Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who greatly enjoys his quiet peaceful life in the Shire, until he gets trained in with thirteen dwarves and a wizard to fetch the dwarves' long lost treasure guarded by a powerful dragon in the dangerous Wild.

I loved this book, in practically all aspects. The details, the era, it is an entirely different world that J.R.R. Tolkien created. There are orcs, goblins, elves, wood elves, dwarves, men, dragons, wizards, hobbits, and of course, whatever Gollum is. But those aren't really talked about, their history and culture and such, in the Hobbit, that is seen more in Lord of the Rings. In the Hobbit, there is actually a lack of descriptions that leaves a lot to the imagination. For example, the thirteen dwarves have no comparative descriptive features. We only know them by name and most are always grouped together, with the exception of Thorin, Balin and Bombur. The few descriptions we have are of the colour of their cloaks and the general appearance of a dwarf. We can only differentiate Bombur by his fatness. The same goes for orcs and elves, only general appearances are given. The only creature that is sufficiently described is probably Gollum.
The same goes for the countrysides. Although they are considerably more detailed than characters, I often found that the map included on the inside cover of the book to be very useful. The other thing that is disappointing in a way, is that once Gandalf leaves the company to attend to his own business, we know practically nothing about what he does, or what the other characters do when not with Bilbo. Judging from the trailer, I know that this will be different in the movie. One interesting thing to note is that although the book is not in first person, but told by a narrator, everytime Bilbo passes out or is on his own, we follow him, and know nothing of the other characters' doings. We are even told Bilbo's feelings while the other characters' secrets remain mysteries.
All the same, The Hobbit is a great read. And from what I've read so far of the entire saga, I can see that the movies aren't interpretations of the books, like so many others, for example, Harry Potter or even Twilight. The Lord of the Rings movies, and soon the Hobbit movies, complement the books, and quite literally put them on film. They almost complete each other. Take for example the songs. Tolkien wrote many songs in the Hobbit, and wrote the lyrics characters sing at various point in time, and a movie with a soundtrack would complete the musical aspect.
All in all, I <3 the LOTR and the Hobbit, and long live Middle Earth! What are you waiting for? Go and enrich your imagination!

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Contents for The Hunger Games Reviews

1. The Hunger Games Review
2. Catching Fire and Mockingjay Review

I don't have too much to say about the second and third installments (Catching Fire, Mockingjay, respectively) in the Hunger Games trilogy. The author is the same therefore the writing is the same. The story itself begins to really complicate itself with political plots, revolutions, and the love triangle gets seriously messed up. More people die, and as there is more death, Katniss becomes more damaged. I won't be giving you a little synopsis, because whatever I say will be a spoiler for the previous novel. In fact, I feel like I have already revealed too much. These books really have twists everywhere, unexpected events are just constantly thrown in your face as you read on. Perhaps this is why The Hunger Games are so well liked, they are perfectly unpredictable. Sometimes, the unpredicatbility is expected, and so it loses the element of surprise, but most of the time you think, "The author wouldn't kill that character off, it wouldn't make sense", or "no way that's going to happen, it just can't!". One thing I noticed, is that, especially in Mockingjay, chapters end in small, dramatic sentences. An example that is not too revealing about the plot is: "My words hang in the air. I look to the screen, hoping to see them recording some wave of reconciliation going through the crowd.
Instead, I watch myself get shot on television." And the next chapter starts with her in the hospital, not knowing what happened. This type of style is quite good, and it helps with the first person present style of writing. We know what Katniss knows. If she faints and wakes up later, we have no idea what happened in between the fainting and waking up. In a way, a lot of little questions are left unanswered like this, but they will never be answered because to know the answer would be to know the inner workings of other characters' minds, and Katniss is not a mind reader.

