The Boy in the Sriped Pyjamas - John Boyne

BookClub: 24 de novembre a les 19 h a la Biblioteca Mestra Maria Antònia.

FilmClub: 25 de novembre a les 19 h a la Biblioteca Mestra Maria Antònia.

(Extracte del punt de lectura.)

About the book
A fictional tale of the unlikeliest of friends: the son of a Nazi commandant and a Jewish concentration camp inmate. Set in Nazi Germany, begins when nine-year-old Bruno and his family must move from their lovely home in Berlin to a new house in an unfamiliar place called "Out With." Tempted to explore his new environment, Bruno is told that there are certain places that are "Out Of Bounds At All Times And No Exceptions." Unable to fight his adventuresome spirit, however, Bruno ventures forth into the unknown one afternoon.
Bruno comes upon a fence that he follows until he sees a young boy sitting on the other side of the fence. The shoeless boy is wearing striped pyjamas and a cloth cap. Bruno also notices that the boy is wearing an armband with a star on it. Bruno makes fast friends with the boy, Shmuel, and they quickly discover that they share the same birthday. The boys discuss their families and where they are from. At the end of their first meeting, Bruno asks Shmuel why there are so many people on his side of the fence and what they are doing there. A few days later, Bruno's father has dinner guests; the man's name is "the Fury" and his date is called Eva. Bruno instantly dislikes the couple. Bruno's sister Gretel, whom he refers to as "the Hopeless Case," is smitten by the man and tries hard to impress him and his lady friend. Bruno, however, is disgusted by his sister's behaviour and her budding romance with a young soldier.
Much like Bruno hears "Auschwitz" as "Out With," he also incorrectly hears "the Führer" as "the Fury." Boyne masterfully tells the story from Bruno's perspective; it is clear that the innocence of Bruno's childhood remains intact despite the fact that he is living on the periphery of a death camp and has met Adolf Hitler.

The author
From his web site:

I was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1971, and studied English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and creative writing at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, where I was awarded the Curtis Brown prize.
My early writing consisted mostly of short stories and I published a number of them. My first story, The Entertainments Jar, was shortlisted for the Hennessy Literary Award in Ireland. In total, I've published about 70 short stories.
My 2006 novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, was made into an award-winning Miramax film. The novel itself won 2 Irish Book Awards, the Bisto Book of the Year, and was shortlisted or won a host of international awards.
Amongst other accolades, it spent more than 80 weeks at no.1 in Ireland, topped the New York Times Bestseller List, and was the bestselling book in Spain in both 2007 and 2008. Worldwide, it has sold more than 5 million copies and was the 6th highest selling novel of 2008.
My novels are published in 41 languages.
I live in Dublin, where I am currently working on my eighth novel.

Bibliography
Novels and novellas

• The Thief of Time, 2000*
• The Congress of Rough Riders, 2001*
• Crippen, 2004
• The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, 2004
• Next of Kin, 2006
• Mutiny On The Bounty, 2008
• The House of Special Purpose, 2009

* To be reissued in 2010

Novellas

• The Second Child, 2008
• The Dare, 2009

Other web sites:
Auth0r's Blog.
Film's web site.

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote

Extracte del punt de lectura del Bookclub (Club de Lectura en Anglès)

About the book
Breakfast at Tiffany's is Truman Capote's best-loved work of fiction and arguably one of the finest American novellas. Set in Manhattan's Upper East Side, during the final years of World War II, it documents the story of a young writer's fascination with, and affection for, his charming and troubled neighbour, the unorthodox Holly Golightly. The simple, linear narrative of the story provided Capote with the perfect vehicle to refine his characteristically minimal, naturalistic prose style, marking the novella as a transition phase between the author's more elaborate earlier writings and the documentary-style realism of his next major work, the non-fiction masterpiece In Cold Blood.
Capote culled inspiration for his new work from gossip, personal experience, and the lives of his eccentric New York friends. The title is drawn from an anecdote popular among Capote's social circle about an ignorant out-of-towner who upon being asked which glamorous New York restaurant he would like to visit, answered, "Well, let's have breakfast at Tiffany's". The author's idea for Holly likely came from several sources. In his personal correspondence, Capote acknowledged that he intended his charismatic and unscrupulous heroine as a composite portrait of a number of Manhattan socialites with whom he enjoyed intimate friendships. Holly's story arc, in which she escapes an impoverished childhood in the rural South to reinvent herself as a New York sophisticate, resembles Capote's mother's life or, as some suggest, can be a projection of the author himself, a vehicle through which Capote explored his own struggles with social convention, depression, and his need for permanence and stability.

