Sunday Salon: A Review of my Recent Readings

It's back to school for me tomorrow, I have two days of meetings to sit through (I'm like a kid with ADHD in meetings so this will be hell for me!), and then the kids are back on Wednesday. I look forward to seeing all my teacher friends again and seeing (most) of the kids again as well as gaining a lot of new classes. But also aprehensive as I'm teaching a lot of groups with high levels of learning and behavioural difficulties, and one top set who I will be with till their final exams in two years, they'll be challenging because of the high ability level and also as they have a few very naughty kids in there! I'm also starting a new position with more responsibility and a new course for my own brain cells.

Anyway, I thought I would look back at the books I have read over my 6 weeks holidays and do a mini round-up as next week I'll probably be back to one book a week.

Over the 6 weeks I have notched up 22 reads, which is fairly good, I've had a few big ole chunky books, a few graphic novels, and a handful of YA fiction as well as all my usual reads.

Ihave also completed 5 challenges: July Book Blowout, Graphic Novel Challenge, Unread Authors II (I've read 6 new authors but will add too till it finishes), What's in a Name Challenge, Southern Reading Challenge, which sounds fantastic, but as a seemingly challenge addict I've joined 4 challenges: RIP III, Short Story September, 2nds, , The New Classics Challenge.

My favourite read has to be Gone With The Wind, with Neverwhere coming in second jointly with the excellent graphic novel Blankets.

Now I'm looking forward to the autumn, reading with a blanket and a big cup of hot chocolate, and the huge tbr pile stacked up beside me next to the equally huge pile of marking. I need to aim to get through all the bookrings which keep falling through the letterbox so I can concentrate on my challenges, and setting up my first challenge for the new year (reading Latin American fiction).

Short Story Sunday

Ray Bradbury - Skeleton
I found the Mp3 of this story for free here, and it's well worth a listen.
Skeleton tells a story of a man whose bones ache and bother him terribly, as a hypercondriac nobody really listens to his complaints.
He goes to a bone specialist, who tells him he is not ready yet for the treatment. The aching in his bones becomes an internal struggle between the skeleton and the man, the more the man worries the more weight he loses so the more the skeleton wins. He believes the skeleton is trying to escape, to control him. As the pain gets more and more the struggle continues, until in a moment of desperation he calls in the bone specialist to fix up the problem.

My Thoughts: Blankets by Craig Thompson

I picked this up from the library the other day, the cover was too beautiful to leave it behind despite having to carry the big 500 odd pages home (a good 40min walk). I was a bit daunted by the size of it, but I read it in a couple of hours.

The graphic novel deals with two different parts of his life, his childhood and his relationship with his first love. As a child he feels he doesn't belong anywhere, at school he is bullied because of his appearance and his family life. At home he feels secluded, living so far away from town, his parents strive for an unmaterialistic life, leaving the shildren to share a bed in a room which is either freezing or roasting hot. The children, desperate for their own space fight over the bed and the blankets, but also forge a connection in this small space. His devoutly religious parents send him to a Sunday School which seems to work by scaring the beejezzers out of kids.

As he grows older we see him slip into the second stem of the novel, his friendship and later relationship with Raina. Raina is cool, knows her own mind and popular, but behind the facade she is trying to hold together her crumbling family, she has become the person who everyone relies on, and she is looking for someone to cling to.

These two come together in that intense first relationship that I'm sure the majority of people can identify with, romantic and draining. Again the image of the blanket and the shared bed come into play. Of a night their relationship, even before it is sexual is one of security and need, but also one which brings feeling of worry and frustration as he is struggling against the teachings of the church.

The images are stunning, I loved the use of the patterns and dreamlike scenes as well as the scenes with his brother and Raina's family. This would make a great read for older teens and adults alike.

Challenges:

YA Challenge

Around the World

Other Bloggers thoughts:
Athena
Jabberwock

My Thoughts: Yossel: April 19 1943 by Joe Kubert

For some reason I seem in a bit of a concentration slump at the moment, I can't concentrate on reading, preparing lessons, studyi ng or even watching a film, which as I'm sure you can imagine is very frustrating, especially as I have so much stuff I have to get done this week. So I decided to pick up a few Graphic Novels from the library, as they are generally short they don't look as scary as the 300 pages I have left of Eldest. Hopefully my concentration will snap back into place sometime soon, but till then it'll be Graphic Novels for me.

