Books presentation

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (Jeyson Linares)

JANE AUSTEN was born in North-east Hampshire, on 16th December 1775.

During the 1790's she wrote the first drafts of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey; her trips to Kent and Bath gave her the local color for the settings of these last two books.

Jane fell ill in 1816 - possibly with Addison's Disease - and in the summer of 1817, her family took her to Winchester for medical treatment.  She died on 18th July 1817.

Her life and writing career overlapped with one of the most transformative eras in British history, marked by revolution abroad and unrest at home. The signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the year after Austen’s birth, signaled the start of the American Revolution, followed in the next decade by the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. 

Austen's novels provide an accurate record of that moment in English history in which high bourgeois society most evidently interlocked with an agrarian capitalism. 

She wrote during the romantic period. She is viewed as one of the most respected authors in the romance genre whose novels are considered pure classics. 

CHARACTERS 

Elizabeth Bennet -       Lady Catherine de Bourgh
Fitzwilliam Darcy -       Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner
Jane Bennet -               Charlotte Lucas
Charles Bingley 
Mr. Bennet
Mrs. Bennet 
George Wickham
Lydia Bennet
Mr. Collins
Miss Bingley

Pride and Prejudice is a humorous story of love and life among English gentility during the Georgian era. Mr. Bennet is an English gentleman living in Hertfordshire with his overbearing wife. The Bennets 5 daughters; the beautiful Jane, the clever Elizabeth, the bookish Mary, the immature Kitty and the wild Lydia. Unfortunately for the Bennets, if Mr. Bennet dies their house will be inherited by a distant cousin whom they have never met, so the family's future happiness and security are dependent on the daughters making good marriages. Life is uneventful until the arrival in the neighborhood of the rich gentleman Mr. Bingley, who rents a large house so he can spend the summer in the country. Mr. Bingley brings with him his sister and the dashing (and richer) but proud Mr. Darcy. Love is soon in the air for one of the Bennet sisters, while another may have jumped to a hasty prejudgment. For the Bennet sisters, many trials and tribulations stand between them and their happiness, including class, gossip, and scandal.

COMMENT

I haven't read this book, but now it is on my lists. It sounds that is really good.

The plot is really interesting. I think that the writer wrote in a soft form able to transport the reader to other age.

I like stories about people, especially of these ages where things were totally different from now. 

SPECIAL ASPECTS

She is telling a story involving her real life in it. She is not talking about herself directly, but here she is telling her own experiences, wishes, and fears.

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THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (Kinberly Monzón)

Clive Staples Lewis was a medievalist, literary critic, novelist, academic. He was born in Belfast, Ireland on November 29, 1898, and died in Oxford England in 1963. 

Lewis childhood was fascinated by reading and at his father house were many books.

Lewis was related to JRR Tolkien who is the author of The Lord of the rings, so he was influenced to abandon his Christian faith. He became an atheist, and the took interest in mythology. After an internal war with himself, he converted to Christianity once again. 

He wrote fiction novels "The Devil's letters", "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "The Cosmic Trilogy".

He lived and participated in the World War I and witnessed the Second World War. This affected his life and had a great influence to stop believing in God to see the damages.

In this book, he involves Christianity. This is a Children's science fiction book, with a message.

He wrote in the Modernism literary period.

CHARACTERS

The protagonists of the story are the siblings, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. They support each other throughout the story, they develop and learn from their mistakes.

Aslan. He didn't change. He is always there when it's needed.
The Witch. She is the devil and ambitious, she wanted to govern Narnia.

PLOT

The four Pevensie children - Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy - are evacuated from London because of the air-raids during WWII.They are sent to a very old house to stay with Professor Kirke.Lucy hides, while playing,  in a large wardrobe stored away in a bare spare room. Through this, she enters another world called Narnia. er

She meets a lot of strange people there, she came back and told his siblings, but they didn't believe her.  

Then things happened and Edmund was in Narnia, he runs after the witch, who offers him to take him to her castle. She asked him to bring his siblings. So next time they all were in Narnia.

Lucy tries to guide them to Mr. Tumnu's house, but he was arrested by the witch for helping her.

Mr. and Mrs. Beaver help the children. Edmund runs after the witch, who finally show him her cruelty.  The others were trying to find him. On their way, they find Aslan, the big lion of Narnia.

They all looked for the witch, she came to them and said that Edmund belongs to her because he is a traitor. Aslan offers his life to rescue him. He revives and a big battle between good and bad was taking place.

The children were crowned Kings and Queens of Narnia.

COMMENT

I have already read the complete series of The Chronicles of Narnia, and I think that the best one is this. I think that the author really uses the bible as a basis to write the stories using fiction and other worlds.

