Post a brief description and comment about the book(s) you are reading in English....
14 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The story concerns the lives of four sisters and their mother affectionately named Marmee. With their father away fighting in the Civil War, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy grow up with their mother in somewhat reduced circumstances. They are a close family who inevitably have their problems. The four girls are all different, Meg is the most beautiful and sensible one, Jo (Josephine) is a great heart tomboy, Beth is the shiest one but with enough extroversion to go to help poor people and then finally Amy the youngest one who is the artist of the house. It is based on Alcott's life, she had three sisters, Amy (May), Meg (Anna), and Beth (Elizabeth).
I like this story even though in some parts it's very very sad.
I'm just finishing to read "The third eye", obviosuly in english, an interesting book on Tibet that Riccardo DG lent me some weeks ago. Probably I'll finish it tomorrow, and after that I'm going to begin "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King. I'll take both of them on wednesday.
Meanwhile, I have a question for Luisa: why in the title is "sematary" and not cemetery? Is it a simple mangling or does it come from another language or dialect?
It has been quite difficult for me to choose a book, since I entered in a bookshop with so many English titles... and also I was undecided about the genre... However, at the end I bought "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. I didn't read the Italian version, and I didn't watched the film... so it's a completely new story for me.
Even if I have read just the first two chapters so far, I like the way this book is written. It seems quite simple, with few words unknown to me (at least up to now!)... Anyway, I'm going back to read... I'll tell you more on Friday.
I was bicycling In Pisa and I went inside a library where I decided to buy the book in English requested by Dott.ssa Luisa as last week homework exercise. I spent there a huge amount of time and more and more I stood in front of the English section and less my ideas became clear on what I would like to read. Finally my eyes fell down on a strange coloured and drawned book cover. I took the book and started to examine it curiously; its title is "The end of Mr Y".
Do anybody never hear something about it?
I read the first two chapter and it seems to be written in a perfectly comprensible English style, smart and easy.
The plot is everything but clear at the moment. The main character have found a book in a library that is one of the last copies of a rare novel, ignored by almost all publishers during years; that is "The end of Mr Y". The legend says that who read the book will die....
Humm.. I started reading this book not long ago. I never read anything by Hemingway, so I decided to make up for this by reading something in the original language.
Its language is quite understandable (apart from many words specific to fishermen and boats) but it sounds tremendously more musical and evocative than any other thing I've read in English so far. A similar thing happened when at school we studied "Spoon River Anthology" by E.L.Masters: that was the first time I felt as English language could be such expressive as italian and how a connotative text sounded in a foreign language.
The story is about the relationship beetween a boy and an old fisherman, who is in trouble because he has not been able to fish anything for a long time. I've just started reading this short novel, so I can not tell you how the story develops. See you in the afternoon:)
I spent a lot of time looking to shelves full of English books, like Andrea and Barbara did, and not being able to choose something to read. Eventually, inspiration came in the form of an old fellow who, obviously unrequested!, tried to convince me to pick up a historical book about the ancient Persia... I didn't listen his hint, but this made me go to the opposite side of the shop, where I found the book I'm currently reading:
Everyman, by Phil Roth This is the story of an old man looking backward at his whole life, feeling almoust nothing has gone the right way (he collected three divorces, and his first-marriage two sons hate him) and an even deeper frustration comes from his corporal decay, which forces him to have a series of hospitalization. Like the others Roth's books I read (but those were translated), there is a strong description of body (I guess Roth is in love with the corporal part of life), and that's why I'm reading it with the aid of a small dictionnary, especially for the hospitalization descriptions, and sometimes I even have to look for the meaning of the corresponding Italian word, 'cause I'm a bit ignorant in anatomy :( By the way, a part from this little inconvinients, the English is quite easy to understand, and most of the unknown words are intelligible by the context.
