About reading

Title: The Double Bass

Author: Patrick Süskind

Genre: Dramatic monologue

Publisher: Penguin

Level: Advanced

The Double Bass is a dramatic true life monologue from the author of the famous book “The Perfume” that I  read at high school. I chose this book because I enjoy plots which have a sense of humour and which are also realistic.

The book is a monologue by a double-bass player who works in the National  Orchestra of Germany. He is tired of his instrument, which is not very important in the orchestra and which can´t compete against other string instruments. He hates its sounds, form and size; but deep inside, he feels a deep passion towards it and  he always talks about past anecdotes. He also speaks about Sarah, a soprano singer in the orchestra. Sarah is his platonic love who he believes he will never achieve.

The only characters of the drama are the speaker and the double-bass. The entire story revolves around their relationship. The musician is a 35 year old civil servant, who lives isolated in his home; he only leaves it when he has a concert. He is also an expert on classical music; he can spend hours talking about composers, instruments and the history of classical music.

When he describes the double-bass, he is actually describing his feelings, his thoughts and his aspirations, and the most important thing: his loneliness.

Social status is also an important part in the plot.

In conclusion I highly recommend this book if you are a fan of classical music, but if you aren´t, it won’t bore you because the speaker has a great sense of humor. If you want to learn a lot about classical music vocabulary, it’s the best book. And if you feel a bit lonely and doubtful, this book will give you strength to take decisions in your future life

Click on the picture below and visit the author’s website.

Boy is a 1984 book written by the famous English writer Roald Dahl. It is an entertaining book set between England and Norway. The story happens in the early twentieth century. This book is not an autobiography although it is about the author’s young days at school. The book begins when the author’s father travels from Norway to England. His father made a fortune fast in England and wanted all his children to be educated in an English school. ‘They are the best in the world’, he used to say. But what Roald discovered soon was how to survive from the huge authority in the well-known School for Boys: the incident with the mouse and the sweet-shop and the class with Captain Hardcastle are only a few examples. However not everything was sad. The incident about the tobacco is great fun.

The book is hilarious and easy to read. It comprises 25 chapters ranging from the writer’s childhood at school to his first job. Each story shows parts of the writer’s past and they are sometimes happy, sometimes sad but never boring. Readind this book you can imagine why he wrote tales as ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’.

If you want to discover one of the most important English tale writers, this is an opportunity not to be missed.

  ‘There is something I must tell you, my dear daughter, I can’t hide it any longer, and I need your help: my name is not Sally Gilmartin; my real name is Eva Delectorskaya and I’ve worked as a secret agent for the British Security Coordination during the Second World War’.            What would you think if your mother, in her sixites, revealed such a secret?

            Would your life, your world, be the same if the person who has brought you up, given you a place in the universe, turned out to be, out of the blue, a spy?

            Restless is a haunting narration of the complicated implications of the role played by the British Secret Services to involve the United States in the World War.

            A gripping spy story of loyalty and betrayal that makes you turn page after page wondering what will come next. And a romantic love story of a young, brave woman betrayed in most ways, making of her life a hell of fear and suspicion in which she will be restless forever, until she gets revenge.

             I highly recommend reading this fast-moving novel that will not deceive anyone.

  The story is set at Manderley Mansion, an imaginary place in Ireland whose owner is Mr De Winter. It takes place in a period of time that spans from Rebecca’s engagement and marriage with Mr De Winter to her life with him after being married.In the book there are several main characters: Rebecca, Mr de Winter, his first wife, the maidwoman, his first wife’s friend and the police. All of them were in trouble since Mr de Winter’s first wife died and this problem won’t be solved until the end of the book.

The story starts when Rebecca was working for a rich woman and she met who would be her husband. After a short and difficult engagement she marries Mr de Winter and goes to Manderley but it is here that her problems begin because he remembers his first wife and because the maidwoman had a very good relationship with the dead woman.

            One day the maidwoman suggests that Rebecca should organise a fancy dress ball and she should wear a dress that was in a painting on a wall at Manderley.

Also there was a room Rebecca was not allowed to enter and which had been Mr de Winter’s first wife’s.

After having found the ship where Mr de Winter’s first wife was, the police and Mr de Winter’s friend try to find an explanation for her death ‘which is unexpected and different from their thoughts’.

Last year I had the opportunity of watching the film, directed by Alfred Hitchcok and which caused me the best impression, over all the photography. Before watching it I had read in the book cover that it had been the winner of two Oscars: best film and best photography.

For all the reasons mentioned above I recommend this book and the film, too.

You won’t be left indifferent.

  “In the house” written by Margaret Johnson, is the book which I have chosen to read this year for my English course.

