Lunes, Oktubre 17, 2016

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

By Carrie Ryan

Summary

Once upon a time, a fenced-in village existed in the middle of a Forest infested by the Unconsecrated (i.e. flesh-gobbling zombies). Enter Mary. She's minding her own business, washing her clothes in the stream, when her childhood pal Harry pays her a visit. And pops the question—yup, that question.
Before Mary can answer, the village sirens start a-wailing, which is code for… zombies in the house. Save yourselves, people. Mary hightails it for the village, knowing full well as she hustles along that this siren went off because she dilly-dallied at the stream. See, her mom really wants to find her newly zombified hubby, and Mary knows that because she stayed away too long her mom probably got too close to the fence while looking for him and is now infected herself. Bummer.
After Mary's mom joins the ranks of the moany-groanies, Mary's brother Jed kicks her out of their house (as a Guardian, he's not keen on having to chop off his mom's head if he sees her in the Forest). So Mary joins the Sisterhood, led by the power-hungry Sister Tabitha. Sister T can see that Mary isn't super happy about becoming a God-fearing nun for life, so she threatens to sic the Forest of zombies on her if she refuses to toe the line and act like she likes it.
While cooped up in the Cathedral, Mary finds out her other childhood pal, Travis, has a ridiculously bad leg injury and the Sisters are taking care of him. Mary visits him every day and "prays" with him… which means she actually just tells him stories about the ocean. Dreaming of the beach together means true love for Mary and the Travster, which is too bad since he's Harry's brother and engaged to Mary's bestie, Cass. Drama.
Harry asks for Mary's hand again, and she says yes. Insofar as this means she can escape the Sisterhood, this is a pretty awesome development; but insofar as she's in love with Harry's brother, it's pretty lame.
In the meantime, Mary notices that a girl in a bright red vest entered the village from Outside and is locked in a room in the Cathedral. She finds out her name is Gabrielle and is eager to learn more about her and where she's from.
Mary and Travis run into each other at the Hill and have a nice make-out session. Mary asks Travis to come for her and whisk her away from Harry, but before he can answer, they catch a glimpse of Gabrielle, who is now a super-zombie and totally freaky. So much for getting to know her.
Fast forward to the morning of the wedding (PS: Travis never came for Mary). Instead of waking up to church bells, the village wakes up to the screaming of the sirens. Turns out super-zombie Gabby and the zombie horde are attacking the village.
Harry and Mary escape by the skin of their teeth onto one of the fenced paths into the Forest. They're joined by Travis and Cass, Jed and Beth, a little boy named Jacob, and Mary's new pooch, Argos. See ya, village, wouldn't wanna be ya.
The gang wanders down the path for a while before stumbling upon another village. Mary knows it was Gabrielle's village, though it's also been overrun by zombies. While the rest of the gang escapes into the tree house part of the village (zombies aside, Shmoop wants to go there), Mary and Travis end up stuck in a big ol' house together. Alone. Ah, shucks.
At first it feels like heaven on earth, but then Mary stumbles onto some old photos and dresses and becomes super obsessed with escaping the village. Luckily for her, some zombies finally break down the house door, forcing her and the Travster to get outta there. Thanks to Argos and his furry jaws of death, Mary shoves Travis into the attic and swims through a sea of zombies unscathed.
The tireless threesome crosses the divide into the tree house village with a sheet-rope, a barrel, and some serious climbing skillz from the Travster (who still almost gets chomped to death by the zombie horde).
Mary and Travis have a heart-to-heart, and Mary realizes that she needs more than the Travster to be happy. She just can't quit thinking about her ocean. The others agree to head back to the forest paths once the weather cools down.
You know that phrase about how the best laid plans are meant to be broken? Jacob accidentally starts a fire and burns down the village, so it's go time—so much for waiting for the weather to cool down. Travis saves the day by running the rope through Zombieville to the gates, though he also gets himself bitten in the process. Mary slides down the rope to help him, but he's already on his way to becoming a zombie. Before Mary slices off his head, he tells her that he'd already been bitten back at the big house, so he was a dead man either way.
The gang is back to wandering through the Forest, and by this point everyone's depressed and starving. They come to the end of the path, and Beth about has a hissy-fit.
Mary leaves everyone in the dust and scoots into the Forest to find the ocean. The Unconsecrated dogpile her, and she'd be dead, except that Jed saves her life. Yep—he decided to help her follow her dream. Unfortunately for him though, he slips off a cliff and dies.
Mary tries to find his body in a raging river, but falls in and ends up gasping for air on a beach. Turns out the ocean is at the end of the river (funny how that works). A man comes along and almost cuts off her head, but she proves she's alive and they end up walking hand-in-hand back to his lighthouse. The end.