...I know Luisa...you didn't reccommend us Agatha Christie...but I like this genre and so I decided to put myself to the test! :-D And...what is more surprising is that I was able to understand the plot without using a dictionary :-o :-)
Let's talk about the plot. Like all the Agatha Christie's books, it is full of mistery and it holds the reader's attention. I read just 3 chapters, so, it is not much to tell you something interesting about the story :-( Anyway, it takes place in Gipsy's Acre and it is narrated by a young man. The first chapters are focused on the sell of an old house called "The Towers". The young man is fascinating by this property and he desire to buy it even if he has not enough money. All the inhabitants, however, are not interested neither in buying the house nor in speaking about it. One day, the young man decides to ask an old women why people were so perturbing from the house's sell and she just advices him to stop making questions and, above all, to stop thinking to buy the property because a bad omen dangles on the house.
I've chosen a book of Agatha Christie, Hallowe'en Party. A party has been organized in a village, and a teenager reveals that she saw a murder. After that, she is found drowned. Poirot must look for Joyce's murderer, and he has to solve the first mistery too. The plot is not that complex, but language is old-fashioned. I've read about fifty pages, one third of the total. The cast of characters is very rich, so sometimes it's difficult to follow the plot, but the language, as I said before, it's always clear. If you want, you can find the same style on other books of Agata Christie, like Endless Night or others. I don't like very much this kind of novel, I'm not a expert of detective stories, but I think it can be very useful to improve my english. There are many new terms, and there's a traditional and classic costruction of periods and phrases (probably for this reason we can consider this style old-fashioned).
I went to the library on Wednesday and spent half an hour trying to choose the best book to read. But is it possible to really find the "best book"? At the end I bought two books, completely different, but both interesting. The first one is "No country of old men" by Cormac McCarthy, which has become famous in recent times because of the film by the Cohen brothers. The other one is the well known "1984" by George Orwell. I decided starting with the first one. I haven't already watched the film and I preferred starting with the book. So, what about this book... At the beginning I was a little bit confused because of the language. It's written in "spoken American English" and therefore it's full of sentences which seem to be grammatically incorrect. During the first pages I had to warm up myself trying to understand this writing style, but after this first period, it went much better. Of course there are still many words I don't know, but even without searching all of them in a dictionary, I could easily understand the plot. So, a few words about this plot. At the very beginning there is a prisoner in a police station who escapes killing the Sherrif's deputy. Then the main character Moss, an antelope hunter, is introduced. When he's hunting in the Gran Canyon he casually finds some trucks with their tires shot and with some people all around dead. In a truck there is still a Latin American alive (but wounded) and a huge quantity of drug. He follows a blood track and finds an other man dead with a suitcase full of money (he will later discovered there are 2,4 million dollars). He decided to take the case with him and live the wounded man there. Of course, this will not be the best choice for him.
I’m reading Eragon, a fantasy novel written by Christopher Paolini. The story is set in the mythical world of Alagaesia, and it tells the story of a young farm boy, Eragon, and his dragon, Saphira. Eragon find a polished blue stone in the forest, but it isn’t a simple stone, it’s a dragon’s egg. Eragon realizes it only when the egg hatches, and from that moment his life changes drastically. The dragon, Saphira, establishes an unbreakable bond with Eragon, who is now the only dragon-rider. They are thrust into a dangerous new world of magic, friendship, betrayal and death, where king Galbatorix sends his servants after them to capture or kill them, and where they has got only an ancient sword and the help of an old storyteller, Brom.
The book isn’t difficult to read, and even if there are many new and specific words, many synonyms and so on, it’s quite easy to understand the meaning of what you read. The language is rich and detailed, in particular for the descriptions. I think that it’s good to improve my English, and at the same time it’s also a fun read!
Probably yesterday was the last english lesson for this year and...i'm little sentimental... I' m sorry to leave my workgroup just now that we have began to know eachother!mmmm...ops!But this is the book' s blog!!! Yesterday when i was looking to the shelves full of book i have found my book, my english book.... Do you remember "I mean, what is an un-birthday present?" or... "O dear!O dear!I shall be too late!" So, I'm reading 'ALICE's Adventure s in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll! I'm too old for this book?maybe! But It is wonderful peep into a strange world and is like being a child again!!! I have read the frist chapther and it is quite simple even if there are many words that i don't know! I think is good to improve my english and my immagination!
