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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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 Firstly, it is because books about current affairs usually go out of date very quickly – politics changes pretty much everyday and a lot of books about ongoing events can end up in a bargain bin faster than you can say ‘Yes, we can’.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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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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The 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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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?
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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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Even 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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‘Arthur & George’ by Julian Barnes is a fictionalised account of the Great Wyrley Outrages case at the turn of the twentieth century in which George Edalji, a half-Indian solicitor from Staffordshire, is accused of mutilating farm animals and is later sentenced to seven years in prison. Fans of Sherlock Holmes will already know that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle played a significant role in this case by setting out to prove Edalji’s innocence. Although this miscarriage of justice has largely been forgotten over a century later, Barnes has brought the story vividly back to life and I think this book would be enjoyable for both those who have prior knowledge of the case and also for those who don’t. Continue reading
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‘Gillespie and I’ by Jane Harris tells the story of Harriet Baxter and her close friendship with the Gillespie family in Glasgow in the late 1880s while the International Exhibition was being held. However, when tragedy strikes the family, their relationship with Harriet quickly unravels and deep secrets are revealed. Harriet tells the story as she looks back on events whilst writing her memoirs in 1933 at the age of eighty but the story is not over as it soon becomes clear that a figure from Harriet’s past has re-emerged in her life.
I think the book’s real strength lies in Harriet’s biased narrative and the way in which Harris builds suspense and subtly manipulates the reader’s expectations and perceptions of the characters. The first 100 pages or so definitely lull you into a false sense of security because of the supposed innocence with which they are written. I love unreliable narrators and this one does not disappoint. Continue reading
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I live not too far from Stratford (about fifteen miles away, in fact) and I have been really looking forward to watching the Opening Ceremony for the London Olympic Games for what feels like absolutely ages. I was definitely not disappointed. Right from the beginning, it was clear that the direction of the ceremony was in safe hands with Danny Boyle at the helm. What a show!
Source: The Guardian website
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I hardly ever re-read books these days. There always seems to be something new to read. But there are some that I would like to re-read one day either to re-live nostalgia from my youth or because they confused me the first time round and I still haven’t made up my mind about what I think of them or because I read them a really long time ago and I want to see if I appreciate them more now…
Never Let Me Go: Kazuo Ishiguro
When my mum gave me this book to read, she said ‘This book freaked me out, you should read it.’ It freaked me out too but not so much that I would never touch it again – it’s a complex book full of complex ideas and characters. Continue reading
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Continuing my current trend of reading freakishly disturbing books on a Kindle whilst commuting to work, this week I have also read ‘Carrie’ by Stephen King. The book tells the story of, yes you guessed it, Carrie White, a seventeen year old high school student. After being humiliated at her school prom, she exacts her revenge on her fellow classmates with spectacularly gruesome consequences through her telekinetic powers. This book definitely stopped me falling asleep on the train. Continue reading
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‘Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding tells the story of a group of boys stranded on a remote island after a plane crash who attempt to organise themselves into some form of functioning civilised society while they wait to be rescued. Instead, they quickly descend into savagery with the novel posing key questions about the nature of leadership and rationality.
I’m quite glad I never had to study ‘Lord of the Flies’ at school as I reckon I would have hated it and probably wouldn’t have seen its relevance for today’s world. Continue reading
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Disturbing, powerful and thought-provoking in equal measure, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess tells the story of Alex, a 15 year old anti-hero in a dystopian future who carries out theft, rape and murder before ending up in prison where he is put through an experiment in an attempt to cure him. Anyone who has tried to read my Kindle over my shoulder on the train to work this week will probably have regretted it. The book is pretty brutal. Continue reading
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‘The Shadow of the Wind’ by Carlos Ruis Zafón is a book that has been on my ‘Probably Won’t Buy But Might Borrow From Someone Someday’ book list for a very long time. As I am still in possession of my sister’s Kindle, I finally read it this week. Set in post-Spanish Civil War Barcelona, a young boy named Daniel comes across a novel by the mysterious author Julian Carax called ‘The Shadow of the Wind’ in the Cemetery of Lost Books. The story of what happened to Carax slowly unravels through the book. Continue reading
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Today I read ‘Mockingjay’ by Suzanne Collins, the third book of the Hunger Games trilogy. This final installment sees Katniss become a Mockingjay leading all the Districts in a rebellion against the Capitol. Like with ‘Catching Fire’, I have slightly mixed feelings about ‘Mockingjay’. I think this was because I didn’t really feel sucked in to the story even though this was the grand finale of the series. For me, this was because Katniss was a pawn rather than an active participant in the war so I think it dragged a bit for that reason. As for the Katniss-Gale-Peeta triangle, it seems like Collins has been trying so hard to avoid the obvious clichés that she forgot to develop the male characters properly which is something that has bothered me since the beginning because as a reader, I didn’t really care who she ended up with. Continue reading
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Today I whizzed through ‘Catching Fire’, the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Uprisings against the Capitol have begun in several Districts and Katniss and Peeta compete in the Quarter Quell with previous victors for the 75th anniversary of the Hunger Games. I found this installment of the series to be reasonably compelling but not completely satisfying.
In some ways, ‘Catching Fire’ is an improvement on the first installment of the Hunger Games trilogy. Right from the beginning, it seemed like a more confidently written book. Continue reading
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I’m going to hog my sister’s Kindle for as long as I can get away with it – hopefully I will at least get to read the other two books in the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins before she realises I still have it. Set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future, the thirteen Districts of Panem must select one boy and one girl to fight in the televised Hunger Games until only one remains alive – sixteen year old Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are chosen to represent District 12. Like all the best YA fiction, ‘The Hunger Games’ is not just for teenagers.
Even though ‘The Hunger Games’ does have a relatively fast pace from the beginning, it did take me a while to get into the book. I’m not massively into science-fiction and I didn’t think there was anything particularly spectacular about Collins’s writing. Continue reading
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I don’t own an e-reader so I borrowed my sister’s Kindle this week. She lent it to me specifically so that I could read ‘Nothing to Envy’ by Barbara Demick which is based on accounts of life in North Korea. Unsurprisingly, it is an extremely harrowing read. Demick cleverly interweaves the stories of six North Korean defectors with descriptions of everyday life in North Korea including working in a hospital, life in a labour camp, reactions to the death of Kim Il-Sung, how people survived during the extreme food shortages in the mid-1990s and life after defecting from North Korea.
Demick’s absorbing account of a real life dystopia is both shocking and captivating. The opening of the book is particularly striking. At the beginning of the first chapter, the reader is confronted with a satellite image of North and South Korea taken at night-time (similar to the one below). North Korea is almost entirely in darkness because electricity is so scarce. But it didn’t always used to be like this. Continue reading
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‘The Help’ by Kathryn Stockett tells the story of Skeeter Phelan, a young white woman from Jackson, Mississippi who decides to write a book documenting the experiences of Aibileen, Minny and other black maids who work for white families. Set in the early 1960s during the Civil Rights movement, the maids are expected to look after the children, cook and clean yet they are persecuted because they are ‘colored’. It is a story that needs to be told.
I saw the film quite recently and enjoyed it but my mum said she thought the original book was better and lent it to me this week. Unsurprisingly, the film version is more saccharine than the book but the adaptation was still well done and the plot wasn’t altered too much. Moreover, watching the film beforehand and knowing how the story ends did not hinder my enjoyment of this excellent book.
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