The blog has reached 1000 views! *runs in tiny circles*
As celebration, tomorrow I will offer a FREE download for a limited time only: a late 19th century paranormal short story called “Don’t Even Peep”.
It will be published alongside the Tina Storm: Demon Hunter short stories later this year.
This is your chance to check out some of my writing before it’s even published.
Check out the story available soon, and let me know what you think!
30 Day Book Challenge: Day Twenty
Day Twenty: A book you would recommend to an ignorant/racist/closed minded person
Animal Farm by George Orwell.
Apart from the fact that I don’t believe ignorant people read, I would recommend Animal Farm because it is a great study into the power struggles and metaphorical history of Europe. I’m not sure this book would do any good to educate said ignorant/racist/close minded people: honestly, I don’t know any people like that. I make it my business not to associate with them.
I’d recommend this book because it shows just exactly how ignorance and greed, indifference and short-term goals can really break any idea of an utopia. It would certainly reinforce their belief in corrupt governments, but hopefully it would educate on the idea of revolution.
Hopefully this book would teach others to question authority: not simply hate on everyone in a position of power when things don’t go their way (as is the case in Australia when people complain about the government – they don’t know how good they’ve got it and voting is compulsory) but in other countries that have recently tried to change themselves such as Libya and Tunisia.
It is the idea of people easily believing propaganda that I hope this book will be able to educate and show a different side. Ignorant people are no better than poor Boxer, or the sheep in this book. Racist people are no better than the pigs. Close-minded people are no better than Benjamin the donkey who, although he recognised the signs of corruption, did nothing about it.
Of course, this is hoping that such racist, ignorant, and close-minded people can actually find the parallels between Stalin Russia and the plot of this book. They’d need a reading companion with them to explain it all. I think I’m giving them too much credit.
30 Day Book Challenge: Day Nineteen
Day Nineteen: A book that changed your mind about a particular subject (non-fiction).
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Philosophy.
I took a Philosophies of Modernity class in my final year of University. It was a poor decision: I didn’t enjoy any of it. I took it because I really enjoyed modernity from a sociological perspective, and this was the only course left that fit my timetable. I also thought, that because I really kind of hated philosophy so much, that this course might help me change my mind.
I bought the book to help give myself an overview of philosophy and perhaps make the course easier. It didn’t. But at least now I understand philosophy. I still think it’s a load of bollocks: there is nothing I hate more than people standing around musing to each other about how mysterious the universe is. I hate that they’re always asking questions and never bothering to find answers. The answers are out there: maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but they are out there.
However, instead of hating philosophy so much that I simply shut down at the mere mention of the word, I now can listen to and understand people when they start farting on about it. I still don’t enjoy it and I certainly don’t understand it, but at least now I won’t stay utterly silent and let people who think they’re smarter than me get away with random and vague assertions trying to show how deep and knowledgeable they are when they’re really just as confused as I am.
30 Day Book Challenge: Day Eighteen
Day Eighteen: A book you can’t find on shelves anymore that you love.
Hunter’s Moon by Garry Kilworth.
A book about foxes? Yes, please. As I mentioned in my Day Nine review, “I grew up in the only place in the world, bar Antarctica, where foxes do not live.” I love these animals so much, and I’ve never seen one in real life, not even in a zoo. They are the most interesting, wonderful, beautiful creatures I have ever read about. I love them.
I’ve read one other Kilworth book (I don’t remember the name, but it wasn’t an animal one), read reviews of others, and I’m strongly of the opinion that this is his best book. It not only tells the life story of an English vixen, O-ha, and what happens as her native wood is redeveloped into a town, but it also gives an account of the mythology of the foxes and explains why dogs and wolves and foxes, although cousins, are also enemies. It tells the story of foxes through fox eyes and pulls you so far into the story that you can really imagine what it must be like living through uncertain times at the mercy of humans ruining your home.
O-ha’s story is a sad one. He loses her first mate, A-ho in a fox hunt, and her first litter to human cruelty. Then she meets Camio, and American red fox who escaped from London Zoo. Their romance isn’t easy, because O-ha is still grieving for A-ho and her lost litter, but the story also follows her and Camio’s litter and their stories as well.
The characters are so well written, and they develop beautifully, even the cubs. O-ha’s a traditional fox, and Camio’s more progressive. Their arguments on raising their cubs are priceless. O-ha insists on teaching them all the traditions that have kept the foxes alive, even though they no longer apply. Camio’s such a great daddy that he goes along with her for the sake of the cubs.
This book isn’t suitable for children, though I would happily give it to a teenager. Only because there is a lot of death, blood, violence, a smattering of animal sex, and heavy themes that are hard for young minds to grasp. I read it when I was about thirteen or fourteen, borrowed from my school library, and hunted for my own copy for years after. I found a copy in a second hand bookstore when I was in my early twenties. I told the bookseller she’d made my week. I was so excited to have my own copy.
It was first published in hardcover in 1989.
30 Day Book Challenge: Day Seventeen
Day Seventeen: A book turned movie and completely desecrated.
The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman.
Note – also called ‘Northern Lights’ outside of the US.
There are so many books out there that when turned into a movie are considerably crap. In fact, the only films I have ever seen that I liked better than the books are Lord of the Rings, The Silence of the Lambs and Sex & The City.
Now, I absolutely loved The Golden Compass in novel form. I first read it when I was sixteen, and every time I re-read it, I still find little gems and deeper meanings to so much.
I also loved the film. It wasn’t successful because of the religious movement sticking on the fact that God dies in the second book (they were saying the two protagonists murder him but they don’t) and the fact that the book questions religion in a parallel world. I also had some pretty big issues with casting – I wanted Jason Isaacs SO BADLY to be cast as Lord Asriel (and so, apparently, did Pullman), but they cast Daniel Craig (who was good, just not who I wanted) and Nicole Kidman’s Mrs Coulter didn’t have black hair.
I really loved the film. I was very excited to see it and was only a little bit disappointed, and I was only disappointed because the film had to stuff so much into one feature length and it missed so much of the other stuff in the book. They really boiled it down to an adventure story where Lyra goes off to rescue her friend. Yes, that’s what the book’s about, too, but it’s also about SO MUCH MORE.
I can’t bring myself to say this was ‘desecrated’ because unlike most people, I actually approach a film adaptation as a film in its own right and try NOT to compare it to the book. As a film in its own right, it was totally freaking awesome. Compared to the book, it is practically NOTHING – the book is just THAT amazing.
But I do recognise that this book is only one of many that when turned into a film loses part of the magic.
Lissa Bilyk 