NZ author and Lower Hutt teacher, Bernard Beckett, was interviewed by Kim Hill on the radio this morning. You can listen directly here or follow the link from this page (the audio will be up for another eight weeks). Beckett made the news recently when the UK rights to his book Genesis were sold for 100,000 quid.
Month: March 2008
Sporting expert, Jack, has compiled a Top 10 5 list of sport websites. If you can add any, leave a comment!
- cricinfo.com – All the goings-on in the world of cricket. Includes all the latest results, news, blogs, opinions and the most comprehensive archived statistics section I’ve ever seen. It even has a games section packed full of fun flash based mini-games to try. If cricket is your sport, then this should be your homepage!
- www.stuff.co.nz/sport – Everything you need to get up to speed on what’s happening in New Zealand and international sport. From Rugby to Running, Bowls to Basketball, it’s all covered here with articles from national newspapers, opinion pieces, videos and blogs.
- espn.com – If you follow any of the major American sports (Football, Basketball, Baseball, Ice Hockey, Nascar etc.) or just want an American perspective on the world of sport then this should be your first port of call. The site includes all the latest news, results, statistics and opinions, but that is just scratching the surface. There are also podcasts by leading sports journalists and highlights videos sourced from the ESPN network. There certainly are a lot of options here!
- allblacks.com – Rugby is New Zealand’s national sport and this is the website for our national team. Keep up to date with the Tri-Nations, Super 14 and Air New Zealand cup competitions with all the latest news, results and fixtures. Also download desktop wallpapers and watch videos all while pretending the 2007 World Cup never happened!
- motorsport.com – Whether you enjoy cars going around in circles very quickly (Nascar, Indycar), cars flying through snow and mud very quickly (World Rally Championship), motorbikes going around in circles very quickly (superbikes) or some other sort of really fast motorised vehicle (F1, drag-racing) it’s almost certainly on here. Keeping up to date on the fast (haha!) world of motorsport is made easy with motorsport.com’s sheer amount of up to the minute news and results. Other more specialised sites may go deeper, but none have a scope quite this wide.
The Warhammer Online Collector’s Edition has been announced; this will mean very little to anyone who doesn’t know what Warhammer Online will be. But for those in the know, good news! It will be packed with books, in-game extras and a graphic novel.
Elfquest was a comic series that began in the late 70s, and it is still being published today. We have several graphic novels in the library. But! Like all good things, it can be found for free on the Internet. Each week several issues are added to the archives at the Elfquest website – eventually all 6000 pages (!) will be available.
Enjoy!
There are several big films due to come out that are based on books. Books that we have in the library! Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Chronicles of Narnia : Prince Caspian , and Iron Man, for example, are all due out this year. But we do have plenty of DVDs already available that are based on books. Some aren’t very good, but some are great. And here are the ten greatest!
- Clueless – This is Jane Austen’s Emma, brilliantly transposed to modern (well, mid-90s) LA. Hilaaaarious.
Howl’s Moving Castle – based on the Diana Wynne Jones book of the same name.
- To Kill a Mockingbird – based on Lee Harper’s classic book. It is also the 25th best movie ever.
- The Colour Purple – based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer-prize winning book. You will need a box of tissues.
- Hellboy – based on the excellent Hellboy comics. Hellboy II is due out this year! I can’t wait.
- Sleepy Hollow – based loosely on Washington Irving’s 1820 tale, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It stars Johnny Depp and the fabulous Miranda Richardson.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – this is one of the better Harry Potter films yet, I think; it’s darker, more exciting, and if you had not seen any other of the series you’d still enjoy it.
- Lord of the Flies – based on the novel, this – the 1963 version – is better than the 1990 version. There, I said it!
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy – of course.
- I, Robot – not a particularly good film, but the book that it’s based on is.
The companion book to Lyra’s Oxford, Once Upon a Time in the North comes out soon-ish. While studying at Oxford, Lyra uncovers the story of Iorek Byrnisson’s first meeting with Lee Scoresby…
Apparently this also contains a board game. I’m trying to work out how a board game’s going to fit inside a relatively small book. Maybe it’s magic!
Yet again, more new YA DVDs are available. Since they’re so new and so popular you may need to reserve them, which you can do online. Click on the title!
These are the new DVDs:
- Rudy – Originally released in 1993. It’s about American football – or ‘gridiron’
- Viva La Bam : The Complete First Season – A comedy about … who knows? R13
- The Best of Cribs – A documentary about the houses cribs of the famous and rich.
- Lock ‘n Load – Motorcyling doco
- All Apologies, Kurt Cobain – Doco about Nirvana and Cobain.
- Tekkonkinkreet – Award-winning anime. R13
- Being Eve – The NZ teen comedy drama series
- Sabrina, The Teenage Witch : The First Season
- Old School Sesame Street 1969-1974 and Old School Sesame Street 1974-1979 – These are in the children’s section, but who can resist?
