Culture in the English-speaking world

Casino royale is the first novel of British writer Ian Fleming.  This is the first James Bond book and it was published in 1953.James Bond is fictional coldblooded and charming agent of British Secret Service.

In the beginning, book is introduced character Le Chiffre, agent who is working for Soviet Russia. He has spent Soviet Unions secret funds when he invested them on brothels in Normandia and Bretagne. It was very good investment until prostitution came illegal in France. That made Le Chiffre`s investments worth of nothing. Chiffre is afraid of Soviet Russians SMERSH organisation,  who is after him because of the money. Chiffre tries win the spent money back whit his gambling hobby.

Story begins from fancy cigar smelling casino, where tables have very high stakes. Bond has a mission to stop Le Chiffre on baccarat table, but he will soon notice that besides money, he can lose his life on this game. Bond wins the game, and Le Chiffre has lost 40 billion frangs. Chiffre doesn`t take this very well and kidnaps bond`s assistant Vesper. After furious chasing bond drives off from the road and chiffre takes Bond and Vesper to his beach villa. Bond gets badly tortured. Just when Bond is Going to lose his consciousness, SMERSH agent appears in the room and shots Chiffre on forehead.

Bond wakes up in the hospital and vesper is next to his bed. She is fine. Bond tells about Chiffre and SMERSH to Secret service and tells that he stops agent`s job. Bond decide`s to marry Vesper but one morning he finds Vesper dead on her bed. Vesper left a note where she told that she was Soviet Russians douple agent and didn`t want that bond get killed because of her job, and decided to kill herself.

I am very happy for choosing this book. As a reader i experienced breath taking moments. Books story was very absorbing and realistic. I have seen Casino royale movie couple of times, but i think that the book is better. People whit two backgrounds, and plot twists made it very interesting.

Shame is a psychological thriller by the Swedish author Karin Alvtegen. The book is translated from Swedish by Steven T. Murray and published in Great Britain in 2006. The crime novel is originally published in Sweden as Skam in 2005 by Natur och Kultur, Stockholm. Karin Alvtegen is successful author, who worked in set design for film and stage, before she started to write. She was born in 1965, in Jönköping, Sweden and she is the great-niece of Astrid Lindgren.

Shame is a story about forgiveness and endless feeling of guilt and fear. The crime novel tells of two women’s life, which are completely different from each other but somehow so similar. Because of their past, both of them experience a strong feeling of fear and shame every day of their lives. Karin Alvtegen has successfully put together thrilling stories of losing someone tragically. The theme of the book is survival from painful grief and living with a sense of guilt.

The other main character is Monika Lundvall, a successful doctor of a distinguished clinic. She lost her big brother without warning twenty-three years ago, when she was only fifteen and her brother, Lasse, was just two years older than her. She never got used to that he was gone. Neither her mother couldn’t move on from that tragedy where she lost her beloved son, a promising young hockey player, who should have lived instead of Monika. ‘’Her mother’s grief over Lasse’s death was deeper than the joy she was able to feel that Monika was still alive.’’

Maj-Britt Pettersson is another main character of the book. Growing up in a religious family, under the eyes of God, was difficult to teenage girl. It made her through all kind of emotions and fear of refusal. It was disgusting and outrageous what her parents forced her to do because of her sexuality. Humiliating herself in front of the hold Congregation was agonizing experience to Maj-Britt. I can’t even understand what she went through in order to get some love from her parents. Because of the shadows of her past, she is a morbidly obese woman, who is hiding over thirty years in her flat from reality and responsibility. She only sees herself as a disgusting and meaningless human being.

Monika and Maj-Britt’s relationship to one another will come up step by step. It was interesting to see how they were connected each other. Both of them are guilty of somebody’s death. The fear of disclosure of the truth was visible. The shame that they felt was deep and it became marked on them. Shame is full of a pain that stems from deep self-contempt and self-inflicted destruction.

The language of the book is touching and descriptive. Because of the omniscient narrator it was sometimes challenging to follow of which of the two main characters were talking about. The novel included a lot of flashbacks which created a fascinating overall view. In my opinion Shame is a splendid work of integration into difficult times and exploration of the human mind. Occasionally it left me speechless. Shame is one of those books you won’t put down until the last page is read. It was absolutely captivating. I recommend this novel for those who are interested in psychological thrill and the cruelty of human.

Reading a novel in English wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. At first I tried to understand every word but after few pages I just focused on reading, not translating everything. I noticed that it was more compelling to read in English.  In summary, my reading experience was terribly good.

Treasure Island is a novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson and its genre is adventure fiction. The book was published in 1883. In this book there is vocabulary in every other page because it is adapted for the Finnish readers.