I have read twelve chapters of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". As I already say on the blog I have seen the Italian film at the cinema about three years ago but I don't remember the plot very much...so the book isn't boring for me. I think it's a funny book and it's good to learn English, too. In fact even if there are a lot of specific words about magic (such as cauldron, wand etc) and synonims there are many words taken from of the ordinary life (cuppa, saucepan, tent, etc...). I have some difficult in recognizing all characters' name in comparison with the Italian ones as Barbara C. which watched a film of Harry Potter. In fact also the names of the students' groups at Hogwarts school are different. In these last days I have been very busy but I am going to finish the book (that is quite long...) and then I am going to watch again the film in English. Maybe I will comment it on the blog!! I would like also to read a detective story of A. Christie or Sherlock Holmes because I like very much this genre and some of your comments encourage me to read this kind of book. It's late! Bye!!!
@andreaL ####Comments by riccardo DG for the C1 exam 060608 ############ In my comment to andrea L, I report his comments among quotes
"It has been quite difficult for me to choose a book, since I entered in a bookshop with so many English titles... and also I was undecided about the genre... However, at the end I bought 'The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini.'
Hi Andrea, it's Riccardo DG. I've also felt your difficulties in choosing an English book. And my choice, even not my first one, fell to "the kite runner". When I entered the bookshop I wanted a book from Harry Potter saga.
Luisa told us a lot on these books: something about how English was good, since written 4 children and so on.. But I must admit, I did not know the first book of the saga, so I did not want to start reading from the third or worse from the last. I like Dickens, too, but the 'pickwick papers' was not and the 'Wallace's Infinite Jest' is too big to be carried in a simple trolley. I was looking 4 a book in paperback format. Easy to read and carry. So I bought the kite runner.
"I didn't read the Italian version, and I didn't watched the film... so it's a completely new story for me."
I've downloaded the movie, both in the original language (Imagine, it's in arabic -I thought it was in English... :-p ) and in Italian. So far I've not watched the movie yet, but some guys told me that it is really worst than the book. Also for me it is a new story, even if I read that the kite running is a national sport in Tibet were there are tournaments and things like that. In fact I candidly thought that the book was about a friendship in Afghanistan. Childhood and friendship under the kites shadow in the taliban Afghanistan.
"Even if I have read just the first two chapters so far, I like the way this book is written. It seems quite simple, with few words unknown to me (at least up to now!)... Anyway, I'm going back to read... I'll tell you more on Friday." I really really hope u just finished to read the book, because I'm going to tell u the final. So, pls, don't read my post. Putting jokes apart, I read more than half of the book. I can tell u that I did not like the first chapters: too much descriptive, too many words to explain concepts... but suddenly I was stricken by the story as soon as I started to realise what the plot was providing me... Well, now I cannot stop reading. I tried to find room in my 'agenda' 4 khaled. I have to buy the same book in Italian for my parents. I have to watch the movie.
As general comment I find the book really poetic; its original language was English and not arabian and this is clear from the many specific words khaled uses to describe same situation from different perspective. I'm really curious to read the book in Italian, just to get differences in style. I don't know your reading style, but mine is to read without the dictionary. This is a difficulty ( at least 4 me) because I can't get all words but only the global meaning of a sentence. I lost a lot of the poetry in khaled writing: many words are specific to certain situation, expecially for trees, fruits, habits...but I'm happy to get the sense only. So, I partially 'get' the book: I read it, get some senses but not the whole beuty that each single word creates when it is put along the others. I think that totally 'get' the book should be really rewardly.
I have been working in tertiary education and foreign language teaching for over 16 years. My professional areas of interest are Language Awareness, Tandem learning, Learner Counselling, Cross Cultural communication and language learning in multimedia environnments including Second Life.
14 comments:
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The story concerns the lives of four sisters and their mother affectionately named Marmee.
