Biblioteca de la EOI de Oviedo

Título: The Innocent Man

Autor: John Grisham

Obra adaptada: NO

Nivel: Avanzado

Reseña: 

The story talks about two men that got unfairly caught in the webs of a rotten system and who had to fight for their freedom because of a murder they did not commit. 1982, Debbie Carter, a twenty-something girl is found dead at her home in Ada, a small town in Oklahoma where justice is more than doubtful. Almost instantly the prosecution is focused on Ron Williamson, a guy from the town, known for his brief career in professional baseball and for his clear mental problems (manic depression, personality disorders, alcoholism and mild schizophrenia); and Dennis Fritz, who gets involved in the crime just because of his old friendship with Ron. Without even trying to get more suspects, two police officers from the town, Dennis Smith and Gary Rogers, begin harassing both men in order to put them in prison. Finally, after tricking them with many doubtful legal cheats, they manage to get false confessions from both men, and testifying with many unreliable sources and false witnesses they manage to put Ron and Dennis behind bars, sentenced to death penalty. Then, they begin their ordeal to prove everyone that they are innocent and that the real murderers are still out there.
The story also centres on a similar case, in which Denice Haraway happens to be murdered, and Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot are prosecuted and eventually put behind bars under the same premises as Ron and Dennis.
Writing Style:
The writing style is very complex, the language is sometimes simple and sometimes quite hard, especially during the trials, mainly because of the great quantity of specific terms related to justice matters and that kind of things.
During the few spoken parts, the language is adapted to the speaker. Thereby, for example, when Ron speaks, the language is full of pet phrases and curses; when Barry Ward, Ron’s attorney, speaks, the language is correct and appropriate to the trials.
Characters:
Ron Williamson: A former baseball player wannabe who was forced to retire early because of his arrogance and injuries and got mad as time passed. During the novel, we can see his mental evolution, since he was a little boy, going through his young sane glory days and ending losing his mind.

Dennis Fritz: A former teacher at a high school who sees himself involved in a murder investigation just because of his old friendship with Ron. He and Ron had been “drinking buddies” for some time long ago, but Dennis had decided to stay away from him due to his dangerous behaviour. Anyway, their friendship finally takes its toll.

Overall impression/recommendation:

The Innocent man is a nail-biting legal thriller, a heavy descriptive page-turner that will get you almost instantly and will almost make you weep terrified with the cruel injustices committed by those who are supposed to protect us. This is one of the most thrilling books I’ve ever held in my hands. I couldn´t put it down until I turned the last page.
               

Valoración: 5/5

 Fernando Neira Sánchez   2ºNA

Título: Fashion and Lies

Autor: Marisa Marmo & Barbara Backhouse

Editorial: McGraw-Hill

Obra adaptada: Sí

Nivel: Intermedio + CD

Reseña: This is a modern fiction book about the special war between two fashion houses. Crane Creations has become a successful company, while Folly Fashions´ business are going worse and worse. Its envious and ambitious owner, Norma Folly, decides to sabotage her rivals´work helped by her handsome designer, who starts dating Laura Crane  in order to steal their designs. Crane Creations is in danger of being destroyed…

From my point of view, this book is quite entertaining but I found it a bit simple. Anyway, it has a lot of vocabulary related to fashion which I didn´t know, and there is a lot of information about this topic that is fairly interesting.

Valoración: 4/5

Ana Fernández-Cervera Blanco  2ºNI

Título: The Old Man and the Sea

Autor: Ernest Hemingway

Editorial: Grafton Books

Obra adaptada: NO

Nivel: Avanzado

Reseña: 

 The three-day fight between a lonely fisherman and an enormous marlin in the Gulf Stream is the story line of this novel, one of the most important literary narratives of the 20^th century.

 Santiago, a Cuban fisherman who fishes alone, has gone eighty-four days without taking a fish. On the eighty-fifth day, pushed by his faith, his confidence, his hope and his strength Santiago sets out alone, taking his wooden skiff far into the Gulf. He is prepared to come back with a fish, no matter what it takes.

  The deeply moving way he struggles with that immense fish, provided with a wide range of emotions towards the fish and nature – passion, patience, honour, respect, politeness, humbleness, courage, simplicity, hope – helps the reader to get involved in the old man’s personal tragedy. 

 The story is written in a direct, passionate and simple style, which turns the book into an attractive reading. Hemingway’s lightweight descriptions of the fisherman and his relationship with the environment – the sea, the wind, the sun, the moon, the stars and the sea inhabitants – is full of poetry and invites the reader to share the feelings, the hopes and the fears of  that great man Santiago is.