The author
Born in New Orleans on September 30, 1924, Capote's early life was marked by instability and poverty. When his parents separated he was left to be raised by relatives in Alabama, where he began what would become a lifelong friendship with Harper Lee, later the author of the renowned novel To Kill A Mockingbird. An unusual and observant child, Truman was determined to become a writer. He taught himself to read at age four and by age eight was "practicing" at writing in daily sessions. The details of the rural South, its oppressive poverty and wise, headstrong characters, impressed on the young Capote's imagination. He later drew on his memories of Alabama for some of his most famous writing.
In 1933 he moved to NY to join his mother and stepfather (from whom he adopted the surname) and began an uneven career as a student in both private and public high schools in New York and Connecticut. While Capote was intelligent and highly focused on writing, he was uninterested in academics, and dropped out of his fourth year of high school when offered a 2-year contract position as a copy boy at the New Yorker. There, he attracted the attention of many of the city's literary and social elite, as much for his flamboyant wardrobe as for his mature, evocative prose. In 1942, Capote published his first short story, Miriam, in the magazine Mademoiselle, which won him the 1946 prestigious O. Henry award for Best First-Published Story. He soon gained a contract with Random House, who advanced him $1500 for his first novel. Capote’s career had started.

Bibliography
Novels and novellas

• Other Voices, Other Rooms, 1948
• Summer Crossing, approx. 1949 (published posthumously in 2005)
• The Grass Harp, 1951
• Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1958
• In Cold Blood, 1965 (nonfiction)
• Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel, 1987

Short story and articles (includes collections)

• Miriam, 1945
• A Tree of Night and Other Stories, 1949
• A Christmas Memory, 1956
• The Thanksgiving Visitor, 1968
• The Dogs Bark, 1973
• Mojave, 1975
• La Cote Basque, 1965, 1975
• Unspoiled Monsters, 1976
• Kate McCloud, 1976
• Music for Chameleons, 1980
• One Christmas, 1983

Plays, musicals and screenplays

• The Grass Harp, 1951
• Beat the Devil, 1953
• House of Flowers, 1954
• The Innocents, 1960

Nonfiction

• The Muses Are Heard, 1956
• The Duke in His Domain, 1957

The Movie

• Directed by Blake Edwards
• Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly
• George Peppard as Paul "Fred" Varjak
• Patricia Neal as Mrs. Failenson/Emily Eustace (2E)
• Buddy Ebsen as Doc
• Martin Balsam as O.J. Berman
• José Luis de Villalonga as José da Silva Pereira
• Dorothy Whitney as Mag Wildwood
• Orangey as Cat (trained by Frank Inn)
• Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi
• Alan Reed as Sally Tomato

84, Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff

Extracte del punt de lectura del Bookclub (Club de Lectura en Anglès)

Helene Hanff discovers in the Saturday Review an small ad of an small library in London that is specialized in second hand books and decides to write the library asking for editions that are hard to find for a reasonable price in New York.
Frank Doel answers her and a friendship starts with correspondence that will last 20 years. Helene and Frank will talk about books, forgotten authors, sadness, happiness, faith, dreams…, the little things that belong to their lives.
The power of evocation of this text is totally fascinating: as the book progresses, the weight of words that hasn’t been said, things that any of them say, is the element that plays, with ability, in the reader, taking him/her further than Helene’s apartment and that lugubrious but illuminated flat at 84, Charing Cross Road, where Frank Doel consumes his days.
84, Charing Cross Road is the story of two lonely souls united for a passion: the passion for reading, the books, for those windows that open to other lives that will never stop fascinating.

The Author
Helene Hanff was born in Philadelphia. Her childhood was marked by the economic depression.
Even though Hanff only could pay herself one year at university, she was always a passionate reader.
At the end of the 30s, Hanff decided to move to New York. Once installed there, she started herself as playwright. Around the 40s, she had already written more than 20 plays, but none of them had been taken to stage.
In that period, she started ordering books at a library in London called Marks and Co., not knowing that the exchange of letters with their employees would get her to write her best known novel: 84, Charing Cross Road.

