The Giver- Lois Lowry

Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters

Published:  1993
Pages: 179
ISBN:  9780440237686
Genre: YA/Sci-Fi/Dystopian

Start Date:  July 4, 2011
Finished Date:  July 6, 2011 (3 days)

Where Found:  Chapters-Indigo
Why Read: On my TBR list

Read For:  Back to the Classics Challenge (5/8)

Summary:  In a desensitized, painless world, a boy turning the milestone age of 12 is reluctantly chosen as his the next Receiver, a job that involves absorbing prior memories of the society from the historian known as the Giver.

Review:

I have to admit that my expectations for this book were very high as I had heard lots of amazing things about The Giver and it still ranks among the best of classic children's literature. I was not much of a sci-fi/fantasy reader as a child, though I ate up lots of Monica Hughes' sci-fi books.  I was more into The Babysitters Club, Gordon Korman, and Paula Danzinger.  That being said, I found the book to be well-written but just not as exciting as I had hoped.  Not to say it's overhyped; it just fell a tad short of my expectations.

The story's content is borderline disturbing for young readers, and I think its message is really deep, maybe too much for its readability level (it is set at a late Grade 5 reading level). I think intermediate students (Grade 7 and 8) would be a more appropriate audience, given its content. The style and dialogue of the novel is deliberately banal, which can get nerve-wracking after a while that you just want to scream. I did not relate as much to Jonas as I did to Lily. I loved her mild precocity and how it winks at the reader, almost to say, "See? There is hope for life in this Stepford Wives world." The prose is often beautiful, bringing to mind how a red rose stands out in a grey fog, and is what I liked most about the story: good enough for me to like it, just not enough for me to love it.

*Small spoiler*
The ending is quite inconclusive and that also irked me. It may suggest hopefulness for Jonas and Gabriel, but the open-endedness was too obvious a path for a sci-fi novel. It would have been more interesting to make a conclusion about their outcome, rather than leaving it up to the reader. Too many novels have that inconclusiveness that I start to wonder if endings are getting harder for writers to conjure up because so many have been recycled to the point of being cliched.

Rank:  (B)- Good, Recommend

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- Douglas Adams

Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters


Published: 1979 (originally)
Pages: 323 (with movie tie-in edition pages)
ISBN: 0330457984
Genre: Sci-Fi

Start Date: May 4, 2011
Finished Date: May 8, 2011 (4 days)

Where Found: Campus bookstore
Why Read: On my TBR list

Read For: 1st in a Series Challenge (5/6)

Summary:  A dull-witted Earthling is swept away by his friend (who turns out to be an alien being) as the Earth is destroyed where they catch a ride with a multi-headed dimwit (who turns out to be President of the Galaxy) to search the galaxy for answers to deep thoughtful questions...and riches beyond (or maybe in?) their dreams.

Review:

Science fiction is a tough genre for me to crack.  I love many of the classic sci-fi movies:  Star Wars, Aliens, The Day the Earth Stood Still...just not 2001: A Space Odyssey (the space shots with the classical music were tremendous but the rest made me snooze).  So why do I falter when it comes to sci-fi novels?  I really don't know.  I guess it's the genre I grab last off the shelf.  But to live up to my reputation of being eclectic (thanks again Jillian @ Random Ramblings for the sweet compliments), I really need to expand my (universal) horizons more.  Maybe there's a sci-fi reading challenge out there for me?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first in a trilogy written by the late Douglas Adams.  Once I got started, it was hard to stop.  I loved taking it outside on the deck on a brilliant spring day, sipping a cold drink, often risking it spurting out my nose as I laughed out loud at some random comment.  Let's face it: the entire book is all about random moments.  In short, it's oddly captivating.  Imagine Monty Python meets Lewis Carroll in space.  There you have it.

The plot is absurd and so much fun to lose yourself in.  Forget about logic and flow--it jumps gears randomly at breakneck speed that it's much more enjoyable to go with the flow.  The characters are a blast--I love Arthur's dry British wit, Marvin the depressed robot's sharp intellectual banter, and as for the villain (who's more of a dope than a bad guy), Zaphod Beeblebrox takes the prize for most eccentric character I've encountered in recent years.

