Biblioteca de la EOI de Oviedo

Título: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Autor: Stieg Larsson

Obra adaptada: NO

Nivel: Avanzado

Review: This book is well written, with a well-developed plot. It is the first novel in a completed series of three (The Millennium Trilogy) by the Swedish author Stieg Larsson. It is a classic mystery in many ways. It is also a bit violent. It’s rather long but very easy to read. Starting slowly, it soon becomes a compelling read with well-developed characters, a great sense of place, and all of the plot twists and turns that make mysteries fun to read. The story keeps the reader absorbed from beginning to end. 

The plot focuses on a journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, who investigates a missing person from years before and his researcher, Lisbeth Salander, the person from the book title who helps discover the truth. She is violent and antisocial but also an extremely intelligent hacker and researcher, specialized in investigations of persons.  

Don’t miss it. I would definitely recommend this book and I will buy the others of the series.

Valoración: 5/5

Isabel Rivera Galicia  2ºNA

Título: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Autor: Stieg Larsson

Obra adaptada: NO

This is the third book in the Millennium-trilogy, all them available at our School Library.

Salander is plotting her revenge - against the man who tried to kill her, and against the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. But it is not going to be a straightforward campaign. After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in Intensive Care, and is set to face trial for three murders and one attempted murder on her eventual release. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his researchers at Millennium magazine, Salander must not only prove her innocence, but identify and denounce the corrupt politicians that have allowed the vulnerable to become victims of abuse and violence. Once a victim herself, Salander is now ready to fight back.

http://www.waterstones.com/

Título: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Autor: Muriel Barbery

Obra adaptada: NO

Renée is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building on the Left Bank. To the residents she is honest, reliable and uncultivated an ideal concierge. But Renée has a secret. Beneath this conventional façade she is passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives. Down in her lodge, Renée is resigned to living a lie, with only visits from her one friend Manuela to break the monotony. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the predictably bourgeois future laid out for her, and plans to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday. But before this happens, the death of one of their privileged neighbours will bring dramatic change to number 7, Rue de Grenelle, altering the course of both their lives forever. With sales of over a million copies in French, this funny, moving and wise novel is now an international publishing sensation.

Nobody ever imagined that his tender, funny book with a philosophical vein would have enjoyed such incredible success. For some, it is part Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, part Monsieur Malaussene by Daniel Pennac. While for others it resembles a written version of the film Amélie. Either way, readers are responding in vast numbers. –Le Monde

http://www.amazon.co.uk

Título: The Museum of Innocence

Autor: Orhan Pamuk

Obra adaptada: NO

The Museum of Innocence is the latest novel written by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, published in August 2008, Orhan Pamuk’s first novel since he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006.

Pamuk has been working on the novel for many years and it has been hinted by himself in many interviews during this period. “The story, which takes place in Istanbul between 1975 and today, is about obsessive passion and the great question: What is love, really?” says the writer, in a Spiegel interview back in 2007.

Orhan Pamuk is also trying to establish an actual museum based on the novel, in Cukurcuma - Istanbul, to exhibit several objects mentioned in The Museum of Innocence.

http://themuseumofinnocence.com/

Título: The Lost Symbol

Autor: Dan Brown

Obra adaptada: NO

Released on September 15, 2009, it is the third Brown novel to involve the character of Harvard University symbologist Robert Langdon, following 2000’s Angels & Demons and 2003’s The Da Vinci Code. It had a first printing of 6.5 million (5 million in North America, 1.5 million in the UK), the largest in Doubleday history. On its first day the book sold one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, making it the fastest selling adult novel in history. It was number one on the New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover fiction for the first six weeks of its release, and has remained near the top since then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Symbol

Título: The Da Vinci Code

Autor: Dan Brown

Obra adaptada: No

Nivel: Avanzado

Review: It was written by American author Dan Brown and published in 2003. It is a bestseller that sold more than 80 million copies and has been translated into 44 languages. The narrator is not present in the story and it combines the detective, thriller, and conspiracy fiction genres. 

The book tells us about a professor of Religious Symbology, Robert Langdon, who is looking for “the Holy Grail”. Typical plot with good guys and really bad guys, the police who always arrives one minute later and, of course, the girl. 

The story starts in the Louvre Museum of Paris where Langdon is the prime suspect in the murder of the curator of Louvre. With the help of the curator’s granddaughter, Sophie Neveu, he escapes from the police and they solve a set of puzzles to find a keystone. This key is a device supposedly invented by Leonardo Da Vinci for transporting secure messages. Langdon and Neveu take the keystone to Langdon’s friend Sir Teabing, who is an expert on “the Holy Grail”. With him, they can fly to London and try to solve another long series of brain-teasers, anagrams and 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 Templar. 

I think the book is entertaining although it has too many puzzles in my opinion. Moreover, there are characters who are not so credible, ridiculous situations, the story is quite predictable and the general plot is just nonsense. 

On the other hand I found the language rather easy to understand and follow despite the fact that it is not a simplified version, so I would simply recommend it as an English reading exercise. As a curiosity I saw the film after reading the book and… it was even worse !!!  

Valoración: 2/5

Anonymous  NI

Título: Atonement

Autor: Ian McEwan

Obra adaptada: NO

“Atonement” is a 2001 novel by British author Ian McEwan about a woman’s effort to atone. The story is told of her life changing mistake as a young girl who dreams of being a writer in upper-middle-class interwar England, the effects on herself, family and friends, and her own effort to achieve atonement over the coming century, which leads to an exploration on the nature of writing itself.

It is widely regarded as one of McEwan’s best works and is one of the most celebrated and honoured books of recent years. It was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize for fiction, an award he had already won for his previous novel, Amsterdam. McEwan utilises several stylistic techniques in the novel, including metafiction and psychological realism. The book was later adapted into a BAFTA and Academy-Award nominated film of the same name, starring James McAvoy and Keira Knightley, and directed by Joe Wright in 2007.

wikipedia.org