Top Ten Characters I Would Want With Me On A Deserted Island

This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish asks for the Top Ten Characters I Would Want with Me on a Deserted Island. Such a fun question!

 

1) Ford Prefect from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – His job was literally to create a guide with information about surviving on any planet. I bet he would have some great stories in addition to survival tips.

2) Hermione from Harry Potter – She’s clever and kind and has already proved herself valuable in countless situations.

3) Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones – He would provide witty conversation, definitely an asset.

4) Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings – He’s been to Mordor and back, so he’s got endurance. Plus he’s endlessly loyal.

5) Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games – She wouldn’t be much fun, but I bet she’d be able to catch us some dinner. The girl’s got survival skills.  

6) Robinson Crusoe – He would already know how to survive on a deserted island, which is helpful.

7) Guy Montag and his friends from Fahrenheit 451 – It might be cheating, but I’d love to take a couple of the people who have an entire book memorized. They could recent it allowed to keep everyone entertained.

8) Abbe Faria from The Count of Monte Cristo – He’s wise and willing to teach others. He’s a hard worker and infinitely patient.

9) Ender Wiggin from the Ender’s Game series – In addition to being a strategy genius, Ender has learned to value dozens of cultures throughout the universe.  

10) Anne Shirley – When things seem bleak Anne would cheer everyone up.

Top Ten Favorite TV Shows

This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish asks for our Top Ten Favorite TV Shows! It actually asked for movies too, but since that list is crazy long I’m limiting myself to only TV shows that are currently on TV. There are tons that I love that have ended or been cancelled, but these are all great ones that you should be watching!

1) Game of Thrones

2) The Good Wife

3) Fargo

4) Mad Men

5) Walking Dead

6) Downton Abbey

7) Parks and Rec

8) The Americans

9) Sherlock and Elementary

10) Doctor Who

Are there any great ones that I missed?

The Painted Veil: The Movie

 



As part of the Back to the Classics Challenge, this year’s categories include a movie option. You read a classic book that's been adapted as a movie and then you watch the movie version and review it. I picked The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham and you can find my thoughts on the book here. 

My review of the movie includes comparisons to the book and assumes you’ve read the book, so there are SPOILERS. As I explained in my review, plot follows a young married couple in the 1920s. After Kitty has an affair, her husband whisks her off to mainland China where he is attempting to help a small village battle a cholera outbreak. I watched the 2006 film version starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.

The movie follows the same premise, but uses flashbacks to show the time before they travel into the epidemic area. It’s beautifully shot, with sweeping scenes of the Chinese countryside. It plot veers slightly from the book and focuses on some larger social issues, which was interesting. It takes a much more dramatic look at everything. There’s an added war lord, heightened problems between the British and locals, and a tense chase scene through the streets. There’s also a bigger focus on Walter trying to find solutions to the water access issue for the village.

None of those added elements takes away from the story and some of them add a bit of perspective to the situation. Really I think the biggest change from the book is the character of Walter, Kitty’s stoic husband. I felt like he was more likeable in the book. He comes across as incredible cold and cruel in the movie and a few key points are changed. His offer to let Kitty divorce him was an afterthought, in the book it’s an important strategic decision. On his deathbed he is the one who apologizes to Kitty, which is the absolute opposite of what happened in the book.

The other major change was the ending. In the book Kitty understands her husband better, but she never falls in love with him. The true transformation is within herself and she has to go back to her old life to truly see how much she has changed. She returns to Charlie and realizes she can’t be happy with how things used to be. In the movie we see her years later with her son and she runs into Charlie on the street. It actually worked really well that way and I almost liked that ending better. I certainly think it works better on film because it’s less complicated.

Two thumbs up for the beautiful film and book. Though they differ on certain parts, the overall message is the same and the costumes and scenery of the movie are just gorgeous! 

p.s. Bonus for Game of Thrones fans, Lady Olenna, one of my favorite people on the show, plays a nun in the film!

 

Top Ten Dogs from Literature

This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish is a freebie week, so I decided to pick my top ten dogs I love from different books. 