In this book there are couple main characters and they are Jim Hawkins who is adventurous young boy, Dr. Livesey who is local doctor and wise man, Long John Silver who is eye and foot half former pirate that owns a parrot. Other minor character in this book is Ben Gunn who becomes a friend of Jim´s and tells where the most of the treasure is.

The book tells the story of a boy named Jim Hawkins who goes to the adventure of treasure island. The adventure starts when a pirate named Billy Bones dies and they find his treasure map that tells where the pirate captain Flints treasure is hidden. Jim gathers a crew for the trip and when they arrive to the treasure island his crew wants to take the treasure for themselves. When they arrive to the place where the treasure is supposed to be they find that the treasure is not there. After that Jim manages to escape from the rebelling pirates and finds a man named Ben Gunn who is a former pirate and knows where the most of the treasure is. After when they have suppressed the rebellions they go back to England and they split the treasure as agreed.

I do not usually read books because I do not like to read but in my opinion this book was alright and I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys reading and likes adventure novels. The book was narrated from Jims perspective and text was clear and the vocabularies helped if you did not know what some words meant.

Lizzie McGuire – Totally crushed is a short novel based on the TV series created by Terri Minsky. The book is just one part of the Lizzie McGuire book series and the book which I read included two short stories: Part one (about crushes) and Part two (about old friend). Lizzie McGuire – Totally crushed was released in May 31, 2002 and it has many writers so I am not sure who wrote and what. The book tells about Lizzie’s life, survival guides and episode guides.

Lizzie McGuire is a normal teen-age girl in Hillridge Junior high school. Lizzie has two besties Gordo and Miranda. Together they have to face the all teenage problems: school bullying, crushes and also the problems and responsibilities of growning.

I’m going to tell the plot of the Part one because the Part two is way other category than the first one. It does not belong the ”crush on” -theme and the name of the book is Totally crushed, right? So the plot briefly: Everybody knows it except Lizzie itself, the biggest nerd in Hillridge Junior high Larry Tudgeman also known as ”Tudge” has a really big crush on Lizzie. Lizzie has been into Ethan Craft since like always, duh?  But in Ethans eyes Lizzie is invisible and Lizzie’s ex-friend and current enemy Kate who is the most popular girl in school has a thing with Ethan. So dramatic! When Lizzie finds out that she is the target of Tudge’s secret love she is horrified. Why me, why the biggest nerd ever, why me!?!?! However Lizzie is a nice girl and she can’t be rude to anyone so she decided to give a change for Tudge. Who knows if Tudge is a real love machine. Lizzie and Tudge goes on a date to museum which first made Lizzie skeptical because she thinks museum is the most boring place ever. But at the end Lizzie was actually surprised how interesting the exhibit where they were was. Then Lizzie really thought that she got rid of Tudge after one date but no. Now Tudge has made a rumour about how Lizzie is his new girlfriend and the whole school talks about it. Heck no! Now Lizzie has to be rude to Tudge and break his heart. Lizzie tries nicely tell to Tudge about her feelings and about how she does not want to be Tudge’s girlfriend. And she made it perfectly! Tudge seemed to be very sympathetic about the whole thing. They decided to move on as a friends and at the end Tudge finds a really nice girl to himself and Lizzie is truly happy for him. Yay! A happy ending.

The book was very easy to read. The language was just from the TV shows nowadays what everybody understand. Like just from the movie ”Mean Girls” if you have seen it. ”So fetch!”. It was like a slang in most parts of the book. No hard and unknown words. But to be honest, I take the easy way out. Ain’t nobody got time for reading books. But however I really liked the book. I think the book was kind of aimed for the youngsters with all the crush on things and girly things but who cares. I can do girly things sometimes. I haven’t read or seen the Lizzie McGuire show and books before so that was something new for me. I liked the way writer has wrote the book and described all things. The book reminded me of my life when I was in elementary school and how every girl got a crush on the same boy and only talk we have was about boys. Ah lets have a silent moment for a childhood memories. Just kidding. I would recommend the book for anyone who is looking for some old girly things. Boys and makeup, omg! The theme of the book was definitely growing. It gave tips for teenagers. The book was kind of short but it has all the things what a good book has to have. Nothing less or more. I truly enjoyed the book and I don’t even like reading so that tells something. Bye!

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles was published in 1891. It’s really popular and world-renowned novel which has fascinated many generations. I chose the book because I have seen BBC’s TV-serie of it and it was very impressive.

The novel is located to Wessex, England which is a fictional town created by author. Tess lives there with her family and she is the oldest child. They are poor, uneducated but proper peasants. The father of the family, John, hears that he may have noble blood and after their only horse dies by accident they send Tess to visit their noble relations to get help. Tess does not succeed in meeting Mrs d’Urberville, but her son Alec takes a fancy to Tess and offers his help to her. Tess isn’t interested in Alec but receives his helping hand. Then some night Alec rapes Tess and she comes back home.  At home Tess gives birth to a sickly boy who lives only a few weeks.