Partial bibliography

• 84, Charing Cross Road
• Q’s Legacy
• The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
• Underfoot in Show Business
• Apple of My Eye

The Movie
Director ..... David Hugh Jones
Anne Bancroft ..... Helene Hanff
Anthony Hopkins ..... Frank Doel
Judi Dench ..... Nora Doel
Maurice Denham ..... George Martin
Eleanor David ..... Cecily Farr
Mercedes Ruehl ..... Kay
Daniel Gerroll ..... Brian
Wendy Morgan ..... Megan Wells
Ian McNeice ..... Bill Humphries
J. Smith-Cameron ..... Ginny

The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith

Extracte del punt de lectura del Bookclub (Club de Lectura en Anglès)

What do you think?
What would you do if you didn’t have anything to lose?
How much talent do you think you have?
How would you use that talent?
What do you think ‘wrong’ is?

Comments
Young Tom Ripley, a charming and desperately lonely sociopath from whose point of view the story is revealed, is sent to Italy by Herbert Greanleaf, a businessman desperate for his errant son's return from the Bohemian life and still hoping he will take up family business and responsibilities. Dickie Greenleaf, a beautiful, careless embodiment of the idle upperclass, represents everything that Tom has always felt he deserved but has never had.
Bored and solitary in New York, Tom embraces his chance to start a new and glorious life. Using his talents for mimicry and an honest, blundering mask, Tom charms Dickie and manages to gain his trust and friendship days after arriving.
Ripley, pleased with himself, settles in to enjoy his newfound "brother" and greatly improved lifestyle.
As Ripley ingratiates himself further and further into Dickie's life, falling in love with every aspect of his existence, he is also repeatedly reminded of his own inadequacies and how he doesn't fit in this world as he thought he should.

The Author
Highsmith (1921-1995), was an American author who started her writing career by creating stories for comic book publishers.
Capote suggested her to rewrite her first novel, Strangers on a Train, which was modestly successful but Hitchcock adapted it into a movie in 1951 and Highsmith’s career catapulted.
Soon she became known as a writer of ironic, disturbing psychological mysteries highlighted by stark, startling prose.
Among other novels, The Talented Mr. Ripley was also adapted into a movie by French director René Clement and with Alain Delon playing the main character (Plein sleil, aka Purple Noon).
Lesbian herself, in her novels, we can find homosexual undertones, which is the main theme in The Price of Salt and Small g, being the former the first of its kind with a happy ending.
Her characters are usually morally compromised by circumstance or actively flouting the law. Many of her antiheroes, often emotionally unstable young men, commit murder in fits of passion
Ripley is the main character of 5 of her novels, known as the Ripliad.

For neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not.

Bibliography
The Ripliad

• The Talented Mr. Ripley, 1955
• Ripley Under Ground, 1970
• Ripley’s Game, 1974
• The Boy Who Followed Ripley, 1980
• Ripley Under Water, 1991

Partial bibliography

• Strangers on a Train, 1950
• The Price of Salt, 1953
• The Blunderer, 1954
• Deep Water, 1957
• A Game for the Living, 1958
• The Sweet Sickness, 1960
• The Two Faces of January, 1961
• The Cry of the Owl, 1962
• The Glass Cell, 1964
• Edith’s Diary, 1977
• Small g: a Summer Idyll, 1995

Short Story collections

• Eleven, 1970
• Little Tales of Misogyiny, 1974
• Mermaids on the Golf Course, 1985

The Movie

• Director: Anthony Minghella
• Matt Damon ... Tom Ripley
• Gwyneth Paltrow ... Marge Sherwood
• Jude Law ... Dickie Greenleaf
• Cate Blanchett ... Meredith Logue
• Philip Seymour Hoffman ... Freddie Miles
• Jack Davenport ... Peter Smith-Kingsley
• James Rebhorn ... Herbert Greenleaf
• Sergio Rubini ... Inspector Roverini
• Philip Baker Hall ... Alvin MacCarron
• Celia Weston ... Aunt Joan
• Ivano Marescotti ... Colonnello Verrecchia
• Anna Longhi ... Signora Buffi
• Alessandro Fabrizi ... Sergeant Baggio

High Fidelity - Nick Hornby

Extracte del punt de lectura del Bookclub (Club de Lectura en Anglès)

What do you think?
Have you ever made a list of your most memorable split-ups?
Do you know what would you bring to a desert island?
Have you made out a list of your top-five favourite albums, bands, singers, books, or moments in life?
Do you know what your dreamed jobs are?

