing in this is beyond a light romantic novel…” Few saw in the novel what the author wanted them to see: the exploration of the relationship between a man who was powerful and a woman who was not.
One edition of the book was used by the Germans in World War II as a code source. Sentences would be made using single words in the book, referred to by page number, line and position in the line. One copy was kept at Rommel’s headquarters and the other was carried by German agents.
The character of Mrs. Danvers is also alluded to numerous times throughout Stephen King’s book ‘Bag of Bones’. In the book, Mrs. Danvers serves as something of a boogeyman for the main character Mike Noonan. She is also referred to in Jasper Fforde’s ‘Thursday Next’ series, where people in the bookworld have created lots of Mrs. Danvers clones, which they use as army troops against many threats.
Rebecca has been adapted several times into film, the most notable of these being the Academy Award winning 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film version, the first film Hitchcock made under his contract with David O. Selznick. The film was based on the novel but a number of aspects had to be changed. Still the film quickly became a classic and, at the time, was a major technical achievement in film-making.
I would recommend this book to anyone, male or female, as it has a huge appeal to a wide range of people. This is a true classic, and one that can be read with fresh eyes time and time again, because you always see something new in the detail that you didn’t notice before. – Becs
‘Inkheart’ by Cornelia Funke
Inkheart (originally entitled: Tintenherz) is a young adult-child fantasy novel by Cornelia Funke and the first book of the Inkworld trilogy.
The book is about a 12-year-old girl named Meggie Folchart whose life changes dramatically when she realizes that her father, a bookbinder named Mortimer (Mo), has an unusual ability: when he reads aloud, he can bring characters from books into the real world. Meggie and Mo’s adventure takes them throughout Europe, particularly Italy and brings them into contact with many unusual characters. The sequel is Inkspell and the third book in the trilogy is Inkdeath.
Before I sing the praises of Cornelia Funke, who is also the author of another of my favourite books, The Thief Lord, I really have to praise Anthea Bell, who translated Inkheart from its original German. Normally with translated books something of the original is always lost, however Anthea Bell’s translation is one of the few exceptions. It is so effortless and so smooth that you can hardly believe it wasn’t written in English to start with.
Each chapter begins with a quote from various highly regarded books, which I think is a really nice touch to this immensely ‘booky’ book. The story also nestles comfortably into the feel of the classic stories it quotes from. The basic idea is similar to some other books such as Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series or Michael Ende’s Neverending Story. This is because in Inkheart, it is possible for people from our world to cross over into the world described in a book. The characters in the book, in exchange, can cross into our world. This kind of magic in this unique story does not come from a diabolically clever gadget or from the book itself but from the voices of certain people reading the book out loud. Some people have the gift of making the words come to life, painting the scenery with their voice, transporting their listeners to a magical world, making them see and hear and smell and feel the things the book describes. And some people—very few, thank Goodness—take it a step further and when they read aloud, objects and creatures and even people sometimes disappear from one reality and appear inside the other.
One of those people is the bookbinder named Mo, who lives alone with his adored and adoring daughter, Meggie and they both love to read books but Mo never reads to Meggie aloud. She wonders about this sometimes and then one dark, stormy night a suspicious stranger visits Mo and the next day they are on the run from their home. A villain is after them, a villain who came out of a book called Inkheart and whose heart is as black as the title suggests. The villain is named Capricorn and he has been stealing all the copies of Inkheart in the world and wants to steal Mo as well as he believes that Mo has the power to read him and his vile henchmen back into the book they came from.
I will say no more about the plot, except that it is full of suspense, colourful characters—some of them flamboyantly evil and the rest of them complex and fascinatingly flawed—and that a lot of deadly perils lie in store for Meggie and her father as they try to find a way to “set the story straight.”
Truly this is a book for people who love books, about people who love books. It will come alive as you read it, almost as if the characters have stepped off the page just like in the story… – Becs
‘The Tiffany Aching series’ by Terry Pratchett
The first in the series is ‘The Wee Free Men’, published by Doubleday. It’s the exciting, scary, outrageously funny fairytale of a nine-year-old witch named Tiffany Aching, who plunges into a Fairyland where dreams come true (horribly true) in order to save her obnoxious baby Brother Wentworth, who has been stolen by the fairy Queen.
Armed with a frying pan, her granny’s magic book (well, ‘Diseases of the Sheep’) and accompanied by the Nac Mac Feegle, otherwise known as the Wee Free Men, the fightin’, thievin’, tiny blue-skinned pictsies (not pixies!) who were thrown out of Fairyland for being drunk and disorderly, Tiffany shoulders the burdens of a grown witch. This is really quite something, since she has had no lessons in witchery other than the example of her silent, deceased Granny.
Now she must face her worst nightmares and battle razor-toothed grimhounds, headless horsemen, Jenny Green Teeth, parasitic creatures that steal your dreams and finally the powerful lady of the Fair Folk who never thinks about anyone but herself. Tiffany must navigate the frightening Fairyland to bring back Wentworth, as well as a spoiled rich kid named Roland who was stolen by the fairies a year ago. Then she has to keep the Queen from following her back home and taking over the real world.
Throughout the book Terry Pratchett writes some of the funniest material I have read in a long time, especially in the dialogue of the Wee Free Men:
“‘Whut’s the plan, Rob?’ said one of them
‘Okay, lads, this is what we’ll do. As soon as we see somethin’, we’ll attack it. Right?’
This caused a cheer.
‘Ach, ’tis a good plan,’ said Daft Wullie.”
We could take offence at the fact that the Wee Free Men are Scottish but I prefer to just go with the humour and laugh till my sides hurt.
The sequel is entitled ‘A Hat Full of Sky’ and is set a couple of years later. The time has finally come for the now 13-year-old Tiffany to serve as an apprentice to an older witch. However, although Miss Level is that rare person who can say “I left my long-distance spectacles on my other nose” and although her house is haunted by an obsessive-compulsive ondageist (the opposite of a poltergeist), most of her witchcraft takes the form of milking goats, tending the herb garden, keeping bees and administering medicine and midwifery to the local population.
However Tiffany’s hunger for real magic is quickly satisfied when an entity that has no body, no mind, that cannot be killed and that floats around possessing one unfortunate person after another, turns its attention on Tiffany. It is a creature that takes over people’s minds and turns them into power-grabbing monsters and Tiffany has to defend herself against a being that wants to make her part of itself. Can even the Wee Free Men save her? Aha! That would be telling! You’ll just have to read the book for yourself.
It is full of humour, friendship, magic and danger and a few moments of gruesome surprise as well as some thought provoking speeches. Some of my favourite quotes are:
“Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
“It’s still magic even if you know how it’s done.”
The third and final adventure is ‘Wintersmith’ which brings back many old, dear friends such as the fiercely funny Wee Free Men led by the clueless yet dauntless Rob Anybody (get it? haha) and Tiffany’s hero-in-waiting Roland.
As this tale opens, Tiffany is an apprentice to an ancient crone named Miss Treason. However, when Miss Treason’s powers of divination inform her that she is about to die, she admits quite frankly that it has come at rather an inconvenient time as Tiffany’s feet have once more gotten her into the middle of things. This time she has landed in the middle of an ancient story about the turning of the seasons and if she doesn’t see the story through, winter may never come to an end.
However, as always the mischief of the Wee Free Men is there to help as well as the romantic heroism of her longsuffering admirer Roland and tons of hints from the chief witch. But the Story of how the spirit of winter tries to become a man does more than take; it gives, laughter, excitement, creepy-crawlies and all around reading pleasure. I would definitely recommend this series to anyone over 12! – Becs
‘The Famous Five’ by Enid Blyton
The first book in the series is entitled ‘Five on a Treasure Island’ and was published in 1942 and followed by another 20 books so I can’t talk about each book but can give you a taste of the whole, totally epic, series.
The novels feature the adventures of a group of young children named Julian, Dick, Anne, Georgina, who insists on being called George, and their dog Timmy.
Enid Blyton only intended to write about 6 to 8 books in the series but, owing to their immensely high sales and commercial success, she went on to write 21 full-length Famous Five novels. Today, more than two million copies of the books are sold each year, making them one of the biggest-selling series for children ever written and nearly all of the novels have subsequently been adapted for television.
Three of the children, Julian, Dick and Anne, are brothers and sister. During their holidays, they are regularly sent to the seaside town of Kirrin to stay with their Aunt and Uncle, whose daughter, George, is a complete tomboy and is the owner of Timmy the dog, who is very much part of the group and a character in his own right.
The stories always take place in the children’s school holidays and every time they meet, they get caught up in a different adventure and “Kirrin Island” which is a picturesque island owned by George and her family presents many opportunities for adventure. George’s own home and various other houses the children visit are hundreds of years old and often contain secret passages and other exciting discoveries. In some books the children go camping or on a hike however in each book the setting is almost always rural and enables the children to discover the simple joys of cottages, islands, the countryside and sea shores, as well as picnics, lemonade, bicycle trips, home-made food and copious amounts of ginger beer.
Blyton always said that George was based on a real girl that she had once known and in her later life, she admitted that the girl was herself.
Despite there being 21 books, each taking place in the children’s’ school holidays, the four children only age five years in the course of the series, George for example is 11 at the beginning of the series and 16 by the end.
The publishers ‘Chorion’, who now own the rights to Blyton’s books, announced in early 2008 that the Famous Five would return in ‘The Famous Five’s Survival Guide’, a new book in which the characters have grown up and revisit a case they failed to solve in their childhood. (This I really do not want to happen, the Famous Five are like Peter Pan, they can’t grow up!)
The Famous Five was adapted into a television series in 1978 and then again in 1996. It has also been made into a cartoon called ‘Famous Five: On the Case’ which features five kids who are the sons and daughters of the original characters. A German writer Sarah Bosse and a French writer Claude Voilier have written a total of 40 new Famous Five novels some of which have been translated into English (but which I have not read). One book was made into a musical and there was a Famous Five theatre production on in January this year. They have also been made into video games and comic books! That is how good these books are! A must read for any children as soon as they can learn to read! Haha.
J. K. Rowling has been quoted as saying: “in the forth potter book, the hormones are going to kick in – I don’t want Harry stuck in a state of eternal pre-pubescence like poor Julian in the Famous Five!” – Becs
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
This book is about one Mary Lennox, a thoroughly unpleasant child raised in India. Her parents were apathetic towards her, and left her in the care of servants, who’s orders were to make sure she didn’t cry. This was not, however, a sign of affection but rather because Mary’s mother didn’t want to be bothered by her ONLY CHILD. Mary’s parents die of cholera, and she is quite literally forgotten about for a few days. She is sent to live with her uncle at Misselthwaite Manor with her uncle.
I love this book because it is so uplifting, Mary is perhaps the most unpleasant child ever to walk the earth, but when she is fed on porridge, befriended by the maid Martha, and taught how to play and left to explore the gardens she becomes much less spoiled and even learns to like people. One of my favourite quotes is when she numbers the people she has come to like (Martha’s mother is the fifth I believe). Mary finds an abandoned garden previously belonging to the deceased lady of the house and with Dickon brings it back to life, she also meets her cousin Collin who from the moment he was born was told he would most likely die. Good work adults. ‘The Secret Garden’ is wonderful, is gives us some very unpleasant people, first Mary, the Collin, and shows us how easily unpleasant people can become kind and loving. We also see Colin’s father re-connect with his son, who he could barely look at after the death of his wife (not going to lie, nearly cry a little bit whenever I think of Collin’s dad).
This book doesn’t need dramatic conflict or an evil villain, we are happy to simply see the characters grow and help each other. We are so touched by Martha’s mother’s affection for Mary, a girl who she worries about yet has never met, and we are warmed by Mary’s realisation of all the things she has been missing out on,the comfort that she feels when she hear’s Martha’s and Dickon’s friendly Yorkshire accents.
In short. Read it. If you have already read it; re-read it. – Julie
‘Batman: A Death in the Family’ published by DC Comics
‘Holy Ayatollah Batman, Robin is dead!’ The Wall Street Journal
First published in the late 80′s, it is interesting because this is the first comic book in which the readers chose the ending. Using a phone in, the readers got to decide whether Robin lived or died. They chose die.
The Robin they killed was Jason Todd, Dick Grayson having recently left to become Nightwing. First, a bit of backstory, Jason is orphaned and first comes to Batman’s attention when he tries to steal the tires off the Batmobile…honestly! In this comic, we see the Joker break out of Arkham Asylum (again) and try to earn some cash by selling off a missile he has lying around to some terrorists. Meanwhile, Jason discovers who he thought was his mother was in fact his step mother, and goes on a mission to find his real mother. Coincidentally, this takes him to the same location as the Joker. Jason finds his real mother, they have a loving reunion, but he finds out she is in cahoots with the Joker! Well, technically she’s being blackmailed but still. Unfortunately, Jason’s mother and Jason himself are both killed. As you can imagine, Batman was not happy and he seeks revenge. Unfortunately the Joker has gained Diplomatic Immunity by becoming the new U.N. Ambassador for Iran. In’t that always the way?
This story arc is the perfect blend of dark (coming largely from the Joker) and ridiculous (coming largely from the Joker). I think this book is a great one to start on, even though it’s quite far on in the Batman universe, starting with the second Robin rather than the first, but it also is in a good period for comics. It’s not the camp and ridiculous of the early days, and it’s not so dark you have no hope for humanity afterwards. You feel emotion for the characters, but there is some humour offered, and some lightness. Not to mention it’s a really crucial plot point in the wider scheme of Batman. Jason Todd’s death really impacts on Batman and his relationship with those around him, including the next Robin; Tim Drake, and it’s an important story arc for the Joker; he lists killing a Robin as one of his proudest achievements and is enraged when the fourth Robin (Stephanie Brown, althoughshe wasn’t considered as being a ‘real Robin’) is killed by Black Mask Joker reacts with a ‘that’s my job!’ – Julie
‘Batman: Knightfall’ published by DC Comics
Published in 1993 this stroy arc is one in which ‘the Bat is broken’. Dramatic no?
We begin with a mass breakout at Arkham Asylum orchestrated by newcomeer villain Bane. Bane is super intelligent, super strong and super crazy. His aims: destroy Batman and claim Gotham as his own. His cunning plan is this, let the other villains create chaos, causing Batman to crime fight his way to exhaustion and hopelessness. When the time is right, Bane attacks Batman in his home, Wayne Manor, attacks his Bruce Wayne’s faithful butler Alfred (which in my book is unforgivable, with Batman is comes with the job but what did Alfred ever do to Bane?) and breaks Batman’s back, leaving him on the street.
But before all that, we see all that we see a cornucopia of various storylines, we see the Ventriloquist kill people with a sock puppet named Socko and a duck puppet named Quacko, The Mad Hatter enslaves a bunch of minor villains with mind controlling hats, and also the much more horrifying villains Scarecrow and Joker pair up and torment the Mayor. Knightfall, like A Death in the Family, combines the horrible with the ridiculous. I think my favourite humour came from the Gotham media, Dr. Simpson Flanders promotes his new book ‘I’m sane and so are you!’ that explains to us our ‘innate prejudice toward the mentally divergent’
Another example of Knightfall taking the best of what comics have to offer, is in the dramatic final scene where Bane gets to Batman. There are some of your classic comic book sound effects (my favourite being ‘chwok!’) yet at no point did I laugh during this scene. I think it’s a true sign of skill that someone can use the word ‘chwok’ and not make the reader laugh.
