Hello everyone!
I hope you are enjoying my blog so far, just to say, sorry you haven't heard any more from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, the YouTube at work isn't working so for now I can only do books I'm reading on my kindle, not audiobooks.
Also, after doing two blogs now I think I will talk about books once I have finished them as I'm better at giving an overall view then explaining stories. You may notice I'm not really explaining any of the books in huge detail, because mainly I want you guys to read them for yourself if you haven't already, or if you have, then I don't really need to explain the book! (Plus I'm not very good at explaining stories, I leave that to the authors!)
Also, If you would also like to request or recommend a book you think I would enjoy or you would like to know my opinion on, please feel free to send me the book title and author to @ClairBear42 (my Twitter account.)
The next book I'm reading is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick so keep an eye out for that sometime next week! Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good weekend.
Clair.
Saturday, 20 September 2014
A Ginger Reads... The Snow Goose.
So I had a request from my father after reading my blog to read The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico and give my opinion on this. Please be warned that there will be spoilers as I talk about the book but they will be at the end and I will make it very obvious when they begin!
The Snow Goose is just a short story about a man, Philip Rhayader, girl Firth and of course, a Snow Goose in The Great Marsh in Essex. This man is deformed from birth, he loves all nature and he loves to paint.
This story is a very short one, it is like a fine wine or coffee, you really have to read it slowly and savour every mouthful. It is a very beautiful story about love, the beauty of nature, rejection, loneliness, age and few other things (but I don't want to give them away!) I really recommend this book, it is only about half an hour long and it is just such a good short story that is so moving. Please buy, read and then come back to my overview of the story itself!
The next paragraph contains huge spoilers, please only read once you have read the book :)
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Snow-Goose-Small-Miracle-ANDThe-ebook/dp/B00BWF59PS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411206905&sr=1-1&keywords=the+snow+goose)
So this book as I said is about rejection and loneliness. As Philip has chosen to live away from people in this marsh land because he understands why people act the way they do around him and rather then getting angry he just chooses to separate himself. This in itself is such an amazing point, that he doesn't hate humanity for how they treat him, that he just feels pity that they can't understand past their own prejudices. We learn his great love for nature and birds, which clearly comes from the author as he uses such great language to describe the area around him and the birds that fly there.
Then a girl arrives with an injured Snow Goose, she has to get over her own fear and prejudice of "the ugly man" that has been passed on to her from adults and the hunters that hunt the birds he loves. As the story goes on we learn that every year, the goose flies away for winter and comes back at Spring, so does Firth and she grows older every time becoming a young woman. (just warning again, super spoilers now.)
Then the year is 1940, the war has begun but the author gives it from the birds point of view, which I found really interesting
"In the spring of 1940 the birds migrated early from the Great Marsh. The world was on fire. The whine and roar of the bombers and the thudding explosions frightened them."
This is so telling of how the author and Philip are really similar, that they look upon the world as how it will affect the birds, because that is all that Philip holds dear.
Philip finds out he can volunteer to save men from Dunkirk on his boat seven at a time and he goes out, the Snow Goose escorting him along. (Super, super spoilers!) we learn from a soldiers account he saved a lot of men and from an officers account they had heard of the legend of the goose from the men, and they described how they found a man in a small boat, face down in the water.
That took a few moments to hit me. Of all the places this story was going, that was one I wasn't expecting. It says so much for the writer that in the space of 15 minutes of storytelling, you feel for this character so much and you just want him to prevail in everything he does.
The men try to get close but the goose is there, hissing at them to protect him. Firth sees the goose fly back and knows Philip is not coming back. She still comes back to the lighthouse feeding the geese but one day a German bomber comes and mistakes it for a military base and destroys everything, letting the sea take it over.
This was another shocking and upsetting turn, that not only he died, but every trace, every painting that he kept was also destroyed.
This is now when I can talk about the few other things I mentioned earlier that I didn't want to talk about until this moment. That the book is about love, the beauty of nature, rejection, loneliness and age. But it's also about sacrifice, loss, death and the fleetness of life. That this lonely man who was feared by other people felt it his duty to help the men at Dunkirk as he would help a bird in a trap, only to for his death to be be mentioned briefly in passing, as I'm sure so many others would have also done that day on the beaches.