Comments
Rob is in his thirties. Rob has a record store. Rob’s girlfriend, Laura, has just left him.
But this is not important because on Rob’s desert-island, all-time, top-five most memorable split-ups, she is not there
While he is discovering new things about himself, love, life and why we like to share these with another person, he will discuss music and construct “top-five” lists of anything with his employees at Vinyl Championship.
But Laura is more important to him than what he initially thought. Soon he will have to rewrite his top-five lists.
This is the story of a break-up, something that can happen to us all, but will we be like Rob?
While you think about it, have you written your list already?

The Author
Nick Hornby (Surrey, 1957), is an English novelist and essayist first known for Fever Pitch, an autobiographical story about his support for Arsenal, which made it to UK an US screens in two different films and led him to write articles and music reviews for a number of newspapers and magazines.
His second book and first novel, High Fidelity, brings together his passion for music and a break-up. This, too, was adapted into a movie by US film director John Cusack.
After another male-centred novel, About a Boy, he published How to Be Good, where a female protagonist explores morals, marriage and parenthood.
also edited Speaking with the Angel, a collection of short stories, part of the benefits of which were donated to a charity for children with autism, a disorder that affects Hornby’s own son.
He has published many other books and essays on different subjects and is due to release a new novel in September 2009.

It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.

Bibliography
Novels

• High Fidelity, 1995
• About a Boy, 1998
• How to Be Good, 2001
• A Long Way Down, 2005
• Slam, 2007
• Juliet, Naked (not yet published)

Short Stories

• Faith, 1998

Non-fiction

• Fever Pitch, 1992
• 31 Songs, 2003
• The Polysyllabic Spree, 2004
• Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, 2006
• Shakespeare Wrote for Money, 2008

Anthologies edited

• My Favourite Year: A Collection of Football Writing, 1993
• The Picador Book of Sportswriting, 1996
• Speaking with the Angel, 2000
• Otherwise Pandemonium, 2005

The Movie

• Director: Stephen Frears
• John Cusack as Rob Gordon
• Iben Hjejle as Laura
• Todd Louiso as Dick
• Jack Black as Barry
• Lisa Bonet as Marie DeSalle
• Catherine Zeta-Jones as Charlie
• Joan Cusack as Liz
• Tim Robbins as Ian "Ray" Raymond
• Chris Rehmann as Vince
• Ben Carr as Justin
• Lili Taylor as Sarah Kendrew
• Natasha Gregson Wagner as Caroline
• Sara Gilbert as Annaugh Moss
• Bruce Springsteen as Himself (cameo)

La Biblioteca parla anglés

Aquest estiu a la Biblioteca parlem anglès. Així és, doncs farem un club de lectura en aquesta llengua.
És una proposta oberta a tothom, no solament a aquells que tinguin l’anglès com a llengua materna, sinó també a els que l’estiguin estudiant o l’hagin estudiat i vulguin practicar.
A més de llegir un llibre, també veurem una pel·lícula, i què millor que una que estigui basada en allò que hem llegit.

Al juliol llegirem High Fidelity, de Nick Hornby, la història d’una ruptura; i a l’agost, The Talented Mr. Ripley, de Patricia Highsmith, que ens inicia al món de Ripley, que busca allò que vol i ho aconsegueix.

Més informació, aviat.

Sant Jordi a la Biblioteca

Arriba Abril i amb l'Abril, també arriba Sant Jordi.
Un any més, ens preparem per celebrar la diada amb poesia, música i jocs.

Calendari d'activitats:

23 d’abril

• 18 h Festa de Sant Jordi: Recital poètic i concert, Casal Municipal
• 21 h Rates de Biblioteca: Lectura de poemes inèdits i interpretació musical, Biblioteca Mestra Maria Antònia
  

24 d’abril

• 17 h Fira de jocs: Jocs i tallers infantils a la plaça, Parc Cal Llovet
• 18.30 h Contacontes: “La llança pinzell”, a càrrec de Victor Palau, Biblioteca Mestra Maria Antònia

Vine a celebrar-ho amb nosaltres!