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Tuesday, 14 August 2012

The LainiBop Challenge - Book 12 The Hunger Games - GUEST

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READ!TO GO!
12118

The LainiBop Challenge

THE HUNGER GAMES
SUZANNE COLLINS

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* * * * * SPOILERS * * * * *
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I got a present of The Hunger Games boxset for Christmas but have been trying to put off reading them. There were a couple of reasons for this, namely because I had heard so much hype about them. Now in my opinion there are 2 main problems which can stem from a book in particular having so much hype behind it.
  1. It could be awful. Lots of people have read it and think it's brilliant so the rest of the world feels compelled to agree for fear that they will be thought “uncultured” for not enjoying it. In which case I really didn't want to put myself through something painfully horrible to read. Why would anyone do that to themselves?

  2. It could be brilliant.....now a lot of people may not understand why I think this is a problem, but they are probably the same sort of people who wouldn't understand how I ended up with 130 books on my to be read shelf. See if a book on my shelf is in fact brilliant and I read it, then it has to go on my Read shelf and then I won't have it to look forward to anymore. It'll be one of those that I've read once upon a time. No more suspense, no more carefully caressing it, or pulling it off the shelf to look and then carefully placing it back to be read another day. It's done with and that's it.
    I have a weird relationship with books.
Despite all of this, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, after originally picking a Jeffrey Archer book to begin, I changed my mind and decided I needed to try this out. If it was going to be brilliant, then I can't think of any better time that a sunny Sunday afternoon to find out.

Let's just say, I finished it that evening. It took me 2 sittings, only because I had to make an emergency trip to the shops; even then I dragged myself away from the sunlounger.

Katniss lives in a very different world to ours. In her world the Capitol rules and the 12 districts surrounding it, must comply. Part of this involves each district sending 2 young people between 12 and 18 to an event called the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games just happens to be a fight to the death. The rewards however outweigh the losses in the eyes of many, for whoever wins, will never have to worry about poverty again, and until the next Hunger Games the winner's district will be showered with gifts and food.

Unfortunately for Katniss, her district, number 12 is the poorest one. Unlike 1, 2 and 3 they cannot afford to spend time and money training the young people to fight, district 12's teenagers must just survive if they can. On the day of the Reaping, everyone must gather in the square to watch the names being picked out, and on this day, Katniss Everdeen's younger sister who has just turned 12 is the first name out of the drum. Sacrificing herself for her sister, Katniss volunteers to take her place.

What I loved about this is the immense detail which is given about the world they live in. The rules of The Hunger Games are detailed as are the ceremonies and rituals leading up to it, but it never feels like exposition. It feels real. I flew through the book but yet there was so much information that my mind was reeling after it. I really want to read the next one but now there is even more pressure, see points 1 and 2 above!

Hype in this case was well and truly deserved. I just wish there had been Young Adult books like this around when I was growing up. There seems to be a plethora of them now, with really good, gripping stories and I'm delighted that young people get the chance to indulge in these fantasy worlds and hope they enjoy them and keep reading as adults.

Spotify:

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SCORE       9/10



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Say Hello to @Lainibop

Her To Be Read Challenge - The Countdown Begins!


Book 30 - ?
Book 29 - ?
Book 28 - Sexing the Cherries by Jeanette Winterson
Book 27 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Book 26 - Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
Book 25 - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Book 24 - From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
Book 23 - Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Book 22 - Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffery Archer


Find more reviews HERE

If we've used any videos, you'll find them on the LeedsBookClub YouTube Channel - 

Visit LainiBop's playlist HERE 
Visit Fizzy Elephants HERE
The 10 Things I Hate About You playlist is HERE!
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Sunday, 12 August 2012

ArcadiaLBC Book 17 - A Thousand Splendid Suns - Guest

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Arcadia LBC

Venue: Arcadia Bar
Date:  Sunday, 15th July 2012
Time:  5pm - 7pm

Discussed: A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

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BLURB (from Amazon):

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years -- from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding -- that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives -- the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness -- are inextricable from the history playing out around them.
Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heartwrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love -- a stunning accomplishment.


A Thousand Splendid Suns

Having missed the book club before this, it was lovely to bumble in this month to a great turnout and plenty of new faces. 

Unfortunately I rocked up about thirty minutes late, so if you said anything super insightful or interesting before this, please stick it in the comments! (LBC - We were only about 10 minutes in & I was the only one to get into full flow - so you didn't miss much. However, we did discuss our slight worry that we would have enjoyed it more if it had been set in a different or fictional country. As it was; one or two of us felt that the book was slightly patronising tonaly. It's difficult to pick an exact example; more a vague sense of unease than anything definite.)

