World Book Day!

The Beast from the East has given us the perfect excuse to stay in and read on World Book Day...

Well World Book Day is a bit of chilly one here in the UK - Winter is Coming (Or has already arrived)!  But this is the perfect time to put the fire on, or crank the heating up to the max, and enjoy a good book.  

So if your school, college, work has closed and you're stuck at home, here are some books that will either evoke the snowy weather you can see outside your window; or, if you'd rather banish thoughts of snow and ice and have your imagination whisked away to sunnier climes, there are some suggestions for you here as well.

If You're a Snowy Owl, Try:

1. A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin

So you've probably seen the TV show, but have you read Martin's series of books?  It's a long wait until HBO's final season - if you can't wait until then for your next dose of Westeros, you could use the time to read through Martin's weighty five books (so far...).  The book series gives you far more depth and back story than the TV show can give us - there are many myths, stories, characters and places that you have missed out on if you have only watched it on the box.  There are also more clues and mysteries/foreshadowing in the books.  Maybe you will be able to work out why 'Winter Is Coming'.   

2. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Alpine passes, glaciers, mountains, and the Artic Circle; Frankenstein is certainly a novel that evokes the cold.  There are numerous film versions, but none have managed to successfully capture the true essence of Shelley's novel.  The novel deals with some pretty big themes, which are still of interest for science fiction writers today - what it means to be human; good and evil as two parts of human nature; whether morality is learned or innate from birth; masculinity and femininity; the ethics of science, religion and many other ideas.  Shelley first conceived of the story when she was just 17 and was only 20 when it went into publication and it was her first novel.  So, if you fancy yourself as a writer, she is the inspiration you need to get started.  

Shelley is a great example of using what is around you to inspire your own storytelling.  The night before the idea for Frankenstein came to her, Shelley was discussing, with a group of friends, new scientific discoveries, including an experiment that attempted to use electricity to reanimate a dead frog.  Later that night, a challenge was set for each person to write their own ghost story.  Shelley had been travelling with friends and her husband and poet, Percy Shelley, through Switzerland, and used many of the locations she had visited on her travels in her novel.  The night the challenge was set, Shelley went to bed to the sounds of an electrical storm over Lake Geneva.  All of these elements combined to form the backbone of Shelley's famous novel, and they illustrate the value in using what's around you as inspiration for your own writing.

3. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco

It's the selection for Literary Lodge's first book club meeting - why not set up a book club in your area and join in the discussion that I will be posting online after our meeting?  

Set in a cold monastery, surrounded by snow in the 14th century, The Name of the Rose is Umberto Eco's most famous novel about the lives of medieval monks at a time of turbulence within the Catholic Church.  Eco adopts a narrative voice that recreates an authentic feel of medieval life and, when some monks turn up dead in mysterious circumstances, the novel really begins to ramp up the foreboding feel of this cold and peculiar monastery. 

If you enjoy densely written narratives, mysterious stories and heavy usage of imagery and symbolism (or, if you fancy trying something a bit different), then this could be the novel for you.  

4. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carrѐ

Cold War, cold setting for Le Carrѐ's famous spy novel, which at around 250 pages, is a quick-read and a great introduction to arguably the best spy-novel writer of our times.  A story of intrigue involving a plot by the British Secret Service to place a double agent in East German intelligence in order to frame and disgrace a senior member of the Abteilung; Le Carrѐ's novel is as tense and hard-edged as ever, showing a gritty, realistic version of the Cold War, in contrast to Fleming's more glamorous James Bond novels.  Le Carrѐ forms complex characters, who live with the consequences of their actions, and heroes and villains are not so distinctly marked.  In this novel, the coldness is not just about the setting, it is metaphorical.

If You're Dreaming of Summer...

1. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

In Chapter 7 of The Great Gatsby, Daisy comments that "it's so hot, and everything is confused."  This line really captures the mood of Fitzgerald's novel.  It is a hot summer in New York City, and this symbolises the hot tempers and rising tension in this tragic novel.  Full of vibrant, colourful imagery, drinking, bad behaviour, affairs and an inside look at the lives of the rich and famous/infamous of Long Island, this is the classic summer tale of infatuation, dreams and frivolity.  It's also a bona fide classic work of literature, so there are lots of grand themes to get your teeth into, if you're so inclined.

2. A Room with a View, E.M. Forster

If you like your love stories with a heavy dose of Victorian prudishness, irony and satire, then Forster's A Room with a View should be right up your alley (ooh-er).  Forster loves a bit of social commentary on the middle-classes, and this is no exception.  Pretty much all his characters are viewed with an satirical eye (with the exception of Lucy Honeychurch, who is also sympathetically portrayed).  This also evokes the summer spirit, as the characters take the roles of tourists and expatriates in a hazy summer in Florence (as well as Rome).  This is probably Forster's sunniest and most readable novel, and is the perfect way to while away a few hours as you wait for the ice to melt.

3. Brighton Rock, Graham Greene

'Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!'  Not if you had Pinkie Brown after you, you wouldn't.  Greene creates a wonderfully complex villain, who is both sympathetic and sadistic at the same time.  Greene turns the rules of crime fiction on their head by inviting us to almost take the side of the novel's anti-hero, Pinkie Brown.  Ida Arnold, the amateur detective who relentlessly pursues Pinkie for, on the surface at least, moral reasons, is peculiarly unlikable.  Brighton itself is like another character in the story; it's seaside summer crowds hide the murder right at the start of the novel, and Greene subtly reveals the sinister underbelly behind the beaches, rides and attractions.  This novel really hits the ground running, with the tension built up right from the very first line and sustained right until the very last line. 

Or if you're feeling inspired by the weather, why not use this time to start writing your own story...

 Even Charles Dickens could be lost for words, especially after a night on the lash...