As with the first installment, both books were well received, by both critics and and readers alike. I myself liked the series as a whole, but there were a few things I didn't like as much. For example, I didn't like that the love plot wasn't explored as much as the violence and deaths and politics. Also, the ending of Mockingjay, that is, the epilogue, is very vague, and tells us nothing really about the state of the world after a big climaxing battle. We only have the very basics to end the story, while a much more than a reader could handle is up to them to decide. It takes a lot of thinking, in fact, just to figure out what happens in the end. And the only character to whom we know what happens long after the battle, is Katniss. In keeping with the first person ideals, it would mean that she never kept in touch with her allies, friends, etc. I find that hard to believe, and yet, not a single word on the fate of the surviving characters, not even some of the most important ones. But disregarding the ending, The Hunger Games trilogy is an exciting tale, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone.

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Contents for The Hunger Games Reviews

1. The Hunger Games Review
2. Catching Fire and Mockingjay Review

Pressured by the all-round praise for this book, I took it upon myself to read it to see what everyone was going on about, and it turns out I finished it (454 pg.) in half a day. So now, without further ado, here is my review;

The Hunger Games, written by Suzanne Collins, is both the title of the book as well as the name of the series which encompasses three novels in total,The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. The Hunger Games (book) tells the story of Katniss Everdeen, in a futuristic world. In this world, there is the main city where everyone with power and money resides, called the Capitol, and branching out around this city are the 12 Districts, each one specialising in a resource, for example fishing, agriculture, electronics etc., each resource given to Capitol, leaving the districts very poor. Following a revolution quite some time ago, a sort of punishment called the Hunger Games happens every year. Each year, one girl and one boy from each district is chosen at random, and all 24 children must compete to the death, the only rule: kill or be killed, while the whole thing is televised. The story starts when Katniss, from district 12 (specialising in coal mining), volunteers to enter the Hunger Games in place of her younger sister. Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favour.

I understand why this book is liked everywhere. It has everything, the fuzzy love-triangle, the action, the deaths, the subtle political themes, and even from time to time the humour. Written in first person from Katniss' perspective, I do sometimes find her overly hot-headed and unable to handle some situations, but a perfect heroine makes for a boring story. The writing style is not very common, consisting mainly of short simple sentences, reflecting the way Katniss would actually think in her mind. There are very little details, that is, most of the environments and what they look like are completely left up to the reader. For example, the Capitol has a seal that is constantly shown during the Games, but no description of it is ever given, only that it is a seal. The writing style is also divided into conversations, Katniss' feelings, her inner monologues, but there are also long paragraphs from time to time that seem to be written for the sole purpose of explaining a particular aspect of the future. Since the book is written in first person present, it is not some sort of diary, but a live account of the events, so to speak, and so, the explanatory paragraphs seem to be written by the author herself instead of Katniss explaining it to the reader. It may sound strange as I am explaining the writing style, but it all fits and reads perfectly.
In a nut shell, I really like this book, and although the story has a few discrepancies, and leaves you wondering a few things, I can understand why everyone is crazy over this book. Even other already successful authors have acclaimed it. Among them, Stephen King and Anthony Horowitz (author of the Alex Rider series, which I love!!). Stephen King, in a very funny review, explained what was good with it and what wasn't. He gave The Hunger Games an overall B grade. His most prominent problems with the novel are the standard love-triangle and Katniss Everdeen's name, as well as the fact that the fight-for-life-while-everything-is-televised idea isn't exactly news. Most people will immediately think of Battle Royal, which shares the theme of random selection for the contestants, weapons given in the 'arena', as well as the theme that involves punishing people for previous revolutions/bad behaviour (in Battle Royal, teenagers against adults, while in Hunger Games, districts against the Capitol).

Even if the novel has striking similarities to other works, it doesn't change the fact that it is an enjoyable read and it is almost impossible to set down. I definitely recommend it.