With their father away fighting in the Civil War, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy grow up with their mother in somewhat reduced circumstances. They are a close family who inevitably have their problems. The four girls are all different, Meg is the most beautiful and sensible one, Jo (Josephine) is a great heart tomboy, Beth is the shiest one but with enough extroversion to go to help poor people and then finally Amy the youngest one who is the artist of the house.
It is based on Alcott's life, she had three sisters, Amy (May), Meg (Anna), and Beth (Elizabeth).
I like this story even though in some parts it's very very sad.
The third Eye + Pet Sematary
I'm just finishing to read "The third eye", obviosuly in english, an interesting book on Tibet that Riccardo DG lent me some weeks ago. Probably I'll finish it tomorrow, and after that I'm going to begin "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King. I'll take both of them on wednesday.
Meanwhile, I have a question for Luisa: why in the title is "sematary" and not cemetery? Is it a simple mangling or does it come from another language or dialect?
It has been quite difficult for me to choose a book, since I entered in a bookshop with so many English titles... and also I was undecided about the genre... However, at the end I bought "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. I didn't read the Italian version, and I didn't watched the film... so it's a completely new story for me.
Even if I have read just the first two chapters so far, I like the way this book is written. It seems quite simple, with few words unknown to me (at least up to now!)... Anyway, I'm going back to read... I'll tell you more on Friday.
I was bicycling In Pisa and I went inside a library where I decided to buy the book in English requested by Dott.ssa Luisa as last week homework exercise. I spent there a huge amount of time and more and more I stood in front of the English section and less my ideas became clear on what I would like to read.
Finally my eyes fell down on a strange coloured and drawned book cover. I took the book and started to examine it curiously; its title is "The end of Mr Y".
Do anybody never hear something about it?
I read the first two chapter and it seems to be written in a perfectly comprensible English style, smart and easy.
The plot is everything but clear at the moment.
The main character have found a book in a library that is one of the last copies of a rare novel, ignored by almost all publishers during years; that is "The end of Mr Y".
The legend says that who read the book will die....
Barbara C.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Humm.. I started reading this book not long ago. I never read anything by Hemingway, so I decided to make up for this by reading something in the original language.
Its language is quite understandable (apart from many words specific to fishermen and boats) but it sounds tremendously more musical and evocative than any other thing I've read in English so far. A similar thing happened when at school we studied "Spoon River Anthology" by E.L.Masters: that was the first time I felt as English language could be such expressive as italian and how a connotative text sounded in a foreign language.
The story is about the relationship beetween a boy and an old fisherman, who is in trouble because he has not been able to fish anything for a long time. I've just started reading this short novel, so I can not tell you how the story develops.
See you in the afternoon:)
I spent a lot of time looking to shelves full of English books, like Andrea and Barbara did, and not being able to choose something to read. Eventually, inspiration came in the form of an old fellow who, obviously unrequested!, tried to convince me to pick up a historical book about the ancient Persia...
I didn't listen his hint, but this made me go to the opposite side of the shop, where I found the book I'm currently reading:
Everyman, by Phil Roth
This is the story of an old man looking backward at his whole life, feeling almoust nothing has gone the right way (he collected three divorces, and his first-marriage two sons hate him) and an even deeper frustration comes from his corporal decay, which forces him to have a series of hospitalization.
Like the others Roth's books I read (but those were translated), there is a strong description of body (I guess Roth is in love with the corporal part of life), and that's why I'm reading it with the aid of a small dictionnary, especially for the hospitalization descriptions, and sometimes I even have to look for the meaning of the corresponding Italian word, 'cause I'm a bit ignorant in anatomy :(
By the way, a part from this little inconvinients, the English is quite easy to understand, and most of the unknown words are intelligible by the context.
Endless Night by Agatha Christie.
...I know Luisa...you didn't reccommend us Agatha Christie...but I like this genre and so I decided to put myself to the test! :-D And...what is more surprising is that I was able to understand the plot without using a dictionary :-o :-)
Let's talk about the plot. Like all the Agatha Christie's books, it is full of mistery and it holds the reader's attention.
