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Book Reviews
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Oscar Huckle25 January 2010
Cherub: The Recruit starts with James Choke, a typical Year 7 student getting in a fight with a girl in his class, Samantha Jennings. He returns home to find his Mum drunk and his horrible step dad is there, Ronald Onions. When his Mum dies, James is sent to an orphanage where he has his own room and he attends a new school. However, one day he wakes up in an unfamiliar place. He is in Cherub, a school where the kids are trained as spies and when ready, they are sent on secret missions. People never suspect kids are spying on them, watching their every move. The story is about James' life at Cherub, his training to become an agent and how he eventually takes part in his first secret mission. Interesting!!!!!!!
My friend nagged me for weeks to read this book telling me it was amazing. Eventually, I gave in and read. I felt the story started well, however the mission that James was sent on later on in the story wasn't that interesting. But I am not going to worry about that at the moment because I'm sure James will get tougher missions as he carries on his life at Cherub. I'll just have to carry on reading the series to prove this is the case. Apart from that, the book is good. Robert Muchamore tells the story well. The plot twists and turns at every moment; one big roller coaster ride. Enough said, I better not spoil the rest of the story. Overall, the book is worth one read. 7/10. I hear the second Cherub, 'Class A' is meant to be good. Better check it out........ -
In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
Sean Anderson25 January 2010
In Cold Blood is in the most part from a first-person perspective: that of Perry Smith as he describes the night of the Clutter murders. There is additionally evidence of an intrusive narrator with Capote describing Dewey's feelings in the third person.
Capote effectively highlights the killers' total lack of remorse; for example, when Perry remarks on Dick's comment, 'I'm gonna bust that little girl.' Dick is showing a very casual intention to rape Nancy and Capote has manipulated his idiolect to disgust the reader: the diminutive, pleasant-sounding 'little girl' is starkly contrasted by the malevolent-sounding word 'bust', achieving the same effect as Shelley, since Dick understands the concept of children's place in society, but does not care about raping her. 'What do you care? Hell, you can bust her, too.'
Dick is horrific because of his nonchalant attitude to the destruction he creates, but it could be argued that Perry is often the more horrific of the two. Dick is the traditional 'low-life', but Capote's apparent sympathy for Perry moulds him into a rational character: 'Now, that's something I despise. Anybody that can't control themselves sexually . I gave the gun to Dick. I told him I'd done all I could do.' However, his description of the events is remarkably clinical, paying attention to the mundane task of removing evidence, using an expletive to refer to the shell and simple emotionless sentences: 'The last shell was a bitch to locate. Dick wiggled under the bed to get it.' Furthermore, he later expresses a desire to kill Dick, not because of hatred, but to keep to the original plan and save himself: '. that's when I decided I'd better shoot Dick . And I thought, He's a witness.' The reader will struggle mentally here to compute Perry's conflicting personalities. How can a man with such concerns kill so easily? Is a question that demonstrates the impact of psychological horror.
Capote is a master of capturing moments of heightened emotion witnessed in Nancy, pleading helplessly with the intruders: 'Oh, no! Oh, please. No! No! No! Don't! Oh, please don't! Please!' Capote has used repetition, each word delivered like a blow to the reader who shares Nancy's dread and has used a female who represents the American Dream, being a highly desirable potential wife in America at the time of production (domestically talented, pretty and clever), as the victim of Dick's hubris. Shelley has used a male who was similarly a role model of the patriarchy at the time of production. In both cases, idealism has been shown to be fallible, thus creating an air of despair that horrifies the reader psychologically by removing hope for the redemption of society from their minds.
Nancy's struggle is conveyed to the reader by Capote's account of Dewey's imagination: 'Nancy's room, Nancy listening to boots on hardwood stairs, the creak of the steps as they climb towards her, Nancy's eyes, Nancy watching the flashlight's shine seek the target.' The techniques used to set the mood include the train-of-thought-like repetition of 'Nancy' and incomplete clauses separated by commas; the word 'boots' and 'hardwood', creating an impression of a heavy sound and the dehumanising words 'seek the target', suggesting Dick and Perry's lack of respect for life. The culmination of this is the sentence, 'He took aim, and she turned her face to the wall.' The result is left to the audience's imagination and so is more likely to trouble them than if it had been force-fed a description that does not engage the mind.
