A little rant...

The other day, at work, I was approached by a woman who works in the admin bit of my workplace who has a son she gets books out of the library for. Occasionally I recommend a read for him based on what is popular with my students at the time, or what I have enjoyed, I also make recommendations for her all of which she has enjoyed, most noticeably A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hussaini (brilliant book, well crafted, well structured, each character is realised well, all relationships within the text makes sense and you are emotionally involved with the story throughout, if I was at uni still they'd be teaching this to me in Creative Writing).

Tangents! Again! Sorry.

Anyway, her son is 17, same age as a lot of my students. Last week I recommended a Fighting Fantasy book I had previously spent a happy Sunday afternoon tucked up in bed with a cold completing whilst drinking lots of fluids and destroying the rain forest one box of tissues at a time.

If you've never heard of Fighting Fantasy then I suggest you educate yourself as they are great fun. The premise is that you are a hero dropped in this magical unexplained land and given a quest, find the magic talisman, destroy the monster, save the village, whatever. You follow the book and occasionally have to 'fight' a monster. You do this by a series of rolling dice (cleverly printed on the bottom of the pages) and keeping a track of certain 'scores' far too complicated to go into right now, suffice to say the books not only help literacy but also maths! You also have to do the whole 'if you want to go down the tunnel, turn to page 45, to climb the stairs, go to page 56' thing so its basically an action-adventure game in book format. They have been going since the 80s and are incredibly popular with young men in particular, although there educational potential can sometimes not be realised (a very good friend who was until the last few years a reluctant reader cites a teacher making him stop reading one of them in a classes free reading period because they were not 'proper' books as the reason for him not becoming a regular reading until his late twenties- stories like this make me want to find these so called 'teachers' and beat them around the head with a copy of Roger Red Hat). We have about 20 of them on the shelves, and they get used! Not as much as the Beast Quest series by Adam Blade (an utter genius of a writer- Kathryn Flett did a great if slightly patronising column about them in the Observer a few months ago).

So, I had recommend The Talisman of Death (general premise- find talisman- take talisman to hidden swamp fires- use magic collected en-route to destroy talisman- kill shit loads of baddies on the way), thinking jobs a goodun. When she comes in to accuse me of introducing her son to sorcery.

That's right, sorcery.

He is 17. Seventeen!

Now, I am quite a tolerant person, you have to be in FE. I can cope with most things being thrown at me, but this was ridiculous. I did not slip a note with my coven meeting schedule on it into the book, I did not sprinkle the pages with water from a holy well cursed by the anti-pope, I did not send him a voodoo doll or preach a black mass within the library. I merely recommend a highly engaging piece of literature which has proved popular with boys his age several times in the past, which not only encourages literacy but numeracy skills as well as being a damn fun way to pass the time. Of course, I didn't say anything to the woman, that would have been rude as well as offensive, she may have strong religious beliefs I don't know about and her son may share them. But SORCERY! COME ON LOVE! IT'S A BOOK!

This comes under the same thing as the furore over the Harry Potter books turning our children into pagans, which is of course nonsense. People are obviously influenced by what they read, it is part of the creativity of reading (for more on reading as a creative art see the Arts Council's report on The Future of Reading: A Public Value Project prepared by Creative Research). I aim to be a bibliotherapist one day, this relies on people empathising with characters within fiction in order to further understand crisis es in their lives. But it is insulting to children to think they are so easily swayed as to adopt a religious belief as strong as paganism, Wicca, or other Original Faiths purely because of one book. It is not reading Harry Potter, or Twilight, or any of the other Big Names that creates fangirls; it is the relentless marketing and exploitation of the genre by capitalists, using fantasy rhetoric to sell religious devotion of a product to young people. Reading the Historian did not make me want to get out my stake and start vampire hunting, but it did make me want to research the original vampire legend. Reading a fantasy book that requires maths to kill imaginary monsters is not going to make anyone go dragon hunting, and if it does then at least they're getting some fresh air exploring and using their creativity.

What pissed me off the most about this whole thing that she also got out for him a load of Chris Ryan books about War and Death and Killing and Bloodshed. I never ever recommend these books because I don't like them, but people do so fair enough. But how does she has the cheek to say I am turning her son into a sorcerer when she is on the way into making him into oh so much cannon fodder! Quite frankly, I'd rather fight imaginary monsters with dice than kill actual people with guns-even if it is only a book.

Happy Reading!
Bookelf

The Sun Rising by John Donne

This is my favourite poem. One day, I am going to have this quoted to me one bright morning by a hansome young man who means it. This is the dream of a girl who tidies book shelfs for a living and knows how to make marmalade from scratch, so unlikely to actually happen, but we can dream!


BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."
She's all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

* * * * *

Table of Contents - Poetry

Book Club the Third

Book Club the Third - BOOKN00B - 11-01-2010
Agreed on: I am Cat by Soseki Natsume was not working, and to be discarded
Agreed on: The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak (BookN00b)
Discussed:
- The Daisy Dalyrmple Series by Carola Dunn
- C.J. Sansom series
- The Tain by Ciaron Carson
- The Clan of the Cave Bear and sequels by Jean M. Auel
- Jane Austen - all the classics...and the rest...