The pure shortness of the story, how it doesn't go into great length, I feel really shows so well how fleeting life is. That his man we only just met and understood is already gone, which reflects all death in the wars, that if you watch and read anything about wars, you will see nearly 90% of the time there is no dramatic long death for men at war. Life is there, then taken, in the space of a few seconds.
I was given some feedback that in my blogs I could say how a book has changed me or changed my way of thinking. I think this book really teaches me the beauty in life, that hatred and fear does not have to be a one way road. That life is fleeting but you make the best situation for yourself and live in the moment, as Philip did by understanding he would not get on in normal society so he made a place for himself in an environment he loved. And all this detail and emotion is in a story that will take 30 minutes to an hour to read.
The Snow Goose is just a short story about a man, Philip Rhayader, girl Firth and of course, a Snow Goose in The Great Marsh in Essex. This man is deformed from birth, he loves all nature and he loves to paint.
This story is a very short one, it is like a fine wine or coffee, you really have to read it slowly and savour every mouthful. It is a very beautiful story about love, the beauty of nature, rejection, loneliness, age and few other things (but I don't want to give them away!) I really recommend this book, it is only about half an hour long and it is just such a good short story that is so moving. Please buy, read and then come back to my overview of the story itself!
The next paragraph contains huge spoilers, please only read once you have read the book :)
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Snow-Goose-Small-Miracle-ANDThe-ebook/dp/B00BWF59PS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411206905&sr=1-1&keywords=the+snow+goose)
So this book as I said is about rejection and loneliness. As Philip has chosen to live away from people in this marsh land because he understands why people act the way they do around him and rather then getting angry he just chooses to separate himself. This in itself is such an amazing point, that he doesn't hate humanity for how they treat him, that he just feels pity that they can't understand past their own prejudices. We learn his great love for nature and birds, which clearly comes from the author as he uses such great language to describe the area around him and the birds that fly there.
Then a girl arrives with an injured Snow Goose, she has to get over her own fear and prejudice of "the ugly man" that has been passed on to her from adults and the hunters that hunt the birds he loves. As the story goes on we learn that every year, the goose flies away for winter and comes back at Spring, so does Firth and she grows older every time becoming a young woman. (just warning again, super spoilers now.)
Then the year is 1940, the war has begun but the author gives it from the birds point of view, which I found really interesting
"In the spring of 1940 the birds migrated early from the Great Marsh. The world was on fire. The whine and roar of the bombers and the thudding explosions frightened them."
This is so telling of how the author and Philip are really similar, that they look upon the world as how it will affect the birds, because that is all that Philip holds dear.
Philip finds out he can volunteer to save men from Dunkirk on his boat seven at a time and he goes out, the Snow Goose escorting him along. (Super, super spoilers!) we learn from a soldiers account he saved a lot of men and from an officers account they had heard of the legend of the goose from the men, and they described how they found a man in a small boat, face down in the water.
That took a few moments to hit me. Of all the places this story was going, that was one I wasn't expecting. It says so much for the writer that in the space of 15 minutes of storytelling, you feel for this character so much and you just want him to prevail in everything he does.
The men try to get close but the goose is there, hissing at them to protect him. Firth sees the goose fly back and knows Philip is not coming back. She still comes back to the lighthouse feeding the geese but one day a German bomber comes and mistakes it for a military base and destroys everything, letting the sea take it over.
This was another shocking and upsetting turn, that not only he died, but every trace, every painting that he kept was also destroyed.
This is now when I can talk about the few other things I mentioned earlier that I didn't want to talk about until this moment. That the book is about love, the beauty of nature, rejection, loneliness and age. But it's also about sacrifice, loss, death and the fleetness of life. That this lonely man who was feared by other people felt it his duty to help the men at Dunkirk as he would help a bird in a trap, only to for his death to be be mentioned briefly in passing, as I'm sure so many others would have also done that day on the beaches.
The pure shortness of the story, how it doesn't go into great length, I feel really shows so well how fleeting life is. That his man we only just met and understood is already gone, which reflects all death in the wars, that if you watch and read anything about wars, you will see nearly 90% of the time there is no dramatic long death for men at war. Life is there, then taken, in the space of a few seconds.
