Arukiyomi

Click the pic to read my review of #378 Teaching Cross-Culturally Click the pic to read my review of #379 New Guinea Diaries 1871-1883

c'mon guys... it's chick-lit. That genre needs all the help it can get!

Now THAT I agree with!

yep a waterslide in the Papuan sun... great fun!

Click the pic to read my review of #367 The Book Thief Click the pic to read my review of #377 The Sorrows of Young Werther

good review... However, I know people like Nathan Price so I believed the character. have you read Things Fall Apart by Achebe?

yeah I think the prize-winner's list is probably an appendix or maybe they also marked the actual book entries too. apparently I didn't study that too carefully. Somone elsewhere mentioned how 3 of them have been removed before. Does their inclusion mean they're back on? Aesop’s Fables - was removed in 2008. Little Women - core book (has always been on) The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - core book Wuthering Heights - core book Jane Eyre - core book Breakfast at Tiffany’s - core book Bleak House - core book Crime and Punishment - core book Arcadia - core book Foucault’s Pendulum - core book On the Road - core book The Cider House Rules- core book The Good Soldier- core book The Water-Babies- core book Brighton Rock- core book A Room with a View- core book American Psycho- core book A Clockwork Orange- core book Kidnapped- removed in 2008 Uncle Tom’s Cabin- core book The Invisible Sons - must be a typo. No books on the existing lists of this name. The only book I can find that resembles this title I read a preview of 4 pages of. It was published in 2011 but was so badly written to include it would simply be a joke. The Passion - was removed in 2008 Sexing the Cherry - core book La Bete Humaine - core book Cloud Altas - core book nope, no plays AFAIK true and it's on our to do list. We were working hard recently to release the movies app. Now that we have both out in the market, we can turn our focus into improving them both and so this is in the pipeline. nope. This won't happen because we are talking about coding issues with cross-platform stuff. Hopefully keeping the list up to date is as fun as actually reading the books. Maybe more so in the case of some of them! app or spreadsheet? The app will always keep your data when we issue updates. The spreadsheet will have an import feature much like v4 has where users who had v3.3 could import their data using cut and paste. I will be looking into VBA code which would automate this but because running macros on spreadsheets raises heightened security issues which not everyone is happy with, I probably won't implement it if it requires macros.

there's a new edition going to be published in October. Check out http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?p=3711 for more info.

for those that may be aware of our 1001 Books App, I wanted to let you know that yesterday we launched our 1001 Movies App which helps you track your progress with the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. It's at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1001-movies/id533680876?ls=1&mt=8 if anyone fancies it.

Blue Like Jazz

sacred diary + some time = does not compute. You should read that through in one go. It's absolutely hiliarious. Has to be one of the funniest books I've ever read.

ah...no I didn't. I thought the language in places wasn't something I'd be comfortable reading out loud to her so made the decision not to on that basis. I didn't really understand why he had the characters swearing as they did. I didn't see a need for it. It's not like Trainspotting where it's an integral part of the characters' personalities and where the book would be a lesser novel if it was removed. I may buy it for her in years to come if she doesn't discover it for herself.

Well, let me buck the trend. It's good but definitely not amazing. He took what could have been an extremely powerful story told if with simplicity and just overcomplicated it for me. Maybe that's what young adults need nowadays though. I wouldn't know.

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Welcome! What's the best book you've ever read Ash?

I thought The Reader was excellent. So, now I'm intrigued, what were your "more compelling" books?

I hear you... wow... what an amazing site! Thanks for sending me there... Uncle? Yes. Nice? Hmmmmm... maybe...