Background of an author:
                Carrie Ryan is the New York Times bestselling author of the Forest of Hands and Teeth series, Daughter of Deep Silence, and Infinity Ring: Divide and Conquer as well as the editor of Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction. Currently she’s working on The Map to Everywhere, a four book middle grade series co-written with her husband, John Parke Davis, and a new young adult novel which will be released by Penguin Random House in 2017. Her books have sold in over 22 territories and her first book is in development as a major motion picture. A former litigator, Carrie now lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband and various pets











Appreciation of the story:
In Mary's world there are simple truths, The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve.  The Unconsecrated will never relent, And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth.
   But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power. And, when the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness.  Now, she must choose between her village and her future, between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?


The boy named crow

The boy named crow
By Haruki Murakami
Summary
Kafka on the Shore is structured around the alternating stories of Kafka Tamura, a fifteen-year-old boy who runs away from home to escape an awful oedipal prophecy, and Nakata, an aging and illiterate simpleton who has never completely recovered from a wartime affliction. Kafka’s journey brings him to a small private library in the provincial town of Takamatsu and to a mountain hideaway where the ordinary laws of time no longer apply. But, like Oedipus, the more Kafka tries to avoid his fate, the closer he comes to fulfilling it. Nakata also sets forth on a quest for an enigmatic entrance stone, the significance of which he does not understand. These narratives push relentlessly forward like trains running on parallel tracks. We know the tracks will converge at some point, but not knowing when, or where, or how creates the suspense that makes the novel so compelling and drives it to its astonishing conclusion. Along the way Kafka on the Shore investigates and sometimes challenges our conceptions of time, fate, chance, love, and the very nature of human reality. The novel offers up a rich array of extraordinary characters and outrageous happenings: fish falling from the sky, conversations between man and cat, a supernatural Colonel Sanders’s ghostly but deeply sensual lovers, a philosophical prostitute, World War II soldiers untouched by time, and much else both strange and wonderful. But more than metaphysical fun is at stake in Kafka on the Shore. There is a vicious murder to be solved, complex and possibly incestuous relationships to be untangled, and the very nature of reality itself hangs in the balance.
Intellectually ambitious, emotionally intense, and beautifully written, Kafka on the Shore bristles with Murakami’s unique brand of imaginative brio. Readers will find themselves simultaneously wanting to turn the pages faster and faster to find out what happens and to slow down to savor the depth and beauty of Murakami’s prose.
Background of an author:
            Haruki Murakami is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. His work has been described as 'easily accessible, yet profoundly complex'
Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and he is often distinguished from other Japanese writers by his Western influences.
Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met his wife, Yoko. His first job was at a record store, which is where one of his main characters, Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood, works. Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the coffeehouse 'Peter Cat' which was a jazz bar in the evening in Kokubunji, Tokyo with his wife.
Many of his novels have themes and titles that invoke classical music, such as the three books making up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: The Thieving Magpie (after Rossini's opera), Bird as Prophet (after a piano piece by Robert Schumann usually known in English as The Prophet Bird), and The Bird-Catcher (a character in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute). Some of his novels take their titles from songs: Dance, Dance, Dance (after The Dells' song, although it is widely thought it was titled after the Beach Boys tune), Norwegian Wood (after The Beatles' song) and South of the Border, West of the Sun (the first part being the title of a song by Nat King Cole).

