The Hugo Awards have been just announced. Click the above link you get a complete list of awards.
The link below gives you a site to read the best novel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/aug/10/myth-genius-neil-gaiman
Monthly Archives: August 2009
Man Booker’s Longlist
Have you read these? Titles listed on Man Booker Prize for 2009 are here. So which book will be the one to win this year’s prize, you can have your say on this blog.
The children’s book by A. S. Byatt
The quickening maze by Adam Foulds
How to paint a dead man by Sarah Hall
The wilderness by Samantha Harvey
The glass room by Simon Mawer
Not untrue & not unkind by Ed O’Loughlin
Helipolis by James Scudamore
Love and summer by William Trevor
Writing into dangarous
Angel’s game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The famous Spanish author whose previous fiction ‘The shadow of the wind’ was so greatly received by readers all around the world, some says only after Don Quixote, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, again, gives us a great literature book. His second novel, ‘The angel’s game’, has all similar brutality of crime scene, labyrinth of history as well as a bookstore for the background.
David Martin, a young man, born into poverty, who struggles to get his writing talent recognised, and to get a normal life by living in his dreamed mansion, but it’s all ruins and damages along the way. His love to the writing, his love to his girl friend Cristina and his relationship with his mentor Vidal lead him into some very dangerous plots which would cost all he had.
It is a book about books, about writing, about literature. 1920 Barcelona was a dark and evil place but there was still some shining light because of books and humanity.
1st Wed Reading Group August Discussion
Miss Smilla’s sense of snow by Peter Hoeg
This is a translated crime fiction written by an author from Danish.
In his first novel to be published in English, Danish author Hoeg offers readers a wonderfully original, elegantly crafted, ominously savage story. The plot is cryptically clever, beginning with the death of a six-year-old boy and ending with the discovery of an international smuggling ring. The pervasive violence–both to the body and to the soul–is recounted so matter-of-factly as to be doubly chilling, and the characters are as mesmerizing, as enigmatic, and as engrossing as any populating the pages of recent crime fiction. But perhaps Hoeg’s most wonderful invention is heroine Smilla Jaspersen, a rebellious, stubborn, tough, fearless Eskimo woman who’s spent most of her life in Copenhagen. She has an uncanny sense of direction, a love of Isaac Newton’s theories, and a gift for mathematics. She treasures her aloneness, successfully hiding her vulnerability under a near-impenetrable facade of aggressiveness–an aggressiveness that has caused her to be an outcast most of her life but that serves her well when she decides her six-year-old neighbor, Isaiah, did not die accidentally. Be forewarned that this is not an easy book to read. Its leaps and starts, from present to past to future, are confusing. Cryptic references and ambiguous, unexplained plot twists are often frustrating. But readers who persevere will be well rewarded. While the book may not appeal to mystery buffs looking only for pure entertainment, it is a must-read for serious fans of the genre. ((Reviewed July 1993)) — Emily Melton
The 1st Wednesday Reading Group enjoyed their discussion about this book.
A member who was from the country gave some very useful information about Greenland and the Inuits to the group. There are a lot problems facing the Inuits – similar to Australian Aborigines. Life expectancy of Inuits was about 35. It’s just too tough.
some said it is a controversial book.
some commented it is a social commentary, mystery and a fabulous book, well researched. It has a lot description of winter, and ice.
Some said although it was written in 1993, could be referred to 2008, quite comtemporary.
Some felt some confusion over characters, gender and an abrupt finish.
The group related this with the movie and thought it might appeal to a much winder audience.
Overall, members thought it was a wonderful read and will recommend it to others, along the line of Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendell.
The shameful peace
The shameful peace: how French artists and intellectuals survived the Nazi occupation by Frederic Spotts It is a period that French people don’t want to talk about very often, or rather, avoid talking about it.
It is a period that still brings embarrassment and humiliation for the generation now, still feel shameful.
1940, Europe was divided and in a great war. Nazi Germany advanced and invaded half of the world. Vichy government did nothing to resist Germans take over. After all, this government itself had no hesitation to get rid of Jews, Freemasons, and communists whatever the cost.
A nation which had given birth to so many thinkers, artists, and intellectuals, a nation which inspired so many cultures, France now faced a wrenching challenge. From 1940-1945, artists and intellectuals, must come up with a choice. Some of them chose to escape, some barely survived, some became heroes but some, willingly, became collaborators.
The propaganda machine had been on long before the armistice. The main aim was simple, to destroy French culture and to bring in a superiority of German culture over French culture. Paris became a city where one festival by another. Leading German musicians played Mozart, Wagner, and Beethoven. In 1942 and 1943, there were seventy one concerts orchestrated by German musicians. The author pointed out, ‘never in peacetime, much less in wartime, had there been such a massive cultural assault’. (p. 43.)
It was just one of the examples of cultural invasion. While artists, even prominent like Jean Cocteau, became a heartless collabo, Andre Gide, and others, joined resistance or refused to write any word under censorship of German or Vichy. However, it was shameful that so many intellectuals were happy to fit in. Artists salons were flourish at the time. Paris was in a festival mood with new fashion and many publications that didn’t lack prominent artists and writers.
The book is very well researched and is full of anecdotes and facts. It reminds everyone that in history, there were times that when war might not destroy innocent souls, then culture could.