Children's Books

As some of you know, I love children's books, both the content and format, with all those pictures, the rhyme, the lyricism in them… Must be the peter-panish side of me.

In any case, here are a couple of new releases that I would like to get my hands on.

This one is by Julia Donaldson, whom you may know as she is the author of The Gruffalo.

And this other one has a rhyming format, which is nice, but also, check out the illustrations - they are awesome!

Reading in Galician - FANECA BRAVA

I've just finished reading this novel, which I came across quite accidentally and it was a real pleasure to read, and a nice surprise. It is a page-turner, and I personally enjoyed Portas's skillful use of language, poetic yet dynamic. 

Here's a small extract from a review:

Trátase dunha intriga ben artellada e dunha novela coidadosamente escrita, cuxa lectura engancha e seduce. Ese coidado na escrita, que tanto se agradece, non a converte, porén, nunha lectura difícil, senón fluída e rápida a medida que se van desvelando misterios e se quere saber máis. 

And an interview with the author:

HAVISHAM - Prelude to Great Expectations

I quite enjoyed Great Expectations, and Miss Havisham was quite a disturbing character. This book by Ronald Frame presents itself as the prequel to Great Expectations.

Here's an extract from a review:

The greatest difficulty with Havisham, however, lies at the very heart of the endeavour. Frame seeks to recast Miss Havisham as a woman of flesh and blood, driven mad by heartbreak, but that is to miss the point of Dickens's creation. Miss Havisham is not an elusive ghost like Brontë's Bertha but nor is she real, as Pip is real. She is an illusion of startling intensity, like the gods of fable or the witch in a fairy story. Trapped in her mausoleum of a house, the embodiment of disillusionment and bitterness, of a life wasted and anguish turned inside out, she derives her power from her otherness. By making a real person of her, Frame is obliged not only to scale her down to human size but to explain all the awkward logistical quibbles that Dickens imperiously overlooked. In so doing, he diminishes both her majestic inhumanity and her terrible pathos, and loosens her hold over our imaginations.

The Perfume of New Books

Just when you thought that the aroma of freshly opened new books would disappear with the advent of e-book readers... Have no fear, the solution is here! For the modest price of $28.99, you can spray on the SMELL OF BOOKS anywhere. Check it out here. 

Because there's nothing like that scent of unpacking a virgin copy of a desired novel, spreading the pages for the first time and appreciating the bouquet that wafts from the pages. 

That's because paper is made from lignin which has polymers that make it smell like vanilla. Combined with fresh ink and glue, a new book becomes irresistable.

So you can rest assured that smell which you associate with opening a book for the first time won't be a thing of the past. As Nick Bilton put it in his New York Times tech blog: "I immediately felt a sense of nostalgia that I haven't felt in a long time. The scent of physical books - the paper, the ink, the glue -can conjure up memories of a summer day spent reading on a beach, a fall afternoon in a coffee shop, or an overstuffed chair by a fireplace as rain patters on a windowsill."

HOTELS and BOOKS

Remember our literary tour in New York?

It turns out the idea of hotels and books is actually catching up in other places too (Miami, London, Ireland). I hate hotels, so those which add a library or a reading room… well, it's definitely a perk, isn't it? According to this article, "… newer literary-minded hotels are establishing places for the reader and brewer to go that, in the best cases, further an understanding of the destination".

I would love to stay at Ballyfin Hotel above, for example :)

WRITING BECOMING A BROADCAST SPECTACLE

Who would be brave enough to combine writing and a reality show? Well, the Italians, of course. Here's the idea: a show in which inspiring authors vie at literary challenges until one contestant wins a major book deal - and some level of publicity.

Don't be too eager to criticize the initiative. Let's wait and see!

More info here.

DORIS LESSING DIES

Sad news today, hearing about the death of Doris Lessing. Tributes pour in for Nobel prize-winning author of over 50 novels including The Golden Notebook. Our personal homage here:

An extract of "Fable", one of her poems:

But for a while the dance went on -
That is how it seems to me now:
Slow forms moving calm through
Pools of light like gold net on the floor.
It might have gone on, dream-like, for ever.