I was given some feedback that in my blogs I could say how a book has changed me or changed my way of thinking. I think this book really teaches me the beauty in life, that hatred and fear does not have to be a one way road. That life is fleeting but you make the best situation for yourself and live in the moment, as Philip did by understanding he would not get on in normal society so he made a place for himself in an environment he loved. And all this detail and emotion is in a story that will take 30 minutes to an hour to read.
Thursday, 18 September 2014
A Ginger Reads... Blind Faith
Hello all!
So a few days ago I finished the book Blind Faith by Ben Elton.
This book is set in England in the future when privacy is a perversion and children barely make it to the age of four because of the 'Plagues' The 'Love' (God) sends. The main character is a man called Trafford who delights in keeping small secrets to himself, going against the social norm.
In this alternative future sharing every moment of your life is crucial, not just the every day things on their Face Space but you are expected to post videos on their TubeSpace. For example of the time they lost their virginity, them giving birth (the birthing video), whenever they have sex with their wives or husbands etc.
You are expected to eat as much as possible because if the 'Love' has granted us delicious food, why not have more of it? Furthermore, why not celebrate that joy even more by putting chocolate sprinkles on it?
Nudity is expected. The Love made you beautiful and sexy so why not show it. So in a cramped hot city where obesity is normal and praised, you are expected to go around in crop tops, short shorts or for very special occasions, G-strings. Women are expected to get breast implants as The Love made them so beautiful why not be bigger?
Science, the thought of evolution, reason and privacy are all evil. Vaccinations are poisoned needles injected into babies skin that defy The Love.
So that's an overview of the world the book lives in. I'm sure a lot of people will say the easy conclusion of "This is meant to be a negative view on sharing things to everyone, over the internet all the time" but actually, I disagree. I do not feel that Ben Elton is having a go at the world we live in now, or warning us to change our ways. I do not think that he is against Facebook, YouTube and blogging. I just feel he is saying with this book that this is how the world could be, it is a world flipped on its side for the purpose of this story. What Ben Elton and Trafford in this story are striving for is reason an intelligent thought. Trafford wants to get his child vaccinated based on evidence that he is shown and when it works, he wants to show what he has learnt with the world, and in the end (spoilers)
It turned out that everyone else wanted reason too, just because of the oppressive world they are living with they were not able to express this need.
Religion is clearly the main influence of this book but again, this is Ben Elton's way of say this is how it might be in a world flipped on its side. In the book they don't describe themselves as Atheists or even Agnostics, just Humanists, people that are devoted to human wellfare! I don't think Ben Elton is attacking religion, I think he's attacking what religion can do, how it can control people and how people of power within religion can have great influence over the masses and the people they have control of.
He's of course attacking blind faith, considering that's the book title. This idea that if they do not worship The Love as loudly as possible throughout the day they will get socially attacked and eventually really attacked. Trafford clearly says this in the book:
"I mean wouldn't faith itself be more valuable if it was arrived at through question and doubt? Seriously, it's not difficult saying you have faith if the alternative is being burned alive. But does that mean you really have faith?"
So what he is saying there, I think is that it's okay to have faith, but that faith means nothing if it is pressed upon you by threats.
This is a very good book if you want to read a story that has some really shocking and interesting ideas (I know I was shocked a few times!) of how the future could be. I think it's far too easy for people who comment on this book to go down the route that Ben Elton is just attacking Social Media. I think that this idea just clouds people's thoughts of the real issues shown in the book. Trafford never says that "We need to get all the network and the live sites down" all he wants is just a bit of privacy. I've also seen people say it's a warning about global warming, but I really disagree with that, I think the global warming is just the backdrop for this story, that global warming is what causes this future the be made, so this story can happen within this future, but it's not what the story is about.
In conclusion, I think most people are wary of the growing power of the internet, the need for people to feel like they have to constantly share everything, but right now we have a choice not to share. Our privacy is not treated as perverse and that are trying to hide something. I feel that as long as within our social circles we do not expect each other to share to with everyone, that we respect privacy, then there can be a balance of privacy and sharing in our lives. I feel that Ben Elton is trying to make sure that as a community we don't turn into this world described by the book, that reason, learning and questioning is very important to how we grow as a society, and that faith is an good thing, just not blind faith.