The opening comments usually give a good sense of how people felt overall about the novel, before we get into the nitty gritty, and this is then summed up again at the end when we all mark the book out of ten. I have to be honest and say my feelings can change drastically between those two points! Is it just me, or can a good discussion turn everything on its head?

As I arrived we were just getting into discussion of the characters in the book. We discussed that, the two main characters aside, there seemed to be a number of stereotypes featured. Almost all of the characters slotted neatly into a clear good/bad dichotomy. The most obvious example was the traditional, conservative, cruel Rasheed, misogynist, abuser and husband to Mariam and Laila. Rasheed was universally and understandably hated by the whole group, and despite his eventual demise, I think a lot of us thought he got off quite lightly. Laila’s father, on the other hand, was ‘practically perfect in every way’ with his liberal outlook and kind manner. He seemed to mirror Rashid, and demonstrate that the two were brought up in the same culture but developed into completely opposite characters.

Some exceptions included Jalil’s three wives, who could have come across as a trio of Macbeth style witches, but instead came off as practical and reasonable. Another exception was Mariam’s mother. We felt she seemed to have a very complicated relationship with Jalil and a shaky grasp on reality, and thought it was a real shame that she wasn’t explored in more depth. There was a split of opinion as to whether ‘Nana’ killed herself out of spite, to hurt Mariam, or because she had lost her daughter and had nothing left to live for. Similarly, did she hide herself and her daughter away to draw attention to herself and make a spectacle of herself, or because she was genuinely too ashamed (or unbalanced…) to continue life as before. There was a general trend toward mild sympathy toward Miriam’s mother, as she wasn’t protected by marriage and had to depend on Jalil to take care of her, but we didn’t especially feel that she was making the best of her situation.

Mariam and Laila were both well liked by the group. Although the majority preferred Laila when pushed, no-one felt badly toward Mariam. It seemed to us like the author preferred Laila too – there was just the one happy ending here, and Mariam didn’t get it! There seemed to be more mirroring at play here as well, as Mariam and Laila had such similar personalities but such different upbringings. They were both warm, kind and compassionate, but the events of Mariam’s life had beaten her down, while those of Laila’s had built her up and strengthened her even when they weren’t positive events. Whilst Mariam was brought up by her mother and had a largely physically absent father, Laila was brought up by her father and had a largely emotionally absent mother. Laila was encouraged and loved and praised during her childhood, and Mariam was called names and insulted and rejected.

We didn’t feel that Mariam had as distinctive a voice as Laila. Whilst we thought both the women were likeable, it seemed we got into Laila’s head a little more. Laila’s story and character development seemed clear, but there were many ‘lost years’ in Mariam’s narrative as she languished in her unhappy marriage. It would have been good to get to understand better how the (tragic) formative events of Mariam’s life affected her.

As far as the writing was concerned, we felt that a first person narrative might have helped us understand Mariam better. We also thought that reading the same events from each perspective could have been even more interesting – one group member in particular mentioned that she always finds it fascinating to study the different ways in which people perceive events. The sense of place within the book was well defined. Not only did we get a good picture of Afghanistan at various points in its history, but there were obvious differences between Kabul, the city, and the solitary hut in the village where Mariam grew up.

Everyone enjoyed the central storyline and the relationship that developed between Mariam and Laila. The way the relationship formed and then intensified felt ‘real’ – Mariam took Laila in because she is warm-hearted and kind (and lonely?). When Rasheed suggests and Laila accepts marriage, Mariam becomes jealous and hostile, and it takes a baby, serious grovelling from Laila and buckets and buckets of time for them to become closer.

The fact that Mariam, after her years of disappointment, finally got the opportunity to exercise her maternal feelings was wonderful. Although we’re by no means suggesting that all women need this, it was clearly something that Mariam in particular had craved. Mariam bonded first with Laila’s daughter and then Laila herself in a way that was truly familial.

The scenes where the women of Kabul secretly watched Titanic really resonated with some of us. We remembered going through the same obsession and somehow this popular culture reference was a lifeline between the reader and the characters. For me personally, this was a rare example of a popular culture reference that did more than act as a lazy marker for time or character, but imbued life to the scene and made it more real.