Capote's radical style of reportage (one of the first New Journalism texts) known as 'faction' has inspired many books since and is still relevant today; thus, a modern audience will likely be just as horrified today by In Cold Blood as at the time of publication. -
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) [Children's Edition]
Oscar Huckle25 January 2010
J.K Rowling has made each of the Harry Potter books special in their own way. Now that we reach the end of this spectacular saga, J.K Rowling must impress the public with her final book. Will it live up to its predecessors?
Of course it does. J.K. Rowling reveals all the answers to unanswered questions from the earlier books in spectacular fashion and glorious detail. The story unfolds slowly, but steadily and is full of detail. It keeps the reader on the edge of his seat at all times and I never wanted to put it down even for a second. Will Harry Potter finally accomplish the task that Dumbledore left him - to destroy all the horcruxes and send Voldemort to hell once and for all ? Find out in this final epic book. Enjoy! I highly recommend this book. 10/10 - no questions asked. -
sharren fitzpatrick22 January 2010
What a great book. Plenty of fabulous tasty recipes that are easy to follow and good diet tips...most recipes could be enjoyed by all the family.
Just imagine how much better it would be if everytime you opened the book you heard Gino's voice too!!
Heaven on a plate!! -
Sherlock Holmes: Vol 2: The Complete Novels and Stories
Liam Cromar19 January 2010
The second volume of Bantam's Complete Sherlock Holmes collection is a little bit of a mixed bag, but still worth the modest outlay.
The starting point couldn't be better: the quintessential Holmes novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, represents the high-water mark of Conan Doyle's chronicles of Holmes. The desolate bleak moors of Devon provides Holmes with the opportunity to shine - and he does so in dramatic style. If you only read one Holmes novel, do make it 'Hound'. (Trivia: the legend Conan Doyle drew from comes not from Devon, but from near Kington, on the Herefordshire/Wales border)
The Valley of Fear gets off to a promising start, and for all of Part I we observe Holmes in his element, dealing with a more-than-meets-the-eye case of murder. Unfortunately, in Part II, Conan Doyle indulges his tendency to break off into long non-Holmes explanatory story-telling, as previously exhibited in A Study in Scarlet. It explains the build-up to Part I, but frankly he's not at his best in this vein, and while the story is mildly intriguing, it suffers from the absence of Holmes.
The rest of the volume is made up of two short-story collections: His Last Bow and The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. The quality of these are rather variable: there are certainly low points, such as when Conan Doyle experiments with doing away with his narrator in the form of Watson ('Mazarin Stone', 'Last Bow'), and when he seems to forget to include a mystery for Holmes to solve ('Veiled Lodger'). It's not all bad, though, with humour combined with danger on display ('Lady Frances Carfax') and old-fashioned Holmes-thinking ('Thor Bridge').
In summary, then: despite the occasional dull moment, this is an essential addition to Volume 1, and should on no account be overlooked. Pass quickly over the weak points and enjoy watching the master of induction at work. -
Darby19 January 2010
This book was the best book that I have ever read. I would recommend this to anyone that is mature - I can't stop reading it! I love how the author makes this book so relatable.
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Dawn Edwards16 January 2010
I am 45 years old and the first "heavy metal" record I bought was Paranoid, nuff said!
Although if you read the book Ozzy doesn't really like the term "heavy metal". After reading Sharon's 2 books which gives you plenty of insight on Ozzy's world from her perspective I couldn't wait to see what Ozzy had to say about it all. I read the whole book in just over a day, I just couldn't put it down. Unlike other autobiographies by people I love and admire there are always those few pages that bore you just a little bit. Not this one! I was spellbound, catapulted into Ozzie's world and what a world it was! The book flowed effortlessly from one drama to another which in Ozzie's world was one day to the next. His candid tales of events were funny, sad , thought provoking, honest and oh did I say sometimes really funny! I was left wanting more, his writing so descriptive of events (even though he may have had help here!)You are left feeling like you have lived those days with him and you want them to carry on. Overall a brilliant read even for someone who isn't a fan of the "prince of darkness! I saw him in Birmingham at his book signing but didn't get a chance to meet him, shame that. One last point - how is this guy still alive? Beats me! -
Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics)
Gary Dicks16 January 2010
Whether you're studying a degree in linguistics (like myself) or you just have a taste for semantics that needs to be satisfied, 'Meaning in Language' will do the trick.