My one beef with this book is that it ends so abruptly that two pages from the finish line there is still so much up in the air that it screams for a sequel and PRONTO!  I'm not too taken with it to move immediately into reading the sequel (and the next 3 Adams books, plus one more written after Adams' death by Eoin Colfer), but it was, to literate the British accent, a hoot and a "hawf" :D

Rank:  (A)- Excellent, Highly Recommend

Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury

Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters

Published:  1953 (my copy is the 50th anniversary edition pictured above)
Pages:  190 (with Afterword, Coda, and a Q&A)
ISBN:  0345342968
Genre:  Sci-Fi/Classic

Start Date:  Mar. 13, 2011
Finished Date:  Mar. 15, 2011 (3 days)

Where Found:  Chapters-Indigo
Why Read:  On my TBR list

Read for:  What's in a Name 4 Challenge- Book With a Number (3/6)

Summary:  In a future America where books are illegal to read, a fireman responsible for burning any books found is influenced by a precocious young girl to resist what he has always known and escape the monotony of his life.

Review:

I never thought I would find a writer who can create more suspense than Stephen King.  And in so few words!  Ray Bradbury creates a terrifying, almost believable future in which people are discouraged from venturing outdoors, are entertained through wall-to-wall TVs in which they become part of the repetitious, soap opera-type shows, and are forbidden from reading books.  The anti-hero protagonist, Guy Montag, is getting pretty sick and tired of this life, despite stepping into the footsteps of his father and grandfather before him as a firefighter, who in a bizarre reversal, does not put out fires, but starts them on books some resistors have kept hidden.

Bradbury's style is vintage science fiction: choppy sentences that should be read quickly, action slowly building from the beginning to a frenetic pace by midway and coasting to the end, and mechanical technologies only vaguely recognizable at the original time of printing, but much more conceivable now.  People watch TV on wall-sized screens, listen to music and converse via tiny "seashell" earbuds, and are highly desensitized to human emotion, escaping through TV shows with paper-thin plots and vague characters.  You feel Guy's pain from beginning to end, wanting to give his doped-up wife, Mildred, a firm shake by the shoulders, and sic the Mechanical Hound, a grotesque watchdog who euthanizes "criminals" that fight against authority, on Beatty, the head fireman whose past is sympathetic, but his actions are unjustifiable.

The 50th anniversary edition comes with an interesting afterword written by Bradbury with fascinating anecdotes about the book (for example, did you know that the characters Montag and Beatty are named after brands of paper and pencil [respectively] and that Bradbury wrote the novel on a pay typewriter that charged a dime per half hour?).  Bradbury also reflects on the stage and film adaptations of the book (both pleasing to the author) and a subsequent scene that he contemplated adding to the book's later editions in which Beatty's motives are further represented.  This is followed by a fiercely written Coda that criticizes backstabbing editors who censored Bradbury's numerous works for the purposes of pleasing particular social groups, which makes one feel a tad uncomfortable at first (some may find comments borderline racist), but has a point nonetheless about artists: no one can fully please everyone and no one's work should be "edited" in an attempt to do so.  The book ends with a 50th anniversary Q&A between Bradbury (now 90) and Ballantine Books, the publishers of this edition, with a contemporary slant, including comments on how the book can be compared to today's digital age and its envitable comparison to other sci-fi classics, such as George Orwell's 1984.

If you are a book lover, you must read this book, which will no doubt terrify you, but make you even more grateful for the freedoms of expression, thought, and literacy that we all share.

Rank:  (A+)- Outstanding, A Must-Read!

A Wednesday Top 10

This weekly meme is hosted by Jillian at Random Ramblings.  She poses this top 10 topic: 

Feel Good Books

"The books that will never fail to cheer me up, pick my mood up, get me out of a rut, and/or lift my spirits."