We liked the way the novel was not a book about a man with two wives, but a book about two women who were married to the same man. It wasn’t really about the women’s relationship with Rasheed, but about their relationship with each other.
We liked the way family was portrayed in some ways – obviously the husband-wife relationship on show wasn’t ideal, but the way the children had a number of different parent figures to go to reflected, we thought, the situation that our society is moving toward. Many children today have a wide choice of parents, step parents, teachers, other family members and friends to approach if necessary, and this positive aspect of polygamy was one which we appreciated.

Some group members thought the narrative tied up a bit too neatly at the end, and it seemed a little too contrived and writerly. On the other hand, none of us begrudged Laila her happy ending. Although Mariam accepted her punishment in the end, none of us believed she did it for the right reasons. She seems conditioned to accept blame thanks to her years of abuse, and it was sad to see this instinct persevere to the bitter end.

I don’t think any of the group members could boast an in depth knowledge of Afghan geography or politics, and we all felt that a fuller understanding of the political groups, regions and ethnic groups mentioned would have enhanced our understanding and enjoyment of the novel. Perhaps a small introductory summary might have been possible, but anything too reductive would obviously not be helpful. On the other hand, we all said we would have liked more Afghani cultural references. We’re a hard lot to please! 

It was interesting to see the balance that the narrative gave – although the Taliban that we’re all familiar with made an appearance, it was surprising to read that the only immediate effect on the women’s lives was that it was safer for them to walk through the streets.

We felt in the end that this was a book that put two incredibly relatable faces to a tragedy, and many of us found it very moving and emotional. Despite general good feeling toward it, and a more or less positive discussion, it didn’t score anything too exceptional – surprising, to me, as we seemed to have a great deal to discuss!

Score  
7/10

Again, huge thanks to Isobel - @CULTURELeeds

Book the Next: 

The Princess Bride by William Goldman


Venue: Arcadia Bar
Date:  Sunday 15th July 2012
Time:  5:00pm - 7:00pm



For further details, please email me at leedsbookclub@gmail.com or tweet me @LeedsBookClub!

Contact the bar on @ArcadiaBar

And feel free to let us know your thoughts using #ArcadiaLBC!




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Arcadia LBC


21 - Nov - Hard Times - Charles Dickens
20 - Oct - The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster - GUEST - @CultureLEEDS
19 - Sep - The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins - GUEST - @CultureLEEDS
18 - Aug - The Princess Bride - William Goldman
17 - Jul - A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini - GUEST
16 - Jun - Cry the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
15 - May - 1984 - George Orwell - GUEST - @CultureLEEDS
14 - Apr - BloodChild and Other Stories - Octavia Butler
13 - Mar - The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna
12 - Feb - Heat Wave - Richard Castle
11 - Jan - The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint - Brady Udall
10 - Nov - Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

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Saturday, 11 August 2012

The Maltese Falcon Film Review- GUEST

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LeedsBookClub is delighted to welcome new Guest Blogger - @MysteryPickles - who will be providing us with reviews of films based on books! 

Thanks so much Mr Gentleman Tweeter!

The Maltese Falcon (1941) was the third adaptation of the novel by Dashiell Hammett originally published in 1929 and the adaptation which most closely follows the plot and dialogue of the source material. 

Sam Spade is a private detective who is tasked by Brigid O'Shaughnessy to recover a priceless statue. He doesn't fully trust her and sends his partner, Archer to follow the leads she gives them. Archer is killed and Sam Spade is suspected as the culprit due to his affair with Archer's wife. As the search for the Falcon continues, more characters are introduced both as treasure hunters and as suspects to Archer's murder.

Gross generalisations can be made about the state of detective fiction before Dashiell Hammett came along and grand overstatements can be made about his influence on the genre, but where before the gentleman detective solved the clever crime committed by the well mannered criminal in a genteel society atmosphere; Hammett's heroes were working class and living on the edge of legality and criminality and the crimes committed were often brutal and senseless, the causes of the crimes were representative of society rather than being an aberration.

The Maltese Falcon (1941) was an early example of what would be later dubbed “film noir”. It is a studio-bound, dialogue heavy adaptation, the only unusual camera work is when filming Kaspar Gutman, played by Sydney Greenstreet, the camera is placed below waist height to emphasise his girth. The film sticks closely to the plot of the original novel and using much of the actual dialogue Dashiell Hammett wrote and as such retain his authorial voice, something which is often lost in adaptations of any genre. 

However the most famous line about describing the Maltese Falcon as “the stuff dreams are made of” is not in the book. There is no first person narration (one of the techniques which would become associated with film noir) but with the sole exception of the scene in which Archer is killed; the film never stops following Sam Spade and so the audience knows no more than the lead character. 