 

1) Charley from Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley; a road-tripping dog.

2) The brilliant “watchdog” Tock from The Phantom Tollbooth

3) Odysseus’ dog Argos from The Odyssey; never stops hoping to see his master again.

4) Hagrid’s dog Fang from the Harry Potter series

5) Mr. Rochester’s dog Pilot from Jane Eyre

6) Crab from Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona

7) Kojak from The Stand; the most loyal pup ever.

8) Nana from Peter Pan, who wouldn’t want a nanny that’s a dog?

9) The Starks’ direwolves from Game of Thrones (I know they aren’t technically dogs)

10) Harold from the Bunnicula series.

Pairing Books with Movies: Tooth and Claw

Tooth and Claw

by Jo Walton

★★★★☆

A Victorian novel with dragons, when it comes to gimmick novels this one certainly fits the bill, yet somehow it rises above that. Instead of the dragons being the focus and letting the rest of the story fall flat, they are just characters. It feels like any other novel that explores the world of social hierarchies and manners. Walton’s skills as a writer allow her to use dragons as characters while still creating a lovely plot.

Bon Agornin is the patriarch of a large family that has grown in status over the years. At the beginning of the novel his five children gather at his death bed; the stuffy married sister Berend, the religious parson Penn, twin sisters Selendra and Haner and the ambitious Avan. As the story progresses resentment about the inheritance rises between Avan and Berend’s husband. At the same time the two young sisters are beginning to be approached by suitors.

Just like the novels of Austen, Tooth and Claw explores the world of courtships and betrothals. So many of the characters were reminiscent of those in Pride and Prejudice (I mean that in a good way). Walton has a wonderful sense of humor in her book, playful poking fun and embracing the stiff social customs at the same time.

BOTTOM LINE: What fun! It’s a quick read and one that left me smiling. The final chapters are particularly satisfying.

“His mother had always warned him that one day he would want to settle down, yet he was amazed, as all dragons who are fortunate enough to live so long are amazed, that the impulse had come upon him at last.”

Pair with a viewing of the BBC’s Merlin and Game of Thrones. Both feature dragons in prominent roles, though Merlin’s dragon has a bit more personality.

There are a few of the excellent reviews that got me to look past the dragons and pick up the book. You can check them out here, here and here.

Game of Thrones: Books 1, 2 and 3

 
This is not going to be a typical review and there will be SPOILERS, so I would recommend skipping it if you haven't read the books. The bottom line is that I loved them and if you're a fan of massive epic stories with huge casts of characters and complicated plots, you should definitely read them!
 
I put off reading these books for such a long time. Then I marathoned the first two seasons of the TV show and watched the third season as each episode came out. I was hooked!  So in December after completing all of my reading challenges I decided to try the first book. I couldn't put it down! I found myself plowing through the first three books without pausing. I was surprised by how close the books stayed to the show. There are some differences, but I thought they did an incredible job recreating this complicated world.
 
Game of Thrones follows a huge cast of characters as alliances are made and broken in the fictional world of Westeros. Families fight for the crown and watch as those around them rise and fall with the favor of those in power.
 
Martin's characters are wonderfully complex. He makes someone as clever and sarcastic as Tyrion become defensive and vulnerable around his father. Someone as strong as Daenerys can struggle with loneliness. Catelyn Stark is strong and cunning, but she's also flawed and cruel when it comes to her husband's bastard son, John Snow. I can't imagine how hard it would be to see evidence of your husband's infidelity in front of you every day. 

I have a special love for the Stark family. From the first pages we meet the tight knit siblings who are so very different and yet so alike. Tomboy Arya and the prim Sansa; Robb and John, so similar and treated so differently. Then there's wild Bran, who must struggle to come to terms with his new life as a cripple while desperately missing his parents.
 
