march news

I haven't been doing very well with posting this month, have I? It was a glorious miracle that I didn't die of suffocation from under a pile of old library books. That is how much reading I have been required to do recently. Not that I have actually been doing all of it. It paints a pretty picture though, doesn't it? Lying on a table tragically dead from a downpour of books. 

I wanted to let you know, and ask you to please add me as a friend on Goodreads! The button is to the left of the page. 

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It's a good way of getting updates on the books that are currently on my reading list. Many of them are texts for uni - for example, recently we've been discussing a lot of Virgil, Chaucer, and next week, Shakespeare! And those aren't even for my english units! 

Next month I'm going to really try to post more frequently. :) Do you like seeing more posts? Or do you like occasional ones like this month? 

Also, I might do another whole bunch of "The Time Will Come" posts on Thursdays. I have so many books that fit that meme. Do you like those ones? Also, what kinda of posts would you like to see more of? 

Let me know in the comments, I would really, really appreciate it. Maybe more reviews, or discussion type things of stuff I've been learning in my course? Or maybe something else I haven't done before? 

I'm also trying to get a header for Chimneys and Magic really soon! It's just that... I'm lazy, and also I'm really fussy about that sort of thing. It has to be perfect, you know? 

If you have any thoughts on that, or any skills of the trade you'd like to share and help me out, I would love to hear from you. 

Things to look forward to on C&M: 

- a review on Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by David Levithan & Rachel Cohn

- more New on my bookshelf posts

- more posts in general! 

I hope you had an awesome March, I did! The Taylor Swift Speak Now World Tour concert definitely made my month. I have videos from the concert if you're interested: www.youtube.com/Elleira92

review: divergent by veronica roth

Divergent by Veronica Roth

young adult dystopian // harpercollins // 2011 // paperback // 487 pages

I had this book sitting on my shelf for way, WAY too long. I waited way too long to read it. 

I bought this online back when I was still studying engineering! Which seems like ages ago. It was almost a year ago. 

I remember this because I was at uni really early in the morning in the maths computer labs because I needed to work on my stupid Process assignment. I was on the internet reading book blogs instead and I read like, one measly review (or rather, epic review) of Divergent and ordered it immediately. Right then and there.

One year later, here we are.

I just watched a review of divergent on Youtube by one of my favourite beauty girls Elle Fowler, aka AllThatGlitters21. She really went into depth explaining the dystopian world, each faction of society and their extremist ideals, etc. It really stirred up my love for the book again. I actually read it several weeks ago and was planning to do my review immediately after but I've been procrastinating ever since then. I could write an analytical essay on this novel, it had that much of an impact. Anyway, enough of me explaining why I took so long to write about Divergent.

Divergent is set in a dystopian world - a city (which used to be Chicago) that is now fenced off from the rest of the world. The society is split up into five factions that correspond to personality - Abnegation (The Selfless), Dauntless (The Brave), Candor (The Honest), Amity (The Peaceful) and Erudite (The Intelligent). The main character is Beatrice (or Tris as we know her later), a 16 year old girl who was raised in Abnegation. Abnegations are only allowed to look at mirrors every three months. They eat plain food (never had hamburgers or cake), and they feed the factionless. Beatrice has never felt truly at home in her faction. Complete selflessness isn't exactly second nature to her, even after almost sixteen years of training.

Every year there is a Choosing Ceremony, for the kids who turned 16 that year. At the Choosing Ceremony each person is allowed to choose whether they will stay in their faction of childhood, or transfer to any one of the other factions and leave their families and past lives behind. But before the ceremony, each person must undergo the Aptitude Test. The result of the Aptitude Test determines which faction each teenager is most suited to (according to the decisions the person makes in different scenarios), regardless of the faction of birth.

Beatrice ends up with an inconclusive result. This is rare and dangerous for her, because that means that she is Divergent. Being Divergent means that you are suited to more than one faction - Beatrice's Aptitude Test outcome concluded that she could be in either Abnegation, Dauntless or Erudite. I won't tell you why exactly it is so dangerous, but it certainly fuels the direction of the Government. Erudite has been ferociously feuding with Abnegation, so for the Choosing, Beatrice rules out Erudite because she hates them. At the Choosing Ceremony, she decides to transfer to Dauntless. By the way, the Choosing Ceremony itself is quite the spectacle. I won't spoil it for you, but I think it's pretty cool.

The 22nd of March: AKA The Hunger Games Day!

