The Literary Detective is back

Hi!!!

After nearly a year of abandon, I decided to come back and give a new lifa to The Literary Detective. I have a lot of books to present here. I'm actually working on it, and soon they'll be on line.

Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare's bio- and bibliography

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Genre : Play - Tragedy

French title : Roméo et Juliette

Publishers : I won't precise the publishers because you can find Romeo and Juliet in several publishings, with different prices

Synopsis - Passage :

"Chorus Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life; Whose misadventures piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-marked love, And the continuance of their parents's rage, Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend." " Prince A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun for sorrow will not show his head. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things. Some shall be pardoned, and some punished; For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
What I think : We don't need to introduce Mister Shakespeare's tragedy anymore ( well if you want to read, when I was a kid, before I started learning English at school, I used to prononce Shakespeare like that : Shake- es-pee-are!!!). For me, Romeo and Juliet is the most beautiful love story ever. Some of you will say that it can't be because it ends really badly, but I need to quote here, a famous french duo : ' Les histoires d'amour finissent mal en général', which means ' Love stories end badly in general'. Romeo and Juliet are the incarnation of love in the pure state. This love without which we can't live, and for which we would give anything, even our own life. They also are the representation of Fate, which makes things so that nothing and no one can change the course of things. Romeo and Juliet is another era, another century, and yet, the language of love and hatred is universal and timeless. I was astonished to discover with how much easyness I could read the passages where it was a question of love, whereas I had great difficulty for other passages. The old English is not really easy to understand, especially with Shakespeare's style, and I think the first time I read it, I must have sticked to the french translation;o) Romeo and Juliet, it's also sadness. A lot of wasted lives because of the human stupidity. I see in it a message from Shakespeare that we shouldn't lose our time with insignificant endless wars, there are so much things we could miss. And what's the point in making the enemies of our enemies, our own enemies, is it clear?

William Shakespeare

Biography

William Shakespeare was born in Warwickshire, England, on April 23rd, 1564. He came from a family, with a good place on the social ladder. He went to the secondary school Edward VI, where he learned Latin, rhetoric, logic and history. Yet, all this is only pure speculation, because there isn't any evidence of it. In 1582, he marries Anne Hathaway, older than him by 8 years, and already pregnant on the wedding day. The following years were called 'the lost years', because we can't find any trace of Shakespeare in the registers, except the birth of his children, and his only son who died very young. It's in 1592 that we find again Shakespeare on the Londonian stage, as an actor and playwright. Then he became a member of the company The Lord Chamberlain's Men, which would be later adopted by Jacques 1st, and would change name and become 'King's Men'. In-between, Shakespeare would play in Ben Jonson's plays, for example Every Man in his humor and Sejanus. He retired in 1611. He died in 1616, and was buried in Stratford-upon-Avon, in the choir of the church.

He composed himself his epitaph :

" Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, To digg the dvst encloased heare. Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones, And crvst be he yt moves my bones."

There is a rumour accordint to which some unpublished works would be buried with him, but no one has ever yet dared profane his tomb to verify. Every year, at the supposed date of his birth, a goose feather is placed in the right hand of the statue which represents him.

Bibliography

Tragedies : Romeo and Juliet; Macbeth; King Lear; Hamlet, Prince of Denmark; Othello, the Moor of Venice; Titus Andronicus; Julius Caesar; Antony and Cleopatra; Cariolanus; Troilus and Cressida; Timon of Athens

Comedies : All's well that ends well; As you like it; A Midsummer night's dream; Much Ado about nothing; Measure for measure; The taming of the shrew; Twelfth Night; The Merchant of Venice; The Merry Wives of Windsor; Love's Labour's Lost; The two gentlement of Verona; The Comedy of Errors

Historical plays : Richard III; Richard II; Henry VI; Henry V; Henry IV; Henry VIII; King John; Edward III; Sir Thomas More

Romances : Pericles, Prince of Tyr; Cymbeline; The Winter's Tale; The Tempest; The two noble kinsmen

Poetry : The Sonnets; The long poems

For more information about Shakespeare and his work : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare

Index of the book reviews

ARMSTRONG, Kelley
Women of the Otherworld
Bitten

BARZAK, Christopher
One for sorrow

BAUM, Frank L.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

BLACK, Holly
A Modern Tale of Faerie
Tithe

DELANEY, Joseph
The Wardstone Chronicles
The Spook's apprentice
The Spook's curse
The Spook's secret

FFORDE, Jasper
Thursday Next
The Eyre Affair

KAUFMAN, Andrew
All my friends are superheroes

KING, Stephen
'Salem's Lot

KUIPERS, Alice
Life on the refrigerator door

MEYER, Stephenie
Twilight series
Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse

MONTGOMERY, Lucy Maud
Anne
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Avonlea
Anne of the Island
Anne of Windy Willows
Anne's House of Dreams
Anne of Ingleside

ORWELL, George
Animal Farm

PATERSON, Katherine
Bridge to Terabithia

PULLMAN, Philip
His Dark Material
Northern Lights
The subtle knife
The amber spyglass

ROSOFF, Meg
Just in case

SHAKESPEARE, William
Romeo and Juliet

TAKAMI, Koushun
Battle Royale

VALENTE, Catherynne M.
The Orphan's Tales
In the night garden

WESTERFELD, Scott
Uglies
Uglies
Pretties
Specials
Extras
Midnighters
The secret hour
Touching darkness
Blue noon
Vampires
Peeps / Parasite positives
The last days

WYNNE JONES, Diana
The Worlds of Chrestomanci
Charmed life
The lives of Christopher Chant
Conrad's fate
Witch Week
The magicians of Caprona
The Pinhoe egg
Mixed Magics

