Archiv für den Tag: 11. Oktober 2011

Review: The Host

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Stephenie Meyer – The Host

  • Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
  • number of pages : 617
  • Part of a series:  No
  • Contents:
    The main character is Melanie Stryder. She is one of the last human beings, who have not been invaded by one of the alien species, that take over the minds of the humans they live in. But one day she is implanted with a „soul“ inside her body, too. The „soul’s“ name is „Wanderer“ and she is special, because she learns from Melanie herself, who hasn´t completely vanished and maintains a mind of her own about what it means to be a human being.The thoughts of the two individuals in one body mingle and so after a while they both fall in love with Jared. But it isn´t easy to share your body with someone you don´t really like and to be still yourself. And step by step they try to find a way how they both can be happy.
  • Review:
    It  was a book, which I had read in German before and I decided to read it in English again to practice my English. And fortunately it worked, the language was good to understand. The story is wonderful and it was no problem to read it twice – so I could discover new details of the story which I hadn´t noticed when I read it for the first time. Melanie and Wanderer are two very lovely persons and I like it very much how they interact. The story is very exciting and I almost couldn’t put the book away when I had to do something else, even thought I remembered what comes next. I love the many lovely details of the lives of the characters, which are so wonderfully invented by Stephenie Meyer. It is impressing how strong love can be and how it finds its way. But the most incredible thing was, that Wanderer helps the others to get „souls“ out of human bodies – even herself out of Melanie’s. Many parts of the book make me cry a little bit because they are so sad and so wonderful at the same time. But the absolute highlight is the end – how it all becomes nearly perfect. I love it! And I think this book is much better than the Twighlight books everyone first remembers when you think of Stephenie Meyer. Everyone should read this book, too, I think.
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Review: Mr Vertigo

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Paul Auster – Mr. Vertigo 
  • Publisher : Faber & Faber
  • number of pages : 278
  • Part of a series:  No
  • Contents: The book starts in 1924. Walt is an orphan and a very special child. Mr Yehudi takes him away from his uncle to teach him how to levitate and to become a flying Wunderkind. It takes him three years until he masters flight and gives his first performance. But life isn´t easy and Walt experiences many different people and has many different jobs in the next years after he has to stop his career as an artist, because of heavy headaches he gets every time after flying.
  • Review:
    This  novel was recommended to me from by good friend of mine, who has read it before and love the story and the way it is told. So did I – the most of it. It is wonderful to accompany Walt and Master Yehudi during a time of their lives. My tears were dripping at end of the page where Mr. Yehudi wants Walt to shoot him and Walt isn´t able to. A very sad part of the story and I think that the story could better have ended here. The part of the book without Mr. Yehudi is the part I didn´t like so much. But it is nevertheless a good book to read till the end. Probably I would have liked it even more if the language hadn´t been so hard for me to understand and I had known more about the times and conditions in which the story takes place. But although I had have my problems it is my opinion, that it is a great book on the dream of human flight. It makes me think about the power of try and error and even love in a special way.
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Review: Fall of Giants

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Ken Follett – The Fall of Giants
  • Publisher : Dutton Adult
  • number of pages : 985
  • Part of a series:  Yes – It is the first part of a trilogy.
  • Contents:
    Billy Twice (his real name is Billy Williams)  is a thirteen-year-old boy, who goes to work in the coal mine underneath the fictional Welsh town of Aberowen in June 1911 for his first time. This is the beginning oft the novel. Three years later the main story begins: Earl Teddy „Fitz“ Fitzherbert of Aberowen, gives a party with many powerful people from around the world as his guests. For example there are Maud Fitzherbert, Fitz’s liberal sister, the German Graf Walter von Ulrich, his Austrian cousin Graf Robert von Ulrich, the Amrican Gus Dewar, a close adviser to the President Woodrow Wilson, Bea Fitzherbert, Fitz’s wife, a Russian Princess an King George V and his wife. Their lives and those of their families are followed by the reader during the coming  years. Other important characters are the two Russian orphans Gregori and Lev Pushkov, who work in a railway factory, and have good reason not to like Bea an the rest of her family. The book ends in January 1924, so it plays during the time of World War 1, the Russian Revolution and the woman´s suffragette movement.
  • Review:
    I liked this book very much. It is brilliant, how Follett brings in the five families an combines their lives. So history becomes alive and you can understand how it all fits together.  I like it that Follett explains the time from the different perspectives of the five families, which each belong to a different country: America, England / Scotland, Germany and Russia. I am impressed how he manages to mix their lives and makes the reader understand how difficult life was in this time. The big, exciting, historical narrative is told by telling many little personal and individual stories of the people. I like the love-stories between Ethel an Fitz as well as the one of Maud and Walter most. I love the many little details of their live and the way Follett tells them in a lovely way. It is a good mixture of love and war and I, who normally isn´t very interested in history, likes the way  it is presented here as well as in many other books by Ken Follett. Although it was a very long book, especially for persons like me, who are not as good in the English language, I am happy I decided to read it, because it was easily understood and a wonderful story. So I am locking forward to read the next part of the trilogy and experience, how the stories go on and the families come together again.
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Neuzugang: Nils Holgerssons wunderbare Reise

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Nachdem ichwährend der Auseinandersetzung mit dem dem Buch „Gösta Berling“ eine kurze Biografie über Selma Lagerlöf gelesen habe und dabei erfuhr, dass sie wie ich Lehrerin war und dran erinnert wurde, das sie das Buch „Nils Holgersons wunderbare Reise“ verfasst hat, beschloss ich, es mir zu bestellen. Heute endlich hat es den Weg zu mir gefunden. :-)