Monthly Archives: August 2012

August 30, 2012 · 7:39 am

Freshly Pressed!

After less than six months of blogging, I’VE BEEN FRESHLY PRESSED!!!  

Thank you to WordPress for choosing my post and thank you to everyone who has had a look at my Little Blog especially my very dedicated followers for posting so many comments and generating quite a lot of debate on some of my posts!  I start my Master’s degree very soon so I might not be posting quite so frequently over the next few months but I will still try and blog as regularly as I can!

Also, it is going to take me hours to reply to everyone’s comments on my Freshly Pressed post on eBooks which are still coming in thick and fast so please bear with me on that!  Thanks again, you’re all lovely 🙂

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August 28, 2012 · 6:53 pm

The Rise of eBooks: evil or essential?

The eBook debate continues to rage incessantly and provoke some very important questions.    Is the controversy less about the value of books and more about the development of modern technology?  Who are the winners and the losers in this supposed eBook revolution?  Does it really matter what format books are available in?  For many people, it certainly does.

Although I don’t actually own an e-reader yet, I do plan to get a Kindle soon (hopefully for Christmas this year) after borrowing my sister’s one earlier this summer.  I will be using it almost exclusively for when I’m commuting by train as it is the practical side of e-readers which appeals to me the most.


Source: The Guardian

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August 27, 2012 · 5:23 pm

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451The premise of ‘Fahrenheit 451’ is the stuff of nightmares for bibliophiles everywhere.  Ray Bradbury’s portrayal of a dystopian society in which books are  outlawed would be like hell for all book-lovers: as we are told on the first page, Fahrenheit 451 is “the temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns”.  The book tells the story of a fireman called Guy Montag, except he is not the sort of fireman we would normally imagine –  instead of putting fires out, firemen in Bradbury’s not too distant future deliberately start fires in places where books are found. From the moment when his seventeen year old neighbour Clarisse McClellan asks him if he is happy, Montag starts to question everything around him especially when Clarisse disappears and his wife, Mildred, attempts suicide.   Continue reading →

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August 25, 2012 · 3:03 pm

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Although lots of people may say that you should never judge a book by its cover, in the case of ‘The Night Circus’ by Erin Morgenstern, I think it’s acceptable to do so.  I love this book cover not just because it is very pretty but because I think it matches the story so well too.   Lots of adjectives like ‘dazzling’, ‘enchanting’, ‘spellbinding’, ‘imaginative’, ‘captivating’ and ‘magical’ have already been used in the critics reviews on the cover to describe this book.  I would like to add that it is also highly original especially for a fantasy story.   Continue reading →

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August 23, 2012 · 6:01 pm

The Outcast by Sadie Jones

The OutcastSet in England in the 1950s, ‘The Outcast’ by Sadie Jones tells the story of nineteen year old Lewis Aldridge and his return to his childhood home in a small village in Surrey after spending two years in prison.  Tensions both at home and in the community soon become darker as it becomes clear that Lewis will never really be able to make a fresh start in Waterford and let go of his troubled past.  Never has the British stiff upper lip seemed so resistant to change. Continue reading →

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August 22, 2012 · 12:37 pm

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov tells the story of Humbert Humbert and his obsession with twelve year old Dolores Haze also known as Lolita.  Humbert marries her mother, Charlotte, to be closer to Lolita and after her sudden death, Humbert becomes sexually involved with Lolita and they travel around the United States.  The themes of obsession and loss of innocence are dark and so is the humour in this densely written classic which is still as controversial today as it was when it was first published in the 1950s. Continue reading →

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August 20, 2012 · 12:12 pm

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

I will admit that I had never heard of ‘The History of Love’ by Nicole Krauss until relatively recently in spite of the huge number of endorsements it seems to have had from critics over the last few years.  The novel only came to my attention after reading some blog reviews recently which gave it extremely high praise so I decided to hunt it down at the library this week.  In a nutshell, ‘The History of Love’ tells the parallel stories of Leo Gorsky, an elderly man living in New York City who is unaware that a novel he wrote in his youth entitled ‘The History of Love’ was published under a different name, and Alma Singer, a fourteen year old girl who tries to track down her namesake from the same book who also happens to be the woman that Leo based his novel on.  However, this brief summary only scratches the surface of the intricately-drawn mystery at the heart of the story. Continue reading →

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August 18, 2012 · 4:47 pm

Books I Never Finished

I very rarely give up on a book.  Even when I dislike a book, I will usually finish it out of obligation (like ‘The Immoralist’ by André Gide, for a French literature course) or sheer bloody-mindedness just to say I read it (like ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen) or simply to get people to stop hassling me about it (like ‘The Hobbit’ by J. R. R. Tolkien).  But occasionally, life is just too short.  Here is a list of the books I have given up on in the last couple of years.

Everything is Illuminated: Jonathan Safran Foer
This was the last book I couldn’t finish a few months ago.   To compare the linguistic experimentalism of this book with ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess is a sin of the highest order.  To try and stretch out an unfunny joke about Ukrainian attempts at the English language over an entire book is completely unforgivable. Sorry, I just didn’t get it. 
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August 17, 2012 · 12:20 pm

The Crossroads by Niccolo Ammaniti

‘The Crossroads’ by Niccolò Ammaniti is a dark-humoured thriller which won the Premio Strega – the Italian equivalent of the Man Booker Prize – in 2007.    Unsatisfied with their lives, Rino Zena, and his low-life friends Danilo Aprea and Quattro Formaggi (yes, it’s a nickname) plan to carry out a bank raid and come up with the supposedly perfect crime.  However, events soon take them in unexpected directions. Continue reading →