ZEVIN, Gabrielle
Elsewhere

Bitten - Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong's bio- and bibliography

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Genre : Fantasy

Series : Women of the Otherworld

French title : Morsure

American publisher : Plume Books : 7,99$

English publisher : Orbit : 6,99£

Synopsis : Elena Michaels lives in Toronto where she shares her flat with her boyfriend, Philip. She's a journalist. She seems to have a normal life, except she's a werewolf. Not any werewolf, she's the only female werewolf alive. The werewolf gene is transmitted from father to son, the only way for a woman to become a werewolf is to be bitten, and of course to survive. Elena had a great difficulties to accept the fact that she's a werewolf, and besides she tries to reject the idea by creating a new life in Toronto for herself. Qhe left the Pack to be who she wants to be. But when Jeremy, he Alpha of the Pack, tries to contact her, she doesn't really have another choice than to go back and help them. They are the target of a gang of mutts (non-Pack werewolves) united to claim different things. To this occasion, Elena will meet Clay again, the one who bit her, and she will finally find out her true nature...

A passage :
" My skin stretches. The sensation deepens and I try to block the pain. Pain. What a trivial word- agony is better. One doesn't call the sensation of being flayed alive 'painful'. I inhale deeply and focus my attention on the Change, dropping to the ground before I'm doubled over and forced down. It's never easy-perhaps I'm still too human. in the struggle to keep my thoughts straight, I try to anticipate each phase and move my body into position-head down, on all fours, arms and legs straight, feet and hands flexed, and back arched. My leg muscles knot and convulse? I gasp and strain to relax. Sweat breaks out, pouring off me in streams, but the muscles finally relent and untwist themselves. Next comes the ten seconds of hell that used to make me swear I'd rather die than endure this again. Then it's over.
Changed."

What I think : This book is very interesting from a legend point of view. It is true that when he hear about werewolves, we think of men. I'd never asked myself about a female werewolf before, I must admit. And I find Armstrong's explanation very good indeed. But here again we have a patriarchal society. Well fortunately, Elena is here;o) Bitten is a novel that keeps the reader's attention from the first pages. It is quite difficult to close it even for 'just a moment'. It is also a studied mix of action, legend, explanation and romance, with its lot of pains and little happiness.
What brings something more to the book is that Elena is a woman, the ONLY female werewolve, and a really modern woman. So it's really interesting to see how she manages to evolve in a male world and her attitude towards events where a woman could sometimes badly react;o)
Frankly, I recommend this book to lovers of creatures of the night. There are lots of books about vampires, but not so many about werewolves. I don't know why it is so, but I think maybe it's because of the bloodthirsty monster side of the werewolf, horrible and ultra-violent, who change only in the full moon, whereas the vampire, though he is too a bloodthirsty creature, can live among humans, and he is of a rare beauty and charism. Which surely helps the writers' imagination to work.
Well, don't be afraid of this image of the werewolves, in Bitten, there are not so monstruous, on the contrary, well it depends on which ones we're talking about;o)
To conclude, I would just say that Kelley Armstrong managed something that was only managed for vampires until now. She made werewolves more human that some humans;o)

Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong was born in 1968, in Canada. After graduating in psychology, she switched to computer programming in Fanshawe College in order to have more time for writing. She published her first novel, Bitten, in 2001 and 6 others followed in the fantasy series Women of the Otherworld, as well as numerous short stories and novellas. She published her first crime novel in 2007, Exit Strategy.

She currently lives in Ontario with her husband and their 3 children, where she's working on a new fantasy series for Young Adults.

Bibliography

* Women of the Otherworld : Novels
Bitten (2001); Stolen (2002); Dime Store Magic (2004); Industrial Magic (2004); Haunted (2005); Broken (2006); No Humans Involved (2007); Personal Demon (2008); Living with the Dead (2008)

* Women of the Otherworld : short stories and novellas
Rebirth (2005); Infusion (2005); Savage (2003); Ascension (2003); Demonology (2005); Birthright (2005); Beginnings (2004); Becoming (2007); The Case of the Half-Demon Spy (2005); Expectations (2005); Truth and Consequences (1996); Territorial (2005); Ghosts (2005); Escape (2005); Wedding Bell Hell (2005); Adventurer (2005); Chaotic (2006); The Case of El Chupacabra (2006); Bargain (2005); Framed (2007); Twilight (2007); Stalked (2008)
bi
* Nadia Stafford
Exit Strategy (2007)

You can find Kelley Armstrong on her official website, and her short stories on line here

Booking Through Thursday : Books Vs Movies

Books and films both tell stories, but what we want from a book can be different from what we want from a movie. Is this true for you? If so, what’s the difference between a book and a movie?

I don't think there's really a difference for me in what I want from a book and what I want from a movie. What i'm looking for in both is emotions and/or reflection and / or dreams. Books and movies are two different ways to obtain that. Of course, a movie would more easily make me cry or laugh, but a book can do that too. How many times didn't I cry my eyes out when Mouse's lover, John dies in the Tales of the City series? How many times people didn't look at me funny when I had a banana smile on my face while reading a book?

Surely the great difference between a book and a movie is that a movie is one hour and a half long, so it needs to go straight to the point. Therefore emotions are more intense, but in the same time you're not attached to the characters in the same way as in a book who you spend hours to read.
About the make-me-dream part, it's equal on both side, really. As well as for the reflexion part. It all depends on the books and the movies.

But I must admit here that I fall in love more easily with books characters than movie characters. I can't count them anymore, between Christopher Chant as Chrestomanci, Edward Cullen the vampire, Izumi Sano from the manga series Hana Kimi, Mouse from Tales of the City (yeah I know he's gay...) or Professor Snape, and others as well;o) Yeah I know I fall in love a lot;o)