SPECIAL ASPECTS

The author suffers in his real life the experience of believing in God or not when he writes this book he uses Aslan as God. It is interesting, how he recovers his beliefs and tries to pass them to the next generation without mentioning religion.

It is there, the Omnipotent, in the novel, he appears when they needed. And he clearly expresses that children believe easily than adults. They know there is. 

He in his characters lets us see how persons really are and how they lose confidence when they grow up.

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AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (Patty de Leon)

Jules Gabriel Verne was born on February 8, 1828, in Nantes, France.

Verne's first long work of fiction, Five Weeks in a Balloon, the book, published in January 1863, was an immediate success.

Verne's next few books were immensely successful at the time and are still counted among the best he wrote. A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Round the Moon (1870).

Verne wrote his two masterpieces when he was in his forties. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).

Literary Movement:                               
Victorian, Romanticism

CHARACTERS

Jean Passepartout:  (character),  Mr. Fogg´s new French servant. He is funny, gullible,  loyal, sincere and is always able to help his master and another people who need his help.

Detective Fix:  (static character), He is a police detective who wants to earn the money offered to catch the thief of the London Bank.Princess Aouda:   (Dynamic character) She is an orphan princess who gets married to a Rajah without loving him.  She is rescued by Fogg and Passepartout when a tribe wants to sacrifice her in the pyre of her husband. 

Phileas Fogg:  (dynamic character), he is a model of punctuality, wealthy Englishman, he accepts an odd and tries to win the prize of 20 thousand pounds to show he can go around the world in 80 days and returns in the due date.

PLOT

Phileas Fogg is an enigmatic wealthy Englishman,  who used to go to the Reform Club, he is obsessed with exact hours and punctuality. Recently he had hired a new French servant named Passepartout who is funny, sincere and a little gullible. Mr. Fogg makes a bet with the other wealthy members of the club that he can go around the world in 80 days and if he returns in the due date. Many people bet much money on Fogg. They arrive in the British capital a few minutes late and Fogg does not want to lose the wager, so he sits alone in a room and thinks about all his adventures and what to say to the gentlemen in the Reform Club,  Aouda comes to speak to him, and reveals her love for him, Fogg is amused and says that he would like nothing more than make her his wife, and order Passepartout to go to make arrangements to celebrate the wedding.  Phileas Fogg believes that the greatest thing about taking the trip, however, was the magnificent adventures, friendship, he found Aouda and obtained her love.

COMMENT

I tried years ago to read books by Jules Verne. I didn't like his books because he uses a lot of descriptions. I will put it on my list. Maybe now that I am an adult, I am able to find the taste in his books. I heard always good things about this book. 

SPECIAL ASPECTS

The correct Englishman, I can imagine him. How his friends challenge him to travel. I can see him, planning his trips, counting hours and minutes. Disapproving everything that is not in his plans and can delay him.

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EMMA (Alexandra Rustrián)

JANE AUSTEN was born in North-east Hampshire, on 16th December 1775.

During the 1790's she wrote the first drafts of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey; her trips to Kent and Bath gave her the local color for the settings of these last two books.

Jane fell ill in 1816 - possibly with Addison's Disease - and in the summer of 1817, her family took her to Winchester for medical treatment.  She died on 18th July 1817.

Her life and writing career overlapped with one of the most transformative eras in British history, marked by revolution abroad and unrest at home. The signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the year after Austen’s birth, signaled the start of the American Revolution, followed in the next decade by the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. 

Austen's novels provide an accurate record of that moment in English history in which high bourgeois society most evidently interlocked with an agrarian capitalism. 

She wrote during the romantic period. She is viewed as one of the most respected authors in the romance genre whose novels are considered pure classics. 

Jane Austen's novel Emma develops during the 19th century, during this time the upper class was the most important and many changes take place also, Jane wrote his novels based on his life, to different situations and specifically in this novel she tries to describe Emma as someone with whom she does not identify in personality but in her actions.

CHARACTERS

PLOT

Rich, beautiful, and privileged Emma Woodhouse fancies herself to be an excellent matchmaker. When her governess marries the well-to-do widower Mr. Weston, a match that Emma views herself to have made, Emma befriends the lower class Harriet Smith and sets out to similarly assist her. She is convinced that her friend deserves a gentleman, though Harriet’s own parentage is unknown. She coaxes Harriet into rejecting Mr. Martin, a farmer whom Emma believes below Harriet, and she instead encourages her friend to admire Mr. Elton, the neighborhood vicar.