0375 | For the Term of His Natural Life | Marcus Clarke Context: Started selling off stuff in preparation for moving out. Someone bought the house we’re renting. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted… REVIEW This was an unexpected page-turner. I picked this up from the local high school who were selling off discarded library books. Why on earth they discarded this I cannot think. Not only is it part of the very limited pantheon of Australian classics (and we have lots of Australians here) with its great insight into early white Aussie history, it’s a very good read. Still, their loss = my gain. There’s a lot of the influence of Les Miserables meets The Count of Monte Cristo here (although I do say that having read neither of them). A man is arrested for a wrong he did not commit and, for the sake of others, conceals his identity. He is transported and suffers the most hideous betrayals so that the life you thought could get no worse, gets successively worse throughout the novel. Along the way, many profit at the expense of his misfortune. Some are regarded as criminal for this, others are deceived into being thought as worthy of esteem in their own right. And the full spectrum of religion is on view, from the repulsive hypocrisy of the so-called Rev Meekin to the only too self-aware Rev North. So, that’s the literary structure out of the way, which makes for a good story in itself. But what makes this a very good book are Clarke’s detailed descriptions of penal servitude and suffering. Many of the tales told of his characters are in fact based on true stories which my version referenced in an appendix. Some of them appear incredible and provide real life responses to critics I’ve read online who state that some of the story is perhaps a little too laden with serendipity. I did not find it so. The characters captivated me in much the same way that Golding’s Rites of Passage did recently. And the story kept me going chapter after chapter: some of the descriptions of the attempted escapes are very vivid with the landscape, probably the harshest gaoler of all, playing a significant part. The ending I thought absolutely appropriate. However, I did read that, for versions published in the US, it was cheered up a bit for those who, preferring the indescribably awful writing of Radcliffe, read in order to escape reality rather than try to come to terms with it. I don’t think Clarke would have approved based on the response of Rev. North at one point which I’ve reproduced as a quote below. So, in summary, this book surprised me with it’s rich detail and pace of its story telling. On top of that, I was also surprised by the way the novel connected with me personally. One of the most brutal places to be placed in the Macquarie Harbour penal settlement was none other than Grummet Island. I’ve searched the web in vain for how this tiny outcrop of rock got it’s name. I’d love to know: my surname is Grummitt. Also, at one point, Rev. North says “I never walk without a book.” Well, my word! If that isn’t a quote to illustrate the entire purpose of Arukiyomi, I don’t know what is. OPENING LINE In the breathless stillness of a tropical afternoon, when the air was hot and heavy, and the sky brazen and cloudless, the shadow of the Malabar lay solitary on the surface of the glittering sea. 99TH PAGE QUOTE QUOTES North, the drunkard and self-tormented, had a power of good, of which Meekin and the other knew nothing. Not merely were the men incompetent and self-indulgent, but they understood nothing of that frightful capacity for agony which is deep in the soul of every evil-doer. They might strike the rock as they chose with the sharpest-pointed machine-made pick of warranted Gospel manufacture, stamped with the approval of eminent divines of all ages, but the water of repentance and remorse would not gush for them. They possessed not the frail rod which alone was powerful to charm. They had no sympathy, no knowledge, no experience. He who would touch the hearts of men must have had his own heart seared. The missionaries of mankind have ever been great sinners before they earned the divine right to heal and bless. Their weakness was made their strength, and out of their own agony of repentance came the knowledge which made them masters and saviours of their kind. It was the agony of the Garden and the Cross that gave to the world’s Preacher His kingdom in the hearts of men. The crown of divinity is a crown of thorns. I never walk without a book. The story does not end satisfactorily. Balzac was too great a master of his art for that. In real life the curtain never falls on a comfortably finished drama. The play goes on eternally. CLOSING LINE RATING Key: Legacy | Plot / toPic | Characterisation / faCts | Readability | Achievement | Style Read more about how I come up with my ratings Tags: australia | captivity | class | colonialism | conflict | crime | death | endurance | escape | families | fiction | identity | love | marriage | murder | prisoners | religion | ships | suffering | uk | very good books

Yeah, the Monk is probably my all time top recommended Gothic... for my review, see http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?p=124

wow... I go away to celebrate my birthday and come back to so many lovely comments. Thanks everyone. I also found out that a book I've been working on for two years has finally been published. Now that's a birthday present! Don't worry Michelle, it's not a plug for it! I'm not expecting anyone here to buy it: it's a sociolinguistics textbook. http://www.lulu.com/shop/ken-decker/understanding-language-choices/ebook/product-20157782.html if your interested.