Appreciation of the story:
            In our life especially if you are a teenager friendships are very important, no matter what happen and problems has come to you. Your friends are always on your side to heal you. The important of friends to our life is they are the one who make us happy when we are in pain and they make us strong when we are weak. The advantage of having friends is when your friends can protect and help you every time you need and the disadvantage of having friends is sometimes friends are bad influence because they are the one who influence you to do something like engage with smoke , drinking alcohol and take prohibited drugs.




The silence of snow

The silence of snow
by Orhan Pamuk
Snow by Orhan Pamuk is a love story set in the volatility of today's Turkey with its clashes between tradition and change and religion and modern atheists—all set in the beautiful, but sometimes treacherous beauty of a border city in the midst of a winter snowstorm.
Ka is an exiled poet, who has returned to Turkey upon the death of his mother. After attending her funeral in Istanbul, Ka travels to the northern city of Kars to visit someone he knew in college and admired from afar, learning that she is recently divorced from her husband. Ka uses the excuse of being a journalist sent to the city to write about the recent suicides of young girls and the upcoming mayoral election.
When Ka sees Ipek again, he is overcome by her beauty, which is far greater than he had remembered. Ka is overwhelmed with his feelings that Ipek is the answer to his dreams, and so Ka pursues her relentlessly during his brief stay in Kars. Staying at the same hotel that is owned by Ipek's father and where they reside, makes it easy for Ka to see her often. He is invited nightly for dinner with the family and so gets to love her the more he sees her.
Ka is immediately caught up in the events of the town as he interviews people for his ostensible story: the mayoral candidate, who is Ipek's ex-husband Muhtar and sometime acquaintance of Ka's; the families of the suicide victims; the assistant police chief; even the leader of the theatrical troupe, Sunay Zaim, who Ka knew slightly from years ago and is in town for a performance at the National Theater.
Ka also meets some of the religious high school students, who are interested in him because he is talking to the girls who didn't want to bare their heads. Ka is introduced to some of their leaders, Necip and Fazil, who happen to be ardent admirers of Ipek's sister Radife, who is madly in love with and the mistress of a renowned Islamic terrorist named Blue.
During his brief stay in Kars, Ka manages to fall in love with Ipek and have his love reciprocated, both verbally and physically, resulting in the most happiness that he has ever known. His happiness is overshadowed by doubts that assail him every step of the way. A profound effect of this happiness is his ability to write the best poetry he has ever written - nineteen poems in a few short days that seem to come from another being.
Another manifestation of his stay is his struggle with his belief in God. He has at times thought of himself as an atheist, but during his stay, he visits the local sheik and declares his love for God. The local Islamists question the validity of his claims and tell him he is a poseur just trying to ingratiate himself.
Finally, there is a coup led by Sunay Zaim with help from a man, who was colonel during his military days. Against bloodshed, religious fanatics, theatrical farces and love triangles and betrayals, a blizzard keeps all the participants in the city watching the events unfolding to a surprising end. A friend of Ka's, Orhan Bey, is a recorder of these events after the death of Ka. In the end, Ka turns out not to be the person that Orhan or anyone else thought he was, except Blue.



Background of an author:
                Ferit Orhan Pamuk (generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk; born 7 June 1952) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, his work has sold over thirteen million books in sixty-three languages making him the country's best-selling writer.
Pamuk is the author of novels including The White Castle, The Black Book, The New Life, My Name Is Red, Snow and The Museum of Innocence. He is the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches writing and comparative literature.
Born in Istanbul,  Pamuk is the first Turkish Nobel laureate. He is also the recipient of numerous other literary awards. My Name Is Red won the 2002 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, 2002 Premio Grinzane Cavour and 2003 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
The European Writers' Parliament came about as a result of a joint proposal by Pamuk and José Saramago. In 2005, the ultra-nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz sued Pamuk over his statement regarding the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. His intention, according to Pamuk himself, had been to highlight issues relating to freedom of speech in the country of his birth. The court initially rejected to hear the case, but in 2011 Pamuk was ordered to pay 6,000 liras in total compensation for having insulted the plaintiffs' honor.

