The Alchemist
“The story has the comic charm, dramatic tension, and psychological intensity of a fairy tale, but it’s full of specific wisdom as well…A sweetly exotic tale for young and old alike.” – Publishers Weekly
The Alchemist tells the coming-of-age story of a shepherd boy named Santiago who spends his days leading his flock of sheep through the Spanish countryside. We later find that his parents wanted him to become a priest, for which he had even prepared himself. He instead decides that he wants to be a shepherd, and upon telling this to his parents that he wanted instead to become a shepherd, he is given their blessing and buys a flock of sheep, feeling that he has all he has ever wanted in life.
Soon after his introduction, however, he decides it may be time to marry, and falls in love with a wool merchant’s daughter. When he begins to have recurring dreams of hidden treasure near the Pyramids of Egypt, he cautiously begins to pursue it, coinciding with his dreams of one day traveling to far off lands and having exotic adventures. He hopes that his dream will come true one day, but does not view it as plausible or realistic. He understands that there is a purpose for everything and a reason behind the need to make decisions. Santiago’s strong belief that one should follow their heart is later reinforced throughout the story when he begins to forge his own “Personal Legend”. He values friendship and the prospects of a better life, learning to accept things that may come to pass.
Santiago’s world gets turned upside-down one day when a psychic tells him he must go to the Egyptian Pyramids to find a treasure. An eccentric old man claiming to be a king advises Santiago to take this journey to fulfill his “personal legend,” or destiny. Santiago’s journey to the pyramids spans the next few years, growing spiritually as he travels, learning from mistakes, while learning valuable lessons about the world, survival, and the lives and cultures of other people.
Ioana Dulcu – XII C
One Day by David Nicholls
”You really do put the book down with the hallucinatory feeling that they’ve become as well known to you as your closest friends” – Jonathan Coe
“Destined to be a modern classic” – The Mirror
“Totally brilliant” – Tony Parsons
About The Author
David Nicholls trained as an actor before making the switch to writing. His TV credits include the third series of “Cold Feet”, “Rescue Me” and “I Saw You”, as well as a much-praised modern of “Much Ado About Nothing” and an adaptation of “Tess D’Urbervilles”, both for BBC. David has continued to write for film and TV as well as writing novels, and he has twice been nominated for BAFTA awards.
”One Day” tells the story of Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew, two university students who spend the night together on their graduation day. Even if they do not begin a romantic relationship, they do become friends and keep in contact during the following years, although their lives take them in different directions. The most interesting part of the novel is the fact that the book visits their lives on July 15 in each chapter for 20 years.
Both Emma and Dexter will encounter difficulties during their life. From being a waitress in a local restaurant in London, Emma will succeed in publishing her books. In contrast, Dexter finds himself being a TV presenter, only to be made redundant from a video game show for being too old.
Despite all, will they remain friends? Where will they be on this one day next year? And the next year after that? And every year that follows?
In 2010, the novel was names Popular Fiction Book of the Year at the UK’s annual Galaxy National Book Awards ceremony, and was later granted the accolade of Galaxy Book of the Year.
In August 2011, a film adaptation was released worldwide. The Romanian premiere took place on October 14,2011. My recommendation would be to read the book before going to the cinema. I guarantee that you will enjoy it more if you’ll have read the book first.
Ioana Dulcu – XII C
Prettty Little Liars
Prettty Little Liars is a series of more than 10 young adult novels by Sara Shepard.
The first novel, Pretty Little Liars, was released in August 21, 2007. It was followed by eight other books: Flawless, Perfect,Unbelievable, Wicked, Killer, Heartless, Wanted, and Twisted. The tenth book in the series, Ruthless is set to be published on December 6, 2011. There are plans to publish two more books after Ruthless. The 11th book has been recently titled Stunning and is planned to be released on June 1, 2012. The 12th and final book has not been titled yet. No release date known either.
A TV series was currently made based on the books with the same name.
In the first book, at the very beginning, is presented the friendship of five teenage girls: Alison, Aria, Spencer, Hanna and Emily. The mysterious disappearance of Alison DiLurentis ruins the perfect balance between the other 4, so, their friendship is tearing apart. At Ali’s funerals, the four of them receive an anonymous text message signed as “A”.
This ‘A’ person knows everything about the girls…everything that Ali knew when she was alive. ‘A’ is threatening to reveal their secrets if they won’t respect his or her conditions and terms.
