Recommended Reading: White Teeth by Zadie Smith

 



This week's recommended read is White Teeth by Zadie Smith 

 

 

Blurb:

 

Zadie Smith's White Teeth is a classic international bestseller and an unforgettable portrait of London One of the most talked about fictional debuts ever, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book. "Funny, clever ...and a rollicking good read". (Independent). "An astonishingly assured debut, funny and serious...I was delighted". (Salman Rushdie). "The almost preposterous talent was clear from the first pages". (Julian Barnes, Guardian). "Quirky, sassy and wise ...a big, splashy, populous production reminiscent of books by Dickens and Salman Rushdie ...demonstrates both an instinctive storytelling talent and a fully fashioned voice that's street-smart and learned, sassy and philosophical all at the same time". (New York Times). "Smith writes like an old hand, and, sometimes, like a dream". (New Yorker). "Outstanding...A strikingly clever and funny book with a passion for ideas, for language and for the rich tragic-comedy of life". (Sunday Telegraph). "Do believe the hype". (The Times). "Relentlessly funny ...idiosyncratic, and deeply felt". (Guardian). Zadie Smith was born in north-west London in 1975. Her debut novel, White Teeth, won the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, and the Commonwealth Writers' First Book Prize, and was included in Time 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. Her second novel, On Beauty, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Orange Prize for Fiction. She has written two further novels, The Autograph Man and NW, a collection of essays, Changing My Mind, and also edited a short-story anthology, The Book of Other People.

 

The book is available in your local Waterstones at £6.29 with free UK delivery, it can also be purchased online here:

Purchase White Teeth at Waterstones Online

 

Waterstones are currently giving Get an extra 10% off at Waterstones.com when you spend £25 or more in association with UNiDAYS.

To enjoy this offer, simply register or login with UNiDAYS to receive your unique discount code.

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Brain Pickings

Brainpickings.org is a fantastic blog I stumbled across not too long ago, which is an English students dream! It has lots of blog posts on past and present authors, and artists giving a deep insight into their publications but with lots of interesting facts and findings too! It has much more than that though, as it looks at life and the little things in life as a whole causing you to really think but in a good way.  Some of the posts I found most interesting were letters from long lost authors, which triggered a full day of reading posts from this blog. Be warned, once you start reading you will not want to stop!

"Brain Pickings is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, a subjective lens on what matters in the world and why, bringing you things you didn't know you were interested in - until you are. Founded in 2006 as a humble email digest and eventually brought online. the site was included in the Library of Congress permanent web archive in 2012"

"The core ethos behind Brain Pickings is that creativity is a combinatorial force: It's our ability to tap into the mental pool of resources - ideas, insights, knowledge, inspiration - that we've accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world, and to combine them in extraordinary new ways. In order for us to truly create and contribute to culture, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these ideas and build new ideas - like LEGOs. The more of there building blocks we have, and the more diverse their shapes and  colours, the more interesting our creations will be."

Recommended Reading: The Shock of The Fall by Nathan Filer

This week's recommended read is The Shock of The Fall by Nathan Filer; the winner of the Costa Book of The Year 2013.

Blurb:

'I'll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His name's Simon. I think you're going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he'll be dead. And he was never the same after that.' There are books you can't stop reading, which keep you up all night. There are books which let us into the hidden parts of life and make them vividly real. There are books which, because of the sheer skill with which every word is chosen, linger in your mind for days. The Shock of the Fall is all of these books. The Shock of the Fall is an extraordinary portrait of one man's descent into mental illness. It is a brave and groundbreaking novel from one of the most exciting new voices in fiction.


The book is available in your local Waterstones at £5.99 with free UK delivery, it can also be purchased online here:
Purchase The Shock of The Fall at Waterstones Online


Waterstones are currently giving Get an extra 10% off at Waterstones.com when you spend £25 or more in association with UNiDAYS.

To enjoy this offer, simply register or login with UNiDAYS to receive your unique discount code.

If you haven't already got an account with UNiDAYS, you can join here:

Register with UNiDAYS

William Wordsworth: "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

On walking up to university this afternoon I could not help but admire the beautiful daffodils on the green and around the university grounds, which made me immediately think of this wonderful poem by William Wordsworth as spring is finally upon us!

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

 

Recommended Reading: When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman

Despite the set reading lists you have to study for each module of your degree, it is always advisable that when you can engage in some personal reading to give yourself a break away from the reading lists! Keeping up with personal reading, reading books you have chosen will make your set reading lists a lot less of a chore and will encourage you to keep reading even through the summer months! For the next few weeks we will be doing a series of recommended reads that we love and think that you will enjoy too.

Blurb:

Spanning four decades, from 1968 onwards, this is the story of a fabulous but flawed family and the slew of ordinary and extraordinary incidents that shape their everyday lives. It is a story about childhood and growing up, loss of innocence, eccentricity, familial ties and friendships, love and life. Stripped down to its bare bones, it’s about the unbreakable bond between a brother and sister.

When God Was A Rabbit is a fantastic ‘feel-good’ book that explores the ins and outs, the ups and downs of life over many years.  It is a story through the life of the protagonist Elly, when it begins when she is a young child, experiencing things through innocence and befriending the strange girl Jenny Penny who comes from an abusive background, her mother a drunk. The story in two parts shows how the girls grow and how life changes them as adolescence looms, and seeing and confronting the confusing on goings of her brother, as he struggles to find his sexuality.

The second part of the novel begins in Elly’s adult life contrasting how things drastically change from childhood. Small cracks in life begin to show, and adulthood begins to take its toll. The reader is introduced to a number of characters, each and every one of them having an individual role and story in the novel.

This is a fantastic read for all audiences as you relive real-life history through the eyes of Elly, allowing the reader to relate and engage in similar memories. Well worth the read and a very pleasant read it is.

It can be purchased from the local Waterstones currently, or online here: www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/sarah+winman/when+god+was+a+rabbit/8140572