  This book is a story based on “Big Eye”, a fictional reality TV programme about young people living together for forty days in the same house. Although I don´t like reality TV programmes, I chose this book because it had a CD and therefore I could listen to the story and read it.

   Four boys called Leo, Nigel, Simon and Pete live in the house with only one girl, Annie, who tells us the story. These young people have been chosen to be on the programme but they can know nothing about what happens outside the house, and there are cameras that watch everything they do. People at home watch them on their televisions and they can also phone to say who they think should leave the house.The last person to leave will win a lot of money.

   After reading this book I can tell you that I prefer reading the book than watching the reality TV programme.The reading is interesting because I have practised English and I have enjoyed it. It was interesting to see how Annie´s thoughts and feelings about her friends change in five days. Every character has a different personality and she doesn`t realise it until the end of the story.

The story

This is a real story about Erche Namu, a girl who was born in China, in a small village where Moso customs were really relevant for the population. The book describes the house where she lived with her mother Latso, her two sisters and her brothers very clearly and you can easily imagine the landscape of the village, its mountains, Lake Lagu and their life among crops and animals.

The book shows us that her family was different from her neighbours, because her mother had broken with Moso traditions when she decided to join the communist revolution and she had to abandon Namu´s grandmother’s house. As a result, her mother began her own life in a new place and after some years, Namu was doing more or less the same as her mother, travelling from one village to another and from one country to another. At first, her main aim was her family life, and later her career, because of her good talent for music, especially as singer. She could take part in different events and perform for organizations, such as the Liangsham Minority Singing and Dancing Troupe in Xichang or in the Shangai Conservatory, making good progress until she was forced to abandon her profession as a singer. Then she decided to change her job, and she worked in modelling and also travelled to new countries in Europe and America. Finally she decided to publish her fascinating life and read the manuscript in her mother’s house. During these years, the village and Moso traditions had changed in many ways and she had really become a ‘Treasured Princess’, which was the meaning of her name.

Opinion

An enjoyable and entertaining story developed in the past, with great use of expressions in the passive form, which have been really useful for a clear understanding. Furthermore, the vocabulary is not extremely difficult and the reading easy to follow.

My reflection on the book

Namu´s story and her mother´s story, are real examples about what a woman can do with her own life, breaking traditions to achieve new opportunities and taking their childhood as a good reference for this. The life of Namu reminds me of the relevant changes that Spanish and European women went through last century: most of them lived in small villages and were well prepared to cook, clean the house, take care of their children and families, but one day they decided to look for other options…

Thanks to this, the women of the 21st century can, fortunately, study and make progress to become good professionals in the civil service or in private companies in fields as relevant as science, business, technology, journalism, fashion or politics … and not only on household chores… So I think the quotation from the book, they decided to go into the far mountains and go walking near the rivers far away is a good summary of the plot.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is an intriguing mystery and adventure novel written by Mark Haddon.

The story is set in the UK, in present time. The main character, Christopher, is an autistic teenager who lives with his father in Swindon. One night, he discovers the corpse of her neighbour’s dog, Wellington, bleeding on the road. As he really loves animals, he feels very sad about Wellington’s death and decides to investigate its murder.

While he carries out his investigation, he discovers a lot of things which he did not expect to find. As he wants to know more things, he has to do a great effort to overcome his fear to talk to people and to keep his detective activity hidden from his father, who is bound to disapprove it.

I consider this novel a really interesting reading, not only because of the intriguing plot, but also, and over all, because of the original point of view it offers us. It is Christopher who is “writing the book” and tells the story himself, which makes it more realistic. The author provides a valuable insight into the world of an autistic person. He presents the main character as a very clever student, with photographic memory and an incredible ability for Maths, but with a huge difficulty to socialize and understand other people’s minds and feelings.

Although the author of the book is quite tactful at treating the autism matter, the novel could hurt some people’s feelings, as it uses bad words and vulgar expressions. Also, I would not recommend it to children under fifteen or sixteen, because it requires a mature reader to be well-understood.

Anyway, it is a very pleasant and moving story, suitable for all occasions, which definitely won’t let anyone indifferent.

    INTRODUCTION:

    Title: Night without end

    Author: Alistair MacLean (retold by Margaret Naudi)

    Genre: Adventure

PLOT:

A British Airways plane crashed on the Polar ice-cap, and three scientists from the weather station had to save the survivors before they died from starvation or exposure. So they decided to take them into their cabin. When suddenly the radio was smashed, Dr. Mason began to suspect everybody and decided to investigate who their guests were.

Soon he discovered that the plane’s pilot had been cold-bloodedly murdered because he found a bullet in his back, and the plane’s radio operator was killed that night. So he had to investigate the crimes and at the same time he had to travel with the guests through the ice towards the coast, without food and with a killer in the group.

