Hi blog followers

I know it's been almost 2 months since I last posted something (bad Kaska!) but I've been really busy lately and havn't really had any time for literature, shocking and terrible I know!

This blog is still something I love and hope to work on but it is going to be taking a mini break as I'm off to work on a cruise for 6 months!

So....I will be setting up a new blog - all about cruise life and I hope all you guys can follow that one too :)

When it's up and running I'll let you all know - thanks for the support of this blog and hope to see you at the next one...... and then back at this one next year!

x

Quote of the Day

"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen."

John Steinbeck

School Literacy Drive

Headteacher in Kindle row launches new literacy drive. News

I read this article the other day and it links in well with the rants I seem to go on, about replacing books with technology. A headteacher wants to remove the books in the school library and fill it with kindles and iPads instead....hmmmmmm

1) Surely this is more expensive?

2) It can't be good for all the pupils' eyes?
                 (no pun intended)

However, I found this article interesting because it goes on to say that the headteacher is backing the importance of literacy by issuing a compulsory summer reading list to his students.Well I sincerely doubt he's going to loan out the kindles and iPads so surely this is a contradiciton of ideals? In the article he is quoted as saying "I don't care so much whether children read on a kindle or paper." So why go to the trouble of digitalising the school library? My guess......simply to look more flashy and get one up in the league tables perhaps as being a 'forward-thinking' school.

Take this whole technology vs. books issue out and the idea of encouraging each student to read 5 books in the 2 months they have off for summer is great. I feel the value of reading is often under appreciated and kids spending their free time by staring at screens has killed the imagination that books inspire. However issuing reading lists might seem more like a chore than an enjoyable past time as it should be. It would be best to encourage the students to have an input and choose for themselves what they would like to read, with the teachers simply suggesting some choices and showing them what kind of authors and books there are to discover.

Hopefully this literacy drive will be successful and more schools will follow suit. I'd like to hear of kids reading more books and something other than Harry Potter!

Quote of the Day

"To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself"

Anne Rice

Quote of the Day

"Fiction is a branch of neurology: the scenarios of nerve and blood vessels are the written mythologies of memory and desire"

J G Ballard

Bye Bye Borders

Apparently the world of e books has become so successful, the bookstore chain Borders are having to go into liquidation as they just cannot compete with this new industry. It seems a shame but we still have good ol' Waterstones!

This links to my first ever blog post, about how the world of technology is taking over the world of books. It's a digital age, sure, but sifting through shelves of books is part of the enjoyment of reading. It's a bit like my opinion of the kindle. In theory, it's a great idea. It saves trees, makes a range of books more accessible to more people and is an easier way for people to always have a book on them. Call me old fashioned, but I don't think you can beat holding an actual book in your hand, dog earing the pages and getting involved in what you are reading and not just staring at a screen. Plus you don't have to worry about a battery running out!

Soon enough, the world of printing, literature, all of it, will take a massive hit as long as the technological world keeps growing and like the cassette, we'll be saying goodbye.

I say...............SAVE THE BOOK!!! And hope other book companies fair a bit better than poor old Borders has.

Quote of the Day

"My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own"

Thomas Hardy

Quote of the Day

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original. Whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it"

C S Lewis 

Nation by Terry Pratchett

This is the first time I have ever read a Terry Pratchett novel which is funny because he's been recommended to me for years. Well I finally got around to it and read Nation. It is a somewhat fantastical version of colonial literature as a tidal wave leaves an island's nation wiped out except for one young boy, and a boat  from the British Empire is shipwrecked onto the island with just one young girl still aboard. The book follows their relationship, how they learn to understand one another coming from such different ends of the earth and how they rebuild a new world together.

It is a very sweet story but also highly amusing as Pratchett details the silly misunderstandings the characters have through mistranslation and the caricature-like portrayal of some of the characters. The fantastical elements derive from the ideas of souls and spirituality running throughout the entire novel, the redesigning of scientific history, oh and the fact that apparently this story is told from a parallel universe, a bizarre and odd twist that adds another dimension to the novel that is quite a nice touch. Don't worry, that didn't really give anything away! This book does have a child-like quality to it, with the young protagonists and silly, fun ideas but that makes his work rather charming. There are a few rather gripping scenes where I felt I couldn't read through the pages quick enough to discover what happens and although it is quite an immature book, there were some very thought-provoking ideas to consider such as the nature of identity and the ethical nature of colonialism. Overall, I would recommend this book as an easy read, good for a summer afternoon! Although I am in no hurry to read another Pratchett novel, (I really liked it but didn't quite love it) I would definitely try another novel of his in the future.

Personal Rating: 7/10

Literary Snippet

"When someone dies, it feels like a hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all the nerves are still a little raw."

(from House Rules by Jodi Picoult)

Quote of the Day

"So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall"

Roald Dahl

Quote of the Day

"Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance"

James Joyce

I'm Back!

Sorry for the absence but the blog is back in action! Like I said before I've been crazy busy. Doing what I hear you ask. Well...........Firstly I was at...


WIRELESS FESTIVAL!!!                                          

And then it was......


MY GRADUATION!!!

With a bit of....


MICHAEL FRANTI!!

And those are the highlights of my previous week! But now...back to the reason we're all here, books! I've been doing a lot of work on this blog and am working to cram my pages with exciting things to read so check them out! Unfortunately as I've been so busy I havn't had a chance to finish my book so you'll have to wait a little longer for the next review, but don't worry I'm a fast reader!
Enjoy! x

Quote of the Day

"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible"

Vladimir Nabokov

Sorry i've not been blogging lately but i've been crazy busy and will be till the end of the weekend. But don't worry...you'll hear all about it very soon! Watch out for up and coming blogs as well as the next book review: Nation by Terry Pratchett. Have a good weekend!

Quote of the Day

"Writing is about culture and should be about everything. That's what makes it what it is."

Irvine Welsh

Quote of the Day

"An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them."

Stephen Fry 

How life in a book shop should be (one of my fave shows ever)

Quote of the Day

"I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works." 

Oscar Wilde

           

My First Book Review!

Ok so here we start, the first book review! I just finished reading the novel On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks. I had previously read his novel Birdsong, which I highly recommend by the way, a fantastic World War One novel. I loved it so thought I'd try something else of his. Unfortunately, this book was nowhere near as interesting and riveting as that was.

It is the story of a married English couple that live in Washington DC at the end of the 1950's, at the time of JFK's campaign for presidency. The story follows their marriage, world politics, adultery and family life amidst a world of jazz, alcohol and Diplomat parties.

Now from this, the novel sounds somewhat interesting, a potential tasty read, which is why I chose to read it. However in actuality, the story is quite slow, veers off onto various political stories from different characters' pasts and doesn't really have much of a storyline. It is more of a book that contemplates the general situation of 1959, both politically and domestically. For a lot of the book, I found my mind wandering and wishing I'd reached the end already.

Faulks is a talented writer and certainly does his research to create a realistic portrayal of the time period but unfortunately, I did find it rather mundane. Interestingly, the last couple of chapters really intrigued me and I found myself really enjoying following the story as the pace picked up and you invest in the characters, it's just a shame I didn't feel that until the end of the story.
Some of the political situations Faulks considers is really interesting and I enjoyed, such as racism of the southern states and the unfairness of the legal system for black people. This only dominated a few pages of the book however, and it was primarily focused on the race between Nixon and Kennedy and how that time was for the people 'behind the scenes' of the campaign. Overall, I wouldn't particularly recommend this book but I wouldn't write it off completely either, it just didn't flow particularly well for me and left me a bit disinterested.

Personal Rating: 5/10

It's A Book - By Lane Smith