About reading

How high a smart entrepreneur can climb with guts and will. 

India is, with China, one of the future rulers of this young century. And Adiga shows us in his first novel the raw material of its economy: human flesh. For centuries, India has devored generation after generation of men, like a meat grinder. And submissively those men lined themselves in the slaughterhouse… but Balram would step out of the line and challenge the system. Via seven letters sent to the Prime Minister of China, Balram tells us about his childhood in “the darkness”, the rural India where the castes society controls everything in a peasant life. Working in a teahouse and in a local landlord’s manor, the smart boy knows he has the will to achieve higher goals, to “escape from the cage”, as he calls it. How he gets to New Dehli, using ruthless ambition and intelligence, shows us the potential of this “entrepreneur” (as he likes be considered). Once there, and being the driver of one of the landlord’s sons, Balram discovers the rotten innards of Indian government (and Police, of course). In a brilliant epiphany, knowing how much money his master carried to bribe one minister, the boy kills him and runs with thousands of rupees… his ticket to the top. In my opinion, The White Tiger is a good book, but a little bit overrated. It shows India in its reality, with its misery and decay… but it seems to me as the only strong point of the story: to be the first Indian author telling the true story of the poor Indians. So? Do you really need a book to realize about the horrible life conditions of the lower castes? The plot didn’t catch my attention, even with the refreshing style of young Balram. Booker prize winner, but not one of my favourites.

 In a previous post I told you how much I like Harry Potter book series. It really has been a discovery for me. Who would have thought there was a parallel universe just round the corner?

Well, there is one; JK Rowling has made it up for us.

 Whenever we open one of her books we enter a magic world inhabited by Harry himself, his hideous nemesis Lord Voldemort, his friends and foes, elves, goblins, giant squids and all sorts of mythical creatures.

Maybe the weird looking lady who lives next door is a witch (after all, you have always thought she looked like one) or that cute little child similing at you in the playground may be the next chosen one, the next boy who will live to become a hero and save the world from some sort o of megalomaniac creep.

 Since there is always a Lord Voldemort trying to rule the earth and spoil the fun for the rest of us, who just want to make the most of our time in this crazy world, we could do with an army like Dumbledore’s.

Perhaps it is not too late and mankind has not become too cynical to believe in heroes any more.

In this series you have the good guys, you have the evil ones and then Severus Snape. There always seems to be more to him than meets the eye.

This mysterious outcast, always surly and sarcastic, with his silky cultured voice and his unkempt sinister looks, can’t leave anyone indifferent, which probably explains why lots of readers love him with as much passion as others hate him. It is up to you to decide who is right. I have already made up my mind: he is the best and I could not care less whether he is good or bad.

 Today I’m not going to write a review on any of the books, I’m going to encourage you to read the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and thus enter the parallel universe round the corner.

Come on, click on the medallion below and read while you listen to Stephen Fry’s compelling voice giving life to the characters.

I warn you that it’s a dark creepy chapter but, what could you expect when it is called : The Dark Lord Ascending ?

The Sugar Glider  by Rod Nielsen is an adventure book, as you read it you’ll learn some facts about Australia.

Once you’ve read the book choose one question from each of the groups below and send/give your answers to your teacher. Some of them will be published here. Personal opinions will be welcome, too.

Group 1

1.     Write about Paul and Don’s relationship focusing on the similarities and differences between both characters.

2.     What’s the relationship between Don and Sylvia like? How does it change from the beginning to the end of this story? What do you think it will be like in the future?

Group 2

3.     Who has been your favourite character in this story? Give reason for your answer, including a description of that character.

4.     Which character have you liked the least? Give reason for your answer including a description of the character.

Group 3

5.     Judy proves to be a very brave girl during the story. Why?

6.     Write a different ending to the story.

Title: “The pillars of the Earth”              

Author: Ken Follet

Genre: historical novel

Publisher: William Morrow, New York

Level: Advanced

Brief summary of the plot:  In a time of civil war, famine and religious strife, there rises a magnificent Cathedral in Kingsbridge. Against this backdrop, lives entwine: Tom, the master builder, Aliena, the noblewoman, Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge, Jack, the artist in stone and Ellen, the woman from the forest who casts a curse. At once, this is a sensuous and enduring love story and an epic that shines with the fierce spirit of a passionate age.

Personal opinion: “The pillars of the Earth” is such an amazing book. It tells us about a shocking love story in the middle of the building of a cathedral. Some people don’t like it because it is too long but I think that it’s better because if you love the book you don’t want it to end. In addition the plot is about the lifee of two generations and it describes every place, person and situation carefully. I love his descriptions and the way of telling the action because it makes me feel like another character, as if I were in the novel.  Finally I recommend it to everybody who likes real, unpredictable and fascinating novels.