As the subtitle suggests, it is an introductory text to the wide variety of concerns in the field of semantics and pragmatics, including logical semantics, grammatical semantics, and pragmatic issues of reference, deixis, performativity, and implicatures.
Possibly its most saleable feature, though, is the chapter on the recent advance in semantics called the 'dynamic construal approach', which is written in a much lighter style than in Cruse's other publication about it, 'Cognitive Linguistics' (Croft and Cruse, 2004).
Cruse sticks to an academic style but is not afraid to wander into more friendly territory, allowing this book to flow and to teach readily. Among the many introductory texts to semantics and pragmatics on offer, this is definitely one of the best. -
The Martin Beck series - Roseanna
Joanne Leddington16 January 2010
Roseanna is the first novel in the ten-volume Martin Beck crime series written by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo during the 1960s and 1970s. Swedish crime novels are certainly en vogue at the moment thanks to the popularity of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series (the television adaptation of which is currently being shown on BBC1) and Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy, but the importance of Sjowall and Wahloo's novels are often overlooked. The Martin Beck series was pioneering in its time and served as the inspiration for a new generation of Swedish crime novelists. Indeed, in his introduction to this edition of Roseanna, Henning Mankell acknowledges the impact that the Martin Beck stories had on him and on his own detective creations.
In Roseanna, the naked body of a young woman is dredged from a canal but, although it is clear that she was horribly assaulted before being murdered, no clue to her identity can be found. With the case pretty much cold from the get go, Detective Martin Beck and his colleagues from the Homicide Department are called in to help the local constabulary solve the crime. For six months the girl's murder plagues the minds of both Beck and local detective Ahlberg, but it is only through a chance Interpol lead that the girl is identified. Roseanna McGraw was an American tourist taking a cruise through the Swedish lakes and it soon becomes clear that any one of the other eighty people on the cruise ship could have killed her. With very little evidence to go on, Martin Beck begins a meticulous investigation to identify who else was on the cruise ship and to identify which of these people was guilty of the murder to Roseanna McGraw.
Although police procedure has clearly moved on a great deal since the days of Martin Beck (it's certainly fortunate that mobile phones mean that police officers don't have to break off from following suspects to phone in reports from convenient phone boxes!), the story does not feel dated. Martin Beck is a very sardonic, straightforward detective and the language of the novel reflects this - there are no flowery descriptions and unnecessary observations to be found here! The mystery behind the murder itself was very convincing and I particularly liked the length of time and the effort it took the police to apprehend the murderer even after they had discovered his/her (in the interests of avoiding spoilers!) identity. Roseanna is a very promising start to the Martin Beck series and I believe it will leave crime fans wanting to read the rest of the series. -
Slaughterhouse Five Or The Children's Crusade - A Duty Dance With Death
Angus Spawton-Rice08 January 2010
Slaughterhouse 5 or The Children's Crusade is a timeless classic about not only being in the war but about the times surrounding it. An excellent example of postmodern literature, it jumps around through different parts of the protagonist's life; his time in World War Two and time as a prisoner of war in Dresden, his 'bearable' life as an optometrist, his 'bearable' married life and his time spent in the company of distant time and space travelling aliens who abducted him.
The events of the novel and of Billy Pilgrim's life are almost casually narrated by Vonnegut, who can be relied on throughout to bring in his wonderfully dry and dark wit into his comments. Considered at the time to be extremely low brow reading, it has since been considered a classic, commenting on many issues from the sixties: war, consumerism and overpopulation.
The original and fresh (especially for the time) writing style and narrative structure means that while when I finished reading this book, while getting a sense of completion, I also felt like the story continued. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone because it has the rare combination of being both philosophical, thought provoking and easy to read.
