First Book of 2009

Is Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.

I started reading this one last night, and I'm about 1/2 way through (I couldn't sleep!)

This novel seems to be a kind of satire on the 50s Stepford Wives concept of suburbia. Frank, the husband, seems to see marital love as a construct of his perception...he 'loves' therefore April, his wife, does too.

April is a frustrated character, not knowing familial love in the basic sense of the word (she was passed from relative to relative, with few and far between visits from an alcoholic mother and a wandering father) and not relating to Frank's concept of love either, but stuck in the marriage by the two children that neither of them really wanted.

I have a sense of foreboding already. I don't think this will end well :(

Oh looky...

My Google Reader

:)

Final Book Read List 2008

So, I, of course, got new books for Christmas...they'll make the 2009 list :)

From this year:

by P.C. and Kristin Cast:

Marked
Betrayed
Chosen
Untamed

by Stephen King

Duma Key
Just After Sunset

That's all for 2008...Happy New Year for Reading!

2008 Read List cont'd

Star Trek:

Kobayashi Maru by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels
Greater Than The Sum by Christopher L. Bennett
Destiny: Gods of Night by David Mack
Destiny: Mere Mortals by David Mack

Star Wars:

Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice by Karen Traviss
Legacy of the Force: Inferno by Troy Denning
Legacy of the Force: Fury by Aaron Allston
Legacy of the Force: Revelatoin by Karen Traviss

Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth by Max McCoy
Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone by Max McCoy
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by James Rollins
The X-Files: I Want To Believe by Max Allen Collins

by Kim Harrison:

This Witch For Hire
For a Few Demons More
Dead Witches Tell No Lies
The Outlaw Demon Wails

Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyers
The Tudors: King Takes Queen by Michael Hirst
Love the One You're With by Emily Griffin
Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella
In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James
Next by Michael Crichton
The Birth House by Ami McKay

TBC...

Book List For 2008 Part One

In no particular order:

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Blindness by Jose Saramango
Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark
The Glass Walls by Jeanette Walls
The Host by Stephanie Meyer
The Starter Wife by Gigi Levange Grazer
Henry and June by Anais Nin

The Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris:
Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Definately Dead
All Together Dead
Dead as a Doornail
From Dead to Worse

by Jodi Picoult:

Songs of the Humpback Whale
Mercy
Picture Perfect
Nineteen Minutes
The Pact
The Tenth Circle
Change of Heart

by Phillipa Gregory:

Contant Princess
The Other Queen
Boleyn Inheritance
Virgin's Lover
The Queen's Fool

TBC...

Novels and Teaching

So, I thought I'd start by reviewing and discussing the novels I'm teaching in my English courses this year. So far, I've only taught two this semester, as I teach the same class twice (Grade 10). It is this class that I'll reference in this post.

For my grade 10s, who are in the academic strand (the highest there is), we did the novel Lord of the Flies. I hadn't taught this novel before, though I'd read it a few times, first in high school (oh so long ago!), then as an adult.

Reading it again, with teaching strategies in mind, was more of a treat than I thought it would be. I could flesh out the symbolism, and break it down for my students, and therefore myself, and I really began to appreciate Golding's genius. Really delving in to both the political symbolism, and the religious symbolism made for really interesting lessons.

My students were riveted as I related the historical inferences (the Cold War) that were in the novel. The opening scenes that hint at an atomic bomb setting off WW III, which was why the young British boys were alone on the plane, save for the pilot. Very similar to the children of Britain who were sent to the country to avoid the Blitz in WWII.

Then there were the characters who symbolized two styles of governing: Ralph and Jack, with the former representing a democracy, and the latter a dictatorship. Then, of course, there is the symbol of power; of a sort of semblance to the order the boys had known: the conch.

The religious symbolism was harder for the students to access, as I teach in the public, secular school system, and not many of my students were familiar with the Bible or any of its stories. So I told the stories. I told my students that Simon symbolized Christ; and that the pig's head on the stick represented the devil. I had to explain that the book's title Lord of the Flies was in reference to the pig's head; that the lord of the flies was another name for Beelzabub; another name for Satan. They were very interested in this and they interpreted it well enough to use some of my lecture in their essays-in their own words no less!

I really did enjoy teaching this novel and finding all the nuances that I may have missed by just the plot alone. Golding gave an excellent, multi-layered and nuanced work of literature to add to our society. If you haven't read it in a while...pick it up! See what nuances you can discover and re-discover again!

--Trippy :)