It is a very captivating novel with a lot of mystery and drama but also crime and killing.
In my opinion, this is a novel dedicated to young adults because it presents the lives of four teenagers and I recommend it to every teenager who is interested in reading a book which is more than a love story between two teenagers. Even if you don’t like crime or drama books you will find it very captivating because of the complexity of the action.
Elena Radu – IX C
Wuthering Heights
“Wuthering Heights” is a great novel written by the author Emily Bronte in 1847.The most remarkable merit consists of the fact that in the darkest facts the novel relates,you can see the image of an burgeois England dominated by money,which falsifies(forges) people and feelings. By the richness of the content and the consistency of the attitude,Emily Bronte’s novel passes beyond the limits of that century ,making her one of the best known authors of all time.
The author emphasizes the destructive power of love,generated by the conflict between the two main character,Catherine Earnshaw and Heatchliff and even though they share a strong love,end up destroying each other.
The plot starts when Heathcliff is adopted by Earnshaw family and he fells in love with their daughter,Catherine,with whom he lives a beautiful love story.Unfortunately,her brother,Hindley,treats him cruely,this way “attracting” the hatred of the new came.When walking,at some point,the two of them arrive at “Thrushcross Grange” where Catherine is charmed by the victorian lifestyle and after a conjuncture of events she marries Edgar Linton,whom she has a child with,Cathy,and dies after the birth.
Feeling betrayed,Heathcliff runs away and returns owning a huge fortune and decides to revange in any possible way.
In conclusion,i think “Wuthering Heights” it is an, at least, amazing book and i would recommend it to everyone,if not for the love stories and the minutiosity of their realisation,then for the complexity of the characters and the action.
Alice Draghiceanu
Three Men in a Boat
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) is a book written in 1889 by Jerome K. Jerome. It depicts the humorous story of 3 men that go on a boating holiday on theThames, alongside Montmorency,the dog. What I enjoyed the most about this book is that although it was written 122 years ago, the jokes are still fresh and witty even today.
The story begins by introducing the three future travelers, George, Harris, and J, spening their evening in J’s room and discussing illnesses. They conclude that they all suffer from „overwork” and decide to take a holiday. As a sidenote., I think it’s worth mentioning that the characters are based on real people, J being the author and the two others close friends of him.
Although a stay in the country and a sea trip are both considered,the three eventually settle down on the boating holiday, up the River Thames, fromKingstonupon Thames toOxford, during which they’ll camp instead of looking for accommodation
And now starts the actual story ,filled with anecdotes about past events,close or distanced friends that went through the same or similar events,with misadventures like losing the train and having to bribe a train driver to take his train toKingston,where they collect their hired boat and start their journey. They meet George later, up-river at Weybridge.
Montmorency the dog is also an important element of the story. The author describes him and his species very well in the following paragraph.
“Fox terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs are.”
Montmorency is truly a ‘terror’ in that respect – along the journey – he almost fights with a tom cat, also with a kettle (but unfortunately, loses) and inOxfordhe gets into 25 fights.
The book’s original purpose as a guidebook can be felt as the narrator describes the passing landmarks and villages such asHamptonCourtPalace,HamptonChurch,MonkeyIsland, Magna Carta Island and Marlow. The book also has beautiful descriptions of the surroundings: ”It was a glorious morning, late spring or early summer, as you care to take it, when the dainty sheen of grass and leaf is blushing to a deeper green; and the year seems like a fair young maid, trembling with strange, wakening pulses on the brink of womanhood.”
However, he frequently digresses into funny anecdotes that range from the unreliability of barometers for weather forecasting, along with an older story about how they ended up staying a whole sunny day inside a room, convinced that it was going to rain, to the difficulties that may be encountered when learning to play the Scottish bagpipe. The most frequent topics are river pastimes such as fishing and boating and the difficulties they present to the inexperienced.
One of the funniest chapters and my favorite is Chapter 14, more exactly the “Irish stew” part. – made by mixing most of the leftovers in the party’s food hamper:
„I forget the other ingredients, but I know nothing was wasted; and I remember that, towards the end, Montmorency, who had evinced great interest in the proceedings throughout, strolled away with an earnest and thoughtful air, reappearing, a few minutes afterwards, with a dead water-rat in his mouth, which he evidently wished to present as his contribution to the dinner; whether in a sarcastic spirit, or with a genuine desire to assist, I cannot say.”
