RECOMMENDATIONS (Staff, 7-9, 10-12)
Catherine Wells
What are you reading? I am currently reading What Lies Beneath – Book One of Caliban’s End by Paul Francis Stewart (former Whitefriars Staff member).
Why this book?
I had the privilege of reading parts of this book when it was in draft form, and have been waiting with much excitement for it to be published so I could read the finished product! Now that my marking is over for the year I am thoroughly enjoying reading it. I am a huge fan of fantasy writing. As I have been able to have a number of conversations with Paul about my favourite TV show ‘Buffy’, and some of my favourite novels including Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, I knew that whatever he wrote, I would end up being a huge fan.
What’s it about?
Many things….a strange and wonderful world…an array of interesting and unique characters…a mystery…
Has it lived up to your expectations?
Yes! In that I am constantly being surprised and delighted by the story – I knew I was going to be impressed with the writing – and I have been!
Would you recommend it to others?
Yes! Definitely! If you love reading fantasy you will love this novel. AND the author is from Melbourne!
Thankyou, Catherine, for sharing your reading with us.
You can read it here:
Or you might like to read it here along with Book 2. Paul’s site is a comprehensive and fascinating support for the stories.
RECOMMENDATIONS (Staff)
Now that we’re finally starting to breathe and look ahead to leisure time, some of you may be itching for reading recommendations.
Me and My Big Mouth is creating a special type of Advent Calendar which suggests a book every day from December 1st until Christmas day.
Every day between December 1st and Christmas Day itself I will be posting short suggestions for books to brighten up your festive season.
Some will be old, some will be new. Some would make for ideal gifts, others are entirely for personal use.
The intention is to recommend 24 books that you might otherwise have overlooked.
If you need ideas for reading or book gifts, and you want variety, and can only read one short recommendation at a time, then read this blog. It’s written by staff of a UK bookshop but don’t let that put you off. And don’t forget to check out all the reviews and interviews on the blog, including ‘currently reading’ and ‘new arrivals’. Plenty of book gift and wishlist ideas here.
On Fan Fiction by Joshua Bell
Fan fiction is, on a whole, regarded as one of the lower forms of writing. This may be for any number of reasons. First and foremost, simply because the idea behind it is to blatantly and without any form of pretence on the contrary use someone else’s idea. The second reason is that fan fiction is often viewed as a medium for amateur writers.
There are many people, readers and authors alike, who view fan fiction as a means for amateur writers to change someone else’s ideas ever so slightly and gain respect, renown and on rare occasions, money, from it.
I personally have to argue against this since I myself am a fan fiction writer, and I believe that fan fiction is a very useful tool for developing young writers and for expressing one’s self. I discovered it in February 2009 and have been writing fan fiction avidly since then, and have gained great rewards from doing so. What started out as a bit of fun and an idea, grew into something larger, and now, thanks to fan fiction, I know what I want to do with my life.
The majority of fan fiction is posted online, which means that feedback can be provided almost instantaneously as each chapter is uploaded. This feedback can’t be gained anywhere else, since posting your own work on the internet can be dangerous if you wish to get it published. With fan fiction there is no chance that you’ll get it published, so there is no fear of plagiarism. This provides the perfect ‘training ground’ for amateur writers. While there may be no financial profit gained from it, there is most definitely invaluable experience gained from it, and in some cases that is better than money.
Some may argue that fan fiction requires little skill since the idea is already there for you. The fact is that fan fiction requires the same skill as any other type of writing, because there is always a new idea in each and every fan fiction. Fan fiction does not mean that a storyline is copied. What it means is that certain elements of a story, whether it be characters, setting or timeline, are taken and used for something different. For example, in my fan fiction I have taken the world which my fan fiction is based on, set the story fifty years into the future, then developed my own characters and started it from there. In this way the same amount of effort is needed when thinking up an idea for a fan fiction as writing a professional novel, and anyone who says otherwise clearly hasn’t been educated very well on the subject.
There are, of course, people who do not like fan fiction for other reasons. Some authors feel that fan fiction simply spoils a perfect story, and that it represents an opinion from the readers that the story would be better off if written by others. Now this I can understand, however I do think that these authors need to remember just how valuable a tool fan fiction can be. Because of fan fiction I want to be an author professionally, and I think I owe it to fan fiction to defend it.
I constantly find myself embarrassed when I am discussing my writing with someone and I have to explain to them about fan fiction. When I do I find that people are often less than impressed, and it brings me down, because I spend literally months working on these pieces, and I personally think they’re an achievement worth recognizing.
Fan fiction is a great tool for learning and I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to write interesting tales and get great feedback from it.
Thankyou, Josh, for informing us about Fan Fiction.
