Answers to Book Titles Game

Posted in Musings by Bookgirl

In the previous post I posted a book title game where I changed some well known novel titles with some truly awful alternatives and readers had to match the titles. Thankyou everyone for your patience in waiting for the answers as I took a little break over Easter.

The much anticipated answers are:

Did he, or didn’t he do it? – F. Gone Girl
A Very Unusual Cake – D. The Help
Here Piggy, Piggy – A. Charlotte’s Web
Colour Coded People – C. Divergent
A Spoilt Girl Learns a Lesson -Almost – B. Gone With the Wind
Nerds Rule – E. The Rosie Project
Marry My Daughters – H. Pride and Prejudice
The Very Ordinary Nick Carraway -G. The Great Gatsby

Hope you had fun and maybe this has inspired you to take a look at some books you may not have previously.

15Apr2014

Once

Posted in Book Reviews by Bookgirl

The book Once by Morris Gleitzman came to me by way of my son. He was given a copy for his 11th birthday and he said I could read it first because it was on my must –read list. The book is set in Nazi occupied Poland in 1942 and we follow the story of a young boy named Felix. We meet Felix at a catholic orphanage, which he had been living at for the past 3years and 8months. He and his parents are Jewish so they sent him there to keep him safe, although Felix believes he is there while his parents sort through a difficult time with their bookshop.

After witnessing Nazis’ burning books at the orphanage, Felix decides to leave the orphanage and find his parents to help them save their books. We journey with Felix as his childhood innocence slowly dissolves and his eyes are opened to the atrocity of the holocaust around him. This book grabs your heart and doesn’t let go. It squeezes and tugs at every page. It is relentless and exhaustive. I truly loved this book, but as my son is a sensitive 11year old he may need to wait a little longer to read such painful truths. There are three more books in the series After, Now and Then.
Once by Morris Gleitzmann
Once I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad.

Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house.

Once I made a Nazi with toothache laugh.

My name is Felix.

This is my story.

Everybody deserves to have something good in their life.

At least once.

4Apr2014

Is the beginning the end?

Posted in Musings by Bookgirl

The start of a novel can make or break a book for me. It has to grab my attention with the very first line. As everyone today, I am too time poor to hang around hoping the book will get better. Am I too harsh? If an author has not put everything into their opening sentence then where is the respect to the reader? But here lies the problem, what makes a good first sentence? Every reader has different taste and I know what I like and if the writing is good, I’ll stick around and give the book a fighting chance.

I recently attended a talk by the author Alexander McCall Smith. McCall Smith discussed the importance of a great opening line. He then delighted us with one of his favourites from The Tower of Trebizond by Rose Maccauly.

“Take my camel dear,” said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.

Has the reader curious. No?

My favourite is a little more subdued, from the master himself, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Whenever I read this I wonder whether Dickens sweated over every word, rearranging, rewriting, putting in a comma and then removing it again or was he hit by inspiration and it flowed in one sitting. Here it is, for your pleasure.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness. It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair”

My son wanted to add his favourite, it’s the opening line of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Hobbit

“In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit”

What is your favourite opening sentence?

21Mar2014

Books to Film

Posted in Musings by Bookgirl

I was glancing at my bookshelf and noticed how many of my books are currently films, being made into a film or a film that’s about to be released. This is a hot topic; everyone has an opinion, what makes a good book into a good film?

Is it budget, direction, casting, writing or a combination? There are films that have done excellent adaptations, the “Harry Potter” series and “To Kill a Mockingbird” for example. But the reverse it often true; good books to bad films have become ubiquitous.

Casting has a significant impact for me. Every reader forms a picture in their head of how a character looks, and when an actor is cast who is in complete contrast it can be quite jarring – sometimes for the entire film. With the soon to be released “The Fault in our stars” I feel some foreboding if the casting is wrong, particularly since the whole story is mainly centred around two pivotal characters. The film will do well if screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber don’t stray too far from the brilliant writing of John Green. John Green’s dialogue uses a sharp, acerbic wit to deal with a difficult subject. This is one of my favourite books, so fingers crossed the film be just as fantastic.

Let me know who your favourite and least favourite casting in a book to film.

16Mar2014

Libraries

Posted in Musings by Bookgirl

Confession – I have an addiction to libraries. In my wallet, amongst the Boost Juice and Gloria Jeans loyalty cards, sits my many library cards. Like inching out the notches on a belt, my wallet needs more room, maybe a separate wallet just for them.

Over the years I’ve had many fine library moments, running around London’s library was pure joy, Sydney University library, had my face pasted with a smile, like the joker, for the entire day. Recently I visited my local library after it had major renovations, and I declared I’d found my utopia. I also have fond memories of visiting the Lands Title’s office and feeling like Alice in Wonderland as I struggled to open the huge record books. The large tomes are the size of a house; well a moped at least – seriously! I still have a world of libraries to conquer. I may start with the one pictured; it’s the Anscient Ursino of rare books in Sicily, Italy, or we could search for the lost books/library of Alexandria. Does anyone want to join me?