After Knightfall, there is a volume 2 and a Knights End. Volume 2 sees superhero-in-training Jean-Paul Valley take the Mantle of the Bat, at Bruce Wayne’s request because Gotham can’t be left without a Batman. However Valley soon proves to be mental. He uses excessive violence (and excessive violence for Batman is pretty excessive) and perhaps even worse…he messes with the Batsuit; changing the colours, losing the cape, changing the mask so that none of the face can be seen. Finally in Knight’s End we see Bruce Wayne in training to recover and reclaim his mask. I thoroughly recomend all three volumes. – Julie
‘The Hobbit’ by J.R.R. Tolkien (Illustrated) Illustrated by David Wenzel
To start off with, this tale, published by Harper Collins, is an entirely different kind of book than its well known sequel ‘The Lord of the Rings’. ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is a vast, deep, dark, moving tale that is altogether “grown up.” It’s remarkable, therefore, that it springs from ‘The Hobbit’, which is a light-hearted adventure story suitable for young children and which was actually recommended to me by my sister who read it when she was 12. The art in the book is absolutely fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone!
In this book a Hobbit is a “little person” with a pot-belly, hairy feet, a tendency to live in a hole in the ground, has a taste for pipe-tobacco and a strong inclination to stay put. In all these respects the main character Bilbo Baggins seems to be an exemplary hobbit. However that is only until Gandalf the Wizard marks his front-door with a secret sign that advertises Bilbo as a burglar for hire.
A party of thirteen dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield, takes Bilbo up on the offer and, ignoring his futile protests, lead him away from the land he has known, to an adventure over river, mountain, forest and swamp. Along the way Bilbo finds ‘The Ring’ that becomes so important in the later book. He also encounters quarrelsome trolls, goblins, and worse, living under a mountain, ravening wolves, giant spiders, perilous elves, a man who sometimes turns into a bear and finally a shrewd and violent dragon.
True to what Tolkien fans should expect, ‘The Hobbit’ is a delightful story full of the joy of language, wit and irony, danger and wonder made all the more amazing by the outstanding artistic talent of David Wenzel.-Becs
‘Vampire Knight’ by Matsuri Hino (Manga)
The books revolve around Yuuki Cross, a girl whose earliest memory is of being all alone on a snowy winter night, when she was attacked by a crazed “Level E” vampire, which is the worst kind, and saved by a powerful but kind vampire named Kaname Kuran. Afterwards, Yuuki is brought to an eccentric and awesome man named Kaien Cross, who adopts her. Kaien Cross is the Headmaster of Cross Academy and is also an ex-vampire hunter who now wishes for vampires and humans to live alongside peacefully. Yuuki grows up to become a prefect in the school, which is actually running an experimental program that is trying to prove that vampires can coexist peacefully with humans. The experiment consists of the school being opened to both vampires and humans. The human students of the “Day Class” are not aware that their counterparts in the “Night Class” are all actually vampires. Only the prefects know the truth.
The Night Class student body is made up of upper-class vampires, since there is a hierarchy among vampire society. “Purebloods” (Level A) are the rarest and most elite, having never mixed with humans in their ancestry. They are also the most powerful and their blood is the most desirable as it grants whoever drinks it greater powers. They are also the only class of vampire with the power to turn humans into vampires. Kaname, the boy who rescued Yuuki all those years ago, is the only pureblood within the night class which is made up mostly of “Aristocrats” (Level B) and “Normals” (Level C). Finally, there is the lowest class of vampires (Level E) which are humans who have been changed into vampires- not born as one. These types of vampires eventually go insane with bloodlust and are almost always beyond help, losing all their rationality and killing without remorse.
Yuuki’s fellow guardian and childhood companion is Zero Kiryu (my favourite character), whose parents were killed in front of him by a pureblood vampire four years earlier and he is now determined to kill all purebloods and refuses to trust the other vampires at the school. However as the series goes on Zero himself starts to manifest vampire traits, having been bitten by the vampire who attacked his family. Due to his horrific past and the fact that he came from a family of vampire hunters, he hates what he has become and fights the level E instincts taking over his body as best he can.
Throughout the series Yuuki tries to help him fight his bloodlust while also seeking to recover the memories she lost as a young child. Overall the series is epic and has been made into an Anime series only shown in Japan but you can find them on youtube here with subtitles. I watched the Anime before reading the Manga and it ends in the worst place possible, which I can’t say but the Manga continues the story so I would definitely recommend that you read them!-Becs
‘Lord Sunday’ by Garth Nix
There are seven books in this series entitled ‘The Keys to the Kingdom’, published by ‘Scholastic Publishing’, with ‘Lord Sunday’ being the last instalment…so I think I’ll start with a little overview.
The series is really cleverly thought out and the author Garth Nix continuously references to the number 7. Each book dwells on one of the 7 deadly sins, the last being vanity and each title refers to one of the 7 days of the week, so there are therefore 7 books. Now bare with me because the rest is pretty confusing…but awesome!
The series’ protagonist is an asthmatic 12-year-old boy named Arthur Penhaligon. The series begins on a Monday and each book moves onto the next day of the week concluding on a Sunday. Each day refers to a different person, for example ‘Lord Sunday’, collectively known as ‘The Trustees’, who each govern a portion of ‘The House’, which is the center of the Universe. The seven dimensions of the House are: the Lower House, the Far Reaches, the Border Sea, the Great Maze, the Middle House, the Upper House and the Incomparable Gardens.
In the beginning of the first book, Arthur lives a relatively normal life as an adopted child in a large and caring family. An asthma attack on a Monday that should have killed him brings him into contact with Mister Monday, who rules the Lower House. After many events in the first book he is declared Heir to the Kingdom and proceeds to a strange and dangerous set of adventures.
Arthur discovers that the Will of the Architect, who is the creator of ‘The House’, was not fulfilled as it should have been. Instead, it was broken into seven pieces by ‘The Trustees’. The Will was forced to act on its own and chooses Arthur to become the Heir to the Kingdom. It thus becomes Arthur’s responsibility to recover each of the missing pieces of the Will, therefore defeating each Trustee, each of whom has been afflicted with one of the seven deadly sins. Get it? It’s quite confusing…
Anyway, ‘The Keys to the Kingdom’ series has been a thoroughly enjoyable read and the final part of the tale does not disappoint. While the series is aimed at younger readers, adults will also be able to enjoy a diverse story. It is not absolutely necessary for someone to read the first six novels in order to understand events; however it is advised in order to understand why the different characters are motivated as they are.
‘Lord Sunday’ begins with Arthur having successfully acquired the sixth piece of the Will and is quickly thrust into the search and battle for the seventh and final part against the strongest of all ‘The Trustees’, the unbelievably vain and pride ridden, Lord Sunday. Arthur is very soon on the back foot and struggling to find the best path to succeed in his endeavours but at the same time, friends and allies seek to aid Arthur and overthrow Lord Sunday. In the end, it comes to a full battle between many crazy character such as Lord Sunday, Arthur, the Piper, the Mariner and the Old One.
Nix weaves the story of three different characters through the text, dealing with each in turn to give the impression of time passing rapidly but also of all the events occurring simultaneously. Garth Nix’s conclusion to ‘The Keys to the Kingdom’ series is the only satisfactory one. Some readers may not be happy as it avoids the “Happily Ever After” ending but I think this simply makes the book something more than a fairy tale. The touch of reality, in that nothing is ever perfect but also that things are rarely beyond some form of repair, added to the feel of the tale and is correctly pitched for the younger age of the main audience. – Becs
‘Faerie Wars’ by Herbie Brennan
‘Faerie War’s’ is published by ‘Bloomsbury Publishing’ and centres around Henry Atherton who lives in present-day England and has very present-day problems. He does odd jobs for a crazy old man who believes in fairies and UFOs, in order to save up for an MP3 player. His sister is horse-crazy and his parents are splitting up. Henry hardly knows how to help himself, or his family, so he certainly isn’t prepared to find out that old Mr. Fogarty is right about fairies and alien abductions.
It begins when Henry rescues a butterfly from Mr. Fogarty’s cat. Only it isn’t a butterfly, it’s a tiny, red-headed boy with wings. Who is actually the Crown Prince of the Faerie Realm, Pyrgus Malvae. Ordinarily Pyrgus isn’t a tiny fairy with butterfly wings, but something went wrong when he “transformed” into our world, which is like an alternate universe to the Faerie Realm.
Pyrgus is on the run from some evil beings called Faeries of the Night, who are in league with demons who, apart from the fire and brimstone stuff, also drive flying saucers and do medical experiments on people. And Pyrgus is also the victim of a shadowy conspiracy to assassinate the Purple Emperor (Pyrgus’s father) and the heir (Pyrgus himself). The demons are also threatening to invade, conquer, loot and pillage the Faerie Realm. After which the Prince of Demons, Beleth, as the new Emperor, will turn his forces toward the Analogue Realm…that is, our world.
Beleth has some really colourful demons on his side, from the flamboyant Jasper Chalkhill to the over-the-top-wicked summoner of demons, Silas Brimstone. But who can possibly fight against them? All they have is old Mr. Fogarty with his interesting past, Prince Pyrgus with his soft spot for kittens and Henry who hardly believes in anything and has enough problems of his own! They really hardly have a chance, even with the aid of Pyrgus’ beautiful and formidable sister Blue and an orange dwarf with poisoned teeth! Pyrgus then attempts to go back to the Faerie Realm which ends up putting him in the clutches of Beleth himself, then Mr. Fogarty gets implicated in the sinister plot to assassinate the Emperor and then Henry passes through the portal between the worlds and the first thing he sees is Princess Blue getting changed…will there be a tomorrow for the Faerie Realm?
Well, there is as there are 3 more books. However this book ends with the words “To be continued”, which was very frustrating because it was so awesome! The book combines elements of science fiction, fantasy, fairy-tale, modern-day action-adventure and family drama. It is a highly entertaining book and is the beginning of a magnificent series.
I would recommend the book to those 14 and over due to violence, language and some adult situations.- Becs
‘The Flowing Queen’ by Kai Meyer
‘The Flowing Queen’ was published in 2006 by ‘Egmont Press’ and is a children/teen fantasy novel.
Before reading this book, there are a number of assumptions you must get rid of. 1. That mermaids are beautiful young maiden, with fish like tails and long flowing hair.
2. That when you look in a mirror you see yourself reflected in it.
3. That stone lions are solid, don’t speak and don’t move.
4. That Egyptian mummies are just humans wrapped up in bandages that certainly pose no threat.
All of those assumptions have since been squashed since I read this book. In ‘The Flowing Queen’, Mermaids aren’t as pretty as you think. You can not only enter mirrors with the right equipment, but things also live inside them. What things? I’m not telling. Stone lions protect the elite of Venice and can fly and finally mummies are a formidable enemy.
The book centres around young Merle who is an apprentice to the mirror maker Arcimboldo along with her blind friend Junipa. She quickly makes friends with the enemy a weaver apprentice, who used to be a Master Thief and is the metaphorical stable boy of this story. She also has a special mirror, that’s not made of glass and which she knows very little about and keeps it a secret from the strange Arcimboldo. She makes friends with a mermaid and a stone lion, thanks to her connection with the Flowing Queen, a being who, up until recently, protected Venice against any enemies. However now the Flowing Queen’s life is at stake and consequently so is Venice’s protection. Due to this Merle has to trust all the voices in her head and perform acts that she’d rather not do.
But what are Arcimboldo’s true motives? Why is one of the stone lion locked up in prison? How does Junipa get her sight back? Read it to find out… – Becs
‘Where Rainbows End’ by Cecelia Ahern
This is Cecelia Ahern’s second book and was published by ‘Harper Collins’. It centres around Rosie and Alex who are childhood friends. They’ve been through everything together and have an amazing bond right from the start. As they grow up, this does not change, even when they start dating other people. However, fate steps in when Alex’s parents decide to go and live in America – and he has to go with them. They’ve never been apart before and Rosie is soon planning on joining a university in Boston so they can be together again.However, the night that Rosie is due to fly out, she discovers something that will change her plans forever, and she stays at home in Ireland.
The way the book is told is quite clever. It’s told completely in note or letter form with occasional instant messaging, email, text, postcards or even greetings cards! So the book pages aren’t full – they’re very gappy which I guess is a bit strange but the reader soon becomes used to it. It starts with an invitation from Rosie to Alex inviting him to her seventh birthday party and then proceeds to chronicle their lives, from teenage dances to the start of their careers and relationships with others but how will Rosie and Alex’s friendship be tested when distance comes between them?
When Rosie starts her first job, Ruby, an older woman is brought into the book as her ‘replacement’ best friend’ as Alex starts his new life in the US. Ruby’s appearances are mostly through instant messages which are fairly amusing, especially as she reads Rosie’s emails and is always sticking her nose in things, wanting to know what’s going on with her and Alex and reading too much into things and drawing her own conclusions!
Other characters that pop up are Stephanie, Rosie’s sister who’s in France, Phil, Alex’s brother and Rosie’s parents, her mum trying to figure out how to use email is very funny. Through these other characters we see what Alex and Rosie are really thinking rather than what they’re saying to each other. As their friendship becomes more complicated, they start to analyse what they really mean to one another and the fact that distance isn’t really what is preventing them from seeing each other but their feelings are.
The book is not what I expected at all and I really enjoyed it right from the start and it’s a very easy read which can be easily picked up and put down – if you can tear yourself away from it!
Ruby is a really great character and a person that you wish you knew. She’s in her mid 30s at the start of the book and has a teenage son, Gary and an on/off boyfriend Teddy. She’s always there with ‘friendly’ advice for Rosie, which isn’t always wanted but is given anyway! I love the way her messages come through to Rosie at work and Rosie’s worried she’s going to get caught by the boss.
The reader goes through everything with the two main character’s, at times it’s frustrating to see how they’re hiding their feelings but at the same time it adds to the suspense and the bad timing on both their parts adds to the comic content.
Alex is also hilarious, especially his spelling ‘know’ as ‘no’, consistently throughout the book, which made me smile, especially as it annoys Rosie and you get the impression that that’s exactly why he does it!
In conclusion, I loved it and raced through it! I loved the characters and the way the families are in the background and yet always coming to either Alex’s or Rosie’s aid if they’re needed. The strong bond that ties Alex and Rosie is there throughout, even when they’re far apart. It’s not overly slushy, their friendship is made up of teasing one another and joking but underneath the reader gets the impression that there’s far more to it than that. There’s also substance to this book – in fact there are moments of genuine sadness which *almost* reduced me to tears.
I really enjoyed the way it was written. At first it was a little weird reading so many separate ‘bits’ of story and piecing them all together but after a while, once the child versions of Alex and Rosie ‘grew up’ and they started emailing one another, which almost felt like spying, but hey it was awesome and I highly recommend it! – Becs
‘The Big Over Easy’ by Jasper Fforde
Published by Hodder, this is a thrilling crime novel about the death, and investigation of rich, womanising philanthropist Humperdink Aloysius Stuyvesant Van Dumpty. Better known as Humpty Dumpty. The case is covered by the Reading Nursery Crime Division, led by DI Jack Spratt and Sgt. Mary Mary. Let me just say, this book is hilarious. Not only through the sheer absurdity of it but also Fforde’s skilfull way of making fictional characters into real people; Prometheus waiting on a Green Card and is Jack’s squatter, Jack has a reputation in Reading as a ‘Giant Killer’ (although only one was technically a giant, the rest were just really tall), and Humpty went to Oxford and enjoyed swimming (his streamlined shape madde him very fast).