So a few days ago I finished the book Blind Faith by Ben Elton.
This book is set in England in the future when privacy is a perversion and children barely make it to the age of four because of the 'Plagues' The 'Love' (God) sends. The main character is a man called Trafford who delights in keeping small secrets to himself, going against the social norm.
In this alternative future sharing every moment of your life is crucial, not just the every day things on their Face Space but you are expected to post videos on their TubeSpace. For example of the time they lost their virginity, them giving birth (the birthing video), whenever they have sex with their wives or husbands etc.
You are expected to eat as much as possible because if the 'Love' has granted us delicious food, why not have more of it? Furthermore, why not celebrate that joy even more by putting chocolate sprinkles on it?
Nudity is expected. The Love made you beautiful and sexy so why not show it. So in a cramped hot city where obesity is normal and praised, you are expected to go around in crop tops, short shorts or for very special occasions, G-strings. Women are expected to get breast implants as The Love made them so beautiful why not be bigger?
Science, the thought of evolution, reason and privacy are all evil. Vaccinations are poisoned needles injected into babies skin that defy The Love.
So that's an overview of the world the book lives in. I'm sure a lot of people will say the easy conclusion of "This is meant to be a negative view on sharing things to everyone, over the internet all the time" but actually, I disagree. I do not feel that Ben Elton is having a go at the world we live in now, or warning us to change our ways. I do not think that he is against Facebook, YouTube and blogging. I just feel he is saying with this book that this is how the world could be, it is a world flipped on its side for the purpose of this story. What Ben Elton and Trafford in this story are striving for is reason an intelligent thought. Trafford wants to get his child vaccinated based on evidence that he is shown and when it works, he wants to show what he has learnt with the world, and in the end (spoilers)
It turned out that everyone else wanted reason too, just because of the oppressive world they are living with they were not able to express this need.
Religion is clearly the main influence of this book but again, this is Ben Elton's way of say this is how it might be in a world flipped on its side. In the book they don't describe themselves as Atheists or even Agnostics, just Humanists, people that are devoted to human wellfare! I don't think Ben Elton is attacking religion, I think he's attacking what religion can do, how it can control people and how people of power within religion can have great influence over the masses and the people they have control of.
He's of course attacking blind faith, considering that's the book title. This idea that if they do not worship The Love as loudly as possible throughout the day they will get socially attacked and eventually really attacked. Trafford clearly says this in the book:
"I mean wouldn't faith itself be more valuable if it was arrived at through question and doubt? Seriously, it's not difficult saying you have faith if the alternative is being burned alive. But does that mean you really have faith?"
So what he is saying there, I think is that it's okay to have faith, but that faith means nothing if it is pressed upon you by threats.
This is a very good book if you want to read a story that has some really shocking and interesting ideas (I know I was shocked a few times!) of how the future could be. I think it's far too easy for people who comment on this book to go down the route that Ben Elton is just attacking Social Media. I think that this idea just clouds people's thoughts of the real issues shown in the book. Trafford never says that "We need to get all the network and the live sites down" all he wants is just a bit of privacy. I've also seen people say it's a warning about global warming, but I really disagree with that, I think the global warming is just the backdrop for this story, that global warming is what causes this future the be made, so this story can happen within this future, but it's not what the story is about.
In conclusion, I think most people are wary of the growing power of the internet, the need for people to feel like they have to constantly share everything, but right now we have a choice not to share. Our privacy is not treated as perverse and that are trying to hide something. I feel that as long as within our social circles we do not expect each other to share to with everyone, that we respect privacy, then there can be a balance of privacy and sharing in our lives. I feel that Ben Elton is trying to make sure that as a community we don't turn into this world described by the book, that reason, learning and questioning is very important to how we grow as a society, and that faith is an good thing, just not blind faith.
Tuesday, 16 September 2014
Quick Note
So that was my first blog post,
I like to maybe talk through after some posts what I have done and how I think I could improve next time (more for me then anything else!)