Two nights ago I went to the midnight screening of The Hunger Games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel like that statement deserves a lot more exclamation marks than that. Like a gazillion more. 

I'd been waiting for that day for well over a year now, so you can imagine the build up of excitement. 

The film was so good. It was better than I expected and it fulfilled all my hopes for it. 

The movie stayed quite true to the book, unlike a lot of book-to-film adaptations, so for that I was glad. 

I can't really pinpoint anything that disappointed me, except the the film's tame portrayal of the Capitol. I was really looking forward to seeing the scene at the party with those drinks that make you regurgitate your food so you can eat more. It also would have been nice if they mentioned the Avoxes, even a little bit. Katniss in the movie did very vaguely mention cutting off tongues but she wasn't even talking about Avoxes even though it was an indirect reference to them. I know that the film already was so long because they had to fit in so much into the movie, but I would have liked the non-book reading audience to really understand the wicked insanity of the people living in the Capitol, because the movie didn't really capture it as well as I hoped.

Also, I thought the tracker jackers would be way, way, bigger than they were.

There was a group of highschool girls sitting on the right side of me, and they could not contain their emotions... particularly the girl sitting next to me. She was almost openly weeping - loud, heavy breathing and loads of crying in every emotional scene (of which there were many). 

I really liked Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman. He was funny. :P

The cinematography really did the book justice I feel, and it totally had a dystopian feel - not Hollywood-y at all.

Anyway, I had a 10am test for Greek the next morning, so I only managed about 3 or 4 hours sleep. I was sitting in a cafe on campus before class and in front of me sat two girls, both sitting alone, reading books from the Hunger Games trilogy. One was reading Mockingjay and the other The Hunger Games. I was silently really proud of Suzanne Collins at that moment. 

Later that day quite a few other people in my lecture and tutorial were talking about The Hunger Games movie as well. :) 

EVERYTHING IS JUST SO EXCITING!! 

Hehe.

On another note, I'm sorry I haven't been blogging very much recently - I highly underestimated the enormity of my reading requirements for my combination of units this semester. In fact, yesterday I was in a two hour long tute where I hadn't done much of the readings and it was quite obvious because I was the only slacker in the class. So in order for me to stop looking like and acting like an insubordinate, lazy fool I really need to step up my game. O, but if only studying were really a game. 

new on my bookshelf!

Folks, today I ventured outside for you to bring you this new-on-my-bookshelf post.

It was really sunny and warm out, but I really wanted to take these snapshots in front of my favourite plant in our garden (bar the fruit trees, lemon & fig in particular). 

I hope you enjoy! 

BEAUTY by Robin McKinley (1978)

A retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast is my favourite Disney film. I heard wonderful things about this book and decided that I needed to get my hands on more fairytale retellings, so I ordered it off the Book Dep!

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to read it very soon because my reading load for uni is pretty epic as it is, so leisurely reading will be reduced enormously. :(

THE LOVER'S DICTIONARY by David Levithan (2011)

I already mentioned this in my post about the Perth Writers Festival, which is where/when I bought this one. 

It's signed, new, beautiful and I can't wait to read it.

WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON by John Green & David Levithan (2010)

The only thing that would make this book even better is John Green's personalised signature in there too! But I'm pretty satisfied with the way it is for now. ;) See this post to find out what David wrote inside!

TOUCH OF POWER by Maria V. Snyder (2012)

I won this in a competition and was pretty stoked about it because I don't really enter very many blog giveaways (however I used to be a giveaway-entering maniac back in the day). I haven't really heard of the author before but the book sounds exciting even though I don't understand what they were trying to do with the cover model's hair. 

day 28: favourite title

DAY 28: MY FAVOURITE TITLES

I couldn't possibly choose one. Here are a few of my favourites:

What are yours?

words, poetry, literature, childhood, imagination, reality.

This morning I had my first lecture for my English unit Making Form/Breaking Form: Literature Production & Genre. The lecturer first spoke about how books are like windows, and how words are the media for looking through them. Which is true to an extent, because sometimes words can get in the way - like when it comes to poetry. In the case of poetry we don't see through the words to get to the picture, but we look to the words to guide us to it. It can be tough, but there's beauty in compressed profundity. The sound and rhythm of words can enact much greater meaning at times.

He also talked about dreams, reality, imagination, art, literature and childhood. How art/literature mirrors reality: it seems hyper-realist but completely reversed and different. Apparently (I didn't know this before) human beings have the longest childhoods of all animals. We develop independently and our imaginations a large factor in that. Children love to pretend, imagine, play make believe - all for the practice and anticipation of human experiences. Humans like to imagine things that don't exist. 