And a short interview:

And a Guardian article:

"After 40 years of being shortlisted, Lessing at 87 was the oldest winner of the literature prize, and only the 11th female winner in its then 104-year history. What a pity, she scolded, that Virginia Woolf wasn't number four or five. The Swedish academy (which, according to Lessing, had publicly disapproved of her in the 1970s), described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". The Golden Notebook, published 45 years before, was commended as a "pioneering work" that "belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th-century view of the male-female relationship". Read the whole article here.

Great Book Covers Post 2

Sometimes you should judge a book by its cover.

LITERARY GRAFFITI

Check out this website where you can see 20 awesome examples of literary graffiti. Wouldn't it be awesome to have some of them in our town?

And speaking of graffiti, I love this Parisian initiative.

RUNNING AND READING

It must be that the race season is on for me, but I've been thinking a lot about Will Smith's speech on running and reading, two of my great passions in life. I know it's not too elaborate and it seems pretty simple... however I love it and it helps me build up my stamina!

“The keys to life are running and reading. When you're running, there's a little person that talks to you and says, "Oh I'm tired. My lung's about to pop. I'm so hurt. There's no way I can possibly continue." You want to quit. If you learn how to defeat that person when you're running. You will how to not quit when things get hard in your life. For reading: there have been gazillions of people that have lived before all of us. There's no new problem you could have--with your parents, with school, with a bully. There's no new problem that someone hasn't already had and written about it in a book.”

FIRST BOOK (Ribeira): Summer Lies

The first book we'll read in our book club in Ribeira will be Summer Lies, a collection of 7 short stories by Bernhard Schlink, a German author who may sound familiar to you because he is the author of Der Verleser (The Reader), a novel "about a teenager who has an affair with a woman in her 30es who suddenly vanishes but whom he meets again as a law student when visiting a trial about war crimes" (Wikipedia). The book became a bestseller both in Germany and the USA and was translated into 39 languages, including Spanish. There is also a movie (see trailer below).

This movie and book are available in our library in Ribeira if you wish to borrow them.

And about Summer Lies, here are some extracts from two reviews:


"Unlike many novelists, who use short fiction as a rest stop on the highway to longer works, Schlink seems to have lingered with these stories. Each story in “Summer Lies” has heft, solidity — even more of an accomplishment given the delicate, fleeting emotions it captures." (The NY Times)

"The stories in "Summer Lies" tell of Germans living in the present with ordinary if somewhat cerebral lives. They're all successful professionals. University professors, jurists or writers — all jobs Schlink himself has held over the years.


The best of the seven stories are powerful and deeply moving meditations on family life, love and duty. As in "The Reader," Schlink and his spare, unassuming prose mask big artistic ambitions — he's trying to untangle the complicated, contradictory ways Germans of his time have defined success and happiness."(LA Times).


The meeting to discuss the book will take place on JANUARY 15th. Happy reading!

Goodreads Web and App

For years I've been trying to find a way of discovering good new books through friends and the internet. And now, I think I've finally found it. Occasionally, I would browse the Goodreads web for reviews and related books but I never really exploited its full potential until I downloaded the related app on my android smartphone.

What a breakthrough! Besides being a wonderful tool to learn about new books, it helps you classify and remember all those books that have been in your cobwebs for years. You create shelves of books that you´ve read and those which you would like to read. Also, you can see how other goodreads members have rated the books so you don't waste your time on poorly classified stuff, while seeing what books they have on their shelves.

For me, however the greatest revelation of the app was the recommendation section, which generates a list of potentially interesting books based on your shelves. By simple clicking on the recommendation you classify it as a book to-read. Simple.

Goodreads also works as a social network, so you can join groups that discuss novels in your area of interest and you can get in touch with people (make friends) who share similar tastes.

Now the downside. In this age of diminishing privacy, one has to wonder if the things you post on the web will come back to haunt you someday, who knows? Just a word to the wise, the webpage is run by Amazon now and what better way to commercialize stock than through a book loving social network? Obviously, there is a potential monetary gain to be had, so book lovers beware!

Another drawback is the rating system, which is a great tool BUT which may dissuade you from reading great novels just because they were hated by a few. Check out the number of times a book was rated, I find the higher number of ratings, the more reliable the rating is.

So if you're interested here are the sites:

Goodreads

And the app on Playstore (there's also an Iphone app in the Apple Store).

Try it, you´ll like it.