In the end ,I would like to say that „Three men in a boat” is a book worth reading if you are looking forward towards reading a classic Victorian book, with a more subtle humour but nonetheless, a humour that will always be fresh and never fade away.
CIOBANESCU CRISTIAN – X B
Madame Bovary and Northanger Abbey
Madame Bovary focuses on a doctor’s wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. She is filled with a desire for luxury and romance, which she gets from reading popular novels. Emma believes herself to be in a novel, much in the same way as Jane Austen‘s Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.
Northanger Abbey follows seventeen-year-old Gothic novel aficionado Catherine Morland and family friends Mr. and Mrs. Allen as they visit Bath, England. Catherine is in Bath for the first time. There she meets her friends such as Isabella Thorpe, and goes to balls. Catherine finds herself pursued by Isabella’s brother, John Thorpe, and by her real love interest, Henry Tilney. She also becomes friends with Eleanor Tilney, Henry’s younger sister. Henry captivates her with his view on novels and his knowledge of history and the world. General Tilney, Henry and Eleanor’s father, invites Catherine to visit their estate, Northanger Abbey, which, from her reading of Ann Radcliffe’s gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, she expects to be dark, ancient and full of Gothic horrors and fantastical mystery. Northanger Abbey was written as a deliberate parody of the very popular “horrid” novels of the period – what we now call “thrillers”.
The aims of the two authors differ: the English novelist uses her sense of humour to write a satire upon certain kinds of popular fiction. In the case of the French writer, he describes the customs of small provincial towns where the characters are mediocre.
Our purpose is to compare the destiny of two heroines who both suffered the consequences of self-deception resulting from eager reading without common sense of certain types of novels. They become torn between an imaginary idealized universe and the ordinary reality.
The juxtaposition of fiction to reality provokes Catherine distorted vision of people and facts, incapacity to judge them properly, several misunderstandings and blunders.
Catherine is realistically portrayed as deficient in experience and perception, unlike the heroines of Gothic and romance novels.
In the case of Emma Bovary, she not only becomes infatuated with the novels which belonged to the school’s library, but also with those not allowed for young girls, brought weekly under the cloak, on the sly, by a seamstress. In her desperate search for consolation in religion, she compares herself with great ladies of ancient times, like Mlle de la Valière.
Since Emma’s girlhood in a convent, she has read romantic novels that feed her discontent with her ordinary life. She dreams of the purest, most impossible forms of love and wealth, ignoring whatever beauty is present in the world around her.
In the case of Catherine Morland, the character is confronted with the danger of exaggeration by reading too many of those Gothic terrorific novels which fashionable and deserving young ladies were so fond of. The ill consequences do not delay in manifesting themselves. She naively rushingly jumps to conclusions.
Catherine’s self-deceiving did inhabit her inner self but did not openly commit her to reality. It did not reach the level of commitment to action as in the case of Emma. In her, undoubtedly, the lies she inflicted on herself and others are on a scale of more serious offence.
Like Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey parodies Gothic heroines, in Emma Bovary, Flaubert uses irony to criticize romanticism and to investigate the relation of beauty to corruption and of fate to free will.
Anca Ioana Popescu – XI G
“L” is for Lawless: 12 years of Kinsey Millhone
When Sue Grafton (born in 1940), or “Agatha Christie II” had reached the 12th letter in the “Alphabet Mysteries” series of mystery novels featuring Kinsey Millhone as the main protagonist, the success that her pure talent had given her was already obvious. It was in 1995 when the first copy of “’L’ is for Lawless”, a new episode of the adventures of private investigator Kinsey Millhone was sold, followed by millions of other copies world-wide, along with the upcoming volumes. In fact, the success of Grafton’s novels is so great, that she was offered a great opportunity, the one of making her series into movies. Due to personal reasons, however, she refused and threatens to “haunt her children if they sell the film rights after she is dead”.
Grafton’s novels have been published in 28 countries and in 26 languages, including Bulgarian and Indonesian.Up till now, the “Alphabet Mysteries” series begins with “’A’ is for Alibi” and ends with “’V’ is for Vengeance”, which is scheduled for release on November 21st this year. Grafton has stated that the twenty-sixth and final book in the series will be titled “’Z’ Is for Zero”
“’L’ is for Lawless” was originally published by “Henry Holt and Company” and had 290 pages.