Mr. Knightley, a long-time friend, and Emma’s brother-in-law discourages Emma’s matchmaking efforts. It turns out that all the signs that Emma has been interpreting as evidence of Mr. Elton’s interest in Harriet were in fact intended for Emma herself. Harriet is heartbroken, and Emma mortified. Humiliated by Emma’s rejection of him and her attempt to pair him with Harriet, Mr. Elton retires to Bath. Emma realizes that personal pride in her judgment and her desires for Harriet blinded her to the real situation. She resolves to never play matchmaker in the future.

COMMENT

I haven't read this book. I think that the plot is similar to the plot of "Proud and Prejudice". It sounds like a nice novel, interest, intriguing and is part of the life of the author. 

It is about love and lack of love, about finding the correct person. That causes a lot of troubles in real life, that is describing in this novel.

SPECIAL ASPECTS

The social classes and its behave. The gentlemen, their manners to treat ladies. The intrigues the ladies speak about. The men feeling important, the horses and the houses where they lived. It is another world.

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WUTHERING HEIGHTS 

(Mayra Chenal)

Emilly Brontë, Ellis Bell (July 30, q818 Thompson, England – December 19, 1848,  Haworth, England).

She was an English novelist and poet, wrote only one novel “Wuthering Heights” considered a classic of English literature, is about passion and hate.

Emily was the third of Brontë siblings, her father was Patrick Brontë who was Irish and her mother was Maria Branwell.

In 1844, Emily recopies all the poems she had written into two notebooks. One was labeled “Gondal Poems”, the other was unlabelled. In 1845, Charlotte discovered the notebooks and insisted to published them. Emily refused, but then her sister Anne revealed to Charlotte her own poems that she had been writing in secret and published them with Emily as co-authors of Gondal stories. On that time Emily wrote her most famous poem, “No Coward Soul is Mine”.

They adopted pseudonyms for publication, Charlotte as Currer Bell, Emily was Ellis Bell and Anne was Acton Bell. Charlotte contributed with 19 poems and Emily and Anne with 21 each one.

Literary Movement: Victorian Period and the Genre is Dramatical Novel.

CHARACTERS

PLOT

The story of Wuthering Heights is mainly on revenge. How Heathcliff does
everything so that Catherine marries him, but when she doesn't, he does everything to ruin Edgar's life.  In the end, he becomes the owner of both Wuthering Heights and Truschross Grange. But at the end, he ends up alone and in despair as he realizes how many people he indirectly killed and he still doesn't get what he always wanted; to be married to Catherine.

C0MMENT

I have read the book years ago, I was interested in the plot, it is tangled up because of the names and the relationship between the characters. It is interesting, is the type of novel that I liked.

SPECIAL ASPECTS

Is interesting how people do things for what they called love. They didn't think and ruined other person life.

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HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE

(SILVIA BONILLA)

Joanne Rowling (born July 31, 1965), who goes by the pen name J.K. Rowling, is a British author and screenwriter best known for her seven-book Harry Potter children's book series. 


J.K. Rowling was living in Edinburgh, Scotland and struggling to get by as a single mom before her first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was published. Rowling published the novel The Casual Vacancy in 2012, followed by the crime novel Cuckoo Calling under the pen name Robert Galbraith in 2013.
In 2016, she released a play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and a movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.


The children's fantasy novel became an international hit and Rowling became an international literary sensation in 1999 when the first three installments of Harry Potter took over the top three slots of The New York Times bestseller list after achieving similar success in her native United Kingdom.


The series has sold more than 450 million copies and was adapted into a blockbuster film franchise.

CHARACTERS

Harry Potter - The protagonist of the story, who is gradually transformed from timid weakling to powerful hero by the end. 

Hermione Granger -  Initially an annoying goody-two-shoes who studies too much and obeys the school rules too zealously. Hermione eventually becomes friendly with Harry after she learns to value friendship over perfectionism and obedience. 

Ron Weasley -  A shy, modest boy who comes from an impoverished wizard family. Ron is Harry’s first friend at Hogwarts, and they become close.

Hagrid -  An oafish giant who works as a groundskeeper at Hogwarts. Rubeus Hagrid is a well-meaning creature with more kindness than brains. He cares deeply for Harry

Albus Dumbledore  -  The kind, wise head of Hogwarts. Though he is a famous wizard, Dumbledore is as humble and adorable as his name suggests.

Voldemort  -  A great wizard has gone bad. When he killed Harry’s parents, Voldemort gave Harry a lightning-shaped scar. Voldemort has thus shaped Harry’s life so that Harry’s ultimate destruction of him appears as a kind of vengeance. Voldemort, whose name in French means either “flight of death” or “theft of death,” is associated both with high-flying magic and with deceit throughout the story. He is determined to escape death by finding the Sorcerer’s Stone. 

Draco Malfoy -  An arrogant student and Harry’s nemesis. Malfoy, whose name translates roughly to “dragon of bad faith,” is a rich snob from a long line of wizards who feels entitled to the Hogwarts experience.