A good book never ages & can be revisited over again to be enjoyed on a different level of experience: finding things you didn't notice before, knowing the outcome & being able to feel the emotions expressed even deeper.

To be honest, I'm not much of a "re-reader" so choosing 10 books I have re-read, let alone re-read many times over as a comfort, is a challenge for me.  I guess movies are more of my comfort forte.  So, my choices may not be "comfort reading" to everyone, but they are books that have captivated me on more than 1 occasion & have stuck with me over time.

Here goes nothing...In no particular order, here's a list of 10, with some titles linked to my reviews:

1)  K-PAX- Gene Brewer

The captivating movie convinced me to try the book & I am still completely mystified and taken with it.  It's a blend of sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, and philosophy that may expand your thinking about the existence of life in the universe beyond Earth.

2)  Different Seasons- Stephen King

How creepy is that cover?!?  It looks like an homage to the 2001: A Space Odyssey star baby.  This collection of 4 novellas is a masterpiece, allowing King to return to his roots in the shorter genre.  Two, if not three, of the stories will sound familiar.  Rita Hayworth & the Shawshank Redemption was adapted into one of the greatest critical films ever and The Body became the beloved coming-of-age tale Stand By Me.  A third story of the same title became the less than reputable Apt Pupil.  The final chapter of this collection, The Breathing Method, leaves your spine tingling long after finishing it.  This set of short stories together can easily compete with King's other accomplished novels as his best work.

3)  The Green Mile- Stephen King

I'm not a cop-out (really, I'm not), but King is an addictive storyteller & The Green Mile is my favourite novel of his.  It is horrific (it's what he does best), but the blend of fantasy & mystery lays a foundation of purpose that makes up the core of the novel.  King claims the adapted movie is better, but I argue that they are two different takes on the same story and that they both go beyond comparison.

4)  The Firm- John Grisham

I'm not being very original with this list, I know, but I cannot bypass this book that remains my favourite Grisham novel and one of the best mystery yarns I've ever read.  The movie was good in his own right, but did not fully utilize all the twists & turns that Grisham gave the novel a quality of being more than just a pageturner, but proves once again that popular fiction can be thought-provoking.

...Wow, I'm completely stumped by this list (and I've bent the topic around enough)!  Let's change this around a bit & I'll list books I want to reread when the TBR stack is a little smaller (just a little...).

5)  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time- Mark Haddon

There has never been a novel written like this.  Period.  The perspective of Christopher, a British teenage boy with Asperger's syndrom investigating the death of his neighbour's dog while confronting the absence of his mother, is acutely visual, purposely rigid in detail, and supplemented by drawings that are both baffling & eye-opening about how his mind works.  I badly want to revisit this, but will settle for some insightful comments :o)

6)  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest- Ken Kesey

The trippy, beat generation writing of Kesey is hippie poetry through the perspective of the Indian and his encounters at the mental hospital run by the evil Big Nurse, who is appalled by the reckless behaviour of the newest inmate, Randle MacMurphy.  I was stunned by the story and its take on the treatment of mental illness and how both aggressiveness and muteness can be misinterpreted and handled in a disturbing manner.

7)  The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold

You may be wondering why I would choose a book that begins with a gruesome murder as a rereadable book.  I agree that there are mixed opinions about whether or not to even read it because of that very reason, but here's why I will reread it:  It is a fine piece of writing that reminds me of a china cup, ironically both brittle with its devastating scene that creates a wound in both the characters & reader, and built strong with its omniscent narration, fierce dedication to finding truth, if not justice, and a powerful will to allow for the story to end in peace.

8)  A Map of the World- Jane Hamilton

Because I recently read The Book of Ruth by the same author, I wanted to revisit an earlier book I read of hers.  I was immediately taken by the stark writing style and how harsh it came off, then how it build up to a point where the instigating incident causes everything to crumble, then go even deeper into the crux of the matter.  How the painstaking, slow rebuilding process is written will allow a new perspective on human nature's way of coping with trauma by, all at once, remembering what was yet not clinging to the "what ifs" that we habitually create.

