A Visit from the Goon Squad

Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, after receiving rave reviews when it was published. It is a collection of linked short stories that tell us about the pretty messed up lives of different characters at different times, past and future. They are more or less closely related and converge at different moments. Some are beyond redemption but there's hope for others.

Goon squads were originally groups of violent thugs who would beat up anyone opposed to certain labor unions and corrupt political machines. As one of the characters says: 'Time's a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?'. This is the main theme in the novel, how time and circumstances shape people's lives.

Now, it might seem like a dark, depressing book, but actually it isn't boring at all: it's fast-paced and there are funny stories too, like the one about the public relations manager who represents a dictator. A particularly touching story -my favorite- is just a slide presentation! The last story describes a future in which the music industry is driven by toddlers.

This is definitely a good read and I highly recommend it. Of course, it is available at our library.

More about A Visit from the Goon Squad:

• Read an excerpt 
• Watch an interview with the author - includes transcript
• Read a short article about her creative process

Life of Pi

I'm pretty excited. Later this month opens Life of Pi, based on the wonderful novel by Yann Martel. Born in Salamanca of Canadian parents, Martel won the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Life of Pi, which was translanted into 40 languages and stayed in The New York Times Best Seller List for 57 weeks.

In the story, Pi Patel's family own a zoo in India but decide to emigrate to Canada. Unfortunately, the ship where they're travelling along with their animals sinks and 16-year-old Pi is stranded in a lifeboat for 227 days. His only companion, a Bengal tiger.

Pi's real name is Piscine Molitor, after a famous swimming-pool in Paris. With a name like that, you can expect he has trouble at school, so when he changes schools he decides to go by the name of Pi, as in the number. However his plan backfires, as his classmates then call him 'lemon pie.'

The film is directed by Ang Lee, winner of an Oscar for Brokeback Mountain and nominated to another for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; he's also responsible for the very successful Sense and Sensibility. With these credentials one expects a brilliant movie, and it certainly looks spectacular, as you can see in the trailer.



Life of Pi is available at our library.

More on Life of Pi:

• Read the first chapter (only 5 pages long)
• Read a review on the film
• Listen to an interview with Yann Martel
• Listen to the author reading short excerpts from the novel

Ray Bradbury Dies at 91

Just before the summer holidays, as we were all busy with final exams, legendary science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury died at the age of 91. Author or 27 novels and more than 600 short stories, he was one of the most popular writers in the world. Many of his works have been adapted into television shows or films, including Farenheit 451 by François Truffaut in 1966, and The Martian Chronicles, a collection of short stories - both available in our library. Among many other awards, Bradbury received the National Medal of Arts, presented by President George W Bush, and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He was also given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and this year's landing site of NASA's Mars Rover was named Bradbury's Landing.
The Martian Chronicles is about the colonisation of Mars by humans escaping a devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the colonists. First published in 1950, it is curious to see how the future - now - was imagined more than half a century ago. As an example, see this prune advertisement featuring Mr Bradbury. You can read a short excerpt here.
 
Farenheit 451 presents a future USA where books are outlawed and firemen burn any house that contains them. Read this short article describing the circumstances in which it was written - on a rented typewriter at a public library. Also, here's the film trailer.

Welcome back!

I hope you all had a good summer. I'm back to the grind and I found this article: why should you go to your public library? The answer may seem obvious, but if you had to list 10 reasons what would you say? Just to brush up on your English you can follow the link and see if it mentions your ideas (you might be surprised by the webpage).

Why should you go to your public library?

¡Hasta pronto!

Llegadas estas fechas de exámenes nos despedimos hasta el próximo curso. Buena suerte con los exámenes y no olvidéis leer durante el verano.

Maurice Sendak dies at 83

Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on May 8 in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.

Mr. Sendak’s books were essential ingredients of childhood for the generation born after 1960 or thereabouts, and in turn for their children. He was known in particular for more than a dozen picture books he wrote and illustrated himself, most famously “Where the Wild Things Are,” which was simultaneously genre-breaking and career-making when it was published by Harper & Row in 1963.

(read the whole New York Times article)

Watch the trailer for the film directed by Spike Jonze in 2009.

Herman Hesse

Am 9. August 2012 wird der Todestag des deutschen Schriftstellers und Dichters Hermann Hesse gefeiert. Hesse ist weit hinaus über die deutschen bzw. europäischen Grenzen bekannt.

Seine Bücher, Romane, Erzählungen, Betrachtungen, Gedichte und Schriften sind in aller Wert verbreitet.

Der am 2.7. 1877 in Calw (Würtemberg) geborene Autor, ausgezeichnet 1946 mit dem Nobelpreis für Literatur, starb am 9. August 1962 in Montagnola bei Lugano.

Wenn Sie mehr über sein Leben bzw. sein Werk wissen möchten, klicken Sie einfach hier:

http://www.hermann-hesse.de