About reading

INTRODUCTION

The book title is “Circle Games” and the story that I chose “Quick Man Tan”. It was written by Frank Brennan.

The book genre is comedy short stories.

I chose this book because the cover looked cool and the summary said that it had five short stories to make you smile and I enjoy comedy books.

SUMMARY

The book tells the story of Caleb Tan (an old Chinese Lion Dancer) who has a Café with his wife May May (the waitress) and his son Henry (the cooker). Caleb, when hi was young, was a famous dancer called Quick Man Tan. Nowdays he entertains his customers with his old stories about fighters and The Chinese New Year until one day, he saves the life of a customer when a thief attacked him and Caleb became famous again.

OPINION

In my opinion it´s beautifully written. The story is short but is a highly entertaining read.

I like the plot because I enjoy the Chinese culture.

It has a surprising but happy end, I didn´t expect that the old man was the hero and I like that Henry finds his wife at the end. The end makes me feel good because Caleb get his dream: to become famous again and people want him to teach The Lion Dance to children and get paid for it.

My favourite character is Caleb, the protagonist; he´s a dreamer and he likes to remember his childhood but many customers didn´t listen to his stories.

CONCLUSION

I learned a lesson: we should listen more to old people.

I would recommend this book to people who are studying English because there are five short stories easy to read and it has two CD´s to practice “listening”

I chose the first story because it was the funniest for me.

In 1998, Ian McEwan won the Booker Prize with Amsterdam. The book tells the story of four men linked by the same woman, Molly Lane, whose funeral opens the novel. They are: her widower, George Lane, a rich Press Baron; Clive Linley, a famous composer; Vernon Halliday, editor of The Judge, a newspaper; and Julian Garmony, current Foreign Secretary. The story takes place in Great Britain and is set in the last years of the Twentieth Century.

The plot is quite simple: these four men, who had been in love with Molly sometime in the past, secretly hate each other and her funeral joins them. The main part is focused on Clive and Vernon and some photos taken by Molly, in which Garmony appears in female clothes during a sexual game he used to play with her. George Lane gives Vernon these pictures and he wants to publish them in order to ruin Garmony’s ambition to be Prime Minister. Clive tries to convince Vernon not to do it and they fall out. The day before their publication, Garmony faces the facts publicly and resigns from the Cabinet. At the end, George Lane is shown as the winner: he takes revenge against the men with whom Molly had cheated him.

Please, don’t bother with this mediocre novel, unless you want to waste your time on a rather confusing and badly-written book. Molly, who seems to be the key at the beginning, is irrelevant in the development of the story, which is quite dull too. McEwan makes Clive and Vernon become enemies in a completely silly and absolutely unjustified way. The ending is embarrasing and ridiculous. McEwan is a well-known author, so be sure he must have written better books.

The novel was written by Alex Garlan. It was published in 1996 and became a cult classic quickly. Soon it was made into a film.

The story takes place in a tropical solitary island in Thailand.

The novel tells the story of a twenty-something-year- old boy called Richard, who goes to Thailand on holiday and finds himself in possession of a strange map.
The story begins when Richard shares the secret of the map with a French couple he has just met at the backpacker where he was staying. When they reach the island they find a small community of dwellers and a group of dope farmers.
Then the plot has an unexpected twist when a group of tourists that the trio had met before they reached the island and told them about the map, try to go to the island by themselves. As soon as they arrive the get killed by the dope farmers.
After the killing, the dope farmers ask the community’s leader to get rid of Richard for being responsible for all the trouble caused in the island. Richard, feeling the bad atmosphere surrounding him, decides to leave the island with the French couple.

From my point of view, this novel is well worth reading, gripping, fast-paced and it is definitely non-stop reading.