Though, actually, as it happens, we none of us had made our way through the book. BOOKN00B found it tough to get into, but enjoyed the cat bits, less so the master bits, BOOKELF found it a long hard slog, and I'm still waiting for my copy from Amazon!

So, we swiftly moved on, and decided to focus instead on mutual reads.

Such as CJ Sansom's Shardlake series - as lent out to us by BOOKELF!

 

We all three of us enjoyed these immensely, with each of us preferring different books, and characters, so a lively discussion ensued. We agreed that when the fifth in the series is released (later this year), we will happily devote a month to it!

BOOKN00B - 8/10  

BOOKELF - 9/10

AVIDREADER - 9/10

We had also read three books from the ever increasing Daisy Dalrymple books, by Carola Dunn, again receommended by BOOKELF.

While we all enjoyed the slow pace, the glimpse into a long past world, and the gentle romance of the books, we also relished the fact that while the mysteries themselves are often predictable, they are none the less satisflying.
AVIDREADER - 8/10
BOOKN00B - 8/10
BOOKELF 8.5/10

We also took a quick look Earth's Children Series by Jean M Auel, though it was only a quick one as BOOKN00B and BOOKELF got a bit angry at what the author had done to their beloved series!!!
(Note, BOOKELF refused to rate the last two books - as far as she is concerned, the series ended after the third book!)

                      BOOKELF     AVIDREADER       BOOKN00B
Book 1          9/10                        10/10                 9/10
Book 2          7/10                         6/10                  7/10
Book 3          8/10                         8/10                  8/10
Book 4                                          5/10                  6/10
Book 5                                          4/10                  5/10

Finally, in an attempt to appear cultured, we decided to review a classic, then promptely ruined it by instantly singing out in chorus - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

We all read it at roughly the same age, two of us with our mothers. We remarked on how our perspectives have changed - and we no longer relate to Lizzy the way we once did, with BOOKELF more strongly identifing with Anne Elliot.

However, this is a book that can be re-read over and over again, in a number of different settings, enjoyable each time. BOOKN00B & BOOKELF agreed that it was one of those books that made a person proud to be English. I, rather wisely I felt, refrained from comment.
The realistic characters, and Colin Firth scene in the now infamous wet white shirt in the BBC adaptation, ensured that this book will live long in each of our hearts.

Original LBC

Meeting 10 - The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson

Meeting 09 - Everything You Know - Zoe Heller

Meeting 08 - A Chat

Meeting 07 - The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

Meeting 06 - The Island - Victoria Hislop

Meeting 05 - Firman - Sam Savage

Meeting 04 - The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak

Meeting 03 - Daisy Dalrmyple, Jane Austen et al

Meeting 02 - The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova

Meeting 01 - Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

Spontaneous Me - Walt Whitman

Spontaneous Me

Spontaneous me, Nature,

The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,

The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,

The hillside whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash,

The same late in autumn, the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and

light and dark green,

The rich coverlet of the grass, animals and birds, the private

untrimm'd bank, the primitive apples, the pebble-stones,

Beautiful dripping fragments, the negligent list of one after
another as I happen to call them to me or think of them,

The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)

The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,

This poem drooping shy and unseen that I always carry, and that all

men carry,

(Know once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are men like me, are

our lusty lurking masculine poems,)

Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers,

and the climbing sap,

Arms and hands of love, lips of love, phallic thumb of love, breasts

of love, bellies press'd and glued together with love,

Earth of chaste love, life that is only life after love,

The body of my love, the body of the woman I love, the body of the

man, the body of the earth,

Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,

The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down, that gripes the

full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes

his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and tight till he is

satisfied;

The wet of woods through the early hours,

Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with

an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other,

The smell of apples, aromas from crush'd sage-plant, mint, birch-bark,

The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what

he was dreaming,

The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl and falling still and

content to the ground,

The no-form'd stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with,

The hubb'd sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can any

one,

The sensitive, orbic, underlapp'd brothers, that only privileged

feelers may be intimate where they are,

The curious roamer the hand roaming all over the body, the bashful

withdrawing of flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and

edge themselves,

The limpid liquid within the young man,

The vex'd corrosion so pensive and so painful,

The torment, the irritable tide that will not be at rest,

The like of the same I feel, the like of the same in others,

The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young woman that
flushes and flushes,

The young man that wakes deep at night, the hot hand seeking to

repress what would master him,

The mystic amorous night, the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats,

The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers,

the young man all color'd, red, ashamed, angry;

The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked,

The merriment of the twin babes that crawl over the grass in the

sun, the mother never turning her vigilant eyes from them,

The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen'd

long-round walnuts,

The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,

The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent,

while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent,

The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity,

The oath of procreation I have sworn, my Adamic and fresh daughters,

The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate

what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am through,

The wholesome relief, repose, content,

And this bunch pluck'd at random from myself,

It has done its work--I toss it carelessly to fall where it may.

Table Of Contents - Poetry

O Captain, my Captain - Walt Whitman

O Captain, My Captain

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Table Of Contents - Poetry