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Movie poster and my book cover

La Gloire de mon Père (My Father's Glory), followed by Le Chateau de ma Mère (My Mother's Castle), are autobiographical works written by Marcel Pagnol. They follow the events of his childhood, mostly concentrating on his time in a countryside house, La Bastide Neuve, in Aubagne, France. Both originally written in French and published in 1957, They are the first two books in Marcel Pagnol's Souvenirs D'enfance, a collection of biographies. However, out of four, only the first two books were successful, while the last one was never finished and was published posthumously. In addition, only La Gloire de mon Père and Le Chateau de ma Mère were made into movies by Yves Robert in 1990.

Although they are considered as novel biographies, they truly are only recounts of memories. The memories are quite jumpy, but still in chronological order. Many important details are left out, and when necessary, they are just casually talked about as if mentioned before. An example of this would be the birth of Marcel Pagnol's sister. She is completely left out until one day a sister is being carried in the arms of his mother. Another disapointing aspect of the books is that a good half of it is simply memories of hunting. Entire chapters are just him recounting his hunting expeditions with his father and uncle and best friend. These books are in no way novels, but simply memories put to paper. Even so, it is always interesting to read about other's childhoods. I watched the movies as well as reading the books, and there are quite a few differences. The movie version of Le Chateau de ma Mère features an entire story plot that involves young Marcel's first love, but she is never once mentioned in the book version. I do admit, the second novel doesn't hold much action to make a decent movie. I quite liked the movies, as well as the books, but I said before they only consist of memories put to paper, or to film. This concept makes for quite a boring movie though, unfortunately.

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The different stories were very entertaining, and I must say that my favorite was Robert Frobisher's, followed by Timothy Cavendish's. However, I was little disappointed there wasn't any bigger connection between all the people and stories. The connections that led one into the other are very strained, but it doesn't stop this book from being a good read, and being thought-provoking. I definitely recommend it to anyone who just wants to read something interesting, without the whole beginning-middle-end shebang, just to spice up their reading.

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As with any Stephen King book, it is extremely well written. But it's not just the style, or the word choice, it has more to do with the fact that everything happens so fast, yet the book only contains five days. The novel is 877 pages long, and anybody would be scared to start such a huge thing, but the actual events in the story happen extremely fast, you are never once bored. That is really something, especially considering the fact that an entire chapter could explain what happened in a span of five minutes. Another factor adds to the great length of the book. It has as many characters as Chester's Mills has inhabitants (the town under the Dome). Although most of them have no character development, only names mentioned once or twice, there are 48 major characters. As with any story, some characters are more developed than others, but these 48 have quite extensive personalities, including Horace, a yellow Corgi. While one character is doing something on one side of town, another could be doing something else elsewhere. Although the story has extra-terrestrials (I doubt that's much of a spoiler), we are never really explained the origin of the Dome. The novel isn't about that. It's about how people react to sudden isolation. I love this type of story, I especially like to marvel at all the scared people who become sheep and follow the one crazy religious person who self-proclaims themselves as leaders, or shepherds, as they would say. Under the Dome touches some important political, psychological, and environmental issues.