YA DVDs cost 50c when issued on a YA or Child’s card. Reserves are free.
The Uganda Skateboard Union is “setting out to combat idleness and boredom among the youth of Uganda by providing a new, positive and fun outlet for them. This outlet is Skateboarding. The Organisation will focus on teaching and training Ugandan youth how to skateboard.” Their blog has many cool photos of kids grinding, kickflipping, McTwisting, and varial heel flipping.
The library holds a few skateboarding magazines in the Young Adult section: Transworld Skateboarding (website) and New Zealand Skateboarder. By the way.
So what’s an antihero? Counter-intuitively, an antihero isn’t a villain, they’re just a regular character with regular (and sometimes major) failings. We’re so used to reading about perfect characters in novels (see for example Peekay in The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay) that when we find one that’s kind of human they can sometimes seem worse than they really are. Personally, I find antiheroism a much more rewarding read. Here are some goodies:
- Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel by the Baroness Orczy. “They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That demmed elusive Pimpernel”. Poor Lady Blakeney; she thinks she’s married to the biggest, most cowardly git in Europe. Little does she know! The Scarlet Pimpernel is an absolute classic novel set in the reign of terror following the French Revolution.
- Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. The best antihero since Percy (see above), I think. Never has a man worried more about his hair and his clothes in the midst of imminent disaster and an incredibly messy home.
Victor Frankenstein in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Poor old Dr Frankenstein, all he wanted to do was create life. What he got was a (largely misunderstood) monster, and several generations of people who think that Frankenstein *is* the monster, not the creator. There are really two antiheroes in this novel; Dr Frankenstein, who gets more than he bargained for and reacts badly, and the monster, who really only wants to be loved (a nature versus nurture-type thing plays out to a grim conclusion). If you haven’t read it, Frankenstein’s great.
- Ed Kennedy in I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak. Ed’s an underage taxi driver living with a very smelly dog who plays a lot of cards with his mates (Ed, not the dog). At the beginning of the book he almost accidentally apprehends a bank robber, and his life takes some really weird twists and turns from there.
And on the subject: Death in The Book Thief, again by Markus Zusak. I was thinking it’d be a bit unfair to call Death a villain, so if Death’s not a villain then perhaps antihero is a better label? Check out Death in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett as well.
- With death on the brain now; Gabe Nevins in Paranoid Park by Blake Nelson (this has been made into a movie by Gus Van Sant). Here a young skateboarder “gets mixed up in a fight that leaves someone dead”. How do you handle that sort of secret guilt when you’re just an average teenager? If you like this you should give Right Behind You a go (Gail Giles): Kip McFarland accidentally sets someone alight; they die, and this is his huge and terrible secret.
- Holden Caulfield, narrator of The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger. All that whining and moaning: honestly, who could put up with it? But The Catcher in the Rye is a great read mostly because of old whiny, moany Holden. If you like The Catcher in the Rye, try King Dork by Frank Portman.
Ender Wiggin in Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Can Ender save the planet?
- Troy in Fat Kid Rules the World by K L Going. Making fun of the fat kid’s an obvious and tiresome sort of thing to do, and being made fun of can turn you into a most interesting antihero. This book’s got some good reviews and if you’re into music it’s worth a read.
- Gen in The Thief and The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner. Cocky, brash and extremely uncooperative, Gen is incarcerated for stealing from the king himself. But what happens when the king is the one in need of his services? In The Queen of Attolia, Gen rots in an Attolian prison awaiting his comeuppance… with unexpected results.
Okay, so they’re all male. Why is this, I wonder? Maybe the expectations of a patriarchal society hinder women from revealing their flaws? Maybe female writers can’t bring themselves to admit that girls do have the odd flaw? But that doesn’t make any sense. Would a female antihero work? Are there female antiheroes out there? Will keep investigating.
p.s. if you’re looking for a challenge then read The Astonishing life of Octavian Nothing, traitor to the nation, Volume 1: The pox party by M. T. Anderson, set in Boston in the 18th century during the American Revolution.
If you are (or you know someone who is) aged 15 – 17 (as at August this year), interested in science and/or the environment and are up for a free three-week trip to Japan in August read on.
The Japanese government is offering a chance to travel all expenses paid to Okinawa, Japan and study the natural environment of the place with 75 other young people from around the Asia-Pacific region. They’re looking for applications from anyone interested – Arigatou gozaimasu!
Visit here for the ‘further information’ document. Contact Tessa at the Global Education Centre for further info: 04 496 9510.
Passionate about saving the planet? You can make a difference! Why not take part in the Sir Peter Blake Youth Environment Forum 2008 and Earth Hour 2008?
Australian author Sonya Hartnett has won the sixth annual Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, walking away with a cool 5 million kronor ($965,600!). Hartnett is an intelligent author who’s not afraid of tackling some tricky subjects. So congratulations to her, and to all those writers out there: keep working at it and one day…
There’s a surprising amount of fiction about World War II, much of it inspired by true events.