Next time I would have listened to a chunk more of the book, so I will not do short summaries of the book as I read it, I will probably say the main themes so far and my views and what interests me as I go along.
I like the italics in story and normal in my opinion though, I think that works quite nicely.
I hope you look forward to the next instalment of A Ginger Reads...
:)
I like to maybe talk through after some posts what I have done and how I think I could improve next time (more for me then anything else!)
Next time I would have listened to a chunk more of the book, so I will not do short summaries of the book as I read it, I will probably say the main themes so far and my views and what interests me as I go along.
I like the italics in story and normal in my opinion though, I think that works quite nicely.
I hope you look forward to the next instalment of A Ginger Reads...
:)
A Ginger Reads... Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Hello all!
So today I begun to listen to the audiobook of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. (I'll call it Leagues from now on, just to save time)
I have heard of course a lot of good things about this book, and my first memory of hearing about Leagues was watching the film 'The Sphere' (1998 Directed by Barry Levinson) in which Samuel Jackson is reading the book throughout the film.
So this book begins that you hear of this great creature that many ships and sailors are spotting, of course people just think it a myth, until it damages a boat. The United states government calls on a French professor, (who at this point believes it is a giant Narwhal) to go with a ship to discover what this creature is, and to kill it.
It's interesting to me, maybe, it says something of the time this was written that killing it was the first thought of the people, not to capture it, or to study it but it actually kill the creature. Of course whaling is now banned as we want to preserve whales, so it is interesting to me, who lives in this time, that killing this creature for them is the only option as the creature has destroyed a fair few ships. It is also interesting to me that in the beginning when they are talking about the myth of the creature, they talk about being sceptical, having evidence to prove this creature, that it can not be properly tested by the official 'learned' people of the time. That in the time that this is set, evidence from a skilled professional is required so people do not just run away with their imaginations.
So they find the creature after searching for months in the wide seas, we are introduced to the Ned the Canadian who is a very skilled whaler but is hot headed and the professors faithful calm servant Conseil. They finally find the creature and attempt to follow it, it clearly has great speed in the water and when they finally catch it up to throw a harpoon and the shudder that this gives off makes the professor fall off the boat and into the sea.
At this point, I had to check the time on the audio, I was only half an hour in the story and the creature has been shown! This is a 10 hour long audiobook and they have already found the creature! I did not know what to expect now from this story at all, I know that this a book about a strange sea creature but I don't have a clue where this book is going and that is very exciting!
So the professor is in the water and it turns out his servant saw him fall in the sea and amazingly jumped in after his master to help! They swim together helping each other as they go along and Conseil calls out to the ship that they can vaguely see in the distance. They hear another mans voice and it turns out to be Ned. He explains that the harpoon not only did not pierce the creature, it was blunted by it as the creature was made from iron. They were all standing on this metal as it started to sink. Ned then shouts at the iron to stop sinking and it starts to rise up and a panel opens letting them in. The men who run the ship come to meet them but even though they try several languages they still do not understand and their own language is bizarre to the three men. Then after dinner and sleep, they get left for hours, in which Ned gets madder and madder until someone does finally come in and he throws himself at the man, who then starts speaking in French to the professor.
So that is where I stopped! I have so many questions in my head, what is this strange boat, that exceeds speeds of a normal boat, made of iron panels. Who are these people, what are they doing, what do they want with the professor, Ned and Conseil? Was there a creature in the first place? Or has it only just been this boat the whole time if so, what did destroy those ships?
So today I begun to listen to the audiobook of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. (I'll call it Leagues from now on, just to save time)
I have heard of course a lot of good things about this book, and my first memory of hearing about Leagues was watching the film 'The Sphere' (1998 Directed by Barry Levinson) in which Samuel Jackson is reading the book throughout the film.
So this book begins that you hear of this great creature that many ships and sailors are spotting, of course people just think it a myth, until it damages a boat. The United states government calls on a French professor, (who at this point believes it is a giant Narwhal) to go with a ship to discover what this creature is, and to kill it.