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August 15, 2012 · 12:08 pm

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite RunnerI found a copy of ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini on top of a hand dryer in the ladies toilets somewhere a couple of years ago with a note inside which read ‘If you enjoy this book, please pass it on!’.  I feel quite bad for hanging on to it for so long as so many other people could have read it in the time that it has sat on my book shelf collecting dust.  But I also wish I had got round to reading it sooner simply because it is a very worthwhile (if imperfect) read.  ‘The Kite Runner’ tells the story of Amir and his friend Hassan growing up in Afghanistan in the 1970s and the tragic consequences following a kite-fighting competition they take part in.  Although the Russian invasion forces Amir to leave Afghanistan to start a new life in the United States, the events of his childhood never really go away and years later, he returns to his home country following the rise of the Taliban in the hope of finding redemption. Continue reading →

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August 13, 2012 · 4:17 pm

More Spine Poetry

After my previous attempt at spine poetry, here is my latest effort… and this time, it rhymes!  Spine poetry can be quite challenging as it is hard to come up with something that actually makes some sort of sense, even allowing for some artistic or poetic licence.  It’s still fun though 🙂  I doubt I’ll be able to manage another one that actually rhymes.  I think that might be my peak.

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August 12, 2012 · 12:01 pm

Thoughts About Political Biographies

My Political Bookshelf

The Politics section in most bookshops is often an odd one.  I think there are two explanations for this.  Firstly, it is because books about current affairs usually go out of date very quickly – politics changes pretty much everyday and a lot of books about ongoing events can end up in a bargain bin faster than you can say ‘Yes, we can’.  Secondly, I think it is because politics tends to overlap with so many other subjects like history, sociology, economics and biographies.  In your average Waterstone’s shop, the Politics section will typically consist of a slew of memoirs and biographies of New Labour era politicians, a couple of AS Level Government and Politics textbooks, some books which claim to explain the origins of the credit crunch/globalisation/some other trendy political buzzword in layman’s terms and maybe a few George W. Bush-bashing books.  Overall, it isn’t particularly inspiring and doesn’t really reflect the diversity of the subject especially when there is so much quality political journalism out there.  It also demonstrates how books have become sidelined, as far as politics is concerned, in favour of more modern media which can be updated instantly. A 140 character tweet is likely to reach and influence millions more people than an exhaustively researched tome about the state of the nation today.  Overall, the cycle of the publishing industry is incompatible with the fickle 24 hour news cycle that we have today.

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August 10, 2012 · 9:30 pm

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I was born somewhere between the Berlin Wall coming down and the Soviet Union completely disintegrating so I have no memory of the Cold War divide that dominated the world for nearly half of the twentieth century, but even I realise that the publication of ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1962 in both the Soviet Union itself and Western countries was pretty significant to say the least.  Based on Solzhenitsyn’s own experience of the gulag system, this short novella tells the story of a Soviet prisoner or zek, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, who is in his eighth year of a ten year sentence for espionage for the Germans (a false accusation).  This shattering depiction of life in the Stalinist-era labour camps won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 – and got Solzhenitsyn permanently expelled from the Soviet Union a few years later. Continue reading →

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August 8, 2012 · 5:22 pm

At Home by Bill Bryson

At HomeThe subtitle of ‘At Home’ by Bill Bryson is ‘A Short History of Private Life’ – in other words, a history of all aspects of domestic life including eating, cleaning and sleeping and so on.  As well as exploring how the modern idea of the home has developed over history both in its architecture and our daily habits, each chapter covers a different room in the house – the kitchen, the dining room, the cellar (even the fusebox) and the stories behind how we live.  ‘At Home’ covers an ambitious amount of history without ever being overwhelming or tedious and Bryson’s characteristically dry humour makes it a thoroughly entertaining read. Continue reading →

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August 6, 2012 · 3:59 pm

Same Cover, Different Book

I spotted this cover of ‘The Forgotten Waltz’ by Anne Enright today and realised it was exactly the same photograph as the one on my copy of ‘Les belles images’ by Simone de Beauvoir!  I know this happens quite frequently in the publishing industry – I’m sure there must be similar examples of almost identical book covers for vampire fiction and you only need to look at the chick lit section in a bookshop to see that all the books invariably use the same sort of curly fonts and pink colour schemes as these so-called marketing experts think this will appeal to their target market.    Admittedly, my copy of ‘Les belles images’ is a French edition so few people in the UK will have seen it, but is it really so hard to check that a photo from their stock hasn’t been used before?The Forgotten Waltz Les Belles Images 

    

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August 5, 2012 · 4:15 pm

Dracula by Bram Stoker

I had planned to read ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker when I was studying ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley at school but never got round to it.  This chilling story begins with a young lawyer called Jonathan Harker visiting Count Dracula in Transylvania to conclude a real estate investment only to find he is effectively a prisoner at his castle.  He survives his ordeal but the nightmare does not end there – several strange events are occurring back in England involving Jonathan’s fiancée Mina and her friend Lucy.  It is up to Doctor Van Helsing to try and stop Dracula before it is too late… Continue reading →

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August 2, 2012 · 6:34 pm

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Marriage PlotEven though I have read some very mixed reviews for ‘The Marriage Plot’ by Jeffrey Eugenides, I have still been really looking forward to reading it for months.  I thought it would be appropriate to read it now given that I had my graduation ceremony recently and this is the event where the novel starts.  Set in 1982, the story follows Brown University student Madeline Hanna, an English major writing a thesis on ‘the marriage plot’ of 19th century novels and the love triangle between herself, Mitchell Grammaticus and Leonard Bankhead before and after graduation.  (Unlike Madeline, my graduation day simply involved a lot of standing around in overheated rooms, posing for photographs I didn’t want taken and trying not to trip over my robes.  But whatever.) Continue reading →

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