After more than two years twenty-year-old Tess has found employment outside the village, where her past is not known. There she befriends with three milkmaids and falls in love with Angel Clare. They get married and Tess has the courage to tell to Angel about Alec. Angel can’t tolerate Tess’ past and moves to Brazil and leaves her. After a while Tess’ father dies and Alec occurs to take care of her family if Tess comes to his mistress. Tess doesn’t have any choices and she accepts Alec’s offer. Then Angel comes back and Tess murders Alec. She gets caught and is escorted to prison. The story closes with Tess’ execution.

The protagonist of the book is Tess Durbeyfield. The novel tells about her tragic and really unfair life. She does nothing by egoism or greediness but still her misfortune makes her life terrible. The person who totally ruins her life is Alec so I could say that he is the antagonist.

I think that the central conflict of the plot is when Tess gets raped. After that situation everything changes: an innocent girl becomes a murderer. At that time getting raped was woman’s fault and she lost her reputation in the eyes of community. So only way to get justice was to murder a raper. Tess did so and suffered the consequences from it. She was executed but still the novel shows that she got her revenge. That’s why I think that an important theme of the novel is the sexual double standard.

I wouldn’t evaluate the story’s ending any way even if I like very much happy endings. In my opinion tragic ending just made the story more touching. It also shows how totally changed she was in comparison to the beginning.

The narrative point of view is third person limited and it’s same in the hole book. The language of the novel was old and abstruse. There were many old words which I had never heard before. Therefore I had to check out many words from the dictionary and reading was quite slow. But at least I learned much more English.

At the end of 19^th century, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote an adventure novel “Treasure Island”. It was published as a book at 1883. Book became very popular especially among young people. Now I’m going to tell the plot shortly.

Book’s story tells about a young man named Jim Hawkins, who goes for a wild adventure to the treasure-island.  Jim’s mother lives in England in public house, where she accommodates an old sailor, who finally drinks himself to death. The sailor was carrying a treasure map with him. The map tells where the treasure has been hidden a long time ago.

Jim starts to gather crew for the ship named “Hispaniola”. There’s a man named Long John Silver among the crew. John is another protagonist of the book.

Ship gets to the island, but some of the men start a mutiny. Soon they all find out that a treasure isn’t there anymore. Jim and John Silver manage to overthrow the mutiny and soon they get to know where the treasure has been moved. Men involved in mutiny were left to the island. After getting the treasure Jim and John travel back to England and they go to the separate ways.

Characters of the book were a little bit boring, except the protagonists Jim and John. They were only characters which I was able to empathize with. They also are the characters of which history has told more specific than the others.

So, my opinion about the book is that it’s pretty complicated to read because story has been split to six chapters. Good thing is that time doesn’t jump to the past or to the future between chapters. The books language was clear enough and that was also a positive surprise for me. The most pleasant thing is that book was not too short. Also it was not too long. Text and narrative were clear enough.

My final opinion is that the book is worth reading, but it is not the great favorite of mine.

The fault in our stars is award-winning-author John Green’s sixth novel. The book was published in January 2012, and it has so far received a huge amount of success around the world. The novel tells about 16-year-old cancer patient Hazel Grace Lancaster’s life. The story is included, as well as falling in love and moments of joy but also the loss of a loved one and grief processing. It is aimed to young adults.

The main character is a young woman named Hazel Grace Lancaster, who has thyroid cancer. Cancer has destroyed Hazel’s lungs, which makes her inhaling difficult. Her struggle against cancer has been long and rocky, but her parents have always been supportive. Hazel loves to read and her favorite book is called An Imperial Affliction.

Another main character of the book is a young man named Augustus Waters, whose osteosarcoma caused him to lose his leg. So Augustus is also a cancer patient. Augustus metaphor is, “You but the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing”. Overall Augustus is cheerful personality and he doesn’t let the cancer negatively affect his live.

In the book Hazel and Augustus meet at the cancer patients’ support group. First, Hazel does not like Augustus, but pretty soon they fall in love with each other. During the book they experience together the most incredible things, both good and bad. However, in their minds revolve around the possibility of cancer recurrence. But how to deal with grief when a loved one dies?

Themes of the book are love and hope. The story is basically a traditional love story which fits into its genre very well. The whole book is written in Hazel’s view and therefore it is even more touching. The fault in our stars is a true love story of the century, which has agitated the people around the world.

I personally like the book very much. I could even say that I love it! Although the subject of the book is quite heavy, reading it made ​​me remember how the little joys of life should be enjoyed. In life, there will always be ups and downs. The book is also quite easy to read, which makes reading experience even more comfortable. I could even say that the book is the best love story in several decades!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fault_in_Our_Stars