The Bookish Elf

We have published an article about how to read more books . Now this post is for those who used to read in past and now stopped it for some reasons. Recently a friend asked how he could start reading habit. When I asked him what kinds of books he liked to read, his answer surprised me that he couldn’t remember the last time he had read an entire book but he read a lot of news and stuffs online. Another friend admitted her own difficulties with reading as much as she used to, especially fiction. According to her there is enough drama going on around the world, so she didn’t feel to read fictionalized drama. There was one who said he ‘ prefer to experience real life rather than reading about it in books .’ As for this kind of people who think their lives are more interesting and so diverse to give them all the wisdom and emotional skills to direct them through our increasingly complex societies, then I cannot shatter their sweet illusion . So here I want to address those who really want ...

Title: The One and Only Ivan Author: Katherine Applegate Genre: Children’s Literature (not really) First Publication: 2012 Language: English Setting Place: Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade & Zoo Atlanta Major Characters: Ivan (Narrator, a Silverback Gorilla), Bob (Stray Dog), Stella (Elephant), Ruby (Baby Elephant), Mack (Mall Owner), George (Cleaner at the Mall) and Julia (George’s Daughter) Themes: courage, friendship, perseverance, hope Narrator: Narrated by Ivan, the silverback gorilla in first person Book Summary: The One and Only Ivan True to the caption on the cover that reads “A story of courage, friendship and an unlikely animal hero”, The One and Only Ivan is the story of a silverback gorilla named Ivan, his friendship with other animals at the mall where they’re confined in glassed domains, his journey from being a victim to becoming a victor. And how he gives his best to keep up the promise he’s made to Stella, the Elephant. Winner of the 2013 Newberry Me...

Title: The Collected Works of A J Fikry Author: Gabrielle Zevin Genre: YA Fiction First Publication: 2013 Language: English Setting Place: Mostly at Island Books, an exclusive bookstore of Alice Island (Location not that clear) Major Characters: A J Fikry ( Protagonist and Owner of Island Books ), Maya ( Adopted Daughter ), Chief Lambiase ( Police Officer ), Ismay ( A.J.’s Sister in law ), Daniel Parish ( Ismay’s husband ) and Amelia Loman ( Sales Rep. / A.J. love interest ) Theme: nostalgia, second chance at love, books and more books Narrator: Narrated in Third person by the Author Book Summary: The Collected Works of A J Fikry Set in a little, purple Victorian cottage is Island Books, the exclusive bookstore of Alice Island.  And A J  Fikry is the irksome, bookstore owner, who prefers to spend his life with no or bare minimum contact with other humans after his wife’s death. While life continues on a set template, certain instances break that mould to take him on a rollercoa...

Unreliable Narrator When the narrator is unreliable and can’t be trusted, we, the reader have to think for ourselves to figure out the story. We’ll evaluate the situations and characters critically in the book to figure out what’s going on. Sometime we’ll draw our own conclusions and judge the characters as the author didn’t do it for us. There are so many reasons behind narrator’s reliability. Sometimes they are consciously and intentionally lying, sometimes they misunderstood the situations, and perhaps they’re drunk, or amnesiac, or suffer from some other conditions that keep us doubting their version of story. (We’re all unreliable narrators, because our version of any events or occurrence or incidents is just one of many. But that’s not what we are looking here.) Some stories are too ambiguous that they don’t resolve their plots. Readers reach to the final page without the knowledge of what’s actually happening or happened. It’s on readers how they fill the blanks. For few of us t...

Literature Quiz Hello, bookworms and literature lovers!  In between reads, try this literature quiz on all things literature. You have 120 seconds to answer all questions. Take your time but not more than 'Two Minutes' :) If you didn't achieve your desired score at first attempt, then subscribe and read our blogs and try this quiz again to beat your best score! At the end of the quiz insert your details to feature in our leader board. [WpProQuiz 2] [WpProQuiz_toplist 2]

Title: The Sense of an Ending Author: Julian Barnes Genre: Contemporary Fiction First Publication: 2011 Language: English Setting Place:   Bristol; Chislehurst; London, England Major Characters:  Anthony "Tony" Webster, Veronica Mary Ford, Adrian Finn, Colin Simpson, Joe Hunt, Phil Dixon, Sarah Ford. Theme:  death, regret, and reminiscence. Narrator:  Narrated in First person through a retired man named Anthony Webster. Book Summary: The Sense of an Ending The Sense of an Ending follows a sexagenarian man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about - until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he'd left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought h...

Unreliable Narrator is a character who tells the reader a story and whose credibility has been seriously compromised. This may be because the point of view of character is insane, lying, deluded or for any other reasons. The phrase “ unreliable narrator ” was first used by the literary critic Wayne Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction in the early 1960s. The technique has been around as long as literature itself has been though. In fact, prehistoric humans probably sat around fires knowingly listening to one hunter who always exaggerated his feats. Sometimes the narrator is unreliable by nature. In other words, some narrators are such terrible people that they cannot tell their stories objectively. In general, even people who commit the worst crimes justify their actions to themselves. A classic example is the murderous narrator of the Edgar Allan Poe story “ The Telltale Heart ”. Perhaps one of the most famous is Vladimir Nabokov ’s Humbert Humbert , a middle-aged man with a predilecti...