A good short read

An interesting prequel to Jane Eyre. Very short, telling the story of the woman in the attic. Not brilliant, but not bad either. Worth reading but don't expect great things.

OMG

Holy-good-gravy I never knew it could be like this!! This is, by far, one of the best written, best drawn things you will ever lay your paws on. If you havent already read it, you must. Trust me, it's like a good, no... fantastic movie that lasts for ages. And it doesnt loose pace, it just gets better. I was so hooked when I started reading it. I was lucky enough to come across it online first, thats where I got my taste for it, it's just... brilliant. Everyone I've shown it too has fallen for it too. <br /><br />The characters... oh the characters Raito-kun(Light in this translation), I dont care if he's technically evil, HE'S SO COOL!!! And L!! (seen more in later volume) Wow... the selection of characters really is divine, so much lovelyness.... and so sinister at points.<br /><br />Just enjoy the insane prices Amazon are currently selling Death Note at, £3.86?!! INSANE!!! You simply must buy it. Better than any tv series like it.

Good read at work!!.

Screen Burn is a collection of scathingly funny observations about TV programs taken from a popular uk newspaper from 2001-2004;and compiled into one big book.Charlie Brooker wrote the articals,and of course is the author of the book(screen burn).The articles are all in nice bite size 1-3 page chunks;so like me you can pick it up and put it down when it suits you and not loose the plot,or have the agony of putting it down when it was just getting good.Some storys had me laughing out loud,and some that i could not relate to didn't;either way you know at some point you will come across one sooner or later that will satisfy you entertainment needs.<br /><br />Charley Brooker also makes you say to your-self,"yes!! it's about time someone said that about that program and this person".He certainly gives some of his 'victims' a good hiding, and pays compliments where it's due.<br /><br />The reason i gave this only three stars is because he can rant a bit to much,and could write a bit more about some of the TV programs that i myself thought were a load of old tosh....yes i know, hows he supposed to know that, but.. well some people are never happy are they....I recommend this book if you want a bit of fun when you are board and want some TV junk therapy....

Better for Foundation Tier!!!

This book is quite light-hearted, and as another review says, probably contains everything you need to pass- get a C grade. It doesn't, however, contain the information i would personally say you need for the A*-B Therefore is better for foundation. I have now bought the York Notes revision book, which is much better for higher grades!!!

a fine translation.

Following a battle for supremacy, Eteocles and Polyneices, the two sons of Oedipus, kill each other, leaving Creon, the brother-in-law to Oedipus, as ruler of Thebes. Since Polyneices lead the attacking force against Thebes, Creon labelled him a traitor and denied him any funeral rites. Anyone who countermanded this law would do so on pain of death.

This is the backdrop to The Burial at Thebes, formerly know as Antigone, the last play in the Oedipus trilogy by Sophocles.

It is a play of desperate and wrenching simplicity. The eponymous Antigone, sister of Polyneices, is faced with a choice: to choose between obeying the dictates of family love, in giving burial to her slaughtered brother, or to obey the laws of the state, as represented by King Creon. Her choice is made without hesitation, to honour the dead and defy the state. This is done at a terrible cost. She not only relinquished her own life but also her betrothed's, Haemon son of Creon, who fell on his own sword when he saw her dead. Following Haemon's death, Creon's wife, Euripides, takes up Creon's sword and after cursing her husband kills herself. Creon ends the play a broken man. His pride, his stubbornness in refusing to rescind the death penalty, ultimately cost him his wife and only son.

Many elements of the play lend themselves to modern times and dilemmas, but unlike some other translators, Heaney has the sense to trust in the original, and adds little in the way of anxiously contemporary signposting. He keeps the lines taut and clear, making the effect of this play all the more powerful. Antigone contains some choruses which are among the most famous in all Greek tragedy, and Heaney gives a very impressive account of these, adding a kind of dark burnish to the verbal atmosphere of his translation.

If you are an admirer of Greek tragedy I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book. Also, if you enjoyed Heaney's Beowulf, you will like this too. It is another great reinvention of a classic.

Read ALL about it!

Wow, being a Clarkson fan I didn't think I would like Piers Morgan's book very much, but I had a long-haul flight to get through so I thought I would give it a go. And an excellent decision it proved.<br /><br />Picking it up I worried that it would only be a superfluous collection of amusing anecdotes revolving around celebrities, which is fine for 1 page in a Mail on Sunday column but would almost certainly leave me reaching for the sickbag after more that half an hours reading, so to my sheer delight I was surprised to discover that there was so much more contained within this book. Fascinating and incredibly candid insights into the world of politics and media, and Morgan's personal relationships with the movers and shakers that really did surprise me. I was so gripped that this really was a book that I have to say was virtually unputdownable!<br /><br />I laughed out loud reading Morgan's version of events in his feud with Clarkson, and reading between the lines I would say that, amazingly, he holds the higher moral ground than my favourite Times columnist!!<br /><br />There are many, many other laugh out loud moments including this snippet from Stephen Fry"The new definition of"countryside" is the murder of Piers Morgan" - I'm not sure too many of the people shown up in this book would disagree with this sentiment.<br /><br />All in a great book. Buy it.