The book cover of my copy of the novel

The political aspect encounters incompetency. Big Jim Rennie is the power-crazed small-town politician who snaps in his lust for power once the Dome comes down. He starts to plan a dictatorship, and uses the occasion to start destroying his meth lab, which was the biggest supplier of meth in the United States, until the Dome came down. Big Jim knows how to control the town, and the many incompetent idiots that also have powerful roles in the town's society. Stephen King said, during an interview with Time Magasine concerning his book, "Sometimes the sublimely wrong people can be in power at a time when you really need the right people".
The psychological aspect centers around how people become completely different in a matter of minutes, once survival instincts kick in. It also shows how people are zombies, following the first command they hear, because they need someone to tell them what to do. But there are also, of course, those who keep a relative amount of common sense and independence.
The environment issue is simple enough. The Dome is invisible at first, but after the first day, it has become visible because of smog, fire smoke, exhaust from cars, etc. Air passes through the Dome, but just barely, and the people under it never experience wind, nor do they quite care really. Their main objectives are food and propane (which will cause more pollution). Only in the end do people start to realise how precious air is, and even one man who is seen smoking a cigarette is looked on with horror. There are several fires inside the Dome, as well as a few outside, when planes crash into the huge invisible barrier, and after a while, the Dome itself becomes dirty with soot, and is no longer qualified to be deemed invisible.
Overall, I loved Under the Dome. I seem to have a penchant for isolation stories, I love trying to figure out which will become which before the isolation actually occurs. For example, who will be the first to be killed by a fellow human, who will be the religion fanatic, the self-proclaimed leader, the 'sensible ones' who resist the self-proclaimed leader, the first to suicide, etc. Sometimes, the most unexpected people change for the worst. I was a bit disappointed that the Dome's background wasn't clarified much, but the Dome is only the MacGuffin for the novel. As always, Stephen King has produced a masterpiece, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone. For those who 'aren't into the whole readin' thing', a mini-series based on the novel is planned, but as with everything in this world, the book is, and always will be, infinitely better.

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Le Fantôme de Canterville (Canterville Ghost)

I started with The Canterville Ghost, which is the original English title for Le Fantôme de Canterville. I really enjoyed the story. It was really humorous, and overall was a morally significant story with plenty of love and valuable lessons. Almost every character learns something important about life, and they all live happily ever after, including the ghost. Beyond all the love and comedy, the story itself is very predictable, but I could hardly call it unoriginal as most stories following a similar plot line are based on this very tale, which could very well be the first of its kind, but I'm not sure of this. It is too bad not many people know this story, but if a movie was made today, it would be a good family movie or even a chick flick that would earn a reasonable profit and people would enjoy it, but only if the actual words of the play were used. The movie I watched was an actual movie, but used the play as a script. This works very well, even if the lines in the movie were not the original words per se.

Un Mari Idéal (An Ideal Husband)

The next movie to come was An Ideal Husband (Un Mari Idéal). This was an actual play, performing for an audience, that was filmed. This play was very different to the previous one. For one thing, speeches were longer, the story was a lot more intricate and harder to understand, and the humour was different somehow. I can't quite pin point what I mean by the humour was different, but I suppose in a way, The Canterville Ghost had more of a silly humour, that is people acting silly, but An ideal Husband had more of a punchline comedy. What people said was funny, in contrast to (in Canterville Ghost) how people funnily commented on others' actions. The story involved politics, blackmailing, bribery, suspected affairs, and a manipulative lying woman intent on getting money. This is very different to the morally rich family story from before. Even so, it was enjoyable in its own right, and was just as funny. Although it was sometimes long, when two people talked forever, and there was one particular person I did not like (Lady Chiltern, wife to Sir Robert Chiltern). Her whole personality was just plain annoying. The most important character to the story I think, who fixes all the problems that arise, is Lord Goring. He was also the wittiest and the funniest, and that is why he was my favorite part of the story. In an extreme view, he was the only reason why this was so enjoyable.

A Woman of no Importance (Une Femme sans Importance)

The last one was A Woman of no Importance (Une Femme sans Importance). This was even more different to the other two. There was close to no humour, and it was a sombre, serious story. There was love, but it was display very briefly, and in a non romantic way, most of the characters are detestable, which is the wanted effect I presume, and the whole story seemed to be just a charade. I really get the feeling that Oscar Wilde only wrote this to criticise how English Society worked. The story reminded of a strange selective mix between Cruel Intentions and The Portrait of Dorian Gray. The Lord in this particular story was uncannily like Lord Henry, and there was a bet similar to the one in Cruel Intentions, and the people behaved similarly to the high class personality Sebastian displayed, i.e very judgemental and a complete liar and hypocrite. Most of the characters were like Sebastian; they ratted on and insulted each other behind each other's backs. They also disregarded the poorer society, thinking along the lines that the poor were just objects at their service. The story wasn't very great, there was no character development and there were many things unanswered, which aren't crucial, but leave you with an empty feeling after watching the movie. In one phrase, I didn't really enjoy this story.