RECOMMENDATIONS (Staff, 7-9, 10-12)
Michael Gerard Bauer, well-known and popular YA author, winner of many book awards, including CBCA 2005 Book of the Year for The running man, has graciously agreed to share with us what he is currently reading.
What are you reading?
’Leaving Barrumbi’ by Leonie Norrington.
Why this book?
I’ve read the other Barrumbi books and enjoyed them. Also it was shortlisted for the CBCA award last year and I know Leonie and she is published by Omnibus/Scholastic Australia like me.
What’s it about?
Set in the Northern Territory it tells of the trials and tribulations of a boy called Dale who heads off to boarding school for the first time. Dale has always lived with Aboriginal people and doesn’t really see himself as a ‘whitefella’. It’s about understanding different cultures and also about growing up.
Has it lived up to your expectations?
Yes absolutely. I haven’t finished it yet but I’m already caught up in Dale’s sometimes disastrous attempts to fit in with his new boarding school life. Leonie is a wonderful writer who brings alive characters, culture and the environment.
Would you recommend it to others?
Certainly. You could start with The Barrumbi Kids and The Spirit of Barrumbi or read this one as a stand alone. The series gives a great insight into Aboriginal people and culture.
If you like, you can read a synopsis of the story here.
This has been cross-posted from Brave New World.
Did you know that UNESCO bestowed on the city of Melbourne the title of City of Literature as part of its Creative Cities Network?
Maybe you did, but did you also know that the Arts Minister, Lynne Kosky, announced two days ago the creation of The Wheeler Centre: Books, Writing, Ideas. It has been named after the founders of the Melbourne-based Lonely Planet travel guides.
From 2010, Melbourne will have a new kind of cultural institution. The Wheeler Centre. A centre dedicated to the discussion and practice of writing and ideas. Through a year-round programme of talks and lectures, readings and debates, we invite you to join the conversation.
The city of Melbourne is home to an impressive collection of literary organisations, including the Victorian Writers’ Centre, Express Media, the Australian Poetry Centre, the Melbourne Writers Festival, Emerging Writers’ Festival and the Centre for Youth Literature.
These organisations will reside at 176 Little Lonsdale Street, a newly renovating wing of the State Libray of Victoria. I still remember the Melbourne Public Library housing the National Art Gallery, the Museum of Melbourne and the Planetarium.
Now it is the home of the Wheeler Centre for Books Writing and Ideas.
Browsing the Wheeler Centre’s website, I discovered a remarkable short animated film for the New Zealand Book Council.
No doubt some wonderful initiatives will be coming from these literary organisations, like the Summer School Novel Writing workshop in January 2010 organised by the Victorian Writers’ Centre.
And if you ever doubted the connection between reading and writing (as if you would), you’d be advised to read what the Victorian Writers’ Centre writing tips state at the top of the list:
A few good tips to develop your writing.
Every experienced writer reads widely. Professional writers always recommend reading as a way for the writer to learn their craft. Reading widely can enhance your writing technique, broaden your scope, multiply your ideas and deepen your understanding of literary form in all its variety.
And if you’ve ever been confused by punctuation rules, think about following the great French author, Gustav Flaubert, in his ‘musical’ rules for punctuation:
Flaubert’s rule was that a pause of:
one beat equals a comma
two beats equals a semi-colon
three beats a colon
four beats a full stop
That’s what I call simple rules of punctuation.
Thanks to CMIS Fiction Focus for the alert.
This has been cross-posted from a post in Brave New World from last Christmas. Have a go – DON’T CHEAT!
I know that you would have seen these before – these strangely reworded Christmas carol titles or, as described on the site, obfuscated Christmas carol titles, but I thought I’d pull them out – as one pulls out of a dusty box that’s been sitting in the back of a dark cupboard – as a light challenge for the season.
The website calls them titles of Christmas Carols, rewritten in florid and multisyllabic language!
See how many you can guess.
- Move hitherward the entire assembly of those who are loyal in their belief
- Listen, the celestial messengers produce harmonious sounds.
- Nocturnal time span of unbroken quietness.
- An emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good given to the terrestrial sphere.
- Embellish the interior passageways.
- Exalted heavenly beings to whom harkened.
- Twelve o’clock on a clement night witnessed its arrival.
- The Christmas preceding all others.
- Small municipality in Judea southeast of Jerusalem.
- Diminutive masculine master of skin-covered percussionistic cylinders.
- Omnipotent supreme being who elicits respite to ecstatic distinguished males.
- Tranquillity upon the terrestrial sphere.
- Obese personification fabricated of compressed mounds of minute crystals.
- Expectation of arrival to populated area by mythical, masculine perennial gift giver.
- Natal celebration devoid of color, rather albino, as a hallucinatory phenomenon for me.