The Boy in the striped pyjamas by John Boyne. Currently everyone’s favourite Holocaust novel. How to describe without spoiling it? A story told from the perspective of an innocent boy who doesn’t realise he’s caught up in monstrous times.
- Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli. Again, having an independent, innocent narrator telling the story of one of the most terrible times in recent history results in a compelling novel (this time set in Warsaw, Poland): brace yourself if you’re the kind of reader who doesn’t cope well with sad stories! See which you like better, this or The Boy in the Striped Pyiamas.
- Falling by Anne Provoost; translated by John Nieuwenhuizen. About Holocaust denial and racial tension. The book’s won several literary awards in Europe.
- Yellow star, Jennifer Roy. The true story of the author’s aunt Sylvia’s experiences in the Lodz ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland.
- Robert Moran, Private by Ken Catran. A New Zealand perspective.
- Escaping into the night by Dina D. Friedman. A horrible title, but a good book. Loosely based on actual events, the story’s about a 13 year old girl who escapes from the Warsaw ghetto. There’s adventure, mystery, and a pretty cool heroine.
Emil and Karl by Yankev Glatshteyn ; translated by Jeffrey Shandler (children’s fiction). Originally published in 1940 in Yiddish, which makes the story unique to say the least. Two boys (one Jewish, one not) find themselves family-less in Vienna (Austria) on the eve of World War II… suspenseful. This is in the children’s fiction collection, but worth a go.
- Maus, Art Spiegelman (graphic novel, adults). I might be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure this was the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. Maus tells the story of Art Spiegelman’s father’s experiences during World War II.
- The Dark Room, Rachel Seiffert (general fiction). Again I keep recommending this one – people must be getting sick of me. This is a really thoughtful book about the lingering guilt of being German post World War II. It’s also a really, really good example of “less is more” writing. If you’re interested in creative writing and you don’t like it when people attach three or more adjectives to everything they describe then read Rachel Seiffert. We can do with less of that flowery, over the top stuff.
Cheers, G.
Sam Stern has written three cookbooks for teens – and he is only 17. His recipes are fairly easy to make, and (if the photos in his books are any indication) are always delicious. We have all three books in the library: Cooking Up A Storm – The Teen Survival Cookbook; Real Food, Real Fast; and Get Cooking. His website is full of recipes from his books, new recipes, and even video recipes.
Another handy site for recipes, by the way, is Cuisine magazine’s recipe finder. Enter in up to four ingredients and it will recommend something delicious and extravagant to cook.
If you have lots of books – or you live in a house full of books – why not organise them by colour? It looks very striking. It probably wouldn’t work in a library, what with the dewey system and all that, but at home it can’t fail!
If you do rearrange all the books at home like this, do ask your parents first (they might mind). Unless you want to really surprise them.
Demonata 7 is called Death’s Shadow (Darren Shan – available May 2008). So what’s going to happen? “Bec is back to face the Demonata. After centuries of imprisonment, she’s more powerful than ever, but the demons no longer stand alone. Something else has crawled out of the darkness with her. Lord Loss is no longer humanity’s greatest threat!” (thanks to Amazon.co.uk)
Visit the author’s site to keep up with the play. Speaking of which, Darren Shan’s pretty with it – he has a myspace account too. The other Demonata books are here.
The new stuff just keeps pouring in. For a complete change of scenery, the new Gossip Girl book is The Carlyles. The Carlyles are, according to Amazon.com, the “most fabulous sixteen-year-old triplets to ever inhabit the Upper East Side.” The book’s going to be available some time after May this year, but you can reserve it now.
It’s an unlikely combo, I know: Darren Shan and Cecily von Ziegesar. I couldn’t help wondering what would happen if they got together and collaborated on Demonata #8 / The Carlyles #2…
Grimm
Okay, so, quicker than I anticipated the people upstairs have ordered the latest Christopher Paolini book (expected publication date; September this year), so you can place yourself at the top(ish) of the reserve list for Brisingr here, and then wait patiently.
Cheers, Grimm.
There’s some great stuff in the “adult” fiction collection that’s a good read for people who aren’t, well, old. If you’re looking for something different you could try one of these:
If you have ever been a teenage girl or you are one now, then this is the essential book for you! Some Girls Do: My Life as a Teenager is a funny and revealing collection of short stories contributed by some of Australia’s favourite female writers. The authors (including Belinda Alexandra, Jessica Adams, Kathy Lette, and many more) share with the reader intimate details about their own teen years, recounting all the excitement, drama and insecurities associated with adolescence. I loved this book because it offered an honest and optimistic portrayal of what it’s really like to be a teenage girl. “The 51 writers in this book have known angst, despair and not being part of the cool group, yet all have lived to tell the tale.”
Compiled as a fund-raiser for disadvantaged teenage girls, all royalties from Some Girls Do… go towards SISTER2sister – an Australian mentoring programme for young women.