The Lannister family is a twisted mess, but like a train wreck, you can't look away. Led by their cold patriarch, Tywin Lannister, the siblings (Tyrion, Jaime and Cersei) each have issues. They are fierce and often cruel, but there's a lot of irony among their ranks. Tywin hates Tyrion because he is a dwarf and his birth caused his mother's death, yet he is the most like his father. Cersei is the most ruthless leader of the three, yet she can't even rule her own fate because she's a woman. Jaime is known for both his skill as a knight and his betrayal of the old king, yet he has the most compassion and loyalty of the bunch. Tywin himself is spoken of throughout the first book, but isn't introduced until near the end. He's the puppetmaster behind so much of the book's action, pulling the strings of so many characters.
 
A Few Random Thoughts: 
One thing that surprised me was the age of the main characters. Many of them are much younger than they are on the show. Daenerys is only 13 in the first book and Robb Stark is only 14. By the time Robb turns 15 he is commanding 18,000 men while grieving for his father. Daenerys becomes a widow and the leader of a maurading people as a young teen. It is similar to real history, where people married young and often died in battle.
 
There such an epic rich cast of characters I started taking notes on each family their sigils, lands and complicated lines. Having seen the show was actually a little easier than it might've been to follow the different plot lines cause I had a face to put with so many names.
 
Thoughts on my favorite characters:  

- I love Tyrion! He is by far my favorite character in the whole series. He has the best lines, but he's also a troubled soul with a lot of hurt in his past.
 
- My tough girls: Arya and Daenerys are both incredible. Dany's transformation is one of my favorite in the book. She so we can afraid at the beginning but she finds her strength. She becomes a leader despite dozens of obstacles.
 
- Jaqen H’ghar, who helps Arya and repays her favor with three deaths, is fascinating. I'm hoping that he returns in future books. I also loved her "dance master." 

- Orlenna, the Queen of Thorns and Margaery’s grandmother, is such a spitfire. She rivals Tyrion for the best lines. For example: "No, don't blush, with your hair make you look like a pomegranate." and this gem about her husband: "A kind man, and not unskilled in the bedchamber, but an appalling oaf all the same." 

- The direwovlves: Grey Wind, Ghost, Lady, Nymeria, Summer and Shaggydog, they are part of the Stark family. They protect them and become so essential to the story. I haven't wished to own an animal so badly since the first time I saw Aladdin and decided I wanted a tiger.
 
There are, of course, things to dislike. Martin is famous for killing off his beloved characters. I think seeing the show first actually helped me deal with some of the hardest blows when it comes to loss of characters. I knew the fate of certain characters when I started the books and so I wasn't shocked by any until the second half of the third book. Some people complain about the convoluted cast of characters, but I loved that. It felt a lot like Lord of the Rings or an actual history of the Middle Ages. Each chapter is told from one characters' point-of-view, so some stories are more interesting than others, but you know you'll eventually get back to your favorites.
 
Honestly, I haven't even scratched the surface of the first three books. I've taken a break before starting the fourth, but I truly hope it's as good as the ones I've already read. 

Top Ten Most Intimidating Books

This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish asks for our Top Ten Most Intimidating Books. I’ve learned that most massive books (Moby Dick, The Count of Monte Cristo, etc. aren’t nearly as scary as I thought they’d be, but here are a few that still freak me out.

1) Ulysses by James Joyce – Stream of consciousness ramblings, I just can’t bring myself to read it.

2) Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin – Okay, after getting hooked on the TV show this year I’m dying to read this one, but I’m hesitating for 2 reasons. First is because the books are ginormous and second, I’m worried I’ll finish them and have to wait 5 years for the next one.

3) Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust – It is seven volumes long!

4) Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace – Some say it’s genius, others say it’s pretentious, regardless it is huge.

5) The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser – This massive book is the never-ending tome that Granny has to read before she dies in the Thursday Next series.

6) Dune by Frank Herbert – I think this one scares me because my Dad’s been recommending it for years. I’m worried I’ve built it up too much in my head.

7) The Brothers Karamazov by Leo Tolstoy – It’s big, it’s Russian, etc. I read War & Peace and it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be, so I just need to dive in.

8) Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin – I’m curious about this book, but I’m also worried it’s going to be really boring and badly written.

9) Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Everything by this author scares me for some reason.

10) The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien – I’ve read Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but this beast just does not look fun.  

Image from here.