But Fforde doesn’t just use existing characters, his own are also hilarious. One of my favourites was Officer Tibbit of the Nursery Crime Division. He is obsessed with word play, his father held many views on language, one of which that dyslexic be respelt ‘O’. Fforde also manages to make it seem like a good crime novel, with witty dialogue ‘We’re here to talk to you about Humpty Dumpty’ ‘As in, sat on a wall?’ ‘No, as in had a great fall. He was found dead this morning’. It’s one fault, plot’s a little complicated, a little hard to follow. But it doesn’t impede your enjoyment if you try to just enjoy what you’re reading and go with the flow, all will be revealed in the end.
And as you may have noticed the only way I have found to properly explain how great this book is, was by costantly quoting it. So, to sum up. Read it immediately! – Julie
‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck
This novel from the writer of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and published by ’Covici Friede’, follows two men, George and Lennie, who are trying to raise enough money to buy some of their own land. Lennie is a gentle giant, but frequently gets into trouble because he doens’t understand what he’s doing. They get a job on a ranch, and for a while it seems they might just get to buy their own farm pretty soon. I found the relationship between George and Lennie truly touching. George frequently complains about Lennie, often telling him that without him he could do whatever he wants. Yet George doesn’t really have any obligation towards Lennie, they’re not related, yet George sticks by him, defends him, and makes sure he’s alright. and we do see some tenderness, when George tells Lennie about what they’ll do when they get their own farm. Lennie’s only wish is to be allowed to tend to the rabbits; he has a fondness for small cute animals 
The novella is also added to by the range of secondary characters, we see the many faces of poverty in the other workers. Crooks, the only black character cannot succeed because of his race. A particularly harrrowing line is from Churley’s wife ‘I could have you strung up a tree so fast it ain’t even funny’-nasty stuff. Another character is Candy, an aging and decrepit farm hand who’s only friend is his dog (also aging and decrepit) and who fears the day when he will get fired for being too old. What I found touching was the way both these characters latched onto George and Lennie’s dream of a farm. Candy offers to give them the money if they’ll let him stay there and work for his keep, and Crooks offers them free labour if he can have his house and board. The camaraderie of this book was the most touching part, and the characters inability to get out of their current situation was very harrowing. – Julie
‘Midnight is a place’ by Joan Aiken
‘Midnight is a place’ was published in 1974 by ‘Hodder’ and centres around two orphans, Lucas and Anna-Marie, being raised as wards of Sir Randolph Grimsby, an unpleasant and rather troubled carpet tycoon. Lucas is the orphaned son of Grimsby’s partner, who is being groomed to take over the business by his tutor Mr. Oakapple. The carpet business is in a pretty bad shape and the factory, named the Midnight Mill, is full of dangerous equipment which is constantly killing or maiming the children and adults who work there. The discontented employees are preparing to strike, a band of thugs is running a protection racket and a tax official is preparing to entail the whole business.
Into Lucas’ lonely life comes a spoiled little girl named Anna-Marie Murgatroyd who only speaks French and whose grandfather founded the Midnight Mill and whose father lost the Mill in a bet. The emotional scars and troubles surrounding all this history builds to a fatal climax one cold winter night when their house catches fire and burns to the ground, killing Sir Randolph. Suddenly, Lucas and Anna-Marie are alone in the world, without a protector, a home, an income or any prospects.
They don’t find the city of Blastburn to be a very nice place to be starting from scratch. There is a lot of unpleasantness from gangs on the street, gangs in the Mill, an obnoxious landlady and a nasty job picking garbage out of the sewers where Lucas is menaced by giant rats, man-eating pigs and a co-worker who has a touch of homicidal mania. Plus, they are trying to pay for medical treatment for poor Mr. Oakapple who was injured on the night of the fire.
Slowly the two children turn their midnight into day again, in spite of all the horrible people and the evil forces at work in this nightmare of an industrial city. They find friends in unexpected quarters, they grow stronger and braver, they find ways to fight back and they inspire other people to come forward to make guilty confessions and courageous stands.
‘Midnight is a Place’ is full of spooky, nasty, creepy and dangerous things but in its shadows lurk things that are lovable, moving, uplifting and true, one of my favourite books of all time.
An Amazon reviewer described it as having ‘all the ingredients of a classic Gothic thriller; the creepy mansion, the unpleasant guardian, the servant with a hidden past, the lonely orphan, the depressing, filthy, poverty-stricken town, the sudden reversals of fortune and the mysterious benefactor’. – Becs
‘The Whispering Road’ by Livi Michael
‘The Whispering Road’ was published in 2005 by ‘Puffin’ and reflects many aspects of some of Charles Dickens’ novels. Things like the workhouse system in which poor children like Oliver Twist were starved, beaten, worked like slaves and subjected to danger and illness by their self-righteous and often corrupt ‘benefactors’. In this book by award-winning author Livi Michael, the same system and other injustices of Dickens’ age are dramatized from a different perspective; that of a historical novel, looking back on a past age that has lessons for today.
Unlike Dickens, Livi Michael does not idealize the hero, nor is the adventure dressed up as great literature or gushy melodrama. In fact, the narrative of Joe Sowerby is frank, fast-paced and unsparingly honest. At times it was hard for me to continue reading because I almost gave up waiting for Joe to develop some redeeming characteristics. Indeed, he doesn’t begin to change for the better—nor does his life—until close to the end of the book. In the meantime, his tale gives what may be a realistic picture of the plight of the poor in his time; escaping from a brutal apprenticeship, trying to survive on the run, joining a carnival, ditching his disturbingly strange little sister and running with a street gang in the ghettos of Manchester. He witnesses shocking violence and horrible sanitation, participates in petty crime (and one that maybe isn’t so petty), visits hospitals that were ahead of their time but clearly far behind ours, attracts the ‘benevolence’ of a wealthy gentleman and gets caught up in a campaign for social change…all within a few weeks.
But the really important change in this story is the one that happens within Joe, sending him on a desperate search for his lost sister, only one of the many children who fell victim to the ways of their world. The book finally leaves anger and desperation behind and closes with some eerie, tender, joyful and sad scenes.
It isn’t an easy book to read and Joe isn’t an easy hero to sympathize with but perhaps you will find that the ending repays your entire struggle through the middle parts—though the same cannot be said for many of the tragic lives depicted in its pages. Or perhaps the journey amid the horrors, heartbreaks, dangers and magic of lower-class life in early 19th century England will make you feel better about your own world. For many people, it was experiences like Joe’s that led to changes that made life better for millions of people today but it is our duty to recognize what the people of yesterday experienced on the road to a better world today. – Becs
‘Death of a Salesman’ by Arthur Miller
‘Death of a Salesman’ is a 1949 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. The play ran for 742 performances, winning both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
The play focuses on the character of Willy Loman, a 63 years old salesman who is no longer able to earn a living and is slowly losing his mind and attempts to kill himself by inhaling gas from the water heater or from crashing his Studebaker. His idealism of a perfect life is sustained by an anecdote about a great salesman of a bygone age named Dave Singleman who sold his personality first and his goods second and who, at eighty-four, was still a successful and well-liked salesman that ultimately died “the death of a salesman”, with hundreds of clients and fellow salesmen attending his funeral.
However Willy spends most of his time dreaming instead of doing anything to improve his life. He is obsessed with the post-war interpretation of the American Dream. In the end he kills himself by crashing his car, hoping to get the life insurance money for his family and trying to prove his worth in money.
Throughout the play Willy lives in his dreams and derives all his pleasures from the past, which he distorts to convince himself that all is well.
Pride is also central to Willy’s character; pride in pretending to be a successful salesman, pride in his sons and pride in being independent and his aim in life is to be “well liked.” He even tells his sons that personality is more important than smarts.
However although Willy is never able to attain his ideals and his life is a massive self-deception he still retains his hopes but goes to his grave never truly realising where he went wrong.
Death of a Salesman made both Arthur Miller and the character of Willy Loman household names. The play is a counterexample to Aristotle’s characterisation of tragedy as the downfall of a great man; although Willy certainly has a tragic flaw in his character, his downfall is that of an ordinary man and it doesn’t threaten a city, like in many tragedies, but only a single household. In this sense, Miller’s play represents a modern, political form of tragedy. Willy is also obsessed with the question of greatness, and his downfall arises directly from his continued misconception of himself as someone capable of greatness, as well as the unshakable belief that greatness stems directly from personal charisma or popularity.
In 1951, it was also adapted into a film which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director and was nominated for numerous Academy Awards. – Becs
‘Yurt’ by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
‘Yurt’ is an excerpt from Sarah Bynum’s novel ‘Ms. Hempel chronicles’ but unlike many excerpts, this one stands on its own as a short story, or at least I think so. It’s about Ms. Hempel, a young teacher who struggles to make a decision of any kind and is filled with admiration for another teacher Ms. Duffy, who takes a long international trip and comes back pregnant. It turns out that Ms. Duffy cut her trip short and came home, whereupon she met the man of her dreams and got married All of this strikes Ms. Hempel as extremely bold and wonderful and she admires Ms. Duffy’s sense of adventure. She also learns that Ms. Duffy will be living in a yurt (which is a sort of round tent made of animal skins) with her husband and baby and the yurt seems to take on symbolic significance, connoting decisiveness, adventure and action. Ms. Hempel, on the other hand, is going nowhere and seems to be in awe of anyone who can make a decision. In the end, although her transformation is small, the reader can feel her longing for strength and there seems to be the slightest possibility that she is on the verge of a breakthrough. It’s not a great story but it is enjoyable.
The whole book has a four star rating on Amazon and one of the reviews states:
I read “Yurt” and was anxious for more, the ‘Ms. Hempel Chronicles’ delivered. As a teacher of adolescents, I was struck at how Bynum nailed the emotional dynamic of the classroom, relationships between teachers and students, the internal struggles of the characters to become who they are and will be. Despite the very different setting and cast of characters from those I know in my own classroom, the relationships and realizations of Ms. Hempel seemed uncannily familiar to me. Also – the descriptive style is hilarious as well as dead on.
‘Yurt’ also featured in the 2009 edition of ‘The Best American Short Stories’ compiled by Houghton Mifflin. – Becs
‘The Artemis Fowl Series’ by Eoin Colfer
This series is published by Puffin, and follows the criminal exploits of 12 year old Irish genius Artemis Fowl II. The first novel plots Artemis’ First attempt to exploit the fairy world by kidnapping and holding for ransom officer Holly Short, member of the Lower Elements Police Reconnaisance. Perhaps better known to us humans as a Leprechaun. Although that’s really a job rather than a speicies. She’s actually an elf. Anyway, although aimed at 9-12 market I think these books appeal to an older audience. I certainly enjoyed them. Considering the kind of book they are I think they are very well written and the characters are awesome (sorry, there’s simply no other way to describe them)
Said characters include the titular character Artemis Fowl, his loyal bodyguard Butler (it should be noted the Butler’s have been working for the Fowls since anyone can remember), Holly Short, her superior Commander Julius Root, repeat offender Mulch Diggums (a kleptomaniac Dwarf) and Foaly, one of the few centaurs left in existence and a total genius. Plus a recent addition No 1, a demon introduced in the fifth book ‘The Lost Colony’.
The series currently has six books, with Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex due for release in July of this year. There is also a script waiting to be greenlighted to be made into a film. In my opinion the books only get better, and I didn’t realise how emotionally invested I was in them until I thought Butler was dead (seriously, dying in Artemis’ arms he revealed his first name…which was a big deal believe me).
Artemis was born when Colfer saw a picture of his younger brother Donal in his first Communion suitand noting he looked like ‘a twelve year old Bond villain’ he then proceeded to note how hilarious a twelve year old Bond villain would be. Thus Artemis was born. However in the beginning he wasn’t called Artemis, he was called Archimedes. I think the name is wonderfully chosen. As if being twelve didn’t make it hard enough making it in the criminal underworld, he’s also got the name of a Greek godess. Godess of the hunt but a godess nonetheless. – Julie
‘Lucas’ by Kevin Brooks
‘Lucas’ is a novel by Kevin Brooks and published by ‘Chicken House’ about a 15 year old girl named Caitlin who lives on an isolated island off the coast of England and befriends a mysterious 16 year old outsider who has traveled to the island to explore and live for a short period of time named Lucas, eventually she falls in love with him, only to see the island’s prejudices come to life.
Lucas, who has no last name, no history, no friends, and no family but who is gentle and thoughtful, is not accepted into the island community easily, due to the discrimination he receives at the hands of the town folk. He becomes the victim of attempted assault, forcing him to defend himself and earn a negative reputation. The negative behavior escalates when Lucas rescues a young girl from drowning during a town festival but is met with accusations of molestation.
Lucas is forced into hiding. However, he feels an urge to visit Caitlin one last time. Unfortunately, Jamie Tait, the rich island bully, decides to frame Lucas for the rape, assault and attempted murder of a promiscuous islander named Angel. The novel climaxes as the islanders attempt to capture Lucas, who is innocent of the crime and Caitlin is thrown into a kind of witch-hunt that will leave her changed forever.
In the novel Lucas tells Caitlin that his mother gave birth to him when she was young and Lucas had later left home for mysterious reasons, travelling from town to town. However, we never find out his full, true story and he remains a mysterious character which is part of his persona and without it he would be much less extraordinary and interesting.
There are also hints that Lucas is on one level a kind of Christ figure, who brings understanding and love where before there was anger and guilt. On another level, it’s a particularly moving and unusual love story. Lucas, who remains, thank goodness, mysterious even after the end of the book, appears to Caitlin on the beach and is beautiful, wild, gifted and enigmatic.
Overall ‘Lucas’ is unique, unforgettable and a great, heart moving book with sheer intensity. The book really gets to you and then when this has happened, you want to tell everyone how good it is. It’s a book that not only keeps you turning the pages but also has you wondering and questioning your first judgments of people and their relationships to one another long after you’ve come to the end of the story. It would make a terrific movie too but it would be quite challenging to find someone to play Lucas, who is described as having “a way of walking that whispered secrets to the air”.
It’s also been described as a clash between ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ and ‘The Ox-Bow Incident’.
The book also won the German Youth Literature Prize. -Becs
‘Rapunzel’ by the Brothers Grimm
‘Rapunzel’ is a German fairy tale in the collection assembled by the Brothers Grimm, and first published in 1812 and it is one of the best known fairy tales today. The Brothers Grimm are among the best-known story tellers of folk tales, some of their works include; “Rumpelstiltskin”, “Snow White”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Cinderella”, “Hansel and Gretel”, “The Frog Prince” and of course “Rapunzel”.
In ‘Rapunzel’ a middle aged couple who desperately want a child, live next to a walled garden which belongs to an enchantress. The wife, as a result of her long-awaited pregnancy, noticed a rapunzel plant, planted in the garden and longs for it to the point of death. For two nights, the husband breaks into the garden and gathers some for her. However on the third night, the enchantress, named “Dame Gothel”, catches him and accuses him of theft. He begs for mercy and the old woman agrees to be lenient, on the condition that his child is given to her at birth. When the girl is born, the evil enchantress takes her and names her Rapunzel. When Rapunzel reaches her twelfth birthday, the enchantress shuts her away into a tower with no way out and only one window. When the witch goes to visit Rapunzel, she stands beneath the tower and calls out:
‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair.’
Rapunzel then drops her long hair down to the enchantress, who climbs up to enter the room.
One day, a prince rides through the forest and hears Rapunzel singing. Entranced by her voice, he goes to look for the girl and finds the tower. He returns often, listening to her beautiful singing and one day he sees the enchantress visit, thus learning how to enter the room. When Dame Gothel is gone, he bade Rapunzel let down her hair and he climbs up, makes her acquaintance and asks her to marry him. Rapunzel agrees.