Title:”The Da Vinci Code”                                                                                      

Author: Dan Brown

Genre: Thriller, crime, mistery and fiction.

Publisher: Doubleday (US), Bantam Book (UK)

Summary:

This book describes the attempts of Robert Langdon, Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University, to solve the murder of renowned curator  Jacques Saunière of the Louvre Museum in Paris. A baffling cipher is found near his body. Saunière’s granddaughter, Sophie Neveu and Langdon attempt to sort out the bizarre riddles and are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci.

The unraveling of the mystery requires solutions to a series of brain-teasers, including anagrams  and number puzzles. The ultimate solution is found to be intimately connected with the possible location of the Holy Grail  and to a mysterious society called the Priory of Sion, as well as to the Knights Tempar. The story also involves the Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei.

Personal opinion. I give the book 4 out of 5. In my opinion it is very entertaining, hilarious and shocking, because it’s full of  mistery and unexpected endings to some situations. Also you learn some history about religion and  some monuments. I think it is  surprising.

However, this book has some violent scenes. So, if you are frightened easily, you shoudn’t read it.

Author: Robert Kiyosaki

Genre: Finances

Summary: The book tells the story of a person (the narrator and author) who has two fathers: the first was his biological father – the poor dad - and the other was  his childhood best friend’s father, Mike – the rich dad. Both fathers taught the author how to achieve success but with very different approaches. It became evident to the author which father’s approach made more financial sense. Throughout the book, the author compares both fathers – their principles, ideas, financial practices, and degree of dynamism and how his real father, the poor and struggling but highly educated man, paled against his rich dad in terms of asset building and business acumen.

Personal opinion: this book must be read by everybody if they haven’t got any money problems. With this book you can learn many things about money that people don’t really know.

Author: Jose Ortega y Gasset

Summary: The most notable features of the book are:

1. The assault to  science and  technology: there is nothing worse than a scientist or a professional.

2. Antiamericanism: the one that believes that The United States come forefront is silly.

3. Existence of a European society.

4. Reaffirmation that Spain is part of Europe and Russia it is not.
5. Antipacifism:  war is a brilliant technology skill of life and for the life

6. Exhumation of the nineteenth-century: old-fashioned dichotomy civilization - barbarism

7. Authoritarian and reactionary propaganda, in general, and for the national decree in the Spanish Civil war especially.

Personal opinion: The politician of the second republic Eduardo Ortega y Gasset made a distinction between the man in himself and the man as part of a whole, a mass. This way, the individual wants to be better, whereas the mass-man proves to be a conformist. The Revolt of the masses is a visionary book.The mass prove to be proud of themselves, and they are not interested in progress at all.

Title: Blindness (Ensayo sobre la ceguera)

Author: José Saramago

Genre: Drama

Publisher: Alfaguara

People keep living as usual. Nothing escapes from common, and blind people are a very few. Suddenly, a strange blindness starts affecting all the country. Lots of people die in accidents, caused by this new disease. After thousands of people are affected, the government decides to act. They keep infected people in some quarantine areas like hospitals, old prisons or commercial centres. However, this does not work. After all, everybody is blind.

Well, not everybody. A woman remains in normal state, as the disease does not affect her, and she becomes the new hope for humanity to get back to normal. However, she is locked with a lot of blind people in a local prison. Will she be able to escape from it? Will people go normal again? All the answers to these questions are in Blindness.

I give this book a 4/5. It has a very attractive and genuine plot, and it gets you from start to finish. I think that the beginning and the ending are the best parts of the story, because they are very special, and they give this novel its genuinity. However, I think that there are some parts in the book where you could get bored, so I think that is a bit boring. But, anyway, it’s a book you must read.

Next March, a film called “Blindness”, based on this novel, will be released in Spain. I have seen a few trailers of it, and it promises to be very similar to this book. If you do not like reading, I recommend you to see the film, that has already been released in USA.

Author:Antonio Machado

Genre:Poetry

Summary: With Fields of Castile, Machado enters an outer world materialized by biographical reasons.  The Castilian geography, the direct contact with the landscape and the peoples of the field soriano wake the problem of Spain up as fruit of which  a series of poems is born. In these poems pessimism and  critical serenity join to give a full vision of the 90s, of the problems which afflict Spain, in this aspect Fields of Castile is the latest of Machado’s work with that of other members of his generation.

Personal opinion:  In this book I saw different spiritual states and situations which the author, Antonio Machado, lived. What has called my attention is that there are many poems dedicated to the death of his loved one in which he feels lonely after the loss of the woman. I also think that though he lives in Andalusia he is keen on Soria, which he embellishes with his words.