   The Old Man and the Sea is a compelling tale about a man’s struggle against fear, nature and himself. One of the most beautiful, riveting and deeply affecting books I’ve ever read.

Valoración: 5/5

Helga Maria Saboia Bezerra  2ºNA

Título: A Grief Observed

Autor: C. S. Lewis

Obra adaptada: NO

Nivel: Avanzado

Reseña:      

A “Grief Observed” is a work of C.S. Lewis where he explains his own experience when he comes down to a terrible situation of life; the loss of a beloved one. When his wife dies, he falls in a deep depression and he tries to find the free way to get better in the writing.
When someone who you love dies, the feelings of loneliness and anguish are overwhelmed and here, the author doesn’t find comfort even in God. Where most people turn to religion to keep on the faith in a better life after death, Lewis doesn’t care about the other side but the side where everything reminds him of his wife.
There are no more characters than the sadness of the author and that’s enough to fill the absence of any more. However, this difficult situation of the life is something that everyone has to suffer sooner or later and in this book, Lewis shows that his way of getting one’s strength back is to get angry with everybody about everything. That personal way of expressing himself makes that the book isn’t written in a style immediately accessible to any reader. The language is not plain at all and there are a lot of new adjectives and nouns to describe so personal feelings.
“Grief Observed” is a difficult book due to the amount of new vocabulary that it contains. Its heavy going and the fact of having to re-read lots of paragraph made it difficult to get into it.

Valoración: 3/5

David Bulnes  2ºNA

CERVANTES & SHAKESPEARE

Título: The Grass is Singing

Autor: Doris Lessing

Editorial: Penguin

Obra adaptada: Sí

Nivel: Intermedio

Reseña:

Last week I read “The grass is singing”, a good book written by Doris Lessing. The story takes place in Africa in a farm far from anyone. The characters are a couple (Mary and Dick Turner) and the houseboy (Moses). When she gets married to Dick and they start living together in his home, she feels bored and unhappy because she prefers life in the city. First, she hates farm life and the natives who work in her husband´s fields, but when Moses appears she changes her mind because she falls in love with him. I liked the book and it was easy to read, but I would change the first chapter, because it tells the end of the story (Moses kills Mary).

Valoración: 4/5

Carmen Alvarez Alvarez  2ºNI

Título: OF MICE AND MEN

Autor: JOHN STEINBECK

Editorial: PAN BOOKS

Obra adaptada: NO

Nivel: AVANZADO

Reseña: 

   “Of Mice and Men” is a gripping novel about two friends who, having neither family nor a place of their own, search for employment in some ranch, after having lost their former job in a farm. 

   George promised Aunt Clara, Lennie’s only relative, to look after the mentally handicapped guy. Since her death, they both become inseparable, yet sometimes George loses his patience with his dumb friend.

 The author manages to impress the reader by showing not only a beautiful pure friendship between two grown-up men, but also the imaginative resources to which they appeal to escape from the long-suffering lives they have here and there.

  Yet, the story has an unexpected sorrowful ending which in no way diminishes the sympathy the reader feels towards these two modest men.

   Although the book is written in a simple style, those who are not fluent readers in English can find it a little bit difficult to get accustomed to the colloquial language, plenty of slang, Steinbeck employed to give realism to the dialogues among the characters. Nevertheless, the reading rapidly turns into a delightful experience, boosted by this odd language itself.

Valoración: 5/5

Helga Maria Saboia Bezerra  2ºNA

Título: Rebecca

Autor: Daphne du Maurier

Editorial: Heinemann

Obra adaptada: Sí

Nivel: Intermedio

Reseña: Rebecca, published in 1938, was Daphne du Maurier´s most successful book. This is an absorbing classic tale of romantic suspense that takes place in the 19th century in Manderly, a wonderful old house in the west of England. It tells the story of a woman, the narrator, who is married to Max de Winter, a wealthy widower. He had been married to Rebecca, whose memory is present throughout the story. Rebecca was supposed to have drowned in a mysterious boating accident a year before. But, in the beginning things look different from what they turn out to be in the end; so the end is emotional and unexpected.

This is an excellent book as all the chapters are extremely interesting. It is touching, gripping and easy to follow.  If you like reading good books you shouldn´t  miss this one!

Valoración: 5/5

Blanca García Bárcena  2ºNI