Together they plan a means of escape, wherein he will come each night and bring her silk, which Rapunzel will gradually weave into a ladder. Before the plan comes to fruition, however, Rapunzel foolishly gives the Prince away. In the first edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Rapunzel innocently says that her dress is getting tight around her belly (suggesting that she is pregnant) but this was soon changed to Rapunzel asking the witch, in a moment of forgetfulness, why it was easier for her to draw up the Prince than it was to draw her up. In anger, Dame Gothel cuts short Rapunzel’s hair and casts her out into the wilderness to fend for herself.
When the prince calls that night, the enchantress lets the severed hair down to haul him up. To his horror, he finds himself staring at the witch instead of Rapunzel. When she tells him in anger that he will never see Rapunzel again, he leaps from the tower in despair and is blinded by the thorns below.
For months he wanders through the wastelands of the country. One day, while Rapunzel sings as she fetches water, the prince hears Rapunzel’s voice again, and they are reunited. When they fall into each other’s arms, her tears immediately restore his sight. The prince leads her to his kingdom, where they lived happily ever after.-Becs
‘Airborn’ by Kenneth Oppel
‘Airborn’ is a young adult novel by Kenneth Oppel and published by ‘HarperCollins’. It is the first in a trilogy and is preceded by Skybreaker and Starclimber. It is set in a time where the primary form of air transportation is airships. The radio exists but the airplane has not been invented, which suggests that the book takes place in an imaginary time period or a possible alternate reality. The book takes place aboard a transoceanic airship, the Aurora, and is told through the perspective of its 15 year old cabin boy, Matt Cruse whose dream is to become Captain of one of the majestic airships.
The novel begins with the Aurora embarking on a journey to Sydney and along the way, just after the Aurora sets sail, a small aircraft lands on the ship, bringing aboard 2 passengers: Kate de Vries and her chaperone, Miss Marjorie Simpkins. Kate is obsessed with the quest to discover creatures that her Grandfather saw and she shares her grandfather’s journal containing detailed drawings and information of the creatures with Matt.
The book goes on to include an attack by pirates, being shipwrecked on an island and discovering never before seen creatures named ‘Cloud Cats’. All in all, it is a pretty epic tale! The characters are so easy to connect with and although the story is totally fictional, what with the airships and the Cloud Cats, it still feels as though it could be true and it’s so interesting! You really want to be a part of the crew in Aurora!
The airship also runs on a fictional gas named Hydrium. It is lighter than hydrogen and leaks naturally out of pits in the earth, similarly to methane and it gives off a mango scent. The word is apparently a combination of helium and hydrogen to make Hydrium…clever!
Kenneth Oppel liked the idea of writing in an older time period because of the feel it would give to the dialogue and scenery. In order to reinforce the idea of an alternative past, Oppel subtly changed some of the geographical names, such as adding Latin endings, for example Atlanticus and Pacificus instead of Atlantic and Pacific.
He also stated that he didn’t think the novel would win any awards because it lacked what he deemed to be more complicated themes, present in his previous Silverwing books. In his Prinz Honor Book acceptance speech for Airborn, he states he ultimately realized that the book is about happiness, and that “my hero’s love of airships and his longing for a home in the sky, were all expressions of curiosity and optimism and wonder, and that ongoing, restless search for happiness.”
There is also a movie based on “Airborn” in pre-production, set to come out in 2011. – Becs
‘Sea of Peril’ by Elizabeth Hawkins
‘Sea of Peril’ is an older children’s novel by Elizabeth Hawkins and published by ‘Orchard’. The novels protagonist is a boy named Jimmy who is an evacuee from Britain and is aboard a ship named ‘the City of Karachi’, bound for Canada during WW2. Although he feels homesick, he and his friends treat the voyage as an exciting adventure. But tragedy strikes when the ship is torpedoed.
“Now they were adrift, lost in an ice-cold sea: forty people packed into a small lifeboat. How long would their meagre supplies last? How long could they survive the storm-tossed waves? Jimmy clutched tightly on to his good luck token – a piece of German shrapnel…”
The book is extremely short but packed full of suspense. I was completely in awe over how this one lifeboat of 40 people managed to survive and the fact that it is based on true events makes it all the more intriguing!
Elizabeth Hawkins has written fifteen books ranging from picture books to adult novels.
After university she started work as a research assistant for the historian, Martin Gilbert. She then trained as a teacher and taught for several years in Oxford and California. In the US she became a free-lance journalist writing general interest articles. After she returned to England she became a specialist writer in the art and antiques market. It wasn’t until she had children of her own that she tried writing books for children and found she enjoyed that area of writing most of all. – Becs
‘Apt Pupil’ by Stephen King
The novel was also published by Time Warner. To start, I like Stephen King, Pet Sematary was terrifying, and his novella collection ‘Different Seasons’ was awesome, it included ‘The Body’ (made into the film Stand By Me) Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (guess what film that was made into) Apt Pupil and the Breathing method. I loved three out of four of them. I did not like Apt Pupil. It plots the growing relationship between an all American kid named Todd ‘with hair the colour of ripe corn, blue eyes, white teeth, lightly tanned skin marred by not even the first shadow of adolescent acne’ and the grumpy old Mr. Denker/ Dussander the Nazi war ciminal…hmm. We see this growing relationship of eploitation, manipulation and corruption.
I can usually cope with the horrific images King creates; after all he is a horror writer. And his other books usually have something a bit hopeful. But this book has all of the horror but with none of the comfort that it is impossible like Pet Sematary, and none of the hopefullness of Shawshank Redemption. World War Two and the Holocaust is oviously a delicate subject, and if you’re going to base a story around it it should have a point. Maybe Apt Pupil did have a very meaningful point, but I simply didn’t get it. Is it that anyone can be corrupted? No Todd blackmailed Dussander because he wanted to hear him describe the horrific things he did during the war. It would seem Todd was pretty corrupt from the beginning. Is it that people don’t change? No, Todd definitely gets a lot worse. I’d be happy for someone to disagree with me. But I simply didn’t get it. – Julie
‘The Memory of Running’ by Ron McClarty
First published by Viking Press, this plots the journey (both emotional and bicycle) of Smithy Ide. A man who drinks too much, smokes too much, eats too much and has no friends and no family except his mother and father. And they die in the first few chapters. He then discovers his estranged sister Bethany 9missing for twenty years), has also been found dead. A cheerful beginning to be sure. One night he starts riding his old bike, and feels he can’t stop
He decides to ride to go and see his sister Bethany, because the body has to be identified. We see him confront his memories, and wake up from his alcohol and food induced zombie like state. Although the book is about Smithy, I felt the most interesting, and undoubtedly tragic character was Bethany. She is mentally disturbed and her ‘voice’ tells her to do horrible things. This is made so much more tragic by the fact that Bethany was a geniuinely kind and loving person.
The book does have faults, it’s not the greatest book ever written, but it is both horrifying and heart warming, with some humour splashed around too. And I enjoyed it, I thought the non linear structure worked fairly well, and it wasn’t predictable (for the most part). So if you can handle kind of a gritty read I definitely recommend it.
A bit of trivia, McLarty is an actor, and this was his first novel. At first it was only available on audio book, which he recorded himself, he had trouble finding a publisher for the book. That is until Stephen King chastised the industry for not publishing it, after which Viking Press published it and became a best seller. – Julie
‘Monkey Planet/Planet of the Apes’ by Pierre Boulle
Best known as ‘The book that inspired Planet of the Apes’ (it’s tragic when the film is better known than the book isn’t it?) it is by French writer Pierre Boulle and depending on the translation is called ‘Monkey Planet’ (Xan Fielding translation by Penguin) or ‘Planet of the Apes’. The book begins with a framing story of a couple; Jinn and Phylis on holiday in space. They then discover a message in a bottle, it contains the memoirs of Ulyse Merou, a French journalist who travelled to a planet orbiting Betelguese with a professor, a physicist and a pet monkey. They soon discover that the planet they have dubbed Soror is ruled not by man…but by ape.
On the planet there are three classes of apes the Orang-utans are guardians of apes knowledge, and are very stubborn and conservative and as they control education are able to keep everyone else the same, gorilla’s are power hungry and violent, and chimpanzees are the pioneers, who have made nearly every major discovery in ape history.
When first reading it, it all seemed a bit ridiculous, a bit farcical describing apes clapping to a science lecture with both hands and feet. But this soon gave rise to BLIND TERROR as we see our narrator Merou starts to learn more about this planet. We see the degradation of Merou, chimps cutting up the brains of humans, yet are they really humans with no intelligence? And can they be taught? As Merou tries to do with Nova. We see that intelligence can be gained but it can also be lost…mysterious non?
This book really made an impact on me, and that doesn’t really happen often. I was unable to do anything else but contemplate it for ten minutes after finishing it. The ending was that good.
Boulle also wrote ‘Bridge Over the River Kwai’, based on the experiences of allied POW’s, as well as a story about Hitler and Eva Braun hiding for years in the mountains after WW2. ‘Bridge over River Kwai was also was made into a successful film. Boulle won best adapted screenplay despite not having written it, or even speaking English. This was because the writers had been blacklisted as Communist sympathisers. His acceptance speech was simply ‘Merci’.- Julie
‘Gone with the Wind’ by Margaret Mitchell
‘Gone with the Wind’ was published in 1936 by ‘Macmillan Publishers’ and is set during the Civil War. It is dismissed by most critics for being uneven, flawed and predictably written and is harassed by some for broadcasting racist myths but despite this it was the best-selling novel of the twentieth century and it continues to withstand its attacker’s comments.
The inherent racism of the novel is very difficult to defend. Margaret Mitchell, like most of her generation of southerner’s, freely accepts the inferiority of African Americans, whom she presents in a few distasteful instances, in nonhuman terms. Melded with that prejudice there is also great respect for some members of the race. In the novel Mitchell merely accepts slavery and fails to recognize the strength and courage of those who rebelled against their status as slaves.
What she presents well is an array of representations in an African American peasantry, ranging from nobility, shrewdness, loyalty and affection which are all present in the character of Mammy, to foolishness in another slave named Prissy. Margaret Mitchell was also so proud of the fact that she had tried to convey accurately the speech of the old African Americans.
In the last third of the novel however, Mitchell appears to give way to a nightmare vision and represents white female purity as being under attack by black cruelty and as something which can only to be saved by the Ku Klux Klan, subsequently inviting lots of criticism.
‘Gone with the Wind’ was also made into a film with Vivien Leigh as the main character Scarlett O’hara, so if you can’t be bothered wading your way through the 1000 and something page book, you can always check out the film! (Although the book, as always, is better)-Becs
‘Timbuktu’ by Paul Auster
‘Writing is no longer an act of free will for me, it’s a matter of survival’-Paul Auster
‘Timbuktu’ by Paul Auster, published by ‘faber and faber’, tackles the issue of homelessness in America from a dog’s perspective. ‘Timbuktu’ remains tightly focused on just two characters: Mr. Bones, “a mutt of no particular worth or distinction,” and his master, Willy G. Christmas, a middle-aged schizophrenic who has been on the streets since the death of his mother four years before. The novel begins with Willy and Mr. Bones in Baltimore searching for a former high school English teacher who had encouraged the teenage Willy’s aspirations to be a writer. Now Willy is dying and anxious to find a home for both his dog and the multitude of manuscripts he has stashed in a Greyhound bus terminal. When Willy dies, he goes out on a sea of words and Mr. Bones, who can somehow think about metaphysical issues such as the afterlife – referred to by Willy as “Timbuktu” – is left alone, terrified that he will never see his beloved master again:
“What if no pets were allowed? It didn’t seem possible, and yet Mr. Bones had lived long enough to know that anything was possible, that impossible things happened all the time. Perhaps this was one of them, and in that perhaps hung a thousand dreads and agonies, an unthinkable horror that gripped him every time he thought about it.”
Once Willy dies and Mr. Bones is on his own, things go from bad to worse as now master less he faces a series of betrayals, rejections, and disappointments. By stepping inside a dog’s skin, Auster is able to comment on human cruelties and infrequent kindnesses from a unique world view. But before you read this, be warned: the world in Timbuktu is a bleak one and even the occasional moments of grace are short lived.
Paul Auster has been writing books since the age of 27 and is now 62. After graduating from Columbia University in 1970, he moved to Paris, where he earned a living translating French literature. Since returning to the U.S. in 1974, he has published over 40 poems, essays, novels and translations of French writers. He writes absurdist , crime and mystery fiction and his acclaimed debut work is a memoir called ‘The Invention of Solitude’ and his latest novel is entitled ‘Sunset Park’. His books often focus on the themes of, coincidence, a sense of imminent disaster, loss of the ability to understand, failure or the absence of a father. They also often include an obsessive writer as the central character or narrator.-Becs
‘Black Rabbit Summer’ by Kevin Brooks
‘Black Rabbit Summer’, published by ‘The Chicken House’, is a crime novel telling the story of Pete Boland. At the beginning of the book Pete receives a phone call from an old friend suggesting that their former gang get back together for one last night at a travelling fairground. Pete feels uneasy at first as his old friends have changed a lot since high school but he decides to go nonetheless and takes with him his best friend Raymond, a boy who is convinced that his pet black rabbit speaks to him even when it dies and he replaces it with a new one.
The night begins with a get together in their old den. After a few drinks they all end up at the fair, where they meet another old school friend, Stella, who is being followed by a film crew as she is now a model and convinced that she is the most important thing in the world. She uses and manipulates those around her for her own amusement and at the fairground she gives her special attention to Raymond.
Pete manages to rescue his friend but what follows is a night of confusion and strange hallucinations. The next morning, both Stella and Raymond are missing. His friends have conflicting stories and it is clear that they are hiding something.
Pete finds himself in the centre of a criminal investigation into the missing celebrity, with evidence ranging from her abandoned, bloodied and ripped clothing to smeared handprints on a caravan door. But what Pete really wants to know is; where is Raymond and why is Pete the only one who seems to care.
‘Black Rabbit Summer’ is Kevin Brooks’ first crossover novel. An unnerving, disturbing and totally engrossing thriller which is definitely not for younger readers due to extreme use of profanity and violence, as well as the way it portrays events, characters and genuine dangers of teenage life.
Before becoming an amazing writer, Kevin Brooks had many jobs, among the list is; being a crematorium assistant, a refreshments vendor at the London Zoo and a civil servant. But he always wanted to be a writer.
It was the publication of ‘Martyn Pig’ that changed everything. After being turned down by a number of publishers, Kevin Brooks sent his manuscript to The Chicken House, who jumped on the chance to publish it and the rest, is history.-Becs
‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy
‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy, published by ‘Alfred A. Knopf’, is set in a post apocalyptic America. It plots a father and son struggling to stay alive in a world of thieves and cannibals, but more importantly perhaps, they are struggling to remain ‘the good guys’. Although the horrific images of the future have the ability to almost make you give up, the touching relationship between ‘The Boy’ and ‘The Man’ (as they are simply known) restores your faith in humanity and gives you the strength to continue reading this brilliant, but nonetheless rather depressing, book.
The incredibly unique style of the book also adds to its appeal. The two main characters aren’t named or physically described, no speech marks are used despite the large amount of dialogue and at a glance the writing style is fairly simplistic. Yet McCarthy uses this for a reason. The basic descriptions of simply what the characters are doing are contrasted with beautiful passages of great insight.
Even the smallest of characters seem realistic, McCarthy has so wonderfully captured both the extreme savagery and beauty that mankind can be capable of. Even the thieve who threatens the lives of the two heroes still maintains a tragic humanity. The characters of the boy and the man are beautifully constructed. It was wonderful to see how completely they rely on each other; the man to keep the boy safe, and the boy to keep the man ‘a good guy’ there are several points in the novel that we see the man’s potential to go the same way as most of humanity, yet the boy keeps him going, and keeps him good.
