Hi, everyone! Have you ever heard of the New York Time bestselling “The Love Hypothesis”? It is a rom-com that became very popular on BookTok, which is a sub-community of TikTok, focusing on literature and books, where people discuss and review what they have read through their Tik Tok. I have just finished it and I really loved its plot and style. It is funny, light and lovely. If you enjoy romance as much as I do, you must read it!
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Last summer we all in 5scB read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and then we discussed it with our English teacher once we were back from our summer holidays. It was an interesting and thought-provoking read. Here are some of our reflections.
The Time of Indifference is a novel written by Alberto
Moravia and published for the first time in 1929.
This book talks about the bourgeois Ardengo family. Mariagrazia Ardengo, a widow, has two children: Carla and Michele. Moreover, she has had a lover, Leo Merumeci, for 15 years.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a novel written by Lev
Tolstoy and published in 1886.
This book
starts with the death of Ivan Ilyich, a member of the appeals court. His
colleagues, hearing of his death, do not show displeasure. Actually, everyone
hopes to take his place.
Pëtr Ivanovich, one of the protagonist’s friends, proves to be insensitive to his death. Indeed, while he is taking part in Ivan’s funeral, he thinks about the card game he is missing.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a bildungsroman and crime novel written
by Harper Lee and published in 1960, which in the same year the Pulitzer Prize.
The protagonist and the narrator of this book is Jean Louise Finch, a child nicknamed Scout. She and her brother Jem, orphans of their mother, live in Maycomb (in Alabama) with a dark-skinned governess, Calpurnia, and their father, the lawyer Atticus Finch.
The Little Prince is a fable written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and published in 1943. The book starts with the meeting between an aviator, fallen onto the Sahara desert, and a child, the little prince of an asteroid called B-612.
The Metamorphosis is an allegorical novel by Franz
Kafka, published in 1915.
The protagonist of this book, Gregor Samsa, is a travelling salesman. He lives with his sister Grete, his mother and his father, a very strict man (probably inspired by Kafka’s father).
One, No One and One Hundred Thousand is a psychological novel written by Luigi Pirandello. This story was published in instalments in 1925 in the magazine “La Fiera Letteraria” and, as an integral volume, in 1926.
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an
epistolary novel written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and published in 1774.
The protagonist is Werther, a bourgeois young man. He decides to move to Walheim to restore the inner balance he feels lost; here he feels connected to nature. Meanwhile, he sends letters to his friend Wilhelm.
Agnes Grey
is a novel published in 1847 and written by Anne Brontë,
the younger sister of Charlotte and Emily Brontë.
Agnes Grey, the protagonist of Anne’s novel, is a girl who has grown in a happy family, in contrast to the protagonists of Jane Eyre (by Charlotte Brontë) and Wuthering Heights (by Emily Brontë), her sisters’ masterpieces. Her dad is a minister, while her mum is woman who has given up her prosperity for love.
Marina is a gothic novel written by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and published for the first time in 1999.
This book tells
about Oscar Drai and his adventure. At the beginning, Oscar recalls one of his
memories, something happened to him fifteen years before, which he has
pretended to forget.
“I didn’t realise then that sooner or later the ocean of time brings back the memories we submerge in it”
Animal Farm is an allegoric and satirical short novel written by George Orwell (pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair) and published in 1945.
The story tells about a rebellion in Manor Farm by the animals who live there. The owner of the farm, Mr Jones, mistreats his animals. At this point, Old Major, the eldest pig, tired about this situation, says that he has dreamt a life without human beings where animals lived in peace and where they were happier. Therefore, he incites other animals to rebel against Mr Jones’ tyranny.
White nights is a short novel written by Fëdor Dostoevskij and published for the first time in 1848. This novel is set in Saint Petersburg during those summer days, when the sun sets after 22:00.
The story is told in first person. In this way, the reader lives the same turmoil and the same fears as the protagonist. In addition, the fact that the author does not describe physically the protagonist and does not say his name, ensure the reader can relate and identify with him better.
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| Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre (2011) |
Jane Eyre is a book published in 1847 by Charlotte Brontë aka Currer Bell (she chose a male pseudonym to publish her books since it was considered improper for women). It is a Bildungsroman novel with Gothic elements. The original title was Jane Eyre: an autobiography. Actually, in the novel, there are many autobiographical elements and Jane Eyre’s life has some features in common with the author’s life.
The story of the book
The
book speaks about Daniel’s adventure. In 1945 in Barcelona, the owner of a bookshop decides to show his son Daniel
Sempere “The Cemetery of The Forgotten Books”, a place where the people bring
out-of-print books to save them. There, Daniel Sempere
discovers a book called The shadow of the
wind by Julian Carax. This book captures Daniel’s imagination.
He
wants to know Carax and so he investigates about him. He discovers that his copy
is the last one because a mysterious figure called Laìn Coubert wants to
destroy Carax’s works. In Carax’s story, Laìn Coubert is the name of the Devil.
He
discovers a “damned” story, impossible loves and a macabre secret. This is a
story where Daniel finds out uncannily resemblances with his life.
During
the research, he knows many characters such us Fermín Romero de Torres, who
will become his best friend, Gustavo Barcelo and his niece Clara, whom he will
fall in love with, and inspector Fumero, who will be his enemy.
The shadow of the wind is the most important and most popular of Zafón’s books.
“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know”
