VILLAGE BOOKS EZINE August 2010

- 1 - VILLAGE BOOKS Ezine August 2010

Ezine

Welcome to the August 2010 edition of the

VILLAGE BOOKS Ezine

FESTIVAL FUN The ‘Malahide Has It’ weekend gave

VILLAGE BOOKS the perfect opportunity to

run a couple of events.

The first was a Cuban

Night Out, which

celebrated the launch

of Michelle Jackson’s

new book, ‘One Kiss

in Havana’.

Guests were greeted

with a Mojito

reception and had

their books signed by Michelle. The party

then moved next door to That’s Amore for

some authentic Cuban food followed by a

delicious Cuban cake! Following which,

guests were treated to a spicy salsa lesson and

spent the rest of the night practicing their new

Cuban moves.

On Saturday July 24th VILLAGE BOOKS

hosted a junior art competition down on

the village green. Dozens of children

entered, drawing, painting and colouring

their favourite storybook characters.

Sponge Bob and Captain Underpants

proved to be very popular. But the overall

winner was 10 year old Dara Fine with her

excellent depiction of Hickory Dickory

Dock.

Hickory Dickory Dock by Dara Fine, Overall winner


While down on the Village Green, the

bookshop’s special guest, Wally, star of

the ‘Where’s Wally?’ books spent

the afternoon

wandering around the

festival crowd and if

you happened to spot

him and talk to

him, you were

presented with a voucher for a free

‘Where’s Wally?’ mini book, to be

redeemed in the bookshop.

If you didn’t make it to the festival, check

out our Facebook page where there’s

video coverage of all the

bookshop festival frolics!

VILLAGE BOOKS was thrilled with the

turn out and is looking forward to hosting

more events in the future!

Keep a look out on our blog:

villagebooksmalahide.blogspot.com

for details of future events.

BOOK CLUB UPDATES

The first meeting of the VILLAGE

BOOKS Book Club took place on

Tuesday the 10th of August.

The book in question

was The Twin, by

IMPAC Award

winning author

Gerbrand Bakker. A

lively discussion

ensued in which

members aired their views, positive and

negative. Some felt the book somewhat

depressing but all in all it was agreed that

The Twin was a very good story.

Next month’s book club will take place on

Tuesday the 14th of September at 6.30pm

where we will be

discussing the

coming of age

novel, Lean on

Pete, by Willy

Vlautin.


VILLAGE BOOKS EXCLUSIVES

***************************

JUNIOR BOOK CLUB News of the VILLAGE BOOKS Junior

Book Club spread like wild fire over the

summer as more than forty kids joined up.

Due to the phenomenal demand,

VILLAGE BOOKS will now run four

Junior Book Clubs.

If your child has signed up, you will have

received a text letting you know what

group your child is in and the date of the

first meeting.

Group 1 will meet on Thursday 2nd

September, Group 2 will meet on

Thursday 9th September, Group 3 will

meet on Thursday 16th September and

Group 4 will meet on Thursday 23rd

September. All meetings will be at 4.30pm

and will take place in the bookshop.

***************************

JOIN THE BOOK CLUBS Join the VILLAGE BOOKS Book Club or

Junior Book Club waiting list just get in

touch, email us on [email protected],

phone us on 845 5073 or pop into the

shop.

CURRENT OFFERS:

BACK TO SCHOOL

Back to School – Scooter Offer

Make going back to school that much easier

and more exciting!

Mini Micro Scooter

now only €65

Maxi Micro Scooter

now only €110

Buy One Get One FREE

• WHERE’S WALLY?

• USBORNE FIRST READING

• PUFFIN CLASSICS (Titles include The Wind in the Willows, The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland)

Buy 2 Get 3rd FREE • PUFFIN MODERN CLASSICS

(Titles include Goodnight Mr. Tom and Charlotte’s Web)

5 for € 8 • USBORNE FARMYARD TALES


BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK NEWS THE MAN BOOKER LONGLIST Parrot and Oliver in America by Peter Carey Room by Emma Donoghue The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson The Long Song by Andrea Levy C by Tom McCarthy The Thousand Autumns of Zacob de Zoet by David Mitchell February By Lisa Moore Skippy Dies by Paul Murray Trespass by Rose Tremain The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas The Stars in the Bright Sky by Alan Warner

THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO By Patrick Ness Review by Sadash

I have often picked up

The Knife of Never

Letting Go and

thought, “this looks

like something I’d

like”, but I never got

around to actually

reading it.