Although probably most accessible to adult males, I think the tenderness of the family bond would also appeal to women. The setting, plus there’s certainly no lack of action, would also appeal to people who enjoy sci-fi or disaster books. It is certainly not a light read, but definitely one worth reading.-Julie
‘Alex Rider’ by Anthony Horowitz
‘Alex Rider’ is a series of spy novels published by ‘Walker Books’ and written by English author Anthony Horowitz about a teenage spy named Alex Rider (funnily enough). The series is aimed primarily at teenagers and eight novels have been published to date and there are two to go. The first novel, ‘Stormbreaker’ was adapted into a motion picture. Also, Anthony Horowitz writes the novels in his studio which he enters by opening a bookshelf that is actually a secret door (how spy novel is that!)
The books follow the life of 14-year-old orphan Alex Rider. After the death of his uncle who happens to be a spy working for MI6, MI6 recognise Alex’s talents and willingly recruit him. Successful in his first mission, MI6 continually find new ways to blackmail Alex into working for them and other intelligence agencies. Alex is generally told his mission contains no risk but discovers the opposite during his assignment. His missions usually involve a megalomaniac super villain, intent on either world domination or revenge and the plans of whom Alex has to stop.
Villains in the series tend to have some deformity, abnormality or a rare disease and are motivated by revenge or power. Usually they are rich or influential characters but with a master plan which would result in catastrophic consequences. Nearly every book begins with some high-profile murder or crime which Alex has to solve (but they are totally different every time and so awesome!)
In some of the later novels, one of Alex’s motivations is to learn about his past and his deceased parents. In the course of his missions, he gradually discovers that several members of his family have worked for MI6 in addition to his uncle, including his father and his godfather.
One of the main villains of the Alex Rider series is the criminal organization ‘Scorpia’, which is similar to ‘SPECTRE’ in the James Bond books and Alex is often equipped with a wide range of gadgets by MI6. In the Alex Rider universe however, Bond still belongs to fiction and one of Alex’s quotes when first introduced to MI6 and given gadgets is: “Do you mean like in James Bond?”
While I think the books are incredible, sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat action, the book is not for readers who look for logic, common sense or good dialogue in their readings and sophisticated readers will find it simplistic. For me, ‘Stormbreaker’ is a must read, it is fast, exciting and an action-packed novel that you will never regret reading. With its short cliff-hanger chapters and its breathless pace, it is an excellent choice for reluctant readers.-Becs
‘The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream’ by Barack Obama
The book in the here and now I am going to discuss is ‘The Audacity of Hope’ by Barack Obama and published by ‘Crwon’, written when he was a senator and surely had no inkling that it could even be possible for him to become president…so it’s not quite new.
This is my first attempt at reading a book in this genre and although he has written another book prior to this, ‘Dreams of My Father’, I was assured that it really doesn’t work as a series so this one seemed more…now. Hands up I have to confess that I have not found it riveting even although I hugely admire the man, wanted to get into it and feel reassured that there is someone with gravitas, running the most powerful country in the world. What I ended up doing to prepare for this evening was focussing on the chapters that appealed to me most. The chapters on his face and his family, I was struck by a number of things He is without doubt a very intelligent man and this comes across in the effortless writing style he uses and the way he uses words. They are not sound bites or smug, contrived phrases but the way he describes how he feels and what motivates him really seems to be the product of deep reflection and constant learning. An example of this is his journey to faith, he gives lots of insights into how he processed some of the really good and powerful things that he saw people do as a result of their beliefs but also the negative things both in terms of what people said as opposed to what people did and the evil of fanaticism in any religion. It was eventually through a black church in a deprived area that he came to a place where he was able to choose Christ and political action. (pg208)
And the really great thing is that’s only the middle of this chapter. Some of the challenges that he goes onto describe about walking on both these tracks are really inspiring. He takes onboard peoples individual circumstances and is humbled by some of the times when he has become aware that his Christian stance has led him to make judgements that have inflicted pain on good people.
I also enjoyed the chapter about family. His respect for Michelle’s family and for Michelle didn’t stop him from being pretty selfish at times by spending a lot of time on his career and leaving her and her not so insignificant career to pick up most of the home and children parts of their life, even if he was off saving the world! But he does go on to talk about his respect for the burden of parenthood on women; he was brought up by his mum and gran. He also felt that particularly black fathers needed to take more of a positive role in their children’s lives if there was ever to be any change in the way black children fared in life. He does round off the book with a humorous paragraph. (pg352)
I wonder how much quality family time he is managing to get these days. I do recommend giving this book a try if you are interested in finding out what motivates the President of the USA but the more political and social justice chapters made me realise why I prefer parallel universes and fantasy into which I will now happily retreat.-Becs
‘The Bartimaeus Trilogy’ by Jonathan Stroud
The Bartimaeus Trilogy is a fantasy series by Jonathan Stroud and published by ‘Doubleday’ and consists of, ‘The Amulet of Samarkand’, ‘The Golem’s Eye’ and ‘Ptolemy’s Gate’.
The title character, Bartimaeus, is a five-thousand year old djinni.
The three novels are set in an alternate world to our own where magic, magicians, and demons have been active throughout history.
In the alternate history the people are mainly of two classes. The magicians, who rule government and the commoners, who make up the rest of the society and are kept in line by the magicians through fear. Unlike the Muggles of the Harry Potter universe who do not believe in magic, the commoners are fully aware of the magical world and know of the magicians’ dominance.
The first book in the series introduces Nathaniel as a gifted 12-year old magician’s apprentice. However when the magician Simon Lovelace cruelly humiliates Nathaniel in public, he decides to take revenge by stealing Lovelace’s most powerful possession, the Amulet of Samarkand (hence the name of the book). Unknown to his tutor, he begins to study advanced magic in order to summon the djinni Bartimaeus and enslave him. Things soon get out of hand and Bartimaeus and Nathaniel find themselves caught in the middle of magical espionage, murder, blackmail, and revolt. Together, the two of them defeat Lovelace’s most powerful demon and Lovelace himself.
The second book picks up almost three years later and features Nathaniel as a junior magician working his way up the government ranks. In this book Kitty Jones is introduced as part of the Resistance movement which seeks to end the oppressive rule of the magicians. Nathaniel is tasked by his superiors to crush the Resistance and capture the members. His task is complicated when a seemingly invincible clay golem starts to make random attacks on London. Much to the displeasure of Bartimaeus, Nathaniel recalls the djinni to aid him in uncovering the origins of the golem, and to save his own skin.
The final book, ‘Ptolemy’s Gate’ refers to Bartimaeus’ greatest master, Ptolemy who was the only human who treated his servants as equals and tried to build a bridge between djinni’s and humans. The book again makes a three year jump and we find Nathaniel as a senior magician and a member of the ruling council. His years as a high ranking government official have made him merciless and he treats all of his servants cruelly, especially Bartimaeus. The main plot of this story is a conspiracy to overthrow the government through a revolution by spirits on earth which causes the most dangerous threat in the history of magic. Together, Nathaniel, Bartimaeus and Kitty try to save the city of London from certain destruction.
Over the course of the trilogy, Nathaniel, the innocent young boy, hungry for knowledge, is transformed into an arrogant magician. However by the end of the third and final book he becomes responsible and honourable, more like his younger self. With this transformation, Nathaniel becomes all that Ptolemy hoped to be. Nathaniel willingly allows Bartimaeus to share his body to combat the evil spirit Nouda and his army of hybrids who are threatening to take over the world. They use a magical staff which creates a fusion that forever bridges the gap between humans and djinni’s. However, at the last moment, he dismisses Bartimaeus from his body and then sacrifices himself to destroy Nouda. This incident was similar to what Ptolemy did in the moments before he died.
The last chapter is told from Bartimaeus’ perspective and the closing passage reads:
“Then Nouda was upon us. Mouths opened, tentacles slashed down. Nathaniel finished the Dismissal. I went. The staff broke.”
“A typical master. Right to the end, he didn’t give me a chance to get a word in edgeways. Which is a pity, because at that last moment I’d have liked to tell him what I thought of him. Mind you, since in that split second we were, to all intents and purposes, one and the same, I rather think he knew anyway.”
Needless to say, I cried my eyes out and the fact that I read the book when I was twelve and still remember the ending vividly is conclusive enough evidence for me that this really is a marvellous book with a tragic ending that was made worse by the fact that I did not see it coming. At all! I kept turning the pages insistent that there would be more and this couldn’t possibly be the end. At first I was furious but now I see that perhaps the tragic endings are the most memorable and that it was the best possible way to end this awesome story.-Becs
‘His Dark Materials’ by Philip Pullman
‘His Dark Materials’ is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman and published by ‘Scholastic’, comprising of, ‘Northern Lights’, ‘The Subtle Knife’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’. It follows the coming-of-age of two children, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, as they wander through a series of parallel universes against a backdrop of epic events.
In ‘Northern Lights’, the heroine, Lyra Belacqua and her dæmon, Pan, learn of the existence of Dust, a strange particle believed by the government to provide evidence for Original Sin. Dust appears less attracted to the innocence of children and this gives rise to grisly experiments carried out on kidnapped children and their dæmons in the distant North by scientists. In the beginning of the novel, Lyra is placed in the care of the elegant and mysterious Mrs. Coulter but discovers to her horror that she works as a member of the secretive organisation which kidnaps the children and runs the experiments. Lyra runs away and is found by gypsies and soon they are on an expedition to rescue the missing children, with Lyra hoping to save her best friend Roger. With the aid of an exiled armoured bear, the gypsies, an aeronaut and a witch, they save the children from the experiments and destroy the research station. At the end of the novel, Lyra’s uncle, Lord Asriel opens a bridge to another world by severing Lyra’s friend Roger from his dæmon, killing Roger in the process to create the vast amount of energy to make the bridge. Lyra and Pan then follow their uncle through the gate.
In ‘The Subtle Knife’, Lyra journeys through the Aurora Borealis to an otherworldly city called Cittàgazze. Cittàgazze’s reckless use of technology to travel through universes has released soul-eating Spectres, rendering much of the world incapable of movement except for children. Here Lyra meets Will Parry, a twelve-year-old boy from our world who has stumbled into Cittàgazze. Will becomes the bearer of the Subtle Knife. One edge of the knife can create portals between worlds and the other edge easily cuts through any form of matter. Will and Lyra then travel together before Lyra is kidnapped.
‘The Amber Spyglass’ tells of Lyra’s kidnapping by Mrs. Coulter who has learned of the prophecy identifying Lyra as the next Eve. Will, with the help of many magical and normal people, rescues Lyra from the cave where Mrs. Coulter has hidden her from the Government, which has become determined to kill her before she yields to temptation and sin like the original Eve.
The two of them then journey to the Land of the Dead while Lord Asriel and the reformed Mrs. Coulter work to destroy the Devil. They succeed but kill themselves in the process. God himself dies of his own frailty when Will and Lyra free him from the crystal prison where the Devil had trapped him. The book ends with Will and Lyra falling in love but realising they cannot live together in the same world because all windows must be closed to prevent the loss of Dust and because each of them can only live full lives in their native worlds. They make an emotional farewell and promise to come each year to sit on a bench at the back of the Botanic Garden at Oxford for an hour at noon on Midsummer’s day so that perhaps they may feel each other’s presence next to one another in their own worlds and be together once more.
The book ends with Lyra sitting on the bench in the Botanic Garden:
“She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn’t think of him; didn’t speak to him in her head, didn’t relive every moment they’d been together…She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much…She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever.”
Now, I hate unhappy endings but I think this just goes to show that the tragic endings are almost always the most memorable. If an ending wraps up nicely and everyone is happy, you never think of it again whereas if the ending is unexpected like a cliff-hanger or tragic, you keep thinking about what will happen next or what could have happened, so the story lives on.-Becs
‘The Snowman’ by Raymond Briggs
‘The Snowman’ is a children’s book by English author Raymond Briggs, published in 1978 by ‘Random House Books’. In 1982, the book was turned into a 26-minute animated movie for Channel 4. It was first shown late on Christmas Eve and was an immediate success. It has been shown every year since and has become a part of British and international Christmas popular culture.
The book is wordless, as is the film except for the song “Walking in the Air”. The story is told through picture, action and music. “Walking in the Air,” was written specially for it and performed by a St Paul’s Cathedral choirboy, Peter Auty.
In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes the film was placed 71st. It was voted 4th in UKTV Gold’s Greatest TV Christmas Moments.
For those who don’t know, ‘The Snowman’ is the tale of a young boy who builds a snowman one winter’s day. That night, at the stroke of twelve, the snowman comes to life. The first part of the story deals with the snowman’s attempts to understand the appliances, toys and other bric-a-brac in the boy’s house; all while keeping quiet enough not to wake the boy’s parents. The two of them then venture back outside and go for a ride on a motorcycle, disturbing many animals such as pheasants, rabbits, a barn owl, a fox and a brown horse.
In the second part of the story, the boy and the snowman take flight — the song “Walking in the Air” appears at this point. They fly over the boy’s town, over houses and large public buildings before flying past the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and a pier and then out into the ocean. They continue north past many sights and animals. Flying into the aurora borealis they reach their destination.
The two wander hand-in-hand into a snow-covered forest and attend a snowmen’s party, at which the boy is the only human. They meet Father Christmas and his reindeer, and the boy is given a scarf with a snowman pattern.
The story ends after the return journey. However, the sun has come out the next morning and the boy wakes up to find the snowman has melted. The reader begins to wonder if the night’s events were all a dream, but the boy discovers that he still has the scarf given to him by Father Christmas.
I think that this is just one of the loveliest Christmas stories of all time; it’s so short and yet so sweet. Even though when I was younger I used to cry because it was so sad, I still love the book, which I think it is definitely classed as despite not having any words. – Becs
‘The Bible’ by God
The book I am going to review is the Bible, author God with various scribes and publishers. Although I hope to make my review entertaining I mean absolutely no disrespect and have chosen this as I genuinely feel that it is important to keep Christ in Christmas.
The Bible is a supernatural blockbusting thriller with a storyline for everyone. It is split into 2 main books full of short stories and poems. The stories contain history, prophesy, Kings and queens, murder and war stories plus genealogical biographies. There are stories of people’s lives with some great examples of character development where the reader can enjoy a feeling of commonality with the successes and failures of the characters journeys.
The thread that runs through the first book is the build up of the plot and indicators of the coming of the hero who has not been introduced yet. This section is written in a serious and authoritative manner and is set in an ancient time.
The second book starts with the birth of the hero of the book – this section is the Nativity. The nativity describes the events around the time of Jesus birth into extremely primitive surroundings and the star that shone guiding the 3 wise men to come and pay their respects. The trouble is that apart from these kings who exit almost immediately, the lowliness of his social circumstances seems to fool all the other characters who had been awaiting his arrival. The fact that he had been heralded by trumpeting angels and was fondly known as Emmanuel, this seemed to pass most people by but on the bright side this gave him time to grow into a man and hone his super powers.
His amazing but short life was written down by his friends. Sometimes their stories are about the same thing but they tell it from a different perspective or angle – which can be confusing but also adds lots of depth to the event.
The plot in the second book is essentially a love story with an ongoing battle between good and evil. The hero works tirelessly to rescue people from evil and (although I hate giving away the ending) he is killed before the end of the book!!!!!!
…but it’s all good. He battles and transcends death and then comes back to share it with anybody who wants it.
Another cool thing about this book is that despite it’s quite badly constructed chapters, confusing sometimes seemingly conflicting messages and bad press it is the longest running best seller in history and will be available forever.