Appreciation of the story:
            In our life being ambitious one is not a bad thing in fact it is good to us if we can control our self, although you are the richest man in the world if your personality or attitude are not good you are consider as in a low degree although you are in a higher position, and the worse thing is when you suddenly became a rich man, then you can buy everything and do what you want. You don’t need to look down others although you are higher from them, always remember that being a good one no one will harm you.

                

* The amazing adventures of kavalier and clay

*      The amazing adventures of kavalier and clay
By Micheal Chabon

Summary:
            Samuel Klayman is in his Brooklyn bedroom one night in 1939 when his mother introduces him to his cousin, Josef Kavalier, newly arrived from Prague, who will be staying with them, having escaped Europe and the Nazis. Samuel is initially suspicious of Josef, but agrees to try to help him obtain employment at the company where he works, Empire Novelties.
The son of two Jewish doctors, Josef had become interested in the art of escape and studied with Bernard Kornblum, a famous escape artist. To safeguard him, Josef’s parents arranged to send him out of the country, but he was thrown off the train because of a change in regulations. In desperation, he begged Kornblum to help him flee. Kornblum had already contracted to arrange the shipment to Vilna of Rabbi Loew’s golem (a giant clay man said to come to life to protect Jews) in order to protect it, and he agreed to secrete Josef with the golem, allowing him to escape.
The morning after Josef’s arrival, Samuel awakes to find him drawing on a comic panel and is very impressed by his work. Josef reveals that he studied for two years at Prague’s Academy of Fine Arts. Samuel asks Josef to draw a portfolio to show his employer, Sheldon Anapol. The cousins meet with Anapol and propose that they create a new hero similar to Superman. Anapol agrees to entertain the idea if they can come up with a good sample comic. They leave to begin work and Samuel reminisces about his father, the “Mighty Molecule,” a strongman on the vaudeville circuit who abandoned the family during Samuel’s childhood. He returned when Samuel was a teenager and promised to take him along on the circuit, but left in the middle of the night and died soon afterward.
Samuel and Josef go to the apartment where several of Samuel’s artist friends live; they all begin creating characters for the sample comic. Samuel and Josef create The Escapist, whose real name is Tom Mayflower. Mayflower trains with a famous escape artist and takes over his role as helper of the innocent when the older man is killed. They present their work to Anapol, suggesting that he start a company called Empire Comics. Anapol agrees to finance the project, but only if his employee George Deasey is editor. He asks Josef to change the cover art for the first issue, which shows The Escapist punching Adolph Hitler. Josef refuses to compromise, feeling that the anti-Nazi artwork is an important element in his quest to bring attention to the plight of Jews in Europe. Anapol agrees to let them keep the cover, and Empire Comics is born.
The Escapist is a huge success, and Anapol becomes extremely wealthy, while Samuel and Josef earn good salaries. Now known as Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay, the team creates many successful characters, with Samuel writing the stories and Josef providing the art. Josef is continually trying to get his family out of Prague. He learns that his father has died, prompting him to consider joining the Canadian air force. Eventually, he rejects this plan and redoubles his efforts to save his mother and brother.
Distraught, Josef breaks into the office of the Aryan-American League, run by Carl Ebling, an anti-Semite. Ebling catches him, but he escapes. Ebling later places a fake bomb in the Empire Comics offices, prompting an evacuation of the Empire State Building, though Josef refuses to leave. Deasey, a disillusioned Columbia University graduate who feels comics are beneath him, but who nevertheless needs the money and admires Josef, warns the partners that Anapol is selling The Escapist as a radio serial. He advises them to press Anapol for more money.
Josef begins a relationship with Rosa Saks, whom he meets at a party given by her father, Longman Harkoo. At Harkoo’s party, Josef saves Salvador Dali’s life and Samuel witnesses two men kissing romantically, which surprises and intrigues him. Rosa introduces Josef to Hermann Hoffman, who runs the Transatlantic Rescue Agency, dedicated to rescuing Jewish children from Europe. Josef enlists Hoffman’s help in rescuing his brother Thomas. Josef and Samuel create a new.
Background of an author:
Michael Chabon is an acclaimed, bestselling author who's won the Pulitzer Prize. He's known for several books, including The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and for his work as a screenwriter on Spider-Man 2 and John Carter. Born on May 24, 1963 in Washington, D.C., Michael Chabon spent part of his childhood growing up in Columbia, Maryland, a planned community meant to promote socio-economic integration and religious diversity. His parents divorced in 1975, and with his father moving to Pittsburgh, Chabon was raised primarily by his mother afterwards. During his youth he became an avid reader of comic books and "genre" fiction while also following major league baseball, particularly admiring Roberto Clemente. Chabon attended Carnegie Mellon before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature in 1984. He went on to earn his Master of Fine Arts in writing from the University of California, Irvine. His debut novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, originally his master's thesis, was released in 1988 and became a New York Times bestseller.
Appreciation of the story:
            In this story although the main character has a fear in life of what happen in their country but still he pass it and stand with his own feet although it’s very difficult to forget that he left his family and he is the only who escape. The main character showing his love for his family although he migrate to the other country but still he won’t forget if who he is, and if where he came from.
Importance of the story:

            The importance of the story is for being who you are? It will not change although you transfer to the other place, although you already adopt the culture in that particular society, yes you change from your physical outlook but, being Who you are? It will not change because whatever you do in your life and whatever change it could be. It will never be change your whole personality. 

The silence of snow

The silence of snow
by Orhan Pamuk
Snow by Orhan Pamuk is a love story set in the volatility of today's Turkey with its clashes between tradition and change and religion and modern atheists—all set in the beautiful, but sometimes treacherous beauty of a border city in the midst of a winter snowstorm.
Ka is an exiled poet, who has returned to Turkey upon the death of his mother. After attending her funeral in Istanbul, Ka travels to the northern city of Kars to visit someone he knew in college and admired from afar, learning that she is recently divorced from her husband. Ka uses the excuse of being a journalist sent to the city to write about the recent suicides of young girls and the upcoming mayoral election.
When Ka sees Ipek again, he is overcome by her beauty, which is far greater than he had remembered. Ka is overwhelmed with his feelings that Ipek is the answer to his dreams, and so Ka pursues her relentlessly during his brief stay in Kars. Staying at the same hotel that is owned by Ipek's father and where they reside, makes it easy for Ka to see her often. He is invited nightly for dinner with the family and so gets to love her the more he sees her.
Ka is immediately caught up in the events of the town as he interviews people for his ostensible story: the mayoral candidate, who is Ipek's ex-husband Muhtar and sometime acquaintance of Ka's; the families of the suicide victims; the assistant police chief; even the leader of the theatrical troupe, Sunay Zaim, who Ka knew slightly from years ago and is in town for a performance at the National Theater.
Ka also meets some of the religious high school students, who are interested in him because he is talking to the girls who didn't want to bare their heads. Ka is introduced to some of their leaders, Necip and Fazil, who happen to be ardent admirers of Ipek's sister Radife, who is madly in love with and the mistress of a renowned Islamic terrorist named Blue.
During his brief stay in Kars, Ka manages to fall in love with Ipek and have his love reciprocated, both verbally and physically, resulting in the most happiness that he has ever known. His happiness is overshadowed by doubts that assail him every step of the way. A profound effect of this happiness is his ability to write the best poetry he has ever written - nineteen poems in a few short days that seem to come from another being.
Another manifestation of his stay is his struggle with his belief in God. He has at times thought of himself as an atheist, but during his stay, he visits the local sheik and declares his love for God. The local Islamists question the validity of his claims and tell him he is a poseur just trying to ingratiate himself.
Finally, there is a coup led by Sunay Zaim with help from a man, who was colonel during his military days. Against bloodshed, religious fanatics, theatrical farces and love triangles and betrayals, a blizzard keeps all the participants in the city watching the events unfolding to a surprising end. A friend of Ka's, Orhan Bey, is a recorder of these events after the death of Ka. In the end, Ka turns out not to be the person that Orhan or anyone else thought he was, except Blue.