Yossel is a graphic novel about a Jewish teenage boy, a keen illustrator who likes to escape from the world by drawing comic book heroes. And, his is a world in which he'd definately like to escape. Yossel and his family are moved to the Jewish Ghettos in Warsaw, the story and pictures illustrate how life was in these camps for Jewish people.

Yossel continues drawing throughout his time in the camp, it helps him as the German soldiers favour him, and give him extra food and supplies. It also helps him as he draws the terrble scenes which he imagines after being told about the atrocities in the Concentration Camps. The novel is about the lead up to the uprising in the Ghetto, in which the Jewish members fought back against their oppressors.

The illustrations are in pencil, and give the effect of Yossel drawing them through his time in the camp, a period when he didn't have the time to ink them in. The illustrations depicting what is happening with Yossel contrast sharply with the illustrations he make of comic book heroes to amuse the solidiers, pictures which in a normal life he would be sketching out to amuse his friends.

As with Persepolis, I think the pictures and the simplistic language used to tell the story give the reader a really powerful rendition of the horrors which were created at this time. This book deserves to be read alongside other works about this time in history.

Challenge:
Reading Around the World: Poland

Other Reviews

The Gypsy Librarian

If you have reviwed this book please leave a link here and I'll add it to this post.

Sunday Salon: My Thoughts: Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl

Having to go back to work this week after a lazy six weeks holiday has meant that I haven't had a great amount of time to read this week, I did finish Roald Dahl's Skin, (see below) Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende, a novel I really enjoyed and I have decided to do the Olympic Challenge in time for London 2012, a challenge which has been going on over at the BookCrossing forum for the last few years, this challenge will mean I'll be checking out authors from far fling places across the Globe.

As for reading today, I hope to get finished reading the graphic novel, Three Shadows by Cyril Pedrosa however, I have an essay to type up and about 50 essays to mark, plus housework so that maybe wishful thinking!

I read this collection of short stories for both the RIP III challenge and for Short Story September, several of the stories I had read before at some point, but I really enjoyed the collection, it was perfect for picking up whilst dinner was cooking or whilst in the bath. I had included a mini review of some, but not all, of the stories in the collection

WARNING: I have tried to avoid saying what the outcome of each story is, but with short stories this is hard and in some descriptions I come pretty close to the end of the tale.

Skin

"I want you to paint a picture on my skin, on my back. Then I want you to tattoo over what you have painted so that it will be there always."

As a young man Drioli admired and loved another man's art, so-much-so that he begged this artist, to tattoo a portrait of his wife on his back. He taught the artist to tattoo, and ended up with his whole back as a portrait of his wife's face.

Years passed, 2 World Wars have caused Drioli's tattooing business to fail, and he is left a poor old man. Walking through the streets of Paris he sees a picture by Soutine in the window of the gallery. Going in to admire the art he ends up revealing an early work by Soutine, his tattoo. A poor man he may be, but he is a walking talking masterpiece, the gallery owner wants a piece of him. Just how far will he go to get it?

The African Story

When the Second World War started a young man joined the RAF as he loved to fly. On his first mission his flight failed and he spent two nights at a lonely, desolate farm. There, lived alone an old man who relished the pilot's company. The old man shared a strange story with the pilot, which the pilot later recorded "not in the old man's words, but in his own words, painting it as a picture."

The old man's tale tells of a relationship with his employee, a man with who gets obsessed by repetitive noises, the noise of his masters dog chewing leads him to kill his masters beloved dog. The man's tale tells his story of revenge.

Galloping Foxely

A regular commuter, used to the routine of his daily commute is suddenly struck with horror when a stranger appears and spoils his daily commute, having the audacity to share his carriage. Not only does this stranger upset the daily commute but he also recognises that face as the school bully who tortured him through his days at (a very stereotypical) boarding school. How does he react?

The Wish

A lovely and very short story about the imagination of a small child trying to make his way across an immense carpet of red hot rocks and black child eating snakes.