Overall a seriously good read. This book has the potential to change your life but is best when re-read and studied over time. I would give it 9/10 as it does lack stable boys and vampires.- Becs
‘Eragon’ by Christopher Paolini
Eragon is the first book in the ‘Inheritance Cycle’ by Christopher Paolini. Paolini began writing the book at the age of fifteen. After writing the first draft for a year, he spent a second year rewriting it and fleshing out the story and characters. Paolini’s parents saw the final manuscript and decided to self-publish Eragon. Paolini then spent a year traveling around the United States promoting the novel. By chance, the book was discovered by Carl Hiaasen, who got it re-published by ‘Alfred A. Knopf’.
At the beginning Eragon lives with his uncle Garrow and cousin Roran on a farm on the outskirts of a small village called Carvahall. While hunting in the Spine, which is a large mountain range, Eragon is surprised to see a polished blue stone appear in front of him. A few days later, Eragon witnesses a baby dragon hatch from the “stone”, and realizes that it is actually a dragon egg. Eragon names the dragon Saphira and raises her in secret until two of King Galbatorix’s servants, the Ra’zac, come to Carvahall looking for the egg. Eragon and Saphira manage to escape by hiding in the forest, but Eragon’s uncle Garrow is fatally wounded and the house and farm are burned down. Once Garrow dies, Eragon is left with no reason to stay in Carvahall, so he goes after the Ra’zac, seeking vengeance for the destruction of his home and his uncle’s death. He is accompanied by Brom, an elderly story-teller, who insists on helping him and Saphira.
Eragon becomes a Dragon Rider through his bond with Saphira. On the journey, Brom teaches Eragon sword fighting, magic, the Ancient Language, and the ways of the Dragon Riders. They soon encounter the Ra’zac and their camp is ambushed. Brom is gravely injured and knowing that he is about to die, he tells Eragon that he too was a Dragon Rider and his dragon’s name was also Saphira. But the Dragon Riders were a divided race, one side good and one side evil followers of Galbatorix. Galbatorix is the immortal and demented ruler of Alagaësia. He is the traitor that led to the destruction of the Riders. When his first dragon was killed and he was not allowed another one, the enraged Galbatorix turned against the Riders, later using dark magic to bring another dragon under his rule. He spreads war, madness, and chaos and will not be content until he rules everything and his growing magical strength is derived from the captured souls of dead dragons.
Following Brom’s death, Eragon sets off on a journey to find the Varden, who are a group of rebels who want to see the downfall of Galbatorix and the rise of the Dragon Riders once more. The journey is filled with many creatures such as elves, shades (which are sorcerers possessed by evil spirits), Dwarves and Urgals and lots of war!
‘Eragon’ received mixed reviews by critics. For example it has been criticized for having “clichéd descriptions”, “Long-winded, Blockbuster movie dialogue”, “awkward and gangly prose”, “overly simplistic resolutions of plot issues” and “a plot that stumbles and jerks along, with gaps in logic and characters dropped, then suddenly remembered, or new ones invented at the last minute”. However, for all its flaws, it is an authentic work of great talent that would be appreciated by younger fans.
Favorable reviews of Eragon often focus on the book’s strong characters and tight plot calling it “entertaining”, “quick and exciting” and “packed with action and magic”, “the characters are interesting, the plot is engrossing, and you know the good guy will win in the end.”-Becs
‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins
‘The Hunger Games’ is a young adult science fiction novel written by bestselling author Suzanne Collinsand published by ‘Scholastic Press’ and is the first book of ‘The Hunger Games trilogy’. It introduces sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world where a powerful government called the Capitol has risen up after several devastating disasters. In the book, the Hunger Games are an annual televised event where the ruthless Capitol randomly selects one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts, who are then pitted against each other in a game of survival and forced to kill until only one remains.
The Hunger Games takes place in an unidentified future time period after the destruction of North America, in a nation known as Panem. Panem consists of a rich Capitol and twelve surrounding, poorer districts. As punishment for a previous rebellion against the Capitol, every year one boy and one girl, between the ages of 12 and 18, from each district are forced to participate in The Hunger Games, a televised event where the participants must fight to the death in an arena until only one remains. The story follows 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, a girl from District 12 who volunteers for the Games in place of her younger sister, Prim. Also participating from District 12 is Peeta Mellark, a boy whom Katniss knows from school and who once gave Katniss bread and risked a beating when her family was starving.
Katniss and Peeta are taken to the Capitol, where they meet the other participants and are publicly displayed to the Capitol audience through parades and interviews. During this time, Peeta reveals on-air his long-time unrequited love for Katniss. Katniss believes this to be a ploy to gain audience support for the Games, which can be crucial for survival, as audience members are permitted to send gifts to the participants during the Games to help them. The Games begin with 11 of the 24 children dying in the first day, while Katniss relies on her well-practiced hunting and outdoors skills to survive.
Reading ‘The Hunger Games’ is extremely addictive and violently simple; you know it’s not real, but you find yourself ducking and jumping in your seat as if you are in the Games. The book is exciting, thoughtful, and breathtaking by turns. It is populated by three-dimensional characters and is a superb tale of physical adventure, political suspense, and romance. It is brilliantly plotted and perfectly paced and the considerable strength of the novel comes in the convincingly detailed world and memorably complex and fascinating heroine. It may not be the best written book but it’s hard to fault a novel which is so engrossing.-Becs
‘Coyote’ by Allen Steele
‘An epic tale of space exploration’ by Allen Steele and published by ‘Ace’, plots the story of the first space colonists who travel to the Ursa Majoris system to live on Coyote, a moon of Bear and the only habitable planet that humans have been able to locate. The planets in the system (Fox, Raven, Bear and Wolf) are named for Native American gods, and Bear’s moons (Dog, Hawk, Eagle, Coyote, Snake and Goat) are named after the demigods. Interestingly, Coyote was the trickster in the mythology. After what I felt to be a slow start, this book was fantastic. I found it got a lot better once the characters left earth (take from that what you will) and I was enthralled by the tale of Leslie Gillis, a communications officer who gets woken up from biostasis too early and drifts in and out of sanity whilst he lives alone on the ship. Each section tells a different story but they are all very interestingly linked. Gillis becomes something of a legend in the colony, and they even name some of the local creatures (I’ll get to them in a minute) after ones from ‘The Chronicles of Prince Rupert’ a novel Gillis wrote in his time alone. Although at times I felt the sci-fi story was bogged down by teen drama in the relationship between Carlos and Wendy but as the book continued it was evident that everything was necessary. Despite finding some parts better than others, I wouldn’t have said any of it was unnecessary because all of the stories are so interlinked and to understand one you have to know them all.
As for Coyote itself, it is a planet described as ‘earth like, but not earth’ and we see creatures that very well could have evolved on our own planet. They’ve got swoops, catwhales, pseudowasps, creek crabs, creek cats, swampers, sand thieves and the most terrifying of all: boids a flightless bird described as ‘a cross between a yellow ostrich and a small dinosaur’…well, they’re more terrifying than they sound.
‘Coyote’ is definitely a book I would recommend to sci-fi fans. And should you finish it, do not despair! For there are two sequels ‘Coyote Rising’ and ‘Coyote Frontier’ which I look forward to reading myself.-Julie
‘The Host’ by Stephanie Meyer
‘The Host’ is a science fiction/romance novel by Stephenie Meyer and published by ‘Sphere’. The novel introduces an alien race, called souls, who take over Earth and its inhabitants. The book describes one soul’s predicament when the mind of its human host refuses to cooperate with her takeover.
Melanie “Mel” Stryder is one of few “wild” human – rebels who have evaded the alien souls that have taken over the Earth. With her younger brother Jamie and the man she loves, Jared Howe, Mel is on the run from aliens, called souls, who hunt down humans in order to use their bodies as hosts. Souls are creatures that rely upon host bodies to survive. After “insertion” into a human body, they erase the human occupant and establish a claim over the body and mind. Wanderer is a soul who has lived on eight different planets previously, with Mel being her ninth host body. Upon waking inside her new body, Wanderer is shocked by the power and vividness of human emotions, memories, and senses, and quickly learns that Melanie is not willing to give up the entirety of her mind.
The Seeker, who is in charge of Melanie’s body, starts to worry about Wanderer’s apparent lack of control over Melanie’s mind. Wanderer, known as Wanda, is bombarded with Melanie’s memories and her powerful yearning for Jared and Jamie, and soon she fees a strong love for Melanie’s former companions. She becomes desperate to find out whether they are still alive. On a road trip to Tucson, Melanie remembers her Uncle Jeb telling her about a secret hideaway he once made, and which Jared is aware of. Wanderer sets out to find the hideaway, with a vague sketch of the path from Melanie’s memories, and is found by Jeb on the verge of death. She is taken to the hideaway, a complex of caves in which a group of rebel humans live, but is treated spitefully as they consider Wanderer a parasite in Melanie’s body. Many of the humans believe she should be put to death and attempts are made on her life, despite the protection provided by some of the humans, including a boy named Ian, Melanie’s Uncle Jeb, and Jared. Eventually Jared, who initially hated Wanda, accepts that his love, Melanie is still inside her and forgives Wanda. However things are yet again complicated when Wanda and Ian fall in love but Wanda is in Melanie’s body and she loves Jared. Throughout the rest of the book Wanda sides with the humans and helps them with ‘raids’ which are raids of the cities, now overtaken by souls, for food and other supplies but all the while being tracked by The Seeker, who is still not convinced that Wanderer was killed in the desert. The book ends on a cliffhanger (but a happy one) and, in March 2008 Stephenie Meyer stated that a sequel to The Host was “almost done”. She said in an interview that, if published, the first sequel would be entitled ‘The Soul’ and the second ‘The Seeker’. But then in November 2009, she said, “I’d like to eventually have The Host be part of a trilogy. That’s one of the projects I’d really like to get to in the next year or so.” So hopefully the next one is coming out soon!
The idea for The Host originated on a trip from Phoenix to Salt Lake City. Bored, Meyer made up stories to entertain herself, and was halfway through outlining the story of The Host in her head before realizing what she had created. She notes that the story grabbed her attention, and that she “could tell there was something compelling in the idea of such a complicated triangle.” Originally meant to be a side project, The Host eventually became a priority.
The character of Ian was originally meant to play an extremely small role. As a matter of fact, Meyer had no plans for a romance between Ian and Wanderer until Jared “got on [her] last nerve”, and Ian “refused to be ignored”.-Becs
‘Red Dwarf’ by Grant Naylor
‘Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers’ is a best-selling science fiction comedy novel by Grant Naylor, the collective name for Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, co-creators and writers of the Red Dwarf television series, on which the novel is based and is published by ‘Penguin’.
The book begins in 2180. Commercialism is still rife, and most of Earth’s natural resources have been depleted. Most of the solid planets and moons in the solar system have been colonised. Having ended up in a supply port on Saturn’s orbiting moon Mimas after celebrating his 25th birthday by binge drinking on a Monopoly Pub Crawl in London, Dave Lister is trying to earn enough money for a shuttle ticket home by working as a taxi driver.
After an incident in which he meets a Space Corps officer, Lister decides to sign up with the intention of getting onboard an Earth-bound ship. He is assigned to Red Dwarf, a mining ship that will return to earth after a journey of four and a half years. Lister’s roommate, also his commanding officer, is the intolerable Arnold Rimmer.
Five months later, Lister has settled into the dull, monotonous routine of life aboard Red Dwarf, brightened only by his brief love affair with Kristine Kochanski. Having devised a plan to be put in ‘stasis’, which is basically frozen, for the duration of the journey to earth, Lister is sentenced and confined shortly before one of the ship’s nuclear reactors explodes, killing everyone on board except himself.
Upon release from stasis, the ship’s super-computer Holly explains that Red Dwarf has been piloted out of the Solar System to prevent radiation contamination. Holly could not release Lister until the radiation had reached a safe background level. However, because the leaked Cadmium II had such a long half-life, Lister was kept in stasis for 3 million years. During this time, Holly has gone a little computer senile.
Together with the hologram Rimmer and an intelligent humanoid that comes to be known simply as The Cat, Lister begins to frantically trying to get home to earth.
The novel presents the plotline of the TV series but providing expanded back-story of the Red Dwarf world and more fully developing each of the characters, particularly Lister and Rimmer. The book incorporates elements and scenes from the second season episodes entitled ‘The End’, ‘Future Echoes’, ‘Kryten’, ‘Me²’ and ‘Better than Life’. In 1990 the book was also followed by a sequel called ‘Better than Life’.-Becs
“It’s not about the Bike : My Journey Back to Life” by Lance Armstrong
In this book, published by ‘Putnam Adult’, what comes across is Lance Armstrong’s strength and determination as he battles cancer, a cancer that should of killed him. But Lance Armstrong shows in the book his decision not to become a victim but instead to be a survivor. Lance Armstrong is an American cyclist and to be honest this is not the book I would of picked up had I been browsing the library shelves, it contains no stable boys but it does tell the story of courage and hope that gives the reader hope and shows that there is nothing human spirit cannot overcome…aww!
It is most definently a tear jerker, so Becs beware, but they are not tears of sadness because it is most definently not a sad book. They are more tears of frustration and of unfairness but more importantly of triumph. Now to say I know little about cycling is an overstatement. I know less than nothing only my general knowledge and the fact we were travelling through France when I read this book meant I knew what the tour de France was (did you know it starts in England…do they get the Ferry?) so I can vouch that this book does not exclude those who do not have an indepth knowledge of the sport though I will admit there was some frantic googling in preparation for this review tonight as he is a cyclist so the story of his survival is almost symbolised by his success in the tour de France…
Lance Armstrong is know for his accomplishments on the bike as repeat winner of the Tour de France. But out of public view, Lance overcame struggles far greater than any mountain in France. Lance is also a cancer survivor. Lance shares stories normally kept very private. He shares the difficult start he had in life being raised by a teen mother without any support from his biological father who disappears from Lance’s life when he is two. Lance shares that his stepfather is somewhat abusive and a liar. The story continues as he tells of how he discovered he had the cancer and of how he underwent treatment for it and his life after his treatment. It deals with his relationship with his family and wirh his bike, the one thing he could do best.
I would recommend this book to anyone, though you may have a head start if you do enjoy sports or are like me and will read anything as it isn’t an easy read, it deals with hard and serious issues. I would especially recommend it to older teens and adults as I don’t think younger readers can understand or relate to everything discussed. It is a lovely, heartwarming book….anyone with a soul (sole) will love it and relate and be inspired!-Kate
‘Small Island’ by Andrea Levy. Enjoy
This novel by Andrea Levy, published by ‘Headline Review’, gives a view into the life of both British and Jamaican people living before, during, and after the second World War. The novel has several different narrators. Queenie Bligh; an English woman who believes her husband to be dead and therefore forced to take Jamaican lodgers to get by(much to the chagrin of her neighbours); her husband Bernard; a banker who finds himself in war torn India; Hortense, a Jamaican woman from a good home and dreams of better things and her husband Airman Gilbert Joseph who both find themselves treated as second class citizens when they travel to England in search of better things.
The novel follows these characters lives, with each chapter being from one of their perspectives. I found it a truly insightful look into the past of Britain and the nature of ‘The Empire’. Personally, I found the book improved as it progressed as the events became more dramatic and gripping and the characters became more and more developed. I didn’t like each character all of the time, but that only made it all the more real as I saw their faults as well as good qualities and how others view them. For example, I found Bernard’s devotion to Queenie and his country very touching, yet his attitude towards Gilbert is far from civilised. I found that characters I felt indifferent towards or disliked I grew to like as the book progressed, the character of Hortense especially. In the beginning I found her pretentious and cruel, yet by the end, after seeing life through her eyes and seeing how she changed I grew to like her.