Background of an author:
                Ferit Orhan Pamuk (generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk; born 7 June 1952) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, his work has sold over thirteen million books in sixty-three languages making him the country's best-selling writer.
Pamuk is the author of novels including The White Castle, The Black Book, The New Life, My Name Is Red, Snow and The Museum of Innocence. He is the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches writing and comparative literature.
Born in Istanbul,  Pamuk is the first Turkish Nobel laureate. He is also the recipient of numerous other literary awards. My Name Is Red won the 2002 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, 2002 Premio Grinzane Cavour and 2003 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
The European Writers' Parliament came about as a result of a joint proposal by Pamuk and José Saramago. In 2005, the ultra-nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz sued Pamuk over his statement regarding the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. His intention, according to Pamuk himself, had been to highlight issues relating to freedom of speech in the country of his birth. The court initially rejected to hear the case, but in 2011 Pamuk was ordered to pay 6,000 liras in total compensation for having insulted the plaintiffs' honor.

Appreciation of the story:
            In our life being ambitious one is not a bad thing in fact it is good to us if we can control our self, although you are the richest man in the world if your personality or attitude are not good you are consider as in a low degree although you are in a higher position, and the worse thing is when you suddenly became a rich man, then you can buy everything and do what you want. You don’t need to look down others although you are higher from them, always remember that being a good one no one will harm you.
               


CORALINE

coraline

by: Neil Gaiman

Our story starts out when a young lady named Coraline Jones moves into an apartment in an old house with her parents. Her neighbors include two elderly retired actresses and a strange man who lives upstairs and trains mice for a circus act. Despite this weirdness, Coraline is very bored. Her parents work a lot and they tend to just ignore her.
One day, Coraline discovers a door with a brick wall behind it. Seems kind of strange, right? But get this: when she opens the door later, there's a hallway back there. Now that's strange. When Coraline goes through the door, she ends up in an entirely different world: it's kind of like her own, but something's a little off. In the other world, Coraline has an other mother (the beldam), an other father, and other neighbors. And bonus, cats can talk.
Coraline decides this other world is weird (we agree) and so she heads back home. But when she arrives, her parents are missing: the beldam has kidnapped them, and Coraline will have to go back into the creepy other world to rescue them. Fast forward a bit: and, spoiler alert, she succeeds! She gets her parents back and, in the meantime, also rescues the trapped souls of three kidnapped children who have been stuck in the other world for a long time. Coraline beats the evil beldam, saves the day, and returns home.
But wait: it's not quite over. It turns out the other mother's hand has followed Coraline home (it's like Thing on the Addams Family!). Coraline plays one last trick to trap the other mother's hand in a deep well. Phew, finally the scariness is over. After all this excitement, Coraline is ready to start the school year; and boy, is school going to seem really tame by comparison.

Background of an author:
            Neil Gaiman was born in Hampshire, UK, and now lives in the United States near Minneapolis. As a child he discovered his love of books, reading, and stories, devouring the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, James Branch Cabell, Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. LeGuin, Gene Wolfe, and G.K. Chesterton. A self-described "feral child who was raised in libraries," Gaiman credits librarians with fostering a life-long love of reading: "I wouldn't be who I am without libraries. I was the sort of kid who devoured books, and my happiest times as a boy were when I persuaded my parents to drop me off in the local library on their way to work, and I spent the day there. I discovered that librarians actually want to help you: they taught me about interlibrary loans."

Appreciation of the story:
            This story show’s for being not contented of what you are in your life and curiosity , but we won’t blame the main character because ever since she won’t experience those things in her life, but we try to be contented of what we have because not all that we want is we can get sometimes try to think better, because being contented in life is a good, the advantage of being contented in life is you won’t be insecure to others because you are already contented of what you have, and the disadvantage of being contented is you won’t progress in your life because your contented of what you have, you won’t strive hard for you to learn more but our curiosity can kill us very easy. We put on trouble because of our curiosity.