Very Effective

This was recommended to me after I read and very much enjoyed 'All Clear On The Western Front'. It's similar in nature I suppose, looking at the human aspect of World War One, though Western Front seems to get across far more starkly just how ghastly it all was.

Some of that will no doubt be down to the fact that Journey's End concentrates on the lives of officers who had a higher standard of living even in the trenches. Also, with Journey's End being a play it is set over a far shorter timeframe which leaves less options to develop each of the characters.

The key player, Stanhope, is a young officer in charge of a company who is suffering incredible stress and keeping his head above water merely with the use of whiskey. They other key officers are all suffering in their own ways, with Raleigh a newcomer who is initially extremely optimistic though quickly shocked into the realities of the war.

There are two key characters killed during the course of the play and the loss is felt in a moving way. You do feel for each of the characters which I guess is a good example of how well written they are.

I've never really been one for reading plays, preferring to see them of course, but this reads well. Now, I must see it.

Classic work

Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till on greater Man
Restore us and regain the blissful seat
Sing, Heavenly Muse...
Not a lot people know that ’Paradise Lost’ has as a much lesser known companion piece ’Paradise Regained’; of course, it was true during Milton’s time as it is today that the more harrowing and juicy the story, the better it will likely be remembered and received.

This is not to cast any aspersion on this great poem, however. It has been called, with some justification, the greatest English epic poem. The line above, the first lines of the first book of the poem, is typical of the style throughout the epic, in vocabulary and syntax, in allusiveness. The word order tends toward the Latinate, with the object coming first and the verb coming after.

Milton follows many classical examples by personifying characters such as Death, Chaos, Mammon, and Sin. These characters interact with the more traditional Christian characters of Adam, Eve, Satan, various angels, and God. He takes as his basis the basic biblical text of the creation and fall of humanity (thus, ’Paradise Lost’), which has taken such hold in the English-speaking world that many images have attained in the popular mind an almost biblical truth to them (in much the same way that popular images of Hell owe much to Dante’s Inferno). The text of Genesis was very much in vogue in the mid-1600s (much as it is today) and Paradise Lost attained an almost instant acclaim.

John Milton was an English cleric, a protestant who nonetheless had a great affinity for catholic Italy, and this duality of interests shows in much of his creative writing as well as his religious tracts. Milton was nicknamed ’the divorcer’ in his early career for writing a pamphlet that supported various civil liberties, including the right to obtain a civil divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, a very unpopular view for the day. Milton held a diplomatic post under the Commonwealth, and wrote defenses of the governments action, including the right of people to depose and dispose of a bad king.

Paradise Lost has a certain oral-epic quality to it, and for good reason. Milton lost his eyesight in 1652, and thus had to dictate the poem to several different assistants. Though influenced heavily by the likes of Virgil, Homer, and Dante, he differentiated himself in style and substance by concentrating on more humanist elements.

Say first -- for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell -- say first what cause
Moved our grand Parents, in that happy state,
Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off
From their Creator and transgress his will,
For one restraint, lords of the world besides?

Milton drops us from the beginning into the midst of the action, for the story is well known already, and proceeds during the course of the books (Milton’s original had 10, but the traditional epic had 12 books, so some editions broke books VII and X into two books each) to both push the action forward and to give developing background -- how Satan came to be in Hell, after the war in heaven a description that includes perhaps the currently-most-famous line:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, that serve in heav’n.

(Impress your friends by knowing that this comes from Book I, lines 261-263 of Paradise Lost, rather than a Star Trek episode!)

The imagery of warfare and ambition in the angels, God’s wisdom and power and wrath, the very human characterisations of Adam and Eve, and the development beyond Eden make a very compelling story, done with such grace of language that makes this a true classic for the ages. The magnificence of creation, the darkness and empty despair of hell, the manipulativeness of evil and the corruptible innocence of humanity all come through as classic themes. The final books of the epic recount a history of humanity, now sinful, as Paradise has been lost, a history in tune with typical Renaissance renderings, which also, in Milton’s religious convictions, will lead to the eventual destruction of this world and a new creation.

A great work that takes some effort to comprehend, but yields great rewards for those who stay the course.

Great except for public spaces

Brilliant headphones for when no one else is around, but they have no back, no shielding at all and are as loud outside as in (for treble) so they - leak leak sound all around. My other Koss headphones have much stronger bass but that is not to everyone's taste. I would recommend newer designs by Koss instead - some sound just as good but are more practical.

"D" Book of Life

Gibran's poetic account of the Prophet is the ultimate guide to a fulfilling life. It has the rare power of pulling anyone out of a deadlock, a situation so enthralling that no solution seems to be worthwile. It has the literary sweetness of the Middle East, lucid yet enlightening.<br /><br />The Prophet - a wise man we find in every religion - discerns knowledge on the most essential particles of life, Children and Marriage, Passion and Love, Life and Death. It succeeds to succumb a human soul to inner peace, aming to effortlessly make a reader feel better, be better and exert betterness. <br /><br />Perhaps, besides absolutely recommending everyone to get a copy of this masterpiece, I'd only add one thing. Do get a hard cover copy of this book as you'll most certainly come back to it over and over again.