I read just 3 chapters, so, it is not much to tell you something interesting about the story :-( Anyway, it takes place in Gipsy's Acre and it is narrated by a young man. The first chapters are focused on the sell of an old house called "The Towers". The young man is fascinating by this property and he desire to buy it even if he has not enough money. All the inhabitants, however, are not interested neither in buying the house nor in speaking about it.
One day, the young man decides to ask an old women why people were so perturbing from the house's sell and she just advices him to stop making questions and, above all, to stop thinking to buy the property because a bad omen dangles on the house.
That's all but...I'll tell you the next ;-)
I've chosen a book of Agatha Christie, Hallowe'en Party. A party has been organized in a village, and a teenager reveals that she saw a murder. After that, she is found drowned. Poirot must look for Joyce's murderer, and he has to solve the first mistery too. The plot is not that complex, but language is old-fashioned. I've read about fifty pages, one third of the total. The cast of characters is very rich, so sometimes it's difficult to follow the plot, but the language, as I said before, it's always clear. If you want, you can find the same style on other books of Agata Christie, like Endless Night or others. I don't like very much this kind of novel, I'm not a expert of detective stories, but I think it can be very useful to improve my english. There are many new terms, and there's a traditional and classic costruction of periods and phrases (probably for this reason we can consider this style old-fashioned).
I went to the library on Wednesday and spent half an hour trying to choose the best book to read. But is it possible to really find the "best book"? At the end I bought two books, completely different, but both interesting. The first one is "No country of old men" by Cormac McCarthy, which has become famous in recent times because of the film by the Cohen brothers. The other one is the well known "1984" by George Orwell. I decided starting with the first one. I haven't already watched the film and I preferred starting with the book. So, what about this book... At the beginning I was a little bit confused because of the language. It's written in "spoken American English" and therefore it's full of sentences which seem to be grammatically incorrect. During the first pages I had to warm up myself trying to understand this writing style, but after this first period, it went much better. Of course there are still many words I don't know, but even without searching all of them in a dictionary, I could easily understand the plot. So, a few words about this plot. At the very beginning there is a prisoner in a police station who escapes killing the Sherrif's deputy. Then the main character Moss, an antelope hunter, is introduced. When he's hunting in the Gran Canyon he casually finds some trucks with their tires shot and with some people all around dead. In a truck there is still a Latin American alive (but wounded) and a huge quantity of drug. He follows a blood track and finds an other man dead with a suitcase full of money (he will later discovered there are 2,4 million dollars). He decided to take the case with him and live the wounded man there. Of course, this will not be the best choice for him.
Eragon
I’m reading Eragon, a fantasy novel written by Christopher Paolini.
The story is set in the mythical world of Alagaesia, and it tells the story of a young farm boy, Eragon, and his dragon, Saphira.
Eragon find a polished blue stone in the forest, but it isn’t a simple stone, it’s a dragon’s egg. Eragon realizes it only when the egg hatches, and from that moment his life changes drastically. The dragon, Saphira, establishes an unbreakable bond with Eragon, who is now the only dragon-rider.
They are thrust into a dangerous new world of magic, friendship, betrayal and death, where king Galbatorix sends his servants after them to capture or kill them, and where they has got only an ancient sword and the help of an old storyteller, Brom.
The book isn’t difficult to read, and even if there are many new and specific words, many synonyms and so on, it’s quite easy to understand the meaning of what you read. The language is rich and detailed, in particular for the descriptions. I think that it’s good to improve my English, and at the same time it’s also a fun read!
Bye!
@matteo
sematary and **not** cemetery because children do write so !!
It's explained in the book!
have fun
RDG
Probably yesterday was the last english lesson for this year and...i'm little sentimental...
I' m sorry to leave my workgroup just now that we have began to know eachother!mmmm...ops!But this is the book' s blog!!!
Yesterday when i was looking to the shelves full of book i have found my book, my english book....