However, one character I more or less liked consistently was Gilbert. Not only was he was funny and good natured, but he was terrifically observant and in many ways tragic. He had dreams of becoming a lawyer, but was condemned to go through life as a driver, first for his mother’s cake business, then in the RAF after being refused the position as a pilot, and finally as a post van driver after being rejected from law school. He gives the reader a magnificent view of life as a Jamaican in Britain and the injustice of their position in society. Gilbert and his fellow Jamaicans know everything there is to know about Britain; what products are made where; famous Britons; famous monuments. Yet when you ask the average man in England at the time ‘Where is Jamaica?’ He would reply ‘Somewhere in Africa isn’t it?’. When we are reading Gilbert’s narrative, we are given wonderful metaphors and insightful observations into the world around him, yet to many he is nothing more than a savage, and to the more ‘open minded’ he is a child to be taught the ways of the ‘Mother Country’
I thought that this book was superbly written with vivid descriptions and wonderfully constructed characters. Not only that, but I thought it was an incredibly interesting subject as I knew little about race relations in my own country before and after World War II. I saw life in Jamaica and life in Britain, the plight of a black soldier and the plight of a white one. I saw the terror felt in battle and the terror felt during an air raid. It is clear that Levy has researched her subject well and has a wonderful grasp of what is at it’s core. I think this book will appeal to all kinds of people, there is romance, action, sorrow and humour but most importantly it is a book that entertains you but finds you really interested in it’s subject matter and very thoughtful about our past as a country.-Julie
‘Touching the Void’ by Joe Simpson
Touching the Void is a book by Joe Simpson, published by ‘Perennial’, recounting the true story of him and his friend Simon Yates’ disastrous and near-fatal climb of the 6,344-metre Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. The book won the 1989 NCR Book Award. In 2003, fifteen years after it was first published, the book was turned into a documentary film directed by Kevin MacDonald.
Although previously attempted, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates were the first people to ascend to the summit of Siula Grande via the almost vertical west face. Disaster struck, however, on the descent. Joe slipped down an ice cliff and landed awkwardly, smashing his tibia into his knee joint and breaking it. The pair, whose trip had already taken longer than they intended because of bad weather on the ascent, had run out of fuel for their stove, which they needed to melt ice and snow for drinking water, and needed to descend quickly to their base camp, about 3,000 feet below.
They proceeded by tying two one hundred and fifty foot-long ropes together and then tying themselves to each end. Simon dug himself into a hole in the snow and lowered Joe down the mountain on the 300 feet of rope. A second disaster struck when Simon was lowering Joe down the mountain, the rope was too short and the cliff much higher than expected. Simon was in a belay seat (which is basically a hole in the snow), much higher up the mountain, and couldn’t see or hear Joe, but felt all his weight on the rope. Joe couldn’t climb up because of his broken leg, and Simon couldn’t pull him back up as his belay seat was slowly crumbling. Neither of them could do anything to save them both.
Simon had two choices: stay in that same position and wait for the belay seat to break, which would probably result in both their deaths, or he could cut the rope and then climb down to see where Joe was. As he couldn’t see Joe, he had no idea whether he was hanging over a cliff or simply a few feet from the ground and unable to find secure footing. He decided that the only logical step was to cut the rope. Unfortunately, below Joe, at the bottom of the cliff was a deep crevasse, and he knew he would fall into it. When Simon cut the rope, Joe plummeted down the cliff and into the crevasse.
The next day, Simon carried on descending the mountain by himself. When he reached the crevasse he realized the situation that Joe had been in, and what had happened when he cut the rope. After calling for Joe, he was forced to assume that he had died either from the fall or during the night and so continued down the mountain alone.
Joe was, however, still alive and on a ledge inside the crevasse. He had survived a 100 ft fall, with a broken leg. When he regained consciousness, he took in the rope, and discovered the end was cut, and he realized what Simon had done. He eventually abseiled from his landing spot on an ice bridge to presumably the bottom of the crevasse, a thin ice roof, and crawled out back onto the glacier via a side opening.
From there, he spent three days without food and only splashes of water from melting ice, crawling and hopping five miles back to the base camp. Almost completely delusional, he reached the base camp a few hours before Simon intended to leave the camp to return to civilization.
Joe Simpson’s survival is widely regarded by mountaineers as amongst the most amazing pieces of mountaineering lore.-Becs
‘A Lion Called Christian’ by Anthony Bourke and John Rendall
The book was published by ‘Broadway’ .Christian the lion was originally acquired by Harrods from the now-redundant zoo park in Ilfracombe. Bourke recalls that the department store was eager to sell the cub, which had escaped from his cage one night and destroyed the merchandise in the carpet department. Bourke and his friend John Rendall purchased Christian for 250 pounds.
Rendall and Bourke, along with their friends Jennifer Taylor and Unity Jones, cared for the lion where they lived in London until he was a year old. As he got larger, the men moved Christian to their furniture store – coincidentally named Sophistocat – where living quarters in the basement were set aside for him. Rendall and Bourke obtained permission from a local vicar to exercise Christian at a church graveyard, and the men also took the lion on day trips to the seaside.
Christian’s growing size and the increasing cost of his care led Rendall and Bourke to understand they could not keep him in London. They were advised to ask the assistance of George Adamson who was a Kenyan Conservationist. He agreed to reintegrate Christian into the wild at his compound in the Kora National Reserve.
Adamson introduced Christian to an older male lion named “Boy” and subsequently to a female cub named Katania in order to form the nucleus of a new pride.
When Rendall and Bourke were informed by Adamson of Christian’s successful reintroduction to the wild they traveled to Kenya to visit him and were filmed in the documentary ‘Christian the Lion’. According to the documentary, Adamson advised Rendall and Bourke that Christian might not remember them. The film shows the lion at first cautiously approaching and then quickly leaping playfully onto the two men, standing on his hind legs and wrapping his front legs around their shoulders, nuzzling their faces. The documentary also shows the female lions, Mona and Lisa, and a foster cub named Supercub welcoming the two men. You can watch the clip of the reunion on the homepage of the blog!-Becs
‘An Evil Cradling’ by Brian Keenan
The book was published by ’Vintage’. Keenan was born into a working class family in East Belfast in 1950. He left Orangefield School early and began work as a heating engineer. However, he continued an interest in literature by attending night classes and in 1970 gained a place at the New University of Ulster in Coleraine. He then accepted a teaching position at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, where he worked for about 4 months.
On the morning of 11 April 1986 Keenan was kidnapped by Islamic Jihad. After spending two months in isolation, he was moved to a cell shared with the British journalist John McCarthy. He was kept blindfolded throughout most of his ordeal, and was chained hand and feet when he was taken out of solitary.
The British and American governments would not negotiate with terrorists and Keenan was effectively ignored. Because he was travelling on both British and Irish passports, the Irish government made numerous diplomatic representations for his release, working closely with the Iranian government. He was released from captivity to Syrian military forces on 24 August 1990 and was driven to Damascus. There he was handed over by the Syrian Foreign Ministry to the care of Irish Ambassador, Declan Connolly. His sisters were flown by Irish Government executive jet to Damascus to meet him and bring him home to Northern Ireland. He now lives in Dublin.
He the actually returned to Beirut for the first time 17 years after being released, and described “falling in love” with the city.-Becs
‘The Cry of the Icemark’ by Stuart Hill
‘The Cry of the Icemark’ is the first book in the Icemark Chronicles by English author Stuart Hill and published by ‘Chicken House’. The plot revolves around a fourteen year old girl, Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield, as she must fight to save her small home, the Icemark, from the invading Polypontian Empire.
The Polypontian Empire has conquered much of the known world in recent years, much thanks to its fearsome general, Scipio Bellorum. Bellorum has finally decided to invade his small neighbor to the north, the Icemark. After King Redrought sacrifices his entire army to stop the invasion, Thirrin, his 14 year old daughter, is left alone to save the nation.
Thirrin, makes an alliance with the werewolves by saving their king, and must now seek out more allies, as the Icemark and the werewolves alone cannot defeat the Empire. Thirrin, with the aid of a young warlock, Oskan Witch’s Son, must attempt to win over the Vampire King and Queen. They know this will be difficult because of the centuries of distrust and hate between the two races. Because the Empire hates all that is unscientific and irrational, the Vampires know that if the Icemark falls, the Empire will wipe out the Vampires next. With this in mind, the Vampires reluctantly agree to send aid.
On the advice of King Grishmak of the werewolves, Thirrin and Oskan travel to the Hub of the World, to try to ally themselves with the Snow Leopards, led by Tharaman-Thar, who live there. The leopards are as tall as warhorses at the shoulder, Tharaman-Thar even bigger, and are fearsome fighters. With the threat of the Empire again winning the argument, the Snow Leopards choose to fight with Thirrin.
The rest of the book contains a lot of fantasy war and left me crying as the relationship that all the creatures have with one another is so perfect and by the end they have such close bond and friendship that you don’t want to leave it and go on to another book! However it’s ok because there are two more books, ‘Blade of Fire’ and ‘The Last Battle of the Icemark’.
The characters of Their Vampiric Majesties are really awesome. They are the undead Vampire monarchs of the Land-of-the-Ghost and they have both lived for thousands of years and their never ending love is still undiminished. In ‘Blade of Fire’ however, the Vampire King is killed by treachery and the Vampire Queen returns to her castle alone and heartbroken (although she doesn’t really have a heart). In ‘The Last Battle of the Icemark’, it turns out that His Vampiric Majesty has developed a soul because he could feel emotion, especially love for his wife. Also in the land of the souls are the children which they could never have but who they wished for so much that their souls were born. Soon after Her Vampiric Majesty discovers this, she too calmly develops a soul and joins her husband and children in the afterlife, being the only vampire with a peaceful passing.- Becs
‘Private Peaceful’ by Michael Morpurgo
‘Private Peaceful’ is a novel written by Michael Morpurgo and published by ‘Collins’, it’s also a play by Simon Reade, based on the book. It is about a soldier called Tommo Peaceful, who is looking back on his life from the trenches of World War I. Structurally, each chapter of the book brings the reader closer to the present. The story especially underlines the senselessness of war and ineptitude of the commanding officers.
The Novel follows the life of Thomas Peaceful, who narrates the reader through the story, and his brother Charlie. As boys they grow up together in the worry free English countryside with their mother, their mentally disabled brother ‘Big Joe’ and their best friend Molly. At the beginning of the novel Charlie stands up for Tommo on his first day of school after the school bully tries to pick a fight, Charlie immediately takes Tommo’s side, a courageous decision as he knows full well that he will get the belt for it but Charlie will go through anything to protect his brother and this becomes increasingly evident at the end of the novel.
Their childhood life is fun and frivolous however it does not remain so. With the outbreak of war Charlie is called up to fight and although Thomas, who is known as Tommo, is only sixteen he manages to convince the authorities that he and Charlie are twins and so side by side they go to war.
Rapidly the normality they are accustomed to changes as they embark on their training and then finally the real thing. No longer is there glorious countryside but instead they find themselves surrounded by guns and death and the ruined villages they pass through could well be their own.
During a period of fighting Tommo hears one of the Germans praying and says to himself:
“The Hun keeps praying out loud. I’m quite sure he’s praying now. ‘Du lieber Gott.”
The fact that God is said in almost the same way in both English and German reveals exactly how similar both sides are, both sides were either pulled out of their home towns or they willingly volunteered and were sent into war without truly realising what war involved. And now there was no way back.
This book is absolutely brilliant and it contrasts their beautiful home countryside with the harsh surroundings of war really well to emphasise just how awful war is and the ending will leave you in tears but with a real sense of brotherhood and also that war is wasteful and life is precious.- Becs
‘Once’ by Morris Gleitzman
‘Once’ is very similar to ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’, both in style and theme. It’s very easy to read, is told from the perspective of a young child and is set during the events of the Holocaust. It’s published by ‘Puffin’.
Felix is almost ten years old, and is living in an orphanage in Poland that his parents sent him to in 1939. Three years and eight months later, he receives a whole carrot in his soup, which he thinks is a sign from his Mum and Dad, and that they are finally coming back for him. This inspires him to escape from the orphanage, and journey across Poland in the hope of finding his parents.
Along the way, he encounters Nazis (whom he thinks dislike Jews because of their love of books), an orphaned young girl, Zelda, and a dentist hiding a group of young Jewish children.
Felix’s innocence and naïveté is a big part of this story, as he often mistakes truly horrific events for mistakes or accidents. A child’s viewpoint is perhaps the most shocking way to depict the Holocaust, as children see so much more than adults, and see things in a different way.
This story is funny in parts, especially with Felix and his childlike thoughts of carrots and nuns. It quickly becomes shocking and more difficult to read, and this is due to Felix experiencing the unspeakable horrors of war, and what was really going on in Poland in 1942.
For anyone who likes war fiction, as I do, then this, along with its sequel ‘Then’, is a must read. Morris Gleitzman has succeeded in writing a story of friendship and desperation, and has managed to recreate the harrowing journey of a Jewish boy with his heart set on reuniting his family.- Becs
‘City of Bones’ by Cassandra Clare
‘City of Bones’ by Cassandra Clare is the first book in ‘The Mortal Instruments’ trilogy which is a young adult urban fantasy series (just the kind I love!!!) set in New York and it achieved #8 on the New York Times Best Seller list in April 2007 and is published by ‘Walker Books’.
The book centres around the main character named Clary Fray, a sixteen year old tomboy with bright red curly hair. She is also a shadowhunter but doesn’t know it yet. A shadowhunter is basically a demon hunter whose sole purpose is to protect the human race from all things inhuman. She is brought up as a human by her mother who wishes to protect her from the harsh world of the shadowhunters. She is very artistic and also discovers that she has a remarkable power (but I’m not going to tell you what it is cause it’ll ruin the book). Throughout the series, Clary along with her best friend Simon and three other shadowhunters, Jace, Isabelle and Alec embarks on a quest to help her mother who is captured by the powerful and evil shadowhunter, Valentine who basically wishes to take over the world by stealing the three mortal instruments (hence the name of the series) which will allow him to defeat the shadowhunter government, called the Clave. There is also a romantic aspect to the book (which I always love) but this time it is a vicious love triangle between Jace, Clary and Simon.
All in all it is an awesome book, the way I described it sounded quite childish but it is actually quite graphic and there’s a big fight with lots of blood and guts etc. and I’ve also just finished the second one which is called ‘City of Ashes’ and am looking forward to reading the third one, ‘City of Glass’.
‘City of Bones’ is also going to be made into a film which I am so excited about! And there are so many rumours that Alex Pettyfer who played Alex Rider and also the guy in ‘Wild Child’ will play Jace, which I am totally pleased with…he’s cute.- Becs
‘Maximum Ride’ by James Patterson
‘Maximum Ride’ is a young adult, science fiction/fantasy series ( again with the fantasy, but hey, I love it!) and written by the award-winning American author, James Patterson. There are currently five titles in the series, which combined, have spent over 95 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list and are published by ‘Doubleday’.
The series follows six kid fugitives who are a cross between human and bird. Bred in a science lab called “The School”, the group or ‘Flock’ as they like to call themselves, endured scientific experiments that rendered them 98% human and 2% bird. The first book, ‘The Angel Experiment’ picks up the story as the Flock re-engages with their struggle against scientists and evil hybrids after having been freed from the School by Jeb Batchelder years before.
Through the first three books of the Maximum Ride series, the Flock spends much of their time running from human-wolf hybrids created by the School called Erasers.