The Surgeon

In the surgeon, one mans ordinary day as a surgeon ends up turning his life upside down as he saves the life of the Prince of Saudi Arabia. He is given a rare, rather large diamond as a gift of thanks. With no way to store the diamond safely it is locked away inside the freezer in a bock of ice. He returns to find his house destroyed and the diamond missing, yet it turns up again in a rather strange and unfortunate place.

The Champion of the World

When I saw this title my first thought was Danny, but this has nothing to do with that small boy. I'm sure I've read this story before somewhere, maybe when I was at school. The Champion of the world is about Pheasant poaching, all the ways and means of doing it, slyly without the park keepers catching on.

A pair of men believe they have found the ideal way to poach these birds, and having come up with this method they can't just leave it at poaching a few birds, they go to the extreme and get over a hundred birds. But, as we all know, sinners never win.

Lamb to the SlaughterThe husbands annoying you, home late, expecting dinner on the table, he's got quite boring in his old age, and you just want out. Most people would just walk away, but not this lady. A quick smack to the back of the head and she no longer has a husband to worry about anymore, but she does have the small matter of covering up the murder to deal with. What better way than to ensure the the poilce remove all trace of the crime themselves.

My Thoughts: Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree by Santa Montefiore

This was one of those bargains in the library sale, that I would never have picked up otherwise. I need to read a few Latin American book for a Bookcrossing book box, and this fit in nicely as a complete contrast to the other books from this area I'm going to read.

A Quick Synopsis: Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree is whopping 550 pages about the love of Sofia Solanas. Sofia starts the novel as a precocious teenager with a crush on her cousin Santi, she is rebellious, demanding and a troublemaker. They embark on an affair, amid the Argentine pampas, which leaves her pregnant and sent away to Europe in disgrace. She spends the next 20 odd years in England with her new family, before having to return to Argentina due to a family tragedy and to discover whether her love still survives.

This was a good read, with much more to it than I've expressed above, lots of family relationships at work and things lurking in the past. It certainly wasn't the best written novel or the most original by any means, but it was a typical summer read.

Challenges:

Unread Authors Book 7 of 6

A New Challenge: Short Story September

This challenge is held over at Ready When You Are, participants are asked to read short stories (as many or as few as they like) during the month of September. If they post their reviews or links to reviews over at the challege page they are instantly entered into a competition.

Hopefully this challenge will boast me along with the Short Story Challenge, which I'm doing terribly at at the moment.

I won't list what I am going to read, but I am in the process of reading Skin, a collection of short stories at the moment, by Roald Dahl.

My Reads:

Skin, Roald Dahl (A Collection of Short Stories)

My Thoughts: The Changeling by Robert Jenkins

I was having one of those afternoons today, there was no one around to go out with, I couldn't concentrate on my work or studying, and none of the books I'm currently reading matched my mood. So I decided there was only one thing for it - to start a completely new book. I not only started one but finished it as well.

The Changeling is apparently a British Classic, but it somehow must have passed me by because I had never heard of it, or of the author. This novel was written in 1958 and is set in Scotland. Tom is 13 years old, he lives in the Slums in Glasgow, with a alcoholic mum and step-father, younger brother and sister, in a flat which is grubby and filled with damp. On the estate everyone steals, drinks and isn't all that bright (the books depiction of the estate, not mine).

But Tom is bright, bright enough to go to a different school to the kids from the estate. At school he immediately stands out, very clever but not trusted, grubby and in second hand clothes. The teachers generally admire his intelligence but are extremely pejudiced against him because of his background, and his criminal record. Only Mr Forbes has any compassion. Mr Forbes decides that Tom should go on holiday with him and his family, to give the boy a chance in life, an opportunity to see life off of the estate.

Before the holiday even begins the Forbes have their doubts about the boy, in some ways he wins them over and in others he confirms their prejudices.

A good read, but relies heavily on stereotypes, and as with the family and his friends the reader feels they never get to 'know' Tom

Challenges:

Unread Authors: Book 6 of 6

Others Thoughts:

Bookeywookey

If you have read this book, feel free to put a link to your review in the comments and I'll add it to the post.