... and what you attempt to read but give up on. That list might even be more interesting!

thanks for reviewing this. Do you think it would be suitable to put on a Kobo Touch I want to buy my niece for her 12th birthday? She's read stuff about WW2 holocaust issues before and they really touched her.

hmmm yeah, I didn't really get this one either, especially it being a Booker winner. My review here. Looking forward to seeing what you make of a second reading.

Why! Thank you. Ah... but then I'm jealous of the fact that you have a life. yeah... I decided to rethink the whole review thing a year or two ago. Haven't looked back. sorry if I gave the game away ditto my comments to Ben above...

0374 | The Mysteries of Udolpho | Ann Radcliffe Context: Started reading this on the last few days we had in Kokopo with its fabulous market – easily the best in PNG. REVIEW Boy that was awful. Awwwwwww. Ful. If you’ve read Vathek, or The Castle of Otranto which are far shorter and define the genre rather than merely elaborate on what is arguably already overelaborate literature, you can quite comfortably skip this and simply read the Wikipedia summary. I wish I had. One thing of note though in the Wikipedia article is that Austen satirised this in Northanger Abbey, a book I have yet to read. I have read other Austen though and I am familiar with many of her storylines. It seems to me that she borrows as much as she satirises. Pretty much all of Austen’s endings are taken straight out of Radcliffe’s copybook: the joy, the perfect weather, the double-wedding, the loose ends carefully tied up with pink ribbon, the perfect snapshot that will last forever. If I hadn’t killed myself somewhere towards the middle of Volume 4, Udolpho’s ending would have made me vomit. So, what’s the mystery? Well, Emily is taken away from all she adores in southern France to Italy and the Usher-like Udolpho. By the time you’ve got there, you’re already trying to juggle plenty of loose ends and supposedly unfathomable mysteries. But you’re only just getting started: eerie music, strange stories, rustlings in the bushes, figures flitting elusively through the shadows. And if that isn’t enough for you, there are also locked rooms, things hidden behind curtains, even blood and corpses. Yawn. Why was I bored? Well, you’ll find out that for everything that has given everyone the shivers for pages and pages there are very simple explanations. That’s right. I bet you’re as surprised as I was. And this is where Radcliffe needs to borrow from Austen’s copybook: at least Austen’s characters are rich and rewarding and some of the most enduring in literature. Radcliffe’s characters are so flat, they make a piece of paper look like the Oxford English Dictionary. None of them see the bleeding obvious. This is not Agatha Christie or even Wilkie Collins: the mysteries of Udolpho are really only mysteries to the characters. The reader is tempted to beat the text at their inability to see beyond their noses. Alright, I’ll admit, I’m being harsh. But I’ll only concede that if you concede that my harshness is entirely justified. For me, classic literature either defines the era (which as I stated in the opening paragraph had already been done) or transcends it (the only thing transcendental about Mysteries was the state I dreamed of in my attempt to escape it). Radcliffe is verbose, repetitive, predictable and probably the biggest snob I’ve never had the displeasure to meet. Apparently, all peasants do is sing, dance and make merry as they celebrate the joys of poverty and servitude. Okay, Radcliffe’s novel influenced others. But that’s a bit like saying that American Idol is a great idea because it influenced So You Think You Can Dance. Who cares? It’s just economically-motivated popular trash. This is an overblown novel and it seems that I’m not the only critic in history to think so. For me, written only 2 years later, Lewis’s The Monk is a much more mature tale (told by a much more immature writer incidentally) and one that is actually well-written. Skip this; read that. OPENING LINE On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony, stood, in the year 1584, the chateau of Monsieur St. Aubert 99TH PAGE QUOTE CLOSING LINE And, if the weak hand, that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it – the effort, however humble, has not been in vain, nor is the writer unrewarded. RATING Key: Legacy | Plot / toPic | Characterisation / faCts | Readability | Achievement | Style Read more about how I come up with my ratings Tags: 1001 books | adventure | betrayal | captivity | conflict | crime | death | families | fear | fiction | france | gothic | italy | marriage | murder | mystery | romance | rubbish books | travel