PLOT

Harry Potter is not a normal boy. Raised by his cruel Aunt and Uncle, and tormented by his bully of a cousin, Dudley, he has resigned to a life of neglect. On his eleventh birthday, a half-giant called Hagrid comes into his life and announces that Harry is a wizard. Together they journey to London to get school supplies for Harry’s first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

On 1st September Harry takes a train from King’s Cross station to Hogwarts school, where he meets Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. The three are sorted into the same House, Gryffindor, and although Harry and Ron find Hermione bossy and annoying at first, the three soon become best friends.

After accidentally stumbling into a forbidden corridor and finding a three-headed dog guarding a mysterious trapdoor, the trio attempt to find out what’s concealed within. 

Some useful slip-ups from Hagrid lead them to research a man called Nicholas Flamel. When Harry uses his father’s Invisibility Cloak to search at night, he happens upon a curious mirror which shows him his dead parents and family. Headmaster Albus Dumbledore reveals to him that this Mirror of Erised shows the beholder their deepest desires and that what Harry wants most in the world is a family.

Later in the year, Hagrid obtains a dragon egg, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione know that once it has hatched he can’t keep it because it is illegal. Harry and Hermione arrange to give it away one night but are caught, along with Harry’s enemy Draco Malfoy and their fellow Gryffindor, Neville Longbottom. The four are given detentions, which they carry out with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest. Harry and Draco come across a slain Unicorn, and crouching over it is the dark wizard, Lord Voldemort, the man who killed Harry’s parents and who Harry supposedly defeated as a baby.

Hermione realizes that what is hidden behind the trapdoor is the Philosopher’s Stone, which makes the person who possesses it immortal. The three guess that Voldemort wants the Stone and that the suspicious Professor Snape is helping him. 

They journey through the many obstacles that lie behind the trapdoor to get to the Stone, but Harry finds that it is Professor Quirrell who was helping Voldemort all along. He manages to defeat Voldemort and save the Stone, but not Quirrell’s life. After Dumbledore explains all to him, Harry leaves Hogwarts at the end of the year, returning to his Aunt and Uncle.

COMMENTS

The book is amazing. I like it. It is written in a way that is easy to fly with imagination and feel that we are part of it.

SPECIAL  ASPECTS

I was attracted by the magician in the book. All the unreal aspects of it are really interesting. 

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I am Malala

( Evelyn Giron)

MALALA YOUSAFZAI was born in July 1997 in Mingora, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Pakistan. Her family came to run a chain of schools in the region. She was particularly inspired by her father´s thoughts and humanitarian work.  In early 2009, when she was 11–12, she wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC URDU detailing her life during the Taliban occupation of Swat.  The following summer, journalist Ellick made a New York Times documentary about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region. She rose to prominence, giving interviews in print and on television.

CHARACTERS:

Malala Yousafzai.

Ziauddin Yousafzai. Father strong passionate about woman´s belief 3. 

Tor Pekai Youfsafzai: Malala´s Mother, she is lovely, 

Khushal Yousafzai: Younger brother,

Malka e-Noor: Malala´s classmate and “rival for success in the classroom.  

Rohul Amin: Malala´s Grandfather, 

Hidayatullah: Ziauddin friend who founds the Khushal School with him. 

Benazir Bhutto: An important role model for Malala. She is talented and charismatic first female minister of Pakistan, who influences her. 

General Pervez Musharraf An important Pakistani leader of Malala´s lifetime. He is brutal, untrustworthy but undeniable talented politician, he was taking control for 11 years.

Safina Same age young girl as Malala, who lives nearby. 

Raymond Davis CIA Agent an American diplomat who is arrested in Pakistan after shooting two Muslims who he claimed were harassing him. 

Malauna Fazlullah Is an influential Muslim leader and one of the first outspoken advocates for the Taliban in Pakistan. 

Shiza Shahid a journalist and friend of her father, she takes the trip to Islamabad. 

45 minor character. 

PLOT

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced an fought for the right to an education.

On October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she was shot in the heat at point-

blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected to survive.

Instead, Malala´s recovery was a miracle, she was transferred from northern Pakistan to New York. She became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The book is the story of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who love her daughter in a society that prizes sons.

COMMENTS

The book is really interesting, how a girl in this context and with her age can understand the problems of women in her country. Is awesome how the father encouraged his girl to speak against the Taliban, knowing the danger and putting her in this situation. Her understanding of the women rights and the encouragement of Malala are really awesome.