- In awe of the nocturnal time span characterized by religiosity.
- Geographic state of fantasy during the season of mother nature’s dormancy.
- The first person nominative plural of triumvirate of far eastern heads of state.
- Tintinnabulation of vacillating pendulums in inverted, metallic, resonant cups.
- In a distant location the existence of an improvised unit of newborn children’s slumber furniture.
- Proceed forth declaring upon a specific geological alpine formation.
- Jovial Yuletide desired for the second person singular or plural by us.
If you reach saturation point guessing these, scroll down past the picture for the answers.
- Oh Come All Ye Faithful
- Hark the Herald Angels Sing
- Silent Night
- Joy to the World
- Deck the Halls
- Angels We Have Heard on High
- It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
- The First Noel
- Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
- Little Drummerboy
- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
- Peace on Earth
- Frosty the Snowman
- Santa Claus is Coming to Town
- White Christmas
- Oh Holy Night
- Winter Wonderland
- We Three Kings
- Jingle Bells
- Away in a Manger
- Go Tell It on a Mountain
- We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Khai Tran – What are you reading?
I am reading The Alchemyst: The Secrets of The Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott.
What’s it about?
It is about how two twins, Sophie and Josh, have regular lives until one day, their lives change with the appearance of Nicholas Flamel and Perenelle Flamel. A man called doctor John Dee is trying to steal the book of Abraham the Mage from Nicholas to summon the dark elders. The book has the recipe of the immortal elixir. Without the elixir, he and Perenelle could die in a month. Sophie and Josh see Dee and Flamel battle and they are now cast as a target for Dee. Flamel is willing to help Sophie and Josh by training their auras so they can use it for magic. But with every use of magic there is a price…….
Why this book?
I chose this book because I am into books with fantasy and magic. Another interesting point is that Nicholas Flamel was known to discover the elixir to immortal life and the philosopher’s stone. The philosopher’s stone is known to change common metals into gold and other gems while the immortal elixir grants life eternal which makes you stay the age when you took it. The interesting part is that his tomb was found empty at his recorded time of death: 1418.
Has it lived up to your expectations?
It has.
Would you recommend it to others?
If you like Harry Potter, then you’ll love the alchemyst.
You can read more about this book here. I also recommend the author’s website.
You can learn more about Nicholas Flamel here.
Thankyou, Khai, for such a fascinating review. I think many of us will want to read the book now.
This has been cross-posted from an old (24 June) post on Brave New World. Now that we’re winding down to the end of the year (winding up, perhaps?), I thought I would share my thoughts about poetry – old and new.
I’ve been meaning to scan some old photos and pictures for a long time, and today I finally did. This picture lives inside one of two autograph books which belonged to my maternal grandmother. I love these books because they’re full of hand-drawn pictures and poetry. Some of the poetry is the typical verse which would have been popular as choices for autographs, and other poetry has been written especially for my grandmother. My grandmother was German but born in Russia, and lived there until she and her family fled to Germany during WWII. And so the entries are in Russian, German or Ukrainian.
The pages of these books contain history – dates, names, warm wishes and sincere words from people who were once young and are now long gone – but they are precious to me also for their lost art of handiwork. There’s a thrill in being able to feel the paint on the page, to see the brushwork or ink, and think that somehow the traces of people long gone are kept alive within these pages.
Here’s a page from an illustrated poem written about a time when my grandmother’s father was separated from the family when he was working in Siberia. In this picture you can see my grandmother as a young girl, her mother holding her baby brother and her father rushing out to meet his family, happy to see them. And the whole story is written as poetry. How special is this!
Things have really changed since the times of these autograph books. Even the fact that I can scan, crop, save and upload these pictures demonstrates how technology has created possibilities. We may lament the fact that people don’t have the fine motor skills to draw as well as they used to, or the time or inclination to write poetry by hand, but we have different options for creativity. If students can’t draw, this doesn’t stop them from being able to create computer-generated art or animation. I love the fact that this generation is revisiting things from the past – art and music – they are remixing, reorganising, reinterpreting these in a new way.
Here’s a Second Life animation take on Yeats’ poem, The Stolen Child, by Lainy Voom. Andy Fisher found this for me; thanks!
The autograph book demonstrates a lovely collection of shared sentiments, but at the same time, this generation is collaborating in newly found ways to create.
RECOMMENDATIONS (Staff, 10-12)
Fr Noel Kierce
What are you reading?
At present I am reading Edward VI, the lost king of England by Chris Skidmore.
What’s it about?
It is a book which deals with the desire of HenryVIII for a male heir, Edward’s birth and education and his accession to the throne as a young boy. It also deals with the machinations of those who were to rule in his name until he came of age. Sadly he died of tuberculosis before he was eighteen and it leads in to the question of the succession, Lady Jane Grey and how Mary Tudor claimed the throne.