FIGHT THE SUMMER SLIDE! PREPARE A SUMMER READING LIST

It's almost official, the academic year at the Official School of Languages is over, you're probably taking your final tests, over the moon because you've passed all the skills or trying to put together a working plan to pass those skills you need to retake in September.

In any case, SUMMER READING combats "summer slide", a term mainly applied to children who stop reading over the summer. "Summer slide" means that students actually lose somem of the reading skills they gained during the school year and start the new one behind where they finished the last. Active reading during the summer months prevents summer slide.

In our case, as adult language learners, we are not immune to "summer slide" and it is normally worse because not only do we fail to read, but also to do other things in English (speak, listen, write,...) and then when we come back in September we feel words fail us. So how about coming up with a plan to prevent that?

There are some websites, like this one (NYC), this one (Oprah's suggestions), this one (reading lists suggested by TEDsters) or this one (by Publisher's Weekly) which already provide you with a list of suggested books (fiction, non-fiction, adults, children,...).

If you'd rather create your own, go ahead! And of course, you're more than welcome to suggest your recommendations in this blog.

As for me, I've already started Life of Pi. I really enjoyed the movie, and Paul has been suggesting this book for book club since year one. Maybe it's time to give it a try! :) Next on the list is La Reina Descalza and then we'll see.

HAPPY SUMMER AND READ ON!

J.K. ROWLING'S THOUGHTS ON HARRY POTTER GO ON SALE

Sotheby's is auctioning first edition books with handwritten notes by the authors and the top lot is the first Harry Potter novel containing revealing commentary by J.K. Rowling. Watch a video about it here.

How much would you be willing to pay? Do you collect rare editions of books, books signed by the author, special editions or book memorabilia?

JOAN BROSSA: A TRIBUTE EXHIBITION IN SAR

Visit this interactive multimedia album and engage in a thought-provoking discussion of artworks created by art students from the IES de Sar.

This interactive album is the end product of a project developed by Advanced 1 students from the Extensión de Sar. Our multimedia project aims to spread and discuss a number of 24 visual poems created by art students from the IES de Sar. All the pieces are now on display at the high school in a tribute exhibition to Catalonian poet Joan Brossa, one of the early proponents of visual poetry of which this exhibition stands as an example.

You can hear and read comments on each piece. To leave your voice or text comments you need to register for a Voicethread account. It’s very easy! Just go to VoiceThread.com and click on the button SIGN IN OR REGISTER at the top-right corner of the page. Click on the Registration button, fill out the required fields, and then click the button REGISTER. Once you've done this, you will automatically be signed into your account.

Hope to hear your comments and enjoy the exhibition!

ON BOOKS AND LOCATIONS

I was reading this article about Dan Brown's new book and how Florence is expecting tourism to increase as a result of readers wanting to visit the town, Palazzo Vecchio and its "labyrinthine corridors" and I was thinking that we have probably all had the experience of reading a book and then remembering passages/characters when we actually visit the town where the story was set. 

Or the other way round, maybe we have visited a place and then when we read a book set there we just can't help reminiscing the place, our own experiences or memories, the atmosphere, the noises, the smells, the people, the music, ...

Don't you agree that the whole reading experience is made richer by the experiences we bring into it?

THE GREATNESS OF GATSBY REVISITED

Aren't you excited that Gatsby is going to be taken to the silver screen again? I have to say, even if I don't end up enjoying the movie, I am always happy movie adaptations of books come out because it means a boost in book sales.  There are always those who watch the movie and decide to read the book -and much to my rejoicing, normally, the reading experience surpasses their expectations.

In any case, I am leaving the trailer with you.

And a very poetical article. Here's a sample:

"You ponder why "Gatsby" the novel wasn't an immediate success, and why Fitzgerald, weary and sodden, died at 44 believing himself to be a failure and his work forgotten. You marvel at how an essentially melancholy book nonetheless is sprinkled with delightful wit; and how the sadness at the heart of "The Great Gatsby" somehow hardens into a small gleaming pearl."

"At the time of this writing, I haven't yet seen Luhrmann's film, and aam awaiting it with some excitement and some trepidation. The casting, sight unseen, feels right (...). But will all t he 3D and color and noise (Luhrmann's style is famously love-it-or-hate-it flashy, i.e. "Moulin Rouge"), drown out Fitzgerald's music? Will that magical mood of the novel find its way to the screen or will it prove as elusive as Gatsby's dreams?".