THE FOLDED EARTH

*      THE FOLDED EARTH

BY: Anuradha Roy


Late in this quietly mesmerizing novel, set in a Himalayan hill town in the north of India, Anuradha Roy describes the crystalline beauty of the peaks in winter, viewed long after the haze of the summer months and the fog of the monsoon, held in secret for those who choose to brave the cold: “After the last of the daylight is gone, at dusk, the peaks still glimmer in the slow-growing darkness as if jagged pieces of the moon had dropped from sky to earth.” In the mountains, one of Roy’s characters observes, “love must be tested by adversity.”
It’s the inherent conflict in human attraction — the inescapable fact that all people remain at heart unknown, even to those closest to them — that forms the spine of the novel. In marrying a Christian, the narrator, Maya, has become estranged from her wealthy family in Hyderabad. But after six happy years together, her husband has died in a mountaineering accident. Rather than return to her parents, she seeks refuge in Ranikhet, a town that looks toward the mountains that so entranced her husband. Overcome with grief, she stows away his backpack, recovered from the scene of the accident, and refuses to inspect its contents. She can’t bear to know the details surrounding his death.
In Ranikhet, Maya settles into a routine: teaching at a Christian school; spending time with her landlord, Diwan Sahib; and observing the sometimes comic rhythms of the village and its army garrison. Roy manages to capture both the absurd and the sinister in even minor characters, like a corrupt local official who embarks on a beautification plan that includes posting exhortatory signs around town. (One, meant to welcome trekkers, is vandalized to read “Streaking route.”) His crusade, inspired by the Sing­aporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who embraced caning as a punishment, also includes the persecution of a simple-­minded but harmless herder.
Of course, a sedate world exists only to be shaken, and soon enough the town is disturbed from all sides. An election brings issues of religion to the fore, threatening to stir sectarian violence. Curious military maneuvers prompt rumors of Chinese spies and fears of a border conflict with Pakistan. Diwan Sahib’s nephew, Veer, a mountaineering guide, moves into the elderly man’s villa, and Maya finds herself drawn to him, despite the bad habits he encourages in his uncle and, more alarmingly, his tendency to disappear without warning.
While there are scenes of tension and intrigue — a political goon attacks a young girl, Veer’s work in the mountains starts to appear suspicious — the novel’s mood remains elegiac rather than fraught, expressed through small tragedies like the burning of a valuable manuscript or the death of a beloved deer. Roy is particularly adept at mining the emotional intricacies of the relationship between Maya and Diwan Sahib, which also serves to symbolize India’s uneasy passage from tradition to modernity.
The novel’s one weakness is its culminating revelation (and its consequences), which feels strangely insignificant, as if Roy couldn’t bring herself to commit to the more outrageous implications she has set in motion. “If you told a stranger that there are actually big snow peaks where that sky is,” a character notes of a day when the Himalayas are shrouded in clouds, “would he believe you? . . . But you and I know the peaks are there. We are surrounded by things we don’t know and can’t understand.” Perhaps Roy prefers to keep the heights of her story, like those mountaintops, shrouded in mystery.
Background of an author:

 Anuradha Roy- Since publishing her first novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing, Anuradha Roy has developed into one of the most exciting new voices of South Asian literature. Published to critical acclaim, her first novel was published in thirteen different languages. Her second novel, The Folded Earth won the Economist Crossword Book Award 2011 and achieved similar success to her debut. Her latest novel, Sleeping on Jupiter was longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize and was crowned the winner of the 2015 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. As well as being an author, Roy runs an academic publishing company in India with her husband called Permanent Black, which they started together in 2000.
Appreciation of the story:
            In this story they prove if how they love each other although their families disapprove their relationship but still they are still together but how sad for Maya that Micheal die for an incident. It’s hard to accept that your love one is not coming back to you.

            I can’t relate this story to my life although I experience already that having a love life but at the end , our relationship to each other won’t take too long because there are a lot of things that happen, but it hurts so much to see your love one having another girl then they are sweet to each other. Actually I’d having my love life that my parents won’t know that’s why I’m scared to say to them that I have already a love life but months have pass I decided to stop and we break up. I surrender my feelings to him although it’s hard for me to do it but I need.