Special aspects

Malala grows up where being a woman was challenging, because of the Taliban thinking and laws. The Taliban movement is a group of Muslims who are followers of an ultra-conservative idealism of Islam, who formed an army and seized power in most of Afghanistan. It is based on a strict version of Sharia, Islamic law. a Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA),

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 ROSE IN BLOOM

(VIVIAN OBREGON)

Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Her father was an enthusiastic transcendentalist philosopher, abolitionist, and teacher.
He failed to provide enough money to support his family, and their poverty was so dire that in twenty years, they moved twenty times. 
Louisa’s mother acted as head of the household, and when Louisa grew older, she also took on much of the burden. She was taught by her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, until 1848, and studied informally with family friends such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Theodore Parker. 

She worked as a domestic servant and a teacher to help support her family when she resided in Massachusetts.  She went to Washington,  D.C. during the Civil war to work as a nurse.

Louisa May Alcott had been publishing poems, short stories, thrillers, and juvenile tales since 1851, under the pen name Flora Fairfield. She began to publish stories under her real name in Atlantic Monthly and Lady's Companion and took a brief trip to Europe in 1865 before becoming editor of a girls' magazine, Merry's Museum.

Alcott died on March 6, 1888, and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts, alongside her father, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau.

Alcott was a best-selling novelist of the late 1800s, Alcott also tried her hand at adult novels, such as Work (1873) and A Modern Mephistopheles (1877), but these tales were not as popular as her other writings.

CHARACTERS

• Rose Campbell - the heroine of the story. She is sweet, kind, pretty, and ambitious. 

• Archibald "Archie" Campbell: Eldest son of Jem and Jessie. Eldest of all the cousins, of steady and thoughtful character, he is the Chief, much respected by all the boys and an “older brother” figure to Rose. 

• Charles C. Campbell (Charlie): Also known as Prince Charlie, the “flower of the family,” considered the most handsome, talented, and promising of the lot. 

• Alexander Mackenzie Campbell (Mac): The elder son of Mac and Jane. Known as the Bookworm, or simply “the Worm,” Mac always has his nose in a book and is regarded as the wisest and most learned of the cousins.

• Stephen Campbell (Steve): Younger brother of Mac. A good-natured, though rather conceited dandy, he idolizes Charlie and copies him in everything, not always to his own advantage.

• William and George Campbell (Will and Geordie): Second and third sons of Jem and Jessie. 

• James Campbell (Jamie): Youngest son of Jem and Jessie; the much-loved but only slightly spoiled baby of the family. 

• Phebe Moore - a sweet maid who Rose befriended with.  

• Uncle Alec - Rose's guardian after her father died. He is Rose's confidant and advisor in almost all things and proves his worth throughout the book.

• Uncle Mac - younger Mac's father. A successful importer, and kindred spirit with Rose and Alec.

• Aunt Plenty - the spinster aunt of Uncle Alec with whom Rose and Uncle Alec live. 

• Aunt Myra - one of the Campbell Aunts who always believes she and everyone else is sick. 

• Aunt Clara - Charlie's mother. She loves society, is a great follower of fashion, and is much involved in bringing Rose out. 

• Aunt Jessie - The mother of Archie, Will, Geordie, and Jamie. She is the "little mum" whom all the cousins love. 

• Aunt Jane - The mother of Mac and Steve; she is very severe and believes in discipline, but has a good heart.

• Kitty Van Tassel - A rich young woman who moves in the same social circles as the Campbells.

PLOT

The story begins when Rose returns home from a long trip to Europe. Everyone has changed. The youngest, Jamie, accidentally mentions that the aunts want Rose to marry one of her cousins to keep her fortune in the family. 

Rose is very indignant, for she has decided ideas about what her future holds. From the beginning, she declares that she can manage her property well on her own and that she will focus on philanthropic work. Charlie has already decided she is marked out for him, with the approval of his mother.

Phebe also comes home no longer the servant and she is readily accepted as part of the Campbell clan until Archie falls in love with her: The family feels that Archie would be marrying beneath himself. 

After the three months are up, Rose begins to focus on her philanthropic projects and convinces Charlie to try to refrain from alcohol and other frivolous things, in order to win her love and respect.

She tries to help Charlie overcome his bad habits with the help of her uncle, but fails. Charlie's life ends tragically in an alcohol-induced accident on the eve of his voyage to see his father and restore his good character. 

Several months after Charlie's death, Rose finds out that another cousin, Mac, is now in love with her. At first, never thought of him as anything but "the worm", she refuses his love; but she does declare the deepest respect for him. 

While Rose is discovering her heart, Steve and, Kitty, engaged to marry. This creates a new sensation in the family, and Kitty begins to look to Rose for sisterly guidance. 

Rose encourages her to improve her silly mind, and Kitty is a very willing pupil. Rose continues to wait for Mac's return but reaches a crisis when Uncle Alec becomes very sick while visiting Mac; Phebe nurses him back from the brink of death, sealing her own engagement with Archie with everyone's blessing. 