CHARACTERS:

The Scientists:

·         Peter Mason: the main character. He is the person who tells the story. Mason is in charge of the weather station in Greenland. He is a brave, strong and intelligent doctor that must lead a group of people through the Polar ice-cap to keep them saved from starvation and exposure.

·         Jackstraw: he is another scientist. Dr. Mason describes him like this: “If you all live to get home again, it will probably be thanks to Jackstraw. He knows more than any other living man about how to survive on the Greenland ice-cap” It’s a brave and very quiet man with a lot of knowledge of extreme situations.

·         Joss: (Joseph London) he is the radio operator in the scientists’ cabin. Joss is younger than his partners. He stays at the cabin waiting for the expedition group.

The Plane survivors:

·         The Plane’s Radio Operator: this man was seriously injured when the scientists saved him from the wrecked plane. His name was Jimmy Waterman and he was murdered in the cabin the first night.

·         Marie LeGarde: is an old woman that is supposed to be a famous actress. She is very helpful taking care of the injured people on the plane. She is a nice, lovable and cheerful person.

·         Margaret Ross: this is the stewardess. She is a very emotional and sensitive person. Dr. Mason distrusted her because she was supposed to be with the radio operator when he was murdered. She had a pain in her back.

·         Nick Corazzini: he is a business man that goes to Scotland to take over a new tractor company. He helped the scientists to repair the old tractor in order to leave the cabin.

·         The Reverend Smallwood: this is the man who wears a priest’s collar. He is a minister of religion who went to London for an important meeting of the Unitarian and Free Churches. It is a very calm, serious and quiet person.

·         Solly Levin: he introduced himself as Zagero’s manager from New York City. He is a little man that was wearing a large jacket.

·         Johnny Zagero: he is a young boxer that travelled with his manager Solly Levin. He is a strong and dark-haired person.

·         Mrs. Phyllis Dansby-Gregg: she is a young woman wearing fur and rich clothes.  She is quite cold and selfish. She appeared in fashionable society pages from a newspaper as a London society woman. She travelled with her personal maid.

·         Helene Fleming: she is seventeen years old. She is from Germany and is Mrs. Dansby-Gregg’s maid. She was one of the injured people in the crashed plane.

·         Theodore Mahler: he is a very silent person. He is a Jewish. To introduce himself he didn’t say anything except his name.

·         Senator Hoffman Brewster: this is an old man with white hair and a moustache. He is an American politician. He goes to Europe to collect information for political committees.

·         Captain Hillcrest:  he is another scientist that was in charge of the expedition group.

OTHER INFORMATION:

I really enjoyed the book. It was an exciting and entertaining story.  The best part of it, I think, was the beginning of the book when the scientists found the crashed plane and they had to rescue the survivors from freezing and starvation, carrying them on their sledge.

The story makes you suspect of any of the characters as possible murderers. Peter Mason is the one who tells the story so when he suspects one person, you are suspicious of them, too. That is because you are reading his thoughts and that makes you think about the behavior of all the characters in the book.

CONCLUSION:

I recommend the book because, apart from exciting and entertaining, it is a nice story that I read without many difficulties, except some vocabulary. A good thing is that many of the “new” words I learned in this book are repeated during all the chapters, and this is helpful to remember and recognize them much more easily.

I haven’t read other books from this author, Alistair MacLean, but I wouldn’t mind reading another one.

AUTHOR: Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

PUBLISHER: Orion Books (1968)

GENRE: Police Story

LEVEL: Advanced

I chose this book because of the authors; I did not know anything about them but, as soon as I read the surnames on the spine of the book and I realised that the authors were Swedish, I took it out of the library shelving.

THEME

The theme of Roseanna is the discovery of a killer in a murder which apparently has no clues.

PLOT

When a Swedish canal is being dredged, a corpse of a naked and strangled woman appears. Nobody knows about her and she is not on the lists of missing people. The police start to work on the case but are unsuccessful, so, in the end, the case is slightly put aside. However, a small group of policemen continue working and after hard investigations, they find some tourist´s photographs and information from Nebraska which help them make progress and catch the murderer after setting different traps, because it is not easy to prove that the suspect has really committed the homicide.

PERSONAL OPINION

Roseanna is more than a novel, it is the forerunner of all the Swedish police novels, so it is well worth reading.

In my opinion, the book is a great combination of different but linked facts which give it an outstanding general look. I mean, while you are reading, you can find breathtaking passages that are likely to catch all your attention, making it difficult for you to stop reading -for example, when the murderer is going to be caught. Besides, it is a highly entertaining book to read because it submerges you into an atmosphere where time does not exist. With this story, time goes by and you do not perceive it.

To sum up, I definitely recommended you to add Roseanna to your collection if you are a lover of police stories because it is really stunning.