Humphrey Bogart plays Sam Spade - everyone knows this was his big break and the start of his rise to stardom and although he looks nothing like Hammett's description of Spade; he has the worn down and mean look needed to play what is essentially someone who lives between criminality and legality. He is often shown just listening to the other characters talk and thinking things through, weighing up who is lying to him and how far he can trust any of them. Private detectives have always seemed to me to be a singularly American idea; Sam Spade only really takes on the case once his partner is killed and he himself is under suspicion for murder, he says “it seems like something a guy should do”, revealing an almost complete lack of genuine feeling for the victim who he has cuckolded.

Mary Astor plays Brigid O'Shaughnessy, the femme fatale type who sets Spade and Archer on a chase for the Falcon. She is portrayed as the intelligent equal of the other treasure hunters, just as greedy and treacherous. There is a relationship quadrangle built up where Spade is having a loveless affair with Archer's wife, Archer himself is oblivious to this and perhaps doesn't care because he is in a loveless marriage, Archer insists on following up Brigid's case as he seems to have his eye on her, after Archer is killed Spade rebuffs Brigid's advances and suspects her involvement in the crime, Brigid also has another lover called Thursby, and there is reference to both her and Joel Cairo, played by Peter Lorre, chasing after the same man at an earlier point in their travels. These things had to be hinted at rather than explicated due to the censors and codes that films had to comply with, this also applies to the sexuality of Joel Cairo, clearly stated as being gay in the novel is played as an effeminate stereotype in the film. Arguably he is beaten and somewhat humiliated by Sam Spade because of who he is, whereas he treats other characters with more respect despite their being just as greedy and duplicitous.

The film stands as one of the defining points of its genre, but a one that was created as an excellent mimicry of the original novel.  



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Thursday, 9 August 2012

Chris Nickson - Come the Fear Book Launch

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COME THE FEAR 

ARRIVES AT ARTS@TRINITY

LAUNCH OF FOURTH BOOK IN LEEDS SERIES

Arts@Trinity - a centre for the arts at Holy Trinity Church - and author Chris Nickson are proud to announce the launch of Chris’ new book - Come the Fear - on Friday, September 14, at 7.30 pm. The launch is open to all and will feature readings from the book by young local actors, music, storytelling and artwork created by the network of artists associated with Arts@Trinity, inspired by passages from the novel. Copies of the book will be available to
buy at the event, courtesy of Blackwell’s.

Come the Fear is the fourth book in Nickson’s critically acclaimed series set in Leeds in the 1730s and featuring Richard Nottingham, Constable of the City of Leeds. All three previous novels have been given starred reviews by esteemed magazine Publishers Weekly, and the second, Cold Cruel Winter, was named one of the 10 Best Mysteries of 2011 by Library Journal. The setting for the launch is especially apt as Holy Trinity Church (a Grade 1 listed building) was built in 1727 and features in The Broken Token, the first novel in the series.

In addition to readings from the novel, there will be Leeds related storytelling from Shonaleigh and Simon Heywood, two of England’s most lauded professional tellers. Last year Shonaleigh (The Fool of the Warsaw Ghetto, Tower of Bagel, Lost in Translation) was Consort to the Storytelling Laureate and tours regularly across Britain and Europe. Simon Heywood (Darkest England) is also a well-known, folklorist, musician and songwriter.

The duo will also be performing a pair of folk ballads from the period, and there will be other musical guests to add into the mix of the evening. Leeds Book Club and Leeds Libraries, supporters of the series of books, will both have tables, encouraging people to sign up.

Everyone is welcome for a time that will be anything but staid. It’s a book launch that’s also a celebration of Leeds and its enviable history, a party for three centuries. Come on down and Come the Fear.

Chris Nickson is a novelist, music journalist and broadcaster. He was born and raised in Leeds, then spent 30 years in the US before returning to England. He’s the author of over 30 non-fiction books and four novels. In addition to the Richard Nottingham series he’s the author of Emerald City, set in the Seattle music scene, which will be published in 2013. He can be contacted at chrisnickson2@gmail.com.

Arts@Trinity regularly hosts a range of arts events from concerts to exhibitions. It has a strong community ethos, offering a space for young, new and aspiring artists, musicians and actors to perform, community groups to meet and run workshops particularly for the young and disadvantaged, and for worship.



LeedsBookClub would like to officially invite everyone that I've ever met - particularly book clubbers - down on the 14th of September!