This homecoming is completed for Rose when she is reunited with Mac and finally declares her own sentiments. The book closes with three very happy couples and much hope for their felicity.

COMMENTS

This story is similar to Little women. The author expresses her family love and the marriage she never had.

SPECIAL ASPECTS

The story is about a fighter girl in an age where girls were fighting her rights.

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TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

(LESLY CONTRERAS)

Virgina Woolf was born in 1882 in London. She was not given a formal education. Her mother died when she was thirteen.

She started her work as a tutor and wrote reviews for some books. Her reviews were published. 

She became a member of the People´s Suffrage Federation and of the Women Co-operative Guild. She married Leonard Woolf, who was a writer too.

CHARACTERS

Mrs. Ramsay -  Mr. Ramsay’s wife. A beautiful and loving woman, Mrs. Ramsay is a wonderful hostess who takes pride in making memorable experiences for the guests at the family’s summer home on the Isle of Skye.
Mr. Ramsay -  Mrs. Ramsay’s husband, and a prominent metaphysical philosopher. Mr. Ramsay loves his family but often acts like something of a tyrant.
Lily Briscoe -  A young, single painter who befriends the Ramsays on the Isle of Skye. 
James Ramsay -  The Ramsays’ youngest son. James loves his mother deeply and feels a murderous antipathy toward his father, with whom he must compete for Mrs. Ramsay’s love and affection.
Paul Rayley -  A young friend of the Ramsays who visits them on the Isle of Skye. Paul is a kind, impressionable young man who follows Mrs. Ramsay’s wishes in marrying Minta Doyle.
Minta Doyle -  A flighty young woman who visits the Ramsays on the Isle of Skye. Minta marries Paul Rayley at Mrs. Ramsay’s wishes.

PLOT

The novel is set in the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides on the Ilse of Skye.  Begins with Mrs. Ramsay assuring her son James that they should be able to visit the lighthouse on the next day. This prediction is denied by Mr. Ramsay.

This particular incident is referred to on various occasions throughout the book, especially in  Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay's relationship.

The Ramsays and their eight children have been joined at the house by a number of friends and colleagues. One of them, Lily Briscoe,  finds herself plagued by doubts fed by the claims of Charles Tansley, another guest, who asserts that women can neither paint nor write. Tansley himself is an admirer of Mr. Ramsay, a philosophy professor, and his academic treatises.

Ten years pass,  Mrs. Ramsay, dies, as do two of her children and Andrew is killed in the war. 
Mrs. McNab worked in Ramsay's house since the beginning, and thus provides a clear view of how things have changed in the time the summer house has been unoccupied.

In the end, some of the remaining Ramsay's and other guests return to their summer home ten years later.  Mr. Ramsay finally plans on taking the long-delayed trip to the lighthouse with daughter Cam and son James. The trip almost does not happen, as the children are not ready, but they eventually set off. 
As they travel, the children are silent in protest at their father for forcing them to come along. However, James keeps the sailing boat steady and rather than receiving the harsh words he has come to expect from his father, he hears praise, providing a rare moment of empathy between father and son; Cam's attitude towards her father changes also, from resentment to eventual admiration.

Lily attempts to finally complete the painting she has held in her mind since the start of the novel. She reconsiders her memory of Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay, balancing the multitude of impressions from ten years ago in an effort to reach towards an objective truth about Mrs. Ramsay and life itself. Upon finishing the painting and seeing that it satisfies her, she realizes that the execution of her vision is more important to her than the idea of leaving some sort of legacy in her work.

COMMENTS

iT was difficult to understand the plot. But after checking it for this blog, I think it is a hard story about a father and son bad relationship. The father is strong, and an authority and the son always obeying him against his own feelings. At the end of the book, the relationship becomes better.

SPECIAL ASPECTS

How the mother tries and fails to support the dream of her son. The relationship between the father and James and the last effort of Lily to paint, and how she decided to left the paint as it was.
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INFERNO

(Guillermo Guzmán)

PLOT

Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) an American author of thriller fiction. His novels are set in a 24 hour period and feature the themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories.   His books have been translated into 52 languages, and as of 2012, sold over 200 million copies. His novels had the character Robert Langdon, also included historical themes and Christianity as motifs, and as a result, have generated controversy.  

CHARACTERS 

Robert Langdon: An American professor of symbology at Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts.

Sienna Brooks: a doctor and Zobrist´s former lover who works for The Consortium. She helps Langdon suspicious until the end of the novel.

Bertrand Zobrist: a transhumanist genius scientist who is obsessed with Dante´s Inferno. He is intent on solving the world´s overpopulation problem by releasing a virus.