Relevent Then, Relevent Now

I think that An Inspector calls is an esential book to read.

When J.B Priestly wrote the play in the 1940's, it made a big point a bout class, and although those barriers are alot more faded and fallen than they were, they haven't completely dissapated, making this play still relevent today.

It is one of the set texts for at least one GCSE examining boards, so many will be studying it for their GCSE's. To those the reason to buy your own copy is obvious, school don't yell if you lose it, annotating is perfectly allowed, and the book is usually in a better state.

The play itself, is very brilliant, very dramatic, exciting and intiguing (yeah, I know I can't spell). I won't give everything away (that would be very mean...)but as every character reveals their story, it links into the others, and makes you want to hear the rest. When you have heard all the stories, you can't blame the girl for killing herself.

The Odyssey in 24 words

Mediterranean cruise with divine beauties and blind shepherds, swine and swingers, Scylla and Charybdis and Hades minitour. With wife at home taking double turns.

L emerges and hits hard...

The story continues where it left off, Ryuk searching Light’s room for hidden camera’s and bugs put there in the first place by L. Majority of this volume is Light vs L head to head! Firstly, in a first tennis match following some hard talk in a cafe! Suprising killing spree at the end, but who was it?

As always, the story of Death Note keeps everything tight to the last moment. The art is asusual, very attractive and simply wonderful. Both the art the the story makes you to want more! Well, you can get more, as soon as March!

Pure Delight

This is the best of Thomas. His affinity with the Welsh, his love of language, particularly their language, his melancholy and his air of delightfully mischievous humour just permeate this work through and through.<br />This was originally written to be heard, as a play for voices, i.e. radio. Reading it, however wonderful, and it is, is never going to replace the joy of listening to it, or seeing it in production. The play brings out the musical quality and the joyous rhythm of the words, and I would recommend using the book as a companion piece to the radio play, which is also available to buy.<br />I love the wonderful use of alliteration and repetition which makes this work seem so primal and ritualistic. I love the cheekiness of the characters; the blind captain, who reminds us that what we have to do is listen, the anally retentive housewife with two dead husbands who she still henpecks even after death and the drowned sailors like a Greek chorus pulling us back to the reality of ever present death roiling under all that effervescent life.<br />A masterpiece.

Top Play

This offering from feminist playwright Caryl Churchill is an uncompromising critique of the capitalist mode of feminism as advocated by the model of the eighties power women, most obviously personified by Margaret Thatcher.<br /><br />'Top Girls' deploys an interesting technique whereby characters narratives overlap leading to complicated scenarios wherein meaning is lost in the melee of competing voices. It certainly makes for difficult listening or reading but acts uniquely as a physical representation of the interupted and disjointed histories of the women whose situation it aims to ameliorate.<br /><br />The play is split into three main sections. The first act witnesses the meeting of various fictional and non-fictional characters from history, literature and art at a dinner party. The party has been organised to celebrate the recent career success of central character Marlene. Marlene works for an agency designed to find jobs for women. <br /><br />The first section reflects the women's various instances of"success" whilst exposing the commonality of their suffering both at the hands of men and indeed at their hands of their own complicity with the phallocentric societies in which they found themselves.<br /><br />The next two acts are situated in the present, within a year of each other, and focus on Marlene's character. This present experience acts as an interesting counterpoint to the dinner-time narratives. It becomes abundantly clear that Marlene too, though ostensibly successful, comes with her own baggage and we are asked to quesiton how far indeed women have come, if at all.<br /><br />'Top Girls' should not be mistaken for a cynical and negative play: far from it. It's message is that there is hope but only through a socialist ethic of togetherness where the intended output is the common good rather than the elevated succes of the individual. This idea is neatly illustrated by Isabella's illness where she reveals that her head could not be supported by the diseased spine. That is to say, without the foundations of a strong society the most talented and superficially gifted individual cannot truly thrive.<br /><br />I would recommend it on many levels. On the most basic level it is full of dark humour and the chaotic, drunken opening act is compelling both visually and due to the uinique use of overlapping narratives. Gret will make you smile almost everytime she releases one of her limited utterances while Angie's 'momentary' cannibalism is shocking to the extreme.<br /><br />However, when revisited you will be able to further plumb its hidden depths and observe admiringly how Churchill subtly weaves her earnest polemic into the fabric of the novel. <br />

A rare talent, a cultural genius and an extraordinary thinker...

Clive James should still be on the small screen, but then again he doesn't fit comfortably on the small screen since he is culturally so far above it. The small screen continues to sink while he continues to rise and astound us with his wit, his genius and his literary brilliance.<br />I am still reading the book but every time I pick it up and taste the delights inside, I am astonished. Every thinking human being should have this on their bookshelf it is a gem of a book, a treasure trove of genius.