Why this book?
I have had an interest in Tudor and Stuart England ever since my university days and find that this book, although quite detailed and complex, helps to understand what went on between Henry VIII’s days and those of Mary Tudor.
Has it lived up to your expectations?
I think that it more than fulfilled my expectations.
Would you recommend it to others?
Certainly, especially if they are interested in the Tudors and their history.
Read more about this book here and here.
Thankyou, Fr Kierce, for sharing your reading with us.
We are always happy to receive an email from you telling us what you’ve been reading.
RECOMMENDATIONS (Staff, 7-9, 10-12)
Have you noticed that we have more male teachers caught reading than female? That’s a strong message for all you boys out there!
Today we have caught both Mr Hardiman and Mr Doolan reading.
Dominic Hardiman
What are you reading?
The last book I read was World War Z by Max Brooks
Why this book?
The book itself came highly recommended by friends.
What’s it about?
The book covers in a series of interviews by Brooks of the world war between humanity and those infected with a zombie virus. The book covers in realistic terms and expression through interviews with “survivors” from around the world the initial outbreak to full scale war to the aftermath and rebuilding of the world post-zombie apocalypse.
Has it lived up to your expectations?
The book was gripping reading. Brooks is a talented author who is able to covey an extremely realistic vision of survival horror.
Would you recommend it to others?
The book itself is excellent though I would only recommend it for mature readers.
Read more about this book here.
Joe Doolan
What are you reading?
The Four Cultures of the West by John O’Malley
Why this book?
This book enables me to look at the contemporary world and note the legacy of the Western cultures. It also forces me to critique our college and gauge our fidelity to these great cultures.
What’s it about?
It explores the idea that western civilization was built upon Prophecy- biblical and social Scholarship- the idea of the university.The idea of the Human- the great writers, eg. Shakespeare; beauty in art, architecture, music.
O’Malley is a catholic historian and many of the examples are religious but the thesis still stands given that the formation of western culture was inextricably linked to the Christian story.
Read more about this book here.
NEWS/AUTHORS/WEBSITES (Staff, 7-9, 10-12)
This has been partially cross-posted from Brave New World.
There is an excellent special feature in the literary journal, Fiction Focus, which I want to share: Wow websites – book inspired web wonders, linking to websites which are an extension of books and series. I would strongly recommend these websites if you’re a fan of these books/series, or even if you’re not. Just go in and have a look. They’re brilliant even just from a design point of view. And many of them are interactive, so you can have some fun.
Here are the links to author websites provided by this article (click on the titles):
Angie Sage’s Septimus Heap series
Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series
Charlie Higson’s Young Bond series
Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider series
Robert Muchamore’s Cherub series
For Picture Book authors, there are links to the following websites:
Chris Priestley’s Tales of Terror Gothic feel site
Scott Westerfeld’s new Steampunk-inspired website
The selected works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen
The CMIS Fiction Focus blog include more extensive links to more blogs and websites of young adult authors and illustrators.
Fiction Focus also has an excellent article on Steampunk,
a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction. At the core of steampunk is the notion of altered history (often Victorian and London-Victorian at that) combined with technology that is historically impossible, and therefore all the more intriguing.
CMIS Fiction Focus has also given us a taste of Steampunk in their blog which is worth checking out, but I can’t resist including all the Steampunk blog links given here as well.
Steampod (podcasts)
Antipodean Steampunk Adventures with an Australian slant
The Antipodean League of Temporal Voyagers
Do read the Fiction Focus blog post about Steampunk.
Or drop into our library – Mrs Jimenez has put together some great Steampunk book information in a brochure for you.
And for those of you who have made it to the end of this post, here’s a reward for you – a video showing a Steampunk exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford – the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.
We have some talented writers in our student community, and I’d like to provide the opportunity for their writing to be published. Having an audience is a powerful thing. Writing for your teacher is one thing, but having your friends, younger and older students, people inside and outside your school, even overseas, read your work – that’s an empowering experience.
We’ve started a Student Stories section in this blog. Just click on the tab Student Stories at the top to find students’ names. You’ll be able to click on specific stories, and you can also leave comments.
Photo courtesy of Bibimorvarid on Flickr.
RECOMMENDATIONS (Staff, 7-9, 10-12)
Stuart Collidge
What are you reading?
The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
Why that book?
It was recommended to me by a friend and I’ve been hearing about it for a while now.
What are you reading?Stuart Biggins
What are you reading?
The Master by Colm Toibin
Why that book?
Because I loved the previous book I read which was also written by Toibin and a friend recommended this as my next Toibin read.