Elizabeth Sinskey: The head of the World Health Organization who hires Langdon to find Zobrist's virus. Cristoph Brüder: Head of the SRS team who is ordered by Sinskey to find Langdon after she loses contact with him.The Provost: The head of The Consortium.Vayentha: The Consortium's agent in Florence who has orders to follow Langdon but is later disavowed after failing her mission. Jonathan Ferris: An agent of The Consortium who pretends to be in league with the World Health Organization. Marta Alvarez: An employee at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence who assists Langdon with Dante's death mask. Ignazio Busoni: The obese director of Il Duomo in Florence, nicknamed "il Duomino", who assists Langdon with Dante's death mask.Ettore Vio: The curator of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice.Mirsat: A tour guide of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

PLOT

In the beginning of the novel, Professor Robert Langdon wakes up in a hospital with a head wound and no memory of the last few days. His last memory is walking on the Harvard campus, but he quickly realizes that he is now in Florence. Sienna Brooks, one of the doctors tending to him, tells him he suffered a concussion from being grazed by a bullet and had stumbled into the emergency ward. Suddenly, Vayentha, a female assassin who has been following Robert, breaks into the hospital, shoots the doctor in charge of Robert's care, and approaches Robert's room. Sienna grabs Robert and they flee to her apartment. 

While at Sienna's apartment they discover a hidden pocket in his jacket which contains a biohazard container containing a small medieval bone cylinder fitted with a hi-tech projector that displays a modified version of Botticelli's Map of Hell. 

Robert and Sienna head toward the Old City, believing the cylinder must have something to do with Dante, however, they meet by Venice police and the same soldiers and forced to sneak through most of the city.

Sienna later explains that Zobrist was a geneticist who advocated the halting of humanity's growth, due to it is out of control population. And that he was rumored to be working on a means to do so using an engineered disease. 

Robert is captured by a group of black-clad soldiers while Sienna escapes.Robert is taken to Elizabeth Sinskey, the director-general of the WHO, and is given an explanation of what is going on: Zobrist, who committed suicide the week before, was a brilliant geneticist and Dante fanatic who has supposedly developed a new biological plague that will kill off a large portion of the world's population in order to quickly solve the problem of the world's impending overpopulation. 

Elizabeth raided Zobrist's safe deposit box, found the cylinder, and flew Robert to Florence to follow the clues. However, Robert stopped communicating with Elizabeth after meeting with Marta and Ignazio, and the WHO feared he betrayed them and was working with Zobrist to unleash the plague. 

Zobrist had paid a shadowy consulting group called The Consortium to protect the cylinder until a certain date. 

The video claims that the world will be changed the following morning. When Elizabeth took it away, they were obligated to protect whatever the bone cylinder pointed to.

Robert, the WHO, and The Consortium team up to stop her. From watching Zobrist's video they conclude that the bag containing the plague will be fully dissolved by the date the video specifies and that Zobrist's clues point to its location: the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. However, Robert and the others find the plague is in the Cistern where Sienna already is. 

After Sinskey hears everything she decides to let Sienna help her address the world and answer future questions that may arise from the world leaders. Langdon and Sienna say their goodbyes before she has to leave with Sinskey. They kiss, happy ending.  

COMMENTS

I haven't read the book or another novel form this author, I think you must read this kind of novels with an open mind, knowing it is a novel, not a faith testimony or script.

SPECIAL ASPECTS

It is incredible that the form in which this author writes, creates a faith controversy, people forget the point that this is fiction.

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The Chronicles of Narnia

"The magician´s nephew"

(Jessica del Cid)

Clive Staples Lewis was a medievalist, literary critic, novelist, academic. He was born in Belfast, Ireland on November 29, 1898, and died in Oxford England in 1963. 

Lewis childhood was fascinated by reading and at his father house were many books.

Lewis was related to JRR Tolkien who is the author of The Lord of the rings, so he was influenced to abandon his Christian faith. He became an atheist, and the took interest in mythology. After an internal war with himself, he converted to Christianity once again. 

He wrote fiction novels "The Devil's letters", "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "The Cosmic Trilogy".

He lived and participated in the World War I and witnessed the Second World War. This affected his life and had a great influence to stop believing in God to see the damages.

In this book, he involves Christianity. This is a Children's science fiction book, with a message.  He wrote in the Modernism literary period.

CHARACTERS

Digory Kirke

Digory is the protagonist in the novel. Digory is living in London with his Aunt Letty and Uncle Andrew while they take care of his mother, who is very sick, and while his father is in India.

Polly Plummer

Polly is brave and feisty. She is at times smarter and more courageous than Digory.

Uncle Andrew Ketterly

Uncle Andrew is a magician, but not as illustrious or powerful a magician as he imagines himself to be. He has directed much of his magic skills towards experimentation rather than the exploration of new worlds. 