Do you remember "I mean, what is an un-birthday present?"
or...
"O dear!O dear!I shall be too late!"
So, I'm reading 'ALICE's Adventure s in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll!
I'm too old for this book?maybe!
But It is wonderful peep into a strange world and is like being a child again!!!
I have read the frist chapther and it is quite simple even if there are many words that i don't know!
I think is good to improve my english and my immagination!
I have read twelve chapters of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". As I already say on the blog I have seen the Italian film at the cinema about three years ago but I don't remember the plot very much...so the book isn't boring for me.
I think it's a funny book and it's good to learn English, too. In fact even if there are a lot of specific words about magic (such as cauldron, wand etc) and synonims there are many words taken from of the ordinary life (cuppa, saucepan, tent, etc...). I have some difficult in recognizing all characters' name in comparison with the Italian ones as Barbara C. which watched a film of Harry Potter. In fact also the names of the students' groups at Hogwarts school are different.
In these last days I have been very busy but I am going to finish the book (that is quite long...) and then I am going to watch again the film in English.
Maybe I will comment it on the blog!!
I would like also to read a detective story of A. Christie or Sherlock Holmes because I like very much this genre and some of your comments encourage me to read this kind of book.
It's late!
Bye!!!
@andreaL
####Comments by riccardo DG for the C1 exam 060608 ############
In my comment to andrea L, I report his comments among quotes
"It has been quite difficult for me to choose a book, since I entered in a bookshop with so many English titles... and also I was undecided about the genre... However, at the end I bought 'The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini.'
Hi Andrea, it's Riccardo DG.
I've also felt your difficulties in choosing an English book. And my choice, even not my first one, fell to "the kite runner".
When I entered the bookshop I wanted a book from Harry Potter saga.
Luisa told us a lot on these books: something about how English was good, since written 4 children and so on.. But I must admit, I did not know the first book of the saga, so I did not want to start reading from the third or worse from the last. I like Dickens, too, but the 'pickwick papers' was not and the 'Wallace's Infinite Jest' is too big to be carried in a simple trolley. I was looking 4 a book in paperback format. Easy to read and carry.
So I bought the kite runner.
"I didn't read the Italian version, and I didn't watched the film... so it's a completely new story for me."
I've downloaded the movie, both in the original language (Imagine, it's in arabic -I thought it was in English... :-p ) and in Italian. So far I've not watched the movie yet, but some guys told me that it is really worst than the book. Also for me it is a new story, even if I read that the kite running is a national sport in Tibet were there are tournaments and things like that. In fact I candidly thought that the book was about a friendship in Afghanistan. Childhood and friendship under the kites shadow in the taliban Afghanistan.
"Even if I have read just the first two chapters so far, I like the way this book is written. It seems quite simple, with few words unknown to me (at least up to now!)... Anyway, I'm going back to read... I'll tell you more on Friday."
I really really hope u just finished to read the book, because I'm going to tell u the final.
So, pls, don't read my post.
Putting jokes apart, I read more than half of the book. I can tell u that I did not like the first chapters: too much descriptive, too many words to explain concepts... but suddenly I was stricken by the story as soon as I started to realise what the plot was providing me...
Well, now I cannot stop reading. I tried to find room in my 'agenda' 4 khaled. I have to buy the same book in Italian for my parents. I have to watch the movie.
As general comment I find the book really poetic; its original language was English and not arabian and this is clear from the many specific words khaled uses to describe same situation from different perspective. I'm really curious to read the book in Italian, just to get differences in style.
I don't know your reading style, but mine is to read without the dictionary. This is a difficulty ( at least 4 me) because I can't get all words but only the global meaning of a sentence.
I lost a lot of the poetry in khaled writing: many words are specific to certain situation, expecially for trees, fruits, habits...but I'm happy to get the sense only.
So, I partially 'get' the book: I read it, get some senses but not the whole beuty that each single word creates when it is put along the others.
I think that totally 'get' the book should be really rewardly.
Riccardo DG for the exam C1 060608
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