9)  One True Thing- Anna Quindlen

I have recently penned a review & don't want to repeat it here, but I am very fond of Quindlen's writing and have every intention of re-reading this novel that takes a new perspective on mother-daughter relationships and how judgment is brought to bear against every character, only to be re-examined in light of a slow-building change and questions surrounding its end result.

10)  The Time Traveler's Wife- Audrey Niffenegger

This is likely on many readers' TBRR (to be re-read) list if you were as captured by the uniqueness of this fantasy tale as I was.  I had an inkling before seeing the adapted movie that it could not possibly capture all the intricacies of the writing, and I think most would agree that I predicted right.  The love story of Henry & Claire is tangled up in many complex ways by his uncontrollable, nearly lifelong ability/curse to time travel, yet you find yourself rooting for them to make it work despite or perhaps because of Henry's preview of the future & revisiting of the past.  When the time is right, I will feel drawn to this novel again, and I hope it sheds new light on it the second time around.

Please share with me your top 10 list on this week's topic.  I look forward to reading your responses, too :o)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

A weekly meme hosted by One Person's Journey Through a World of Books

Happy Labour Day!

Total books read this week: 1 (up to p. 210)
Titles: My Life- Bill Clinton

I am enjoying this book (I really am), despite being only 1/5 of the way through it, but I think reading this much about just one person & generally one topic (politics) is bogging me down.  I think the page count of nearly 1000 is limiting my scope.  I'm considering a new approach...see what you think of this.

It's not unusual for book bloggers to be reading several books at once.  I'd like some input on how this works for those of you who do this.  Feel free to weigh in on any/all of these questions:

Is it more satisfying to read more than 1 title around the same time?
Do you tend to be more motivated? 
Do you forget where you left off if you leave a book too long? 
Do you need to reread a bit to refresh your memory of the book? 

I haven't tried this tactic since I had to (multiple novels to read for English university courses) but now I am tempted to give it a try.  My ability to recall where I left off in a book is well intact, so if I should take a short break from Clinton & try a shorter, breezy read like, say, Alan Alda's Never Have Your Dog Stuffed (next on my nightstand), I'm not going to accidentally mix it up when I return to Clinton's memoir and think the Prez starred in M*A*S*H...I mean, really :oD

What am I afraid of, really?  It's silly, but I tend to think of reading a single book at once to be a deeper experience instead of a race to finish as much as I can.  That really isn't true...Everyone experiences books at different paces & comes off with an equally valid (though not always the same) outcome.  *Oof, brain cramp*.  I think I'm deliberately trying to weigh this dilemma (boy, if this were the dilemma on earth right now, we must all be doing well for ourselves :oD)

So...moving on...(I love ellipses & brackets & ampersands & smilies by the way :oD).  I want to share a fun find with you...ack, here I go again with these...

Cleaning up my bookshelf recently, I dug out a box from my closet & wouldn't you know there are a few unread books in there!?!  What a find!

I, Robot- Isaac Asimov

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- Douglas Adams

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe- J.R.R. Tolkien

Oliver Twist- Charles Dickens

The first 3 are from a sci-fi/YA kick I was on in teachers' college when I raided my univ bookstore with a $50 gift card from my long-since-underused book club account.  The Dickens is a beat-up copy, likely my mom or dad's from their childhood.

I also searched through my 5 or so boxes of children's books to find:

Love, Stargirl- Jerry Spinelli

I absolutely adored the first book in this small series, Stargirl. It is a lovely, magical tale about acceptance in adolescence and how being different is perceived, judged, changed, and ultimately (hopefully) accepted by those who truly care about a person. It is categorized as YA, but everyone should read this...it is so heartwarming!

Speaking of that...I also have a beautifully old edition of Alice in Wonderland that my grandma received in 1930 & gave to my mom, which she coloured in (naughty girl). 

 
It is barely hanging on with the spine's fabric label torn off (but saved).  I found a great site that has an overview of the book's edition.  It sounds somewhat rare, but I think it's value of immeasurable, considering that it was in my family...and also that it's illustrated by my mom, too :oD

Illustrated by Mom!

