Celebrate World Book Night All Week!

World Book Night may be over for another year but we will be celebrating all week! The book display near the issue desk is dedicated to lots of different World Book Night books to get your teeth into, including recommendations and books from last years event!

Here's a brief selection of some of the WBN related books we have that are available to borrow:


The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
This is another book by author Robert Louis Stevenson who's novel Treasure Island was given away for this years event. The story is about a scientist, Mr. Hyde, who suffers a great misfortune when one of his experiments goes wrong and he creates a sinister alternate personality, Mr. Hyde's murderous tendancies rapidly start to take hold of the timid Dr Jekyll. As well as being a peculiar and intriguing story, it also addresses the issue of split personality disorder, a genuine psychological problem. The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was recycled by Marvel and adapted into scientist Bruce Banner and his badly tempered alternate, Hulk.


Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontes classic follows the story of Heathcliff, a young boy adopted by the Earnshaw family who live in a run down old house, called Wuthering Heights. The book chronicles Heathcliff's life and focusses on his various relationships, including  with the hateful son and the love struck daughter of the Earnshaw family. It is an intense read and examines life on the moors, where there is a signifcant class divide, a very complicated love triangle (probably a hexagon actually) and where catching a cold would have been enough to kill you. A classic story endlessly studied by students, literary scholars and lovers of classic fiction.  Recommended by World Book Night for fans of Damage by Josephine Hart.


Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
From critically acclaimed author Jeanette Winterson whose novel Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is featured in this years World Book Night. This story is about a young girl called Jeanette who has been adopted into an evangelical family who have chosen for her to become a missionary. She embraces religion and manages to convert several people to God, however, a meeting with another young girl changes her life forever, when love and sex start to play an ultimate part in her future. Many have argued that this book is autobiographical, Wintertson has said herself it is and it isn't. Either way, its a fantastic story that will have you emotionally invested from start to finish!


Crossfire
Andy McNab continues the whirlwind life of ex-deinable operator Nick Stone in this installment of the series. Stone is body-guarding a TV crew on the streets of Basra when he comes face to face with a gunman. One of the reporters acts fast and saves his life, however, only a few hours later this reporter is missing and Stone is asked by the Intellegience Service to find him leading him on a deadly journey to Iraq, Kabul, Dublin and London where danger awaits him around every corner. A gripping and intense read from a former SAS Sergeant. McNab's short story Last Night Another Soldier is one of the books being given away all over the world for this years event.


The Road
Comac McCarthy's bleak novel about a father and son struggling for survival in a post-apocolyptic world was recently turned into a film starring Viggo Mortenson. The landsacpe is barron from whatever cataclysmic event has ravaged the planet and the population of Earth has dramatically plummeted. Many of the human survivors have resorted to cannibalism and the hopelessness surrounding the survival of the Father and Son acts a precursor to their potentially grim demise. A difficult yet poetic story that offers a bleak interpretation of the future of our planet from last years World Book Night event.  


These are just a handful of the amazing books on offer on the display by the issue desk, have a browse through some of the titles, there's bound to be something that will take your interest!

DVD Review: The Iron Lady (2011)

 

In light of this week’s news of the passing of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, what better opportunity to encourage borrowing the 2011 film The Iron Lady which chronicles important moments in Margaret Thatcher’s personal and political life.

It would seem since her death, the headlines and social media sites have exploded into a predicted mixture of love and loathing for the ex-Prime Minister. Before passing judgement, give it another thought and watch Meryl Streep ignite the passion, energy and devotion she had towards her beliefs and her country.

At the beginning of them film, Thatcher is an elderly woman, visiting her local shops for some milk. She’s been forgotten by society and by her family and since the passing of her husband; the last few years have been peaceful. We watch her as she clears out her late husband’s wardrobe and we become increasingly aware of her struggle with old age and dementia as she coherently talks with her husband whom she imagines is in her room with her. Various flashbacks take place, from her working in her parent’s grocery store as a teenager through her education and election as Prime Minister. Fairly, we are also reminded of the horrendous misgivings her leadership influenced, including, the miner’s strike, the Brixton riots and further conflict in the Falklands.  She is shown as a forceful figure of the government whom many disliked but others admired, as an out spoken, strong minded and imperious political leader, who, as age took its toll, lost her grip on her cabinet and was forced to retire as Prime Minister.  The film ends as she takes her husband’s clothes to the charity shop, thus saying goodbye to him and letting go of that strand of her memory she so desperately clung to.

The film received a mixed reception from critics, most of who hail Meryl Streep’s acting capabilities yet dismiss the films message and script as a failed attempt at raising political awareness.  However, in my opinion, the intentions of the film were not to paint a picture of Thatcher as a sinner or a saint yet to document her life. I agree it wasn’t done particularly well and the message falls flat. The situational element of Thatcher in her old age was obviously a ploy to pull on the heart strings and felt like a desperate attempt at making her seem remorseful, which I truly believe she never was. However, the documentation of her life is done concisely and Meryl Streep encapsulates her personality perfectly, almost encouraging one to take a sympathetic eye over her political mistakes.

It’s definitely worth a watch, if not just for Streep’s outstanding embodiment of Thatcher that is so realistic and so mesmerising it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. She commands the role with the strength and prowess that Thatcher commanded the Houses of Parliament with, which was reason enough for her to hold the Academy Award for acting that year, and as she said at the premier "It's a look back at power from the point of view of powerlessness" a sad fact that Thatcher struggled with in later life. At the time of her death, Thatcher was just a lonely old woman. Her children weren’t interested in her, her husband had been dead for ten years and the vague and distance memories of her glory days were left echoing in the back of her mind.

Her death was always going to be celebrated by some and the majority of society won’t look back upon her time as our countries leader with fondness, it was a sorrowful time and a lot of British citizens lost their lives at the hands of her errors. What I do think she will be remembered for is her courage and relentlessness, she was a strong figure of parliament, she lead our country with her head held high and she powered through some of Britain’s darkest days in recent years.

Further Reading in the Information Store:

The Iron Lady - DVD ZONE - 791.43I

The Fall and Rise of Margaret Thatcher by Alan Watkins - BOOK ZONE - 330.941082

The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher - BOOK ZONE - 330.9410858