It's interesting to me, maybe, it says something of the time this was written that killing it was the first thought of the people, not to capture it, or to study it but it actually kill the creature. Of course whaling is now banned as we want to preserve whales, so it is interesting to me, who lives in this time, that killing this creature for them is the only option as the creature has destroyed a fair few ships. It is also interesting to me that in the beginning when they are talking about the myth of the creature, they talk about being sceptical, having evidence to prove this creature, that it can not be properly tested by the official 'learned' people of the time. That in the time that this is set, evidence from a skilled professional is required so people do not just run away with their imaginations.
So they find the creature after searching for months in the wide seas, we are introduced to the Ned the Canadian who is a very skilled whaler but is hot headed and the professors faithful calm servant Conseil. They finally find the creature and attempt to follow it, it clearly has great speed in the water and when they finally catch it up to throw a harpoon and the shudder that this gives off makes the professor fall off the boat and into the sea.
At this point, I had to check the time on the audio, I was only half an hour in the story and the creature has been shown! This is a 10 hour long audiobook and they have already found the creature! I did not know what to expect now from this story at all, I know that this a book about a strange sea creature but I don't have a clue where this book is going and that is very exciting!
So the professor is in the water and it turns out his servant saw him fall in the sea and amazingly jumped in after his master to help! They swim together helping each other as they go along and Conseil calls out to the ship that they can vaguely see in the distance. They hear another mans voice and it turns out to be Ned. He explains that the harpoon not only did not pierce the creature, it was blunted by it as the creature was made from iron. They were all standing on this metal as it started to sink. Ned then shouts at the iron to stop sinking and it starts to rise up and a panel opens letting them in. The men who run the ship come to meet them but even though they try several languages they still do not understand and their own language is bizarre to the three men. Then after dinner and sleep, they get left for hours, in which Ned gets madder and madder until someone does finally come in and he throws himself at the man, who then starts speaking in French to the professor.
So that is where I stopped! I have so many questions in my head, what is this strange boat, that exceeds speeds of a normal boat, made of iron panels. Who are these people, what are they doing, what do they want with the professor, Ned and Conseil? Was there a creature in the first place? Or has it only just been this boat the whole time if so, what did destroy those ships?
Introductions
Hello everyone,
My name is Clair, I am 20 and I have decided to begin blogging about the books I read.
In my work I am able to listen to audiobooks and I also enjoy reading books on my kindle, I have been reading intensely the past few months and I had this idea to write a blog.
So why write a blog on reading? As well as maybe entertaining whoever reads my blog, I see it as chance for me to share what I have learnt from the books I read, to share my opinion on what I liked, what relates to me and maybe how it relates the world we live in now. I hope to be able to share with you my thoughts on books as I read them, where I think the story maybe going, what surprised me and when I finish, my final summary of the book. I am not reviewing books as it were, just mainly talking about them.
For the first couple of weeks you may have to bare with me, I have not written a blog before and in my line of work (data handling) I do not get a chance to write full blown reports, so my writing will hopefully improve and I will experiment with ideas of sharing and blogging as the weeks go on.
Of course, pretty much all of my posts will have spoilers as I read the books and I'm sure I'll be reading completely new books to me so I will appreciate it if you have read the books, to not share spoilers with me!
So to begin the blogging.. a ginger reads...
My name is Clair, I am 20 and I have decided to begin blogging about the books I read.
In my work I am able to listen to audiobooks and I also enjoy reading books on my kindle, I have been reading intensely the past few months and I had this idea to write a blog.
So why write a blog on reading? As well as maybe entertaining whoever reads my blog, I see it as chance for me to share what I have learnt from the books I read, to share my opinion on what I liked, what relates to me and maybe how it relates the world we live in now. I hope to be able to share with you my thoughts on books as I read them, where I think the story maybe going, what surprised me and when I finish, my final summary of the book. I am not reviewing books as it were, just mainly talking about them.
For the first couple of weeks you may have to bare with me, I have not written a blog before and in my line of work (data handling) I do not get a chance to write full blown reports, so my writing will hopefully improve and I will experiment with ideas of sharing and blogging as the weeks go on.
Of course, pretty much all of my posts will have spoilers as I read the books and I'm sure I'll be reading completely new books to me so I will appreciate it if you have read the books, to not share spoilers with me!
So to begin the blogging.. a ginger reads...
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