Myself and @Gazpachodragon have had an idea about mobile-book-clubbing that this will be the perfect time to test - so come along and see the insanity in action!

It's going to be a great event, but it just wouldn't be the same without 
YOU!

Chris Nickson - Table of Contents

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The LainiBop Challenge - Book 11 - Moll Flanders - GUEST

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READ!TO GO!
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The LainiBop Challenge

MOLL FLANDERS
DANIEL DEFOE

* * * * *
* * * * * SPOILERS * * * * *
* * * * *

This is a book which I read back in college as part of my degree, after finding it amongst a load of books at home I realised I couldn't really remember any details of it, so there it found itself, on my To Be Read Mountain.

Before I start this review, I must note that in the last year I attempted to read another Daniel Defoe novel, Robinson Crusoe, without much luck. I got so infuriated with the book and the character that I had to leave it unfinished. I can almost count on both hands how many times that has happened to me in my life, I hate not finishing books, but I will put them down if they do me wrong. Having said this, I was sure that I had finished Moll Flanders some years ago, so thought I would give it another shot.

Moll is the daughter of a thief who went to Newgate prison while pregnant and got a short reprieve by “pleading her belly”. After Moll was born, she was left in the care of random people it seems and spent the first few years of her life with gypsies before running away from them. She was then taken in my a young woman who ran a type of school for orphans and misfits and when the time came for Moll to leave to find work, she begged to be allowed to stay and help some more. Eventually Moll ends up working for a family who take her in. She is a servant/nanny/and surrogate daughter it seems, and has the benefit of being educated with the 2 daughters of the family. However this could not last for long, as the 2 sons of the family begin to fall in love with her. The eldest woos her with false promises of marriage, while using her as his mistress and when the younger claims that he is in love with her and wants to marry her straight away, her virtue has already been taken. And so begins Moll's life of crime, prostitution, and even polygamy.

The life and world that Moll describes is completely alien to us now. She talks a lot of trying to find a husband for example. She wants to find a rich man to marry who will support her as she has never had much money of her own. This is not uncommon, even now, but what was strange to me is that all the men wanted was to find a rich wife to support them also. Many of the men she found, had made money from leasing land or an inheritance, and many of them didn't work. Moll has to pretend that she is rich in order to find someone to marry her, and because she doesn't want to be accused of lying to them, she dresses in fancy clothes and implies that she is rich, so that when they marry her and find out that she has no money, they cannot say that she deceived them. Apparently Daniel Defoe was born Daniel Foe and added the “aristocratic sounding De” to his name in order to imply rich ancestors.

Throughout her life, Moll has many husbands, and also many children. I'm not sure if it was because the author was male or simply that that's the type of character Moll is but she abandons children all over the place, much like she herself was abandoned. She mentions her children, as in to say, “I had 2 children with him” but then we hear nothing more of them after this. We know that some of them, she had to leave for various reasons, but even one which she talked of having to find money to feed, was never mentioned after that. She travels all over the place, but never talks of all the children and where they are.

I'm not sure how believeable Moll Flanders is. As it was written in 1722, I suppose it could be realistic for the time, but there is a lot contained within the pages which defy belief. Having said that, it is a very entertaining read. You really get caught up in Molls life and the opinions of the times too, where everything is a scandal and your virtue is the most important thing you have as a young woman. We see her ups and downs, we love her then hate her, we admire her bravery then scorn her thievery. Moll is basically a woman who having lost a fair chance at a good life early on, will now do anything she needs to to survive. 

Fancy a read? Find FREE ebooks below:
Project Gutenbers: Moll Flanders
Amazon: Moll Flanders
iTunes: Moll Flanders

Youtube: Film: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders starring Alex Kingston (1996)
(Note: NOT the Robin Wright version which is nothing like the original story at all!)


SCORE       7/10

* * * * *
Say Hello to @Lainibop

Her To Be Read Challenge - The Countdown Begins!


Book 30 - ?
Book 29 - ?
Book 28 - Sexing the Cherries by Jeanette Winterson
Book 27 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Book 26 - Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
Book 25 - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Book 24 - From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
Book 23 - Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Book 22 - Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffery Archer


Find more reviews HERE

If we've used any videos, you'll find them on the LeedsBookClub YouTube Channel - 

Visit LainiBop's playlist HERE 
Visit Fizzy Elephants HERE
The 10 Things I Hate About You playlist is HERE!
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Table of Contents - Laini's Book Shelf

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