Finally I gave it a go… Regrets? Yes, I

have one; that I didn’t read it sooner!

Any reader that is partial to a fantasy story

is going to adore The Knife of Never

Letting Go.

Set in a world where everyone can hear

everyone else’s thoughts, things get a bit

Noisy at times. Todd Hewitt finds this life

a struggle but when he comes upon a

pocket of silence, the life that he knew

changes in a heartbeat.

Everything that Todd knows

to be true is in fact a lie and


he finds himself on the run; running for

answers, running for the truth and running

to protect his life and that of a very

unlikely companion.

Ferociously paced and action packed,

Patrick Ness has mastered the art of the

page turner and is very deserving of the

Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the

Booktrust Teenage Prize.

The only problem is that you will need to

have the sequel, The Ask and the Answer,

close at hand to see what becomes of the

unlikely hero, Todd Hewitt.

***************************

ROOM By Emma Donoghue Review by Emma

Jack is the storyteller.

He is five and lives in

‘Room’ with his ‘Ma’.

He has no concept of

the outside world,

believing it to be a

fantasy seen on

television. What Jack

cannot vocalise in his five-year-old voice

and mind is that he and his mother are

being held captive in Room by the man he

calls ‘Old Nick’.

A novel that was inspired, if that can ever

be the right word in this case, by the

utterly shocking Fritzl case in Austria is

never going to be anything other than

controversial, disturbing, mind-bendingly

unbelievable but yet, though all of these

things Room is also gentle and sweet,

tender and joyous, uplifting and raw and

real

.

Whatever Jack cannot say, the reader’s

overburdened imagination can either piece

together from his accounts of his mother’s

conversation, or add to from the prolific

media coverage the Fritzl case generated.

The feat, for many, in picking up and

reading Room is that the horrendous real-

life events that this book is based upon

may be too upsetting and disturbing to

read. I can categorically say this fear

should be dismissed immediately. Firstly,

a fear of reading something so shameful

about the human race should never be

reason for not learning about

the horrors our fellow man

has perpetrated, but even


more convincing an incitement for

sceptical readers should be a reassurance

that this book is not at all horrific. It is so

surprisingly hopeful, and joyous. It strips

away all the extraneous unnecessary

external factors from one boy to reveal a

human being as he is, without the

influence of the world on him, in all his

innocence and, conversely, his wisdom.

It is only in the outside world, when Jack

and Ma escape from Room that the horrors

become evident. In Room, they were

somehow protected from the

understanding of what was going on

through a lack of any real experience of

life to compare it to. Half-way through the

book, when they are released and brought

into the real, or surreal world, is when the

real horror starts. To read about a young

boy terrified by seatbelts and rain drops,

people touching him and strange food is

discomforting and upsetting, but, it’s

important. This didn’t happen to Jack, but

it did happen to a real little boy out there

in the world and, others too, and they

deserve their stories to be known.

As for the book itself, leaving the actual

story aside, it is – to my mind- a complete

triumph. A mastery of language and pace,

a display of control and attention to every

single word. It is more technically adept

that anything that I have read in years and

a magnificent accomplishment for that

alone.

It is an incredible story, filled with

wonder. It is important and significant and

brilliantly executed. It is brave and

powerful and subtle and touching.

Read it, it will stay with you.

CONTACT US

If you would like to get in touch you can

contact us by phone, email or simply pop

into the shop.

Tel: 845 5073

Email: [email protected]

Opening Hours:

Monday – Saturday, 10am – 5.30pm

Sunday, 2pm – 5pm

We look forward to hearing

from you.

Documents

VILLAGE BOOKS EZINE August 2010