The Flock consists of Max, Fang, Gazzy, Nudge, Iggy and Angel.
Maximum Ride or ‘Max’ is a fourteen year old girl but it is often suggested that she looks older than her age. She’s the second oldest of the flock and the leader of the Flock. Her powers are “warp drive” when flying and taking care of the others (…I don’t know if that’s really a power, but anyway…). She is also extremely tough, sarcastic, and hates “girliness” and also showing emotion. There is also (as I love) romantic tension between Max and Fang. So all in all it can be read by both boys and girls as Max isn’t at all girly (I think I’m seeing a pattern here with the books I’m into, Clary and Max are vaguely similar…well, not really) Anyway…there are five books out so far the first one being:
The Angel Experiment
School’s Out – Forever
Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
The Final Warning
Max
Finally the sixth book ‘Fang’ has been announced with a publication date of the 15th March, 2010.
Also, in January 2007, it was announced that a film would be created based on the series and James Patterson (the author) would be the executive producer with Avi Arad, who was one of the producers of Spider-Man and X-Men producing alongside him. Also, in an interview with James Patterson, it was revealed that Arad has already planned out the first two movies. Then, in 2008, it was announced that Columbia Pictures had bought the screen rights to the franchise and that Catherine Hardwicke (Director of Twilight) would direct the first movie. Finally the movie is allegedly targeted for a 2010 release, though there has been no evidence of casting or other forward motion.-Becs
‘Whispers in the Graveyard’ by Theresa Breslin
The book is published by ‘Methuen Young Books’. It centers around a Scottish boy named Solomon who is in his last year of primary school and who is considered to be stupid and lazy, though he is actually dyslexic. He is bullied by his teacher and his father is a drunk who neglects him. Solomon often goes to the local graveyard for refuge.
Overhearing a discussion between a council official and his teacher, he is upset to hear that his special place is to become a construction site. When the graveyard’s protective rowan tree is uprooted by workmen, he has bad dreams and hears mysterious whispers. Driven away by his father’s behavior he spends the night in the graveyard and witnesses one of the workmen being swallowed up by the ground after unearthing a mysterious chest marked with the word “Malefice”.
He later discovers that the word means “witchcraft”, and that a victim of the Scottish witch hunt is buried there. It seems she has awoken and is intent on vengeance. Amy Miller, his teacher’s young daughter, is drawn to the graveyard, and Solomon follows to protect her from the evil presence which tries to possess her. With his father’s help, he manages to rescue her.
With the encouragement of one of the teachers from school, he begins to change his life, although he knows it will be an uphill struggle.- Becs
Scary short stories by Roald Dahl
The Landlady
The story focuses on a 17-year old boy named Billy Weaver who arrives in Bath and is looking for a place to stay. He comes upon a bed and breakfast sign which somehow hypnotizes him into checking out the boardinghouse. He presses the doorbell, and before he can lift his finger from the bell-button, the door opens and a middle-aged landlady appears. She treats him generously, giving him a floor of his own to stay on, and charging him much less than he expected. However, she also emits a sense of spookiness which Billy does not notice.
In the inn’s guestbook, he sees that only two other guests have stayed there. Billy finds the names vaguely familiar from the newspaper, and on further reflection recalls that they were both famous for being murdered. The landlady makes a comment about one of the two boys in past tense, to which Billy comments that he must have only left recently. The landlady replies that both of the guests are still residing at the inn. Billy then notices that the dog by the fireplace is stuffed and she tells him, “I stuff all my pets myself,” and offers him more tea. Billy refuses because the tea “tasted faintly of bitter almonds”. The author ends the story at its climax, leaving the reader to infer what happens to Billy Weaver.
In many suspense and mystery stories, potassium cyanide is said to have a “bitter almond” taste, such as the one Billy describes. Knowing this, the reader can infer that the landlady poisons Billy, and will proceed to stuff him as if he were a dead animal.
William and Mary
The story begins with Mary Pearl receiving a note from her husband, William which tells how he has been approached by a doctor about his cancer. The doctor suggests that William undertake a procedure that would mean his brain being transplanted from his body after death, and attached to an artificial heart. One of his eyes could also be hooked up so that he would be able to see.
In his letter he adds that by the time she reads this, the procedure should have been undertaken a week earlier. She contacts the Doctor and learns that the procedure has gone very well. Mary finds the previously dominating William to be attractive in his helplessness and wishes to take him back home. The Doctor however tells her she should stick to being a widow, and the story ends with William’s future uncertain.
Mary has been depicted as rebelling against her husband’s restrictions after his death as she has bought a television and is openly smoking. As the story closes, William sees Mary smoke, and is infuriated by it. Mary’s wish to bring William home can therefore be interpreted as a perverse desire for revenge against her controlling husband by flaunting all manner of previously-forbidden luxuries to him in his presently helpless state.
Genesis and Catastrophe: A true story
The story begins with Klara, a Germanic woman, who has just given birth to a son. She is fearful that this child will die, as she has had three children previously, and all of them have died. Her husband, Alois, notes how small and frail the new baby is, even compared to the others. The doctor and midwife assure the mother that the baby is healthy. They beg the father to show more compassion toward his wife and to hope for the child’s survival. The story ends with Klara praying, “He must live Alois. He must, he must… Oh God, be merciful unto him now…” Her son’s name is Adolf Hitler.
Pig
The story is divided into eight sections.
One – A couple in New York City have a baby boy named Lexington. Instead of staying home to care for the child, they hire a nanny to do so and go out on the town. When they return home the husband has forgotten his key, as he is lifting his wife through the window a police car pulls up and three cops run toward the couple telling them to hold up their hands. In their position, they aren’t able to. The cops open fire immediately killing them both. Lexington is now an orphan.
Two – The relatives gather but none of them want to be responsible for caring for the young infant. Eventually an aunt of the father arrives and takes the boy back to her home in Virginia.
Three – Aunt Glosspan, who is 70 lives in an isolated cottage and is a strict vegetarian.
Four – When Lexington is six, Glosspan decides to home-school him, partially because she is afraid that the public schools will serve him meat. One of the subjects she teaches him is cooking, and he takes to it extremely well. He takes over cooking duties for the house at age 10.
Five – Eventually he begins to invent his own recipes, making them from all sorts of vegetarian items. He is so skilled that she suggests that he write a cookbook, and he agrees. The book is to be titled Eat Good and Healthy.
Six – Seven years later, he has over nine thousand original recipes in his book. Aunt Glosspan dies and he buries her.
Seven – He travels to New York to see Aunt Glosspan’s lawyer. He goes into a nearby restaurant and is served roast pork and cabbage without knowing what it is. He loves the dish and is utterly confused to hear that it is pig’s flesh. He talks with the cook, wanting to learn everything about how to cook pork. The cook says that it is probably pig’s flesh, there’s just a chance that it might have been human. When Lexington hears that the cook got the meat from a packing-house, he decides to go there himself to learn more.
Eight – He arrives and gets in line for a guided tour. He watches as others go through the doors before him: a mother with two little boys, a young couple, and a pale woman with long white gloves. Finally his turn is called, and he is led to the “shackling area” where the pigs are grabbed, looped about the ankle with a chain, and then dragged up through a hole in the roof. While he is watching, one of the workers slips a chain around Lexington’s ankle and before he knows what is happening he is being dragged along the path as well. He cries out but no one stops the engine. As the belt moves on he sees the pigs ahead being dropped into a large cauldron of boiling water. One of the pigs seems to be wearing white gloves.
Lamb to the Slaughter
One day Mary Maloney notices that her husband Patrick is strangely aloof when he returns home from work. After blatantly ignoring her, Patrick finally reveals to Mary what is making him act so strangely.
In shock at the news, which we never learn, and seemingly in a trance, Mary fetches a large leg of lamb from the freezer to cook for their dinner, trying to restore a sense of normality. When Patrick angrily tells Mary not to make him any dinner, as he is going out, she strikes Patrick in the back of the head with the frozen lamb leg and kills him. Mary realizes that she must hide her crime. She prepares the leg of lamb and places it in the oven. Then she heads out to the shops to buy some vegetables from the Grocer. Upon returning, she enters the room where she killed her husband and calls the police.
When the police arrive, they question Mary and survey the scene. The police, lacking any reason to be suspicious of Mary, come to the conclusion that Mary’s husband was killed with a large blunt object, likely made of metal. After a fruitless search for the weapon Mary offers all the policemen the cooked leg, which the policemen kindly accept. When the lamb is nearly finished, the police resume discussing the possibility that the murder weapon is probably right under their noses. Mary begins to giggle, knowing that the police have just eaten the evidence.
Man from the South
In this story, an old man named Carlos offers a boastful American boy his Cadillac if the boy can strike his lighter ten times in a row. The catch is that if the lighter does not light ten times in a row, Carlos will cut off the boy’s left little finger. On the eighth striking of the lighter, a woman comes in the room and throws Carlos to the bed, claiming that he is mentally disturbed. He has taken forty-seven fingers from various people and has lost eleven cars. She had won everything Carlos owned long ago, including the car, and as she reaches for the car keys, the narrator sees her hand has only a thumb and one finger.
Skin
A former tattoo parlor owner, Drioli, reminisces on the time he knew a now-famous artist named Soutine. Thirty years ago, Drioli had asked Soutine to paint a picture on his back of his wife Josie and then tattoo over it and Drioli still has the tattoo on his back.
Drioli enters an art gallery and shows the crowd his incredible tattoo. Several people make bids for it, and two men in particular offer proposals. One says he will pay for a skin-grafting operation on Drioli’s back, and will also pay for the artwork thus obtained. The other man, claiming to be the owner of the Bristol Hotel in Cannes, asks him to become an employee of the hotel and to live a life of luxury while exhibiting his back to the guests, somewhat like a model. Drioli accepts this proposal and leaves the gallery.
At the end of the story, the narrator explains that there is no Bristol Hotel in Cannes, and that a heavily varnished painting matching the description of Drioli’s tattoo turned up for sale a few weeks later. The narrator says that the evidence “causes one to wonder a little and to hope fervently that wherever he may be at this moment“, Drioli is indeed living the rich and comfortable lifestyle he was promised. However the implication is that the alleged hotel owner had Drioli murdered in order to obtain the art on his back.- Becs
‘The Book of a Thousand Days’ by Shannon Hale
(This is quite confusing to explain and you will probably get the impression that I don’t particularly like chick-lit…it is true) Basically it’s all about a girl named Dashti who becomes the maid of the Lady Saren whose father want her to marry Lord Khasar but Saren is already betrothed to Khan Tegus. Saren’s father then shuts her and Dashti in a tower and claims he will only release them after seven years, or if Saren will marry Khasar.
In the tower they are visited by Tegus, Saren’s fiancé, but Saren refuses to speak to him, and makes Dashti pretend to be her and speak with him instead.
Khasar, the man who Saren’s father wants her to marry, comes next and he flings burning wood chips into the tower so Saren throws the contents of the girls’ dump bucket onto his head, and he leaves.
After two and a half years in the tower Dashti finds a way out through the hole made by the rats. They escape and find that Saren’s city has been destroyed and Dashti takes her to her own city. Dashti hopes that Saren will go to Tegus, her fiancé but she refuses. Dashti continues to sing healing songs to her lady, and this causes her to be brought before Tegus, who has an injured leg.
After Dashti sings to him, Tegus treats her as a friend and not a commoner. Khasar, who destroyed Saren’s city, continues to conquer kingdoms, leading Tegus to become engaged to Lady Vachir to gain her city’s military assistance.
Khasar’s army reaches the fields outside the city and Khasar sends an offer to leave the city if they’ll give him Lady Saren. Dashti steps forward pretending to be Lady Saren and it is revealed that Tegus and Saren never saw each other, so the ruse works.
Dashti then sneaks out to see Khasar on the battle field. There, she pretends to be Saren once more, and coaxes him into singing the song of the wolf, which forces him to transform into a wolf. It is revealed that Khasar sold his soul for the power to transform into a wolf at night, and in his wolf state some of his men shoot him.
Tegus takes Dashti back to the city and the leaderless army goes home. Still believing she is Saren, he calls off his betrothal to Lady Vachir to honor his commitment to her. They are scheduled to be wed and Dashti begins to hate the lie she’s telling. Due to her growing feelings for Tegus, she asks Saren once more to reveal the truth. Saren refuses and so Dashti refuses to marry Tegus.
Unable to continue the lie, Dashti tries to escape the city and is captured by Lady Vachir’s soldiers. Lady Vachir found Dashti’s diary and demands Dashti be beheaded immediately. Some of Dashti’s friends interfere, and Lady Vachir settles for cutting off one of Dashti’s feet to prevent her from escaping again.
Before her foot can be cut off, Tegus arrives, having been brought to the scene by Saren. It is revealed to him that Dashti is not Lady Saren as he had been led to believe.
At the trial the next day, Tegus defends Dashti and she is declared innocent but the chiefs decide that Lady Saren should marry Tegus. Dashti is upset, but Saren declares that she gives Tegus to Dashti instead and they are happily wed. Awww- Becs
‘Peter Pan’ by Sir James Matthew Barrie
Peter Pan was created by the Scottish novelist and playwright Sir James Matthew Barrie and is published by ‘Penguin’. Barrie was born in Kirriemuir in Scotland. It centres around a mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up. Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with mermaids, Indians, fairies and pirates, and from time to time meeting ordinary children from the world outside. Peter Pan first appeared in a section of the novel ‘The Little White Bird’, written in 1902 for adults. Following the highly successful play about Peter Pan Barrie’s publishers extracted chapters 13–18 of ‘The Little White Bird’ and republished them under the title ‘Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens’. This story was adapted and expanded as a novel and published in 1911 as ‘Peter and Wendy’ and later as ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ and still later as simply ‘Peter Pan’.
Peter Pan was based on J.M. Barrie’s friends, the Llewelyn Davies whom he met at they were walking with their nanny in Kensington Gardens. There were five boys and Barrie became their guardian following the deaths of their parents. From eldest to youngest the boys’ names were George, whom Wendy’s father is named after, John who is one of Wendy’s brothers, Peter whom Peter Pan is named after, Michael, another of Wendy’s brothers and finally Nicholas whose name was used as Michael’s middle name. Despite Pan being named after Peter, he was actually based on Barrie’s favorite child Michael who drowned in suspicious circumstances with a close friend just short of his 21st birthday. In fact most of the boys deaths were tragic, George died in combat in WW1 also at the age of 21, John died of natural causes at 65, Peter committed suicide at the age of 63 and at the time of his suicide, he had been editing family papers and letters and he had more or less reached the documents having to do with his brother Michael’s possible suicide. Finally Nicholas died of natural causes at the age of 76. Barrie died of pneumonia at the age of 77 and is buried at Kirriemuir next to his parents and two of his siblings.
There is a statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens where Barrie and the boys first met and it was supposed to be modeled upon old photographs of Michael dressed as the character. However, the sculptor decided to use a different child as a model, leaving Barrie disappointed with the result but the thought is still there. – Becs
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December 2, 2009 at 11:05 am
Welcome to the Radio Book Club. «
[...] Our Reviews [...]
January 7, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Marie
The cat’s an intelligent humanoid in the book? crazy. ‘That’s why he ate his own foot.’ ‘I did wonder.’
January 14, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Marie
Just imagine the Bible with stable boys and vampires. Incwedible
April 25, 2010 at 10:18 am
Steph
I really need to keep up with these a little better. But while I’m here – Julie, I loved the Artemis Fowl and Batman reviews. I really need to buy some Batman comics.
February 26, 2011 at 8:33 am
The Radio Book Club
January 31, 2012 at 5:36 pm
seo
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