On a desert island with The Hunger Games

I like to think that I was one of the leaders  of the “The Hunger Games” book revolution, a bold statement, I know.  I first heard of the Hunger Games  in late 2010, at this time I didn’t realise the genius  I’d stumbled upon. In my first year of secondary school at the time, I was on a bus to a hockey match. I had happened to be sitting beside a shy girl I knew nothing about. I made efforts to make conversation, but she was deeply absorbed in a book and gave only one word answers. Rude, or so I thought.

              A few weeks later,  I was on our family’s tradition of a day out in town,  Christmas shopping . Every year my parents leave my brother and I in my favourite bookshop “ Hodghes Figgis” and it was here I saw the book that had caused the shy girl to ignore me. So I bought it. I was sure that a book couldn’t have been so good as to ignore me.

            So on Christmas Day I turned the first page of “The Hunger Games”. And ,of course, I agreed that I had been worth ignoring. To this day “The Hunger Games” would be the one book I would bring on a desert island.

In Love with Keats

Any time I’m asked a question involving one book, I instantly feel that cloying indecisiveness that is my love for a seemingly endless list of books. So being asked to write a blog post about the one book I would bring to a desert island is torment! After much deliberation between The Golden Treasury left to me recently by my grandmother, and a tatty volume of Keats, I’ve decided to go with Keats, as I’ve fallen totally in love with its decrepit charm.

The book came to me last year. Imagine the bustling streets of the town of Gorey, in Wexford, where I sometimes go to shop with my family. There’s a small café there, called “The Book Café”, if I’m remembering that right, with the kind of atmosphere that makes me want to play chess (though I’m awful) and drink hot chocolate. Go through to the back of the café and you’ll find shelves and shelves of second hand books. In short, a reader’s heaven! It was here that I found a bookcase devoted to poetry, and hiding unassumingly between some larger, sterner looking volumes was my Keats volume, and I say ‘my’ with great pride and satisfaction.

By then, the book had seen its fair share of wear and tear, the pages are browned and the denim-y cover is a little stringy along the spine, but, to me, that’s all part of the charm. It cost five euro, which I’m mentioning because it adds to my happiness around having snatched it up. I must now have read “Ode To A Nightingale” a thousand times, so I’ll close by quoting my favourite lines:

“O, for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth.

That I might drink and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim.”

Our March Book Reads

Dead Ball by Tom Palmer 8 out of 10
The Carpet People by Terry Prachet 9 out of 10
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 10 out of 10
War Horse by Micheal Morpurgo, 5 out of 10
The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years, by Paul Howard 7 out of 10
Lies by Michael Grant 8 out of 10
I Know What You Did Last Wednesday by Anthony Horowitz 10 out of 10
Daisy Chain Wars by Joan O'Neill 8/10
Gone by Michael Grant 9.5 out of ten
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness 9 out of 10
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins 9 out of 10
Paradise House by Erica James 10 out of 10
Nothing Green by Evelyn Doyle 5 out of 10
Rule of Three by Megan McDonald 5 out of 10
The Cay by Theodore Taylor 10 out of 10
Tales From The Arabian Nights 8 out of 10
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien 9.5 out of 10
Dear Olly - Michael Morpurgo 9/10
Airhead: Runaway by Meg Cabot 9/10
Pollyanna by Elenor H. Poter 6/10
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 9.7/10
Holes by Louis Sacher 10/10
Katie Price; Pushed to the Limit by Katie Price 9/10
Divergent by Veronica Roth 9 out of 10

Maime Character in 'The Field' by John B. Keane

Maime is married to Mick, has nine children and is not happy with her lot.  She almost has to beg her husband to be allowed to leave the house and have her hair done.  She needs his permission before she can leave. She is afraid of The Bull and keeps safely behind the counter in the bar when he arrives.  She is not abouve being flattered by Bird and is quite vain.

Meet Mick: He is one of the characters from 'The Field', by John B. Keane

Here is Mick. He only washes once a year, treats his wife and children cruelly and is quite selfish. He owns a bar and is also an auctioneer. Some people think he is honest, but he is not above fixing an auntion if he can earn some extra money out of the deal.

This is what happens when the Bull comes into the pub and threatens Mick not to publicise the sale of the field. Mick doesn not put up too much of a fight once he is promised his commission.  He is not an honest man after all.   

The Outsiders ~ sketches by D.Sykes

November reads

Darren Shan:Vampire Mountain 9/10
Anthony Horowitz: The Greek Who Stole Christmas 9/10
Charlie Higson:Silverfin7/10
The  Haunted Car 6/10
Michael Grant:Hunger 9/10
Charlie Higson: The Enemy : 8.5/10
Robert Muchamore: Shadow Wave: 9/10
Michael Grant:Gone: 9/10
Charlie Higson: The Dead: 8.5/10
Anthony Horowitz: Snakehead: 9/10
dr.seuss: the grincch who stole christmas 7/10
Emma Donoghue The Room 9/10
George Orwell Animal Farm 8/10
Golding Lord of the Flies 10/10
Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games Mockingjay: 10/10
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly; The Oh my God Delusion 9/10
C.SLewis :The Magicians Nephew 8/10
J.k rowling;harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban9/10
dr.seuss;how the grinch stole christmas;7/10
Fame Thing: Jonathan Meres; 10/10
Boy in the striped Pyjamas;8/10
The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins 9/10
The Hunger Games Mocking Jay suzanne collins 10/10
Wolf Blood, Meabh Browne,5/10
The Snapper, Roddy Doyle,7/10
Private Peaceful: Michael Morpurgo: 9/10
The Boy In Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne, 10/10
The Night Before Christmas, Clement Clarke Moore, 7/10
CHERUB: The Sleepwalker: Robert Muchamore: 8/10
The Dead: Charlie Higson: 9/10
The Fear: Charlie Higson: 8/10