Literature is a way of organising reality, it creates an opportunity for many interpretations of it. 

Realism is just another genre.

I'm not entirely sure if any of wrote I just wrote makes much sense, I just sorta went off from the notes I wrote in class. Did any of it make sense to you? 

I'm kinda doubting my note-taking abilities here. :P

my day at Perth Writers Festival (2012)

This was the first time I attended the Perth Writers Festival. 

It went from Thursday to Sunday (23rd-26th Feb, 2012). 

Because this was the first time I went to the writers festival, I didn't have very high expectations (nor very low ones!). 

So I was pretty blown away by how much FUN I HAD! 

I was supposed to go with my friend Jess, but she bailed which was a bummer... 

But then I bumped in to a different Jess, fellow book-blogger Jess from The Tales Compendium! Which was lovely. :) 

Anyway, here's what happened from beginning to end (btw, the first half of the recount below was written on Saturday, the day I went, whereas at the end of the post I say today as in Monday):

1. I got to uni (the festival was held at UWA campus, aka my uni) at 9.15am and went to the Dolphin Theatre for "What's the problem with poetry?", a panel discussion with poets Dennis O'Driscoll, David Brooks and Cate Kennedy with William Yeoman as chairperson. 

It was one of the first sessions of the day and I was already having a lot of fun. There were a lot of older folks in the audience which I did not mind at all, in fact I even favour that aspect. William read an article talking about how poetry has become unpopular over the years; how people in society these days are looking to other media of arts/culture that are maybe more accessible, trendier or easier to consume (like technology, tv and the internet); and just generally how meagre the reception of poetry has become in today's society.

I wish I had a better memory (but I am really tired right now, it's 10.25pm and I was there from 9.15 to 6.15 today) but I can't recall everyone's response to that article. I think Dennis talked a lot about the importance of poetry in his own country (Ireland) and Irish history. How politics and politicians often sought the advice of poets. Or something like that. :P On the other hand David kinda agreed with the article, saying how Aussie culture is more like how the article described 'us'. I can't remember what Cate said. 

It was just a really interesting discussion and I found myself really glad that I came to this 'early' session. I mean, it was a free event and I got to hear some really interesting stuff, and gain a bit of knowledge about poetry. (I don't write it, but I used to). All in all, it made me really think about how significant poetry can be, and that I should definitely read more of it. 

2. I really needed to pee so I did that and then hopped into a long queue to get my ticket for "Tapping into the Zeitgeist" with YA authors James Roy, David Levithan and Chetan Bhagat. The line for the tickets was so long I was almost late for the 11am start. This panel discussion was televised I think (not sure where it was broadcasted, but they had cameras all around and spiffy lighting!), and it was one of the highlights of my day! It'll probably be one of the highlights of my month. Maybe even year. 

James Roy went on a little rant about the significance of YA today - in particular the big three - Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games. He mentioned that David Levithan actually edited The Hunger Games, which was a really awesome fact for me to learn! James was really funny - all three of them were, actually. David talked about how as a YA writer the aim isn't really to tap into the zeitgeist, but rather create it. Chetan joked a lot, it was just a really amazing/hilarious/interesting panel to be able to watch and I was pretty surprised that there weren't more people in the audience!

3. Straight after the Zeitgeist panel I went to the Dymocks tent and picked up Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan, and also The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan. I got both of them signed by him straight after, as well as my copies of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist and Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (which I brought along). 

new on my bookshelf

New things on my shelf this week! 

1. The Short Novels of John Steinbeck

(Tortilla Flat, The Moon is Down, The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, The Pearl)

I got this from the book depository and it's probably one of my new favourite books! I've only read The Pearl so far (as per recommended by Marcus Mumford of the band Mumford & Sons).

Check out the awesome page edges! 

2. The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

borrowed from a friend

3. The Human Stain by Philip Roth

bought from fishpond. 

I need this one for one of my english units this semester. 

4. Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist by David Levithan & Rachel Cohn

bought from fishpond

I was surprised at how thin this book is - less than 200 pages! 

I don't really like how fishpond ships out their products - unlike the book depo's cardboard box packages, fishpond uses thinly protected envelopes, and I was really bummed to open my parcel this morning and find this book creased/folded/bent. It's a little annoying.

5. Beloved by Toni Morrison

bought from fishpond

I also need this one for an english unit this semester. By the way, uni re-starts next Monday! I'm excited. I get my timetable this arvo.