Queen Jadis/ the Witch

The Queen is the embodiment of evil in the novel; she is the antagonist. She has a history of reducing anyone who so much as disagrees with her to dust.

Aslan

Aslan, the king of Narnia, is the embodiment of good and is a God-like creator figure.

The Cabby / King Frank

The Cabby is a forthright and decent man who drives a hansom cab, the taxi of the time. He is upstanding, cares for his horse, and is committed to his wife.

Strawberry/Fledge
Aunt Letty /Miss Ketterley

Strawberry is the Cabby's horse, and although he pulls a heavy cab behind him, he comes from a long line of horses used in battle. This gives him his brave and reliable character.

Sarah /The housemaid

The woman who works at the Ketterley’s home.

Aunt Letty

The sister of Uncle Andrew and of Digory's mother. She is described as an “old maid” (2), meaning she is unmarried. She cares for Digory’s mother and for Digory.

PLOT

The story begins in London during the summer of 1900. Two children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, meet while playing in the adjacent gardens of a row of terraced houses. They decide to explore the attic connecting the houses, but take the wrong door and surprise Digory's Uncle Andrew in his study. 
Uncle Andrew tricks Polly into touching a yellow magic ring, causing her to vanish. Then he explains to Digory that he has been dabbling in magic and that the rings allow travel between one world and another. He blackmails Digory into taking another yellow ring to follow wherever Polly has gone, and two green rings so that they both can return.

Digory finds himself transported to a sleepy Woodland with an almost narcotic effect; he finds Polly nearby. The woodland is filled with pools. 

They decide to explore a different world before returning to England and jump into one of the nearby pools. They then find themselves in a desolate abandoned city of the ancient world of Charn.  They find a bell with a hammer, an inscription inviting the finder to strike the bell. 

Despite protests from Polly, Digory rings the bell. This awakens the last of the statues, a witch queen named Jadis who, to avoid defeat in battle, had deliberately killed every living thing in Charn by speaking the "Deplorable Word".

The children realized Jadis's evil nature and attempt to flee, but she follows them back to England by clinging to them as they clutch their rings. In England, she discovers that her magical powers do not work, although she retains her superhuman strength, Polly and Digory grab her and put on their rings to take her out of their world, dragging with them Uncle Andrew, Frank the cab-driver, and Frank's horse, since all were touching one another when the children grabbed their rings. 
They then all witness the creation of a new world by the lion Aslan, who brings stars, plants, and animals into existence as he sings. Jadis, as terrified by his singing as the others are attracted to it, tries to kill Aslan with the iron rod; but it rebounds harmlessly off him, and in the creative soil of the new world it sprouts into a growing lamp-post. Jadis flees.

Aslan gives some animals the power of speech, commanding them to use it for justice and merriment. Aslan confronts Digory with his responsibility for bringing Jadis into his young world, and tells Digory he must atone by helping to protect the new land of Narnia from her evil Digory picks one of the apples for his mission, but their overpowering smell tempts him. 

Jadis appears, having herself eaten an apple to become immortal; she tempts Digory either to eat an apple himself and join her in immortality or steal one to take back to Earth to heal his dying mother. Digory resists, knowing his mother would never condone theft but hesitates.Digory's apple restores his mother's health, and he and Polly remain lifelong friends. 

Uncle Andrew reforms and gives up magic, but still enjoys bragging about his adventures with the Witch. Digory plants the apple's core with Uncle Andrew's rings in the backyard of his aunt's home in London, and it grows into a large tree. Years later, Digory's family inherit a mansion in the country, and the apple tree blows down in a storm. Digory has its wood made into a wardrobe, setting up the events in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

COMMENTS

I have read the book, I think this story is slow and boring, compared with the other stories of the book. 

SPECIAL ASPECTS

The form in which the devil gets in the new creation.

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The Great Gatsby

( Jeannette Rodriguez)

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald  September 241896, december 21, 1940 fue un novelista y escritor estadounidense de historias cortas, ampliamente conocido como uno de los mejores autores estadounidenses del siglo XX, cuyos trabajos son paradigmáticos de la era del jazz. Fitzgerald es considerado miembro de la Generación Perdida de los años veinte. Fitzgerald escribió también múltiples historias cortas, muchas de las cuales tratan sobre la juventud y las promesas, la edad y la desesperación.

The Great Gatsby is a story told by Nick Carraway, who was once Gatsby's neighbor, and he tells the story sometime after 1922 when the incidents that fill the book take place. 

CHARACTERS

COMMENTS

I haven´t read the book, it sounds great.

SPECIAL ASPECTS

The conspiration, the relationships and how the things happened are really unespected.