My impression of Wilde's works is that they are incredibly varied. It seems to me that all his works are critising something, but sometimes he doesn't bother hiding the insults behind symbolic meanings. Even so, almost everything I have read or watched of him was enjoyable, and criticism for his era doesn't have much significance now, at least not to the average person.

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Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint Exupéry

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint Exupéry, pen name Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was born on the 29th of June 1900, in Lyon, France. He was born into a family of provincial nobility, and his father died when he was four. In 1921, he started a military career by joining with the 2nd Regiment of Light Cavalry. He also moved to Strasbourg to study to become a pilot. He was successful in gaining his license but turned down a job proposal to work in the Air Force, at the insistent request of his fiancée's family. Instead, Saint Exupéry took an office job in Paris. Some short time later the engagement was called off and Antoine struggled with various odd jobs.
Eventually, in 1926, he was able to fly again as a pioneer for the Aéropostale, an international postal flight company. He flew between Toulouse, France and Dakar, Senegal as well as being the airline stopover manager in Cape Juby airfield, in the Sahara.
In 1929, Saint Exupéry was promoted and moved to Argentina where he was the airline director of Aeroposta Argentina. He also starting writing and published his first book (Courrier Sud) in 1921. His life would continue on peacefully until he crashed with his navigator André Prévot into the Sahara desert. Both were in a race which could give the winner a prize of 150,000 francs. Although they survived the crash itself, they had low rations and dehydration was their biggest fear. They were rescued on their fourth day by a Bedouin who found them. While still stranded, they had suffered hallucinations and had stopped sweating from extreme dehydration.

Consuelo and Antoine

He married Consuelo Suncin in 1931, and their marriage turned into a tumultuous one, especially with Saint Exupéry's many affairs, as well as his travelling employment.
Saint Exupéry had carried on as both a writer and aviator living in America. While flying around Central America, he crashed again, this time in Guatemala in 1941, and he spent three months in the hospital there. The following year, his most famous novella, Le Petit Prince, was finished.
In 1943, Saint Exupéry stopped writing and joined the troops on their way to North Africa during World War II. He later served with the Free French Forces and fought with the Allies near the Mediterranean. On one assignment, he had to assess German troop movements near the Rhone Valley. This assignment was Saint Exupéry's last, as he crashed (again) and disapeared. A body that couldn't be identified was found near the crash, and although not officially verified, it is thought to be Saint Exupéry's body. He died (crashed rather) on the 31st of July 1944.

50 French francs

Exupéry's best known novella is Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince). Having sold 80 million copies and having been translated in over 190 languages, it is one of the best-selling books ever. It tells the story of a pilot who crashed in the Sahara desert (familiar?) and meets a little blond boy, named the Little Prince. The prince asks the pilot, who tells most of the story from his point of view, to draw a sheep, and the story also jumps to how the prince left his home planet and travelled around until landing in the Sahara. Although an infantile children's book, the story has many thematic elements. The prince meets a fox who says many meaningful lines, such as: On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux (One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye).
There are several homages to the novella; when France had the francs currency, Saint Exupéry and the Little Prince were on the 50 franc notes. An asteroid discovered in 1975 was named 2578 Saint-Exupéry after the author, and another discovered in 1993 was named 46610 Bésixdouze, meaning "Beesixtwelve" (B 6 12), after the Little Prince's home asteroid, its name B-612. In Japan, the Museum of the Little Prince can be found, which has outdoor sculptures of the Little Prince, his B-612 etc. There were also countless adaptations of the book, including plays and operas.
I read the book, in French, and honestly did not like it, mainly because of the writing style. It was very particular, and I also found the story quite jagged. Jagged in the way that elements of the story were told in an out of order fashion, and there were two narrators, the pilot as well as an actual impartial narrator.

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