Post #5

Personally when I think of non-fiction books I think of boring recounts of wars and battles told in the driest way possible. This is probably the reason why I never read non-fiction books. So I guess I believe that non-fiction books, especially when talking about someone’s history, should be as true as possible.

Half-truths are tricky, I feel like there should be different levels of non-fiction. The closer to the actual story the more non-fiction you are and the further away from the actual account the closer you are to exaggerated non-fiction. Many memoirs would fit under exaggerated non-fiction because let’s be honest, who can actually remember every conversation word for word? And many times it is found that events in a memoir are beefed up in order to keep the reader interested. It’s not a crime- no one would read them if they told the whole truth, they would just end up being stories of slightly unique lives.

 For that reason I don’t blame Frey and Mortenson (Memoir writers who were found guilty of stretching the truth) for trying to spice up their stories because they still got their messages across and told an amazing tale. I do think that they should have informed the readers that some events are exaggerated (Like Frey later did after his lies were uncovered) but I don’t think that that should stop them from being labeled as non-fiction.

David Shields on the other hand is wrong; genres help the readers decide what to read. Without them I would have no idea what to read and the idea of getting rid of labels in ludicrous. Our current society is all about labeling people and while this may benefit the reader it will always constrict the writer to one or two genres. It’s not fair, but that sadly is life.  

Adapting your Book: The Fellowship of the Ring

In my copy of The Fellowship of the Ring there are almost 400 pages to describe the first step to Frodo’s epic journey. For the most part there is no way that a 2+ hour movie can fully describe a 400 page book. Filmmakers would have a difficult time adapting this into a movie due to the mountains of detail, inner thoughts, and subplots they would have to sift through to decide what they want to incorporate or throw out.

I have almost made it to chapter five and already I have begun to notice something’s that would have to be cut down or cut out completely in order to keep the movie exciting and fast paced. First and for most, the years Frodo spends in the Shire after Bilbo leaves will have to be either removed or cut out. It would take up too much time and bore the audience. I personally wouldn’t mind that change, that entire part of the novel was hard to read and extremely boring with little or no importance to the rest of the novel.

Next, the time Frodo spends traveling from the Shire to his new home in Bucklebury would have to be cut down to more than half of the actual time. This would exclude the breaks they took and some of the side characters they meet on the way. This is slightly upsetting to me because for the first time in the book things are finally starting to pick up. Things are getting interesting and exciting! But when you are watching the movie you wouldn’t feel this because you didn’t have to work your way through 30+ pages to get there.

Some scenes that are essential to keep based on what I have read so far would be all three scenes with the Black Riders. It is the first time as readers that we experience how dangerous Frodo’s journey actually is, it instills fear in him and his companions and gives them a reason to look over their shoulders. These encounters speed up the novel and make you want to keep turning the page. In the movie this should be one the first times you’re actually weary of something and it should have you biting your nails as you watch Frodo and the others hide in the bushes. It is necessary that you have all the times the Black Riders catch up to them because it not only shows how close to danger they are but how incredibly LUCKY the hobbits are to keep evading them. A theme that is present in both the prequel and the rest of this trilogy.

Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

The ultimate fan experience is finally here! Follow Jacob’s footsteps and explore around Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. This house turned museum is an exact-replica of the Peculiar’s house, complete with pictures, furniture and the strange items they left behind. A walk through museum of Mrs. Peregrine’s home would be a perfect way to relive Jacobs unique and peculiar journey. It also helps bring the reader closer to the characters and help really bring the book to life. The house was one of the most important settings in this book and many people (including Jacob and myself) wouldn’t mind having to live there. As Jacob describes it, there is a happiness in the air that relaxes you and makes you feel like you can spend years there and never be bored.

In Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children the main character, Jacob, sets out to discover the secrets in his grandfather’s past after he is brutally killed by a terrifying creature only he can see. The only person who might be able to help him is the mysterious Mrs. Peregrine, who might not even be alive. After following the clues he sets out to a small Welsh Island, where he starts looking for the woman. After asking around he is told that the orphanage was bombed many years ago and there were no survivors. Ever determined, Jacob sets out anyway through the dangerous swamp area. When he comes upon the orphanage he is devastated to find it in even worse condition than he had imagined, “[A] doorless doorway, bearded with vines, gaping and black; an open mouth just waiting to swallow me. Just looking at it made my skin crawl” (Riggs 54). But nothing is ever as it seems.

The stories his grandfather had told him as a child, about the strange children come back to him as he finds a trunk full of similar photographs. Jacob is slowly becoming less and less sure that they had been photocopied when the silence of the empty house is broken.

The Peculiar children, the ones that had been a part of his childhood bedtime stories for years, never actually left the house. They find him rummaging around in the wreckage of the old house mistaking him for his late grandfather, Abe. “I recognized them somehow, though I didn’t know where from [...] Then It clicked. The pictures strewn before me, staring up at me just as the children stared down. Suddenly I understood. I’d seen them in the photographs” (Riggs 78).

The children were alive and they take Jacob into a whole new world, “I gazed at wonder- not because it was awful, but because it was beautiful. There wasn’t a shingle out of place or a broken window. Turrets and chimneys that had slumped lazily on the house I remembered now pointed confidently toward the sky. The forest that had seemed to devour its walls stood at a respectful distance” (Riggs 93). Jacob is suddenly thrust into an adventure he isn’t sure he is ready for, but with the help of his new friends he can dare to hope to make it out of this strange and frightening experience alive.

 

I would recommend this book for ages 14 and up because of language and frightening situations. This book is filled with suspense and Riggs uniquely uses pictures to help make his point. This book is promised to keep you on the edge of your seat and biting your rails, waiting for the hammer to fall.

Post #2: What is a book?

A book is a new dimension; from the moment you open to the first page you are opening a portal to an entirely new world. Books allow the gates of our imagination open and new ideas, thoughts, and wonders to flood in. Think of it like a flower: you have to plant the seeds, water and care for the seedling then after time it blooms into a beautiful flower. To me this relates to books, you have to plant the seeds of imagination in your head then as you read through you are nursing the idea, giving it life and setting the stage for the book to blossom into something wonderfully unique. Books are alive, they are real, and I feel that people often overlook that fact.

                Author Victor LaValle is one of those people, in the book The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books he states, “They’re no more divine than a toaster. They are massed-produced items, sold in (occasionally) mass quantities.” I was stunned after I read that statement, how could someone possibly think that? A book is someone heart splashed onto the pages, they willing put themselves out there for the world to judge and he has the nerve to more or less throw their hard work back in their faces.

Then there are others like Joe Meno, Nancy Jo Sales, and Tom Piazza who also contributed to The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books who share my point of view. Nancy Jo Sales says “There’s something about the physicality of a book, the way it looks and feels and even smells… that makes it a living, breathing companion (who like yourself, is actually dying.” I don’t think I have ever heard a statement I agreed with more fully than this. Last year our local book store went out of business and I know many more will soon follow. EBooks and tablets have taken over and they are destroying the uniqueness of actually owning a real book. “Somebody else might have held the book, and valued it. Maybe they made notes in the margin, and kept it and handed it down to their children… I mean, you can give somebody a book; it has weight, it’s a gesture of faith in the future” (Piazza, The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books).

For that reason I stand behind the book.

Post #1: Why I Read

     That moment when you turn to the first page in a new book and the real world starts to dissolve around you. A new reality starts to from the words printed on the page and you find yourself being swept into a thrilling tale with characters that come to life with some help from your imagination. Books are a perfect place to escape reality, to get lost in problems that aren't yours, to feel the rush of excitement as they complete a task, or cry as a character comes to their unlikely end. Books can fit any mood and tell any tale. There is no limit to what you can read; the laws of life do not restrain what is written on the pages, magic is real and people can fly.

      When the mundane routine of life get to be too much for me I love being able to escape into a new world where anything can be possible and if it get to be too much I can close the book. I am in control, the characters look like I want them too as do all the building.  And this is why I read.