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING - Shakespeare in the Big Screen (yet again)

Shakespeare was not only A master but THE master. He wrote about everything (the big themes in literature, but also in our daily lives) in almost every possible genre. His command of the iambic pentameter, his contributions to the English lexicon, his witty dialogues, his unforgettable characters - we've got so much to thank him for.

And even if I go back to his plays and sonnets often, the one that still captivates me is Much Ado About Nothing. I don't think it can get much better than Beatrice and Benedick's verbal fight. In fact, every time the word "witty" comes to mind I think of them. I first learnt that word connected to this play and its dialogues.

Then came Kenneth Branagh and his 1993 movie with all those beautiful Tuscan landscapes and warm light. And him and Emma Thompson just nailing the dialogues and the characters. Forget about Claudio and Hero, the BB combo just sweeps you off your feet.

So you can imagine my excitement hearing that there's a new spin-off coming out in June. It is an independent production written and produced by Joss Whedon,  scriptwriter and director of action titles such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The Avengers. The actors? Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Reed Diamond, Fran Kranz, Sean Maher, Spencer Treat Clark, Riki Lindhome and Ashley Johnson. Don't ask me, no idea who they are!

The shooting took place during what was to be Whedon's vacation after shooting The Avengers. In any case, I'm interested to see what Whedon's gonna do. Branagh's set the bar high, though. What still holds true is that our dear Bard continues to be a cash cow.

SALMAN RUSHDIE READING THE REMAINS OF THE DAY

Click here to read the Guardian article I told you about: Salman Rushdie reading Ishiguro’s beautiful but also cruel novel. Here you have a hint:

The real story here is that of a man destroyed by the ideas upon which he has built his life. Stevens is much preoccupied by "greatness", which, for him, means something very like restraint. The greatness of the British landscape lies, he believes, in its lack of the "unseemly demonstrativeness" of African and American scenery. It was his father, also a butler, who epitomised this idea of greatness; yet it was just this notion which stood between father and son, breeding deep resentments and an inarticulacy of the emotions that destroyed their love.

The Guardian, Friday 17 August 2012

This is the passage from the novel Rushdie is referring to:

The English landscape at its finest - as I saw it this morning- possesses a quality that the landscapes of other nations, however superficially more dramatic, fail to possess …and this quality is best summed up by the term “greatness”…it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint… the whole question is very akin to the question that has caused so much debate in our profession over the years: what is a “great” butler? 

A question formulated when little remains of the profession ...

VIDEOTELLING & PICTURETELLING

We've talked about STORYTELLING before, either during our book club sessions or even here in our blog. However, have you ever heard about PICTURETELLING or VIDEOTELLING?

You can see Jamie Keddie, who we had the pleasure of seeing and hearing in Pamplona, doing some "videotelling".

 What do you think? Do you think you'd enjoy being a student in this class?

In any case, we do picturetelling and videotelling all the time. Think about all those times you tell a friend about a photo you saw on Facebook or a video you saw on the internet. Can you do it in English, though?

I propose a challenge: Go to The Guardian section "In Pictures" and choose one of the images there. Try to describe it for a classmate, friend, partner, giving them clues about the picture/video. If it is a picture, it would be fun to ask the other person to draw the image they have in mind.

Example:

Afterwards, debate and see if their mental image actually matched the real thing or not.

It's really fun!!

Check Jamie Keddie's  blog here (lots of good stuff to study English).

PROBLEMS WITH THE MINI SAGA VOTING POLL

The mini saga poll has not been registering some of your votes so we have created a new voting poll. Please, vote for your favourite mini saga here.

A MINI SAGA IN SPANISH: Nick Dutfield’s “These Boots Are Made for Walking”

I am pleased to publish a mini saga written by an English student of Spanish at the EOI. Thank you Nick for sending us such a clever and well-written story!

ENJOY!!

"These Boots Are Made For Walking"

Ser vendedora no es para blanditas - pensó Maria, fumando apáticamente en su coche - ¿Cansada? Ni hablar. Solo hartita de Jorge ¡Mi puto competidor!

Puso la radio - ¡Vaya, Nancy Sinatra!

Su movíl sonó - ¡La victoria, Una venta de 200 botas!

¿Y dondé estaba Jorge? Todavía en el parking con sus ruedas pinchadas.