I'm going to sneak in some reading today if I can.  There's a football game this afternoon that I'm not going to miss!  Have a great day everyone :o)

Harking Back...Part II: High School

Grade 9-


Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters

Twelfth Night- Shakespeare
An excellent play to jumpstart a Shakespearian education in high school, in which we covered a play per year, as is the practice even nowadays. I enjoyed this play thoroughly and was able to understand it, despite the language barrier that turns off many students (and even adults!). As with most Shakespeare classes, I saw the film version with Helena Bonham Carter, which was a good interpretation of the play, even without Kenneth Branagh at the helm. I am still tickled by Shakespeare’s and Oscar Wilde’s comedies, which stand the test of humourous time. 
Rank:  (A)- Highly recommend

 

Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters



The Chrysalids- John Wyndham

This was a love it or hate it novel. Having not read a science-fiction novel with my class and only having read about two Monica Hughes novels up to that point, I had no idea what to expect from this book. I haven’t read it since Grade 9, however I remember some details of it and how it tried to appeal to a younger audience with its characters, though I don’t remember the themes suggested in most online forums. At the time, I found it “just okay.”

Rank:  (C)- Just okay

Grade 10-

 

Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters

Lord of the Flies- William Golding
A brilliant philosophical tale, albeit told through the eyes of children, but stemming from deeper political and psychological means. The tragedy of succumbing to influence struck me even then, and I still believe it to be very relevant to misgivings in society today.
P.S.  The edition at Chapters is the one I read & the cover is really disturbing...Freaked me out for a few weeks!
Rate:  (A)- Highly recommend





Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters

Romeo & Juliet- Shakespeare

Not the most memorable time spent in studying this play, but nonetheless it is hard to resist the romantic/tragic underpinnings of the star-crossed lovers. At least it is for girls :o) We saw both the Olivia Hussey-starring, Franco Zefferelli directed version from 1968 and the highly popular Leonardo DiCaprio-Claire Danes version of 1996, which Baz Luhrmann directed in a sparkly, flittingly spasmodic style a la Moulin Rouge, which was a much better film IMO. I preferred (and still prefer) the Zefferelli interpretation, which gives a rich backdrop to Verona with amazing detail and elegant costumes. R + J was set contemporarily, I realize, but lacked much depth and was more a star vehicle that pairs nicely with Titanic in its themes and its beautification of Leo.
Rank:  (A)- Highly recommend

Who’s on First?- Abbott & Costello (during class :oP)

Sorry to Mr. Williams, my long-retired Grade 10 English teacher, but I’ll admit that I snuck a glance through our anthology textbook and came across this classic that has always been my favourite comedy routine. View it on YouTube for major laughs! I nearly laughed out loud reading this during class. As a teacher, I cringe a bit at my behaviour, but I feel that this material could have been much more appealing than what was averting my attention to it.

Grade 11-

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To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee

Still remains a coming-of-age milestone in literary education. At the time, I felt that the first half of the book was rather tame with not much occurring, but my teacher insisted (and was correct) that the second half was so powerful it was worth the trek. As usual, we also viewed the Gregory Peck-starring film, a very worthy adaptation that next to Lord of the Rings, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile…is probably the greatest book-to-film piece ever made. Any others that come to mind?

Rank:  (A+)- Instant favourite

Purchase: Amazon | Chapters

Inherit the Wind- Jerome Lawrence & Robert Edwin Lee
A play based on the controversial Scopes evolution-in-education trial. Being in a public school, it seemed like a no-brainer to teach Darwinian theory in science since it gave a secular viewpoint on the history of mankind free from religious bias. That being said, there was very little debate about the subject matter as we were basically all in agreement, which stifled (and likely shortened) the unit on this play, but it tied in nicely with the popular law course. Again, we saw the film versions: Spencer Tracy & Fredric March in 1960, and Jack Lemmon & George C. Scott in 1999.
Rank:  (A)- Highly recommend

Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters

Animal Farm- George Orwell

At this point in Grade 11 English, we had a student teacher who was less than effective and didn’t offer much, if any, insight to the socio-political entanglements of the novel. I was very confused by its themes, but I’d like to reread it some day, as I am determined to get a better hold on it. Since then, it’s been a turnoff. The animated film versions of 1954 & 1999 supposedly aren’t much better.
Rank:  (C)- Just okay
  

Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters

Macbeth- Shakespeare
Again, this was taught by a student teacher who didn’t make it very understandable. It is supposed to be Shakespeare’s most appealing tragedy to teenagers because of its profound violence & sexuality, but it came off to me (at 16 years old!) as vulgar. I want to insist that I wasn’t being prudish at all—I couldn’t stand most excessively violent movies until I was about 18—but again, I feel that having a teacher’s direction would have improved my experience reading this play. I may try rereading it some day, but until then it remains my least favourite Shakespearian work. On top of all this, we watched some of the Roman Polanski-directed film, which includes the disturbing image of all the dead children, eerily similar to photos of Holocaust victims’ mass graves.
Rank:  D (Don't Recommend)\

Grade 12-

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The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald

I learned a great deal about imagery and metaphor from this novel—the glasses overlooking the Valley of Ashes is a memorable motif with Orwellian “Big Brother” allusions—and the juxtaposition of class influenced a number of later (perhaps even better) works, but overall I failed to connect with the entitled, upper class society and could not sympathize with most characters. Like the follow-up to Gone With the Wind (The Wind Done Gone from the point-of-view of the slaves), the novel may have been more interesting if it was from Myrtle’s point-of-view. To be fair, I did think that Nick Carraway was a worthy narrator, considering he was as much of an outsider as the reader is, and it wasn’t as cheap a decision as, say, Gatsby being the narrator. Frankly, I don’t understand why this novel continues to be taught in high school as there isn’t much teenagers can come away with from it. Maybe I’m biased due to my bland experience with Gatsby, but it doesn’t seem relevant to the age group studying it. Am I missing or forgetting a key aspect of the novel that does relate to high schoolers? As for the more familiar 1974 film adaptation with Robert Redford & Mia Farrow, we saw it but it didn’t bowl me over, either.
Rank:  (C)- Just okay

Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters

Hamlet- Shakespeare

Like Romeo & Juliet, this is Shakespeare’s most relatable play to be taught in high school. The protagonist is indecisive, moody, high-strung, and bitterly wry to all but his best friend—sounds like the ages of 13-18! This is the first Shakespeare tragedy I enjoyed reading and the language continues to be quoted in many forms. BTW, I can recite the first half of Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” monologue on command :o) The only drawback is the lack of time devoted to the hilarious gravediggers, and the suspicious dismissal of “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are dead” (a deus ex machina, no?), which Tom Stoppard has infamously used to great success. Maybe a play about the gravediggers is in order? I have never seen Laurence Olivier’s film version, but Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation is absolutely fantastic and, with Henry V coming close, is his best Shakespearian work.
Rank:  (A+)- Must-read (the best Shakespeare tragedy I've read)

Purchase:  Amazon | Chapters

Death of a Salesman- Arthur Miller

This play reminded me of Paul Zindel’s The Pigman from Grade 7 with its comparable title subjects: sad, pathetic, washed-up men who glow optimistic in the light of youth. For the Pigman, it was John & Lorraine; for Willy Loman, it was his sons. The differences are few; they both end tragically. We also saw the Dustin Hoffman TV movie version, which he played splendidly. It is a comic tragedy that conveys sympathy for unusual people like Willy Loman, who we often encounter but rarely pay mind to. The play alludes to this kind of ignorant attitude and creates meaning in people who are otherwise thought disposable.
Rank:  (B)- Recommend

Coming soon...Part III: English University Degree Course Selections

Between the copies I kept, what I can remember, and what I Googled haphazardly until I pieced together the missing links, I have a nice selection of novels that were read amongst the countless theories & articles.  Not a single textbook bought after my 1st year...!