The story takes place in the South zone of theU.S.A., since Kinsey is at one point forced to travel fromCaliforniato other southern states. Kinsey is asked by her landlord, Henry Pitts, to help out Bucky, the grandson of their recently deceased neighbour, Johnny Lee. Bucky is trying to ensure his grandfather has a military burial, but when Bucky submits a claim for his grandfather’s death benefits, the military has no record of his grandfather. It appears that Johnny’s past is not what it seems. Ray Rawson and Gilbert Hays, old acquaintances of Johnny Lee, turn up unexpectedly and are interested in the meagre contents of Johnny’s garage apartment. Events send Kinsey across the country in a wild search for the proceeds from a crime committed 40 years ago.
This piece of Grafton’s work is a must-read for fans of mystery novels. It’s not only quite easy to read, but likely to be a great discovery for those who are not into this type of writing. The story is told from Millhone’s point of view and includes amazing twists of situations, from a peaceful mood, to a moment of great tension that practically sticks the book to the reader’s hands.
Also, teenagers would enjoy this book, thanks to the attitude and moral strength, as well as the ingenious interpretations of each situation and thinking speed that the heroine proves to possess, (qualities that make her a comparable rival of Sherlock Holmes himself), which is likely to turn her into a role-model for the readers.
Ioana Pintilie – IX C
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Jane Austen was born in 1775, as a daughter of a vicar. She had six brothers and one sister, Cassandra, who was also her best friend. Her home was in Hampshire in the south of England and she lived there for the most of her life. She began writing short stories when she was sixteen but she did not write her first book “Sense and Sensibility”, until 1811. People think of “Emma” as her best work. Her books have always been popular and recently many people have been introduced to her stories for the first time through films for the cinema and television. Although she wrote a lot about falling in love, Jane Austen never married. She died in Cassandra’s arms in 1817, when she was forty-one years old.
“Pride and Prejudice” is a novel by her published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elisabeth Bennet. The narrative opens when a young bachelor Mr.Bingley is moving in the neighbourhood of the Bennet family. He is well received, but his friend Mr. Darcy makes a less favourable first impression by appearing proud. Elisabeth forms a prejudice against him. Jane, Elisabeth’s older sister, and Mr. Bingley forme an attachment to one another.
When Jane pays a visit to Mr. Bingley’s sister, she catches a cold and is forced to remain there a few days. Elisabeth arrives to take care of her sister with Mr Darcy’s company revolving around her . He begins to perceive his attachment to her.
At a ball given by Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy finds out that Jane and Mr. Bingley will marry and wants to separate them, and Elisabeth is convinced that he conspire to do that.
Elisabeth is frequently invited To Rosings Park, home of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who also happens to be Mr. Darcy’s aunt. Mr. Darcy finds himself again to Elisabeth and proposes to her . She does not accept because she finds out about Darcy’s role in separating Mr. Bingley and Jane. But after a few months they begin speaking again to each other and they renew their acquaintance.
But Lydia, Elisabeth’s youngest sister, run away with Mr. Wickham , an officer. They are soon found by uncle Gardiner. They are forced to marry, and Elisabeth finds that Mr. Darcy was responsible for finding the couple and arranging their marriage. She is impressed. Soon after, Mr. Bingley, encouraged by Mr. Darcy, returns and proposes to Jane, who immediately accepts.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh then makes an unexpected visit to warn and tell Elisabeth that Mr.Darcy is engaged to her daughter and leaves her heartbroken.
Mr. Darcy, upon hearing this, realizes that Elisabeth’s opinion of him may have changed and again proposes. She accepts and they marry.
In my opinion, this is a very deep and torturing love, because it is lead by her prejudice and his proud, none of them realizing until the end how foolish were all the time.
Anisoara Stoian – XI G
The Last Song
Veronica Miller, the character, is a seventeen years-old girl who’s life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her parents, especially her father… until her mother decides it would be in everyone’s best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie’s father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church. The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story about love in its myriad forms – first love, the love between parents and children – that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that deeply felt relationships can break our hearts… and heal them.
‘The last song ‘ is one of my favorite book and I recommend it to every teenager who like love stories.
After you read the book, you can also see the movie, but in my opinion the book is more interesting than the movie.
Catalina Tripon – X B
