https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol0qjhIc114&feature=youtu.be

In this video we continue the theme of our blog: reviewing books. Each of the members of the ISYS 100 Books Blog presented a chosen book; briefly discussing the plot and providing a recommendation.

Contributions
 Ming Da :blog creation and contribution, video editing and report contribution.

Charlie Williams: Blog creation and conception, report contribution and involvement in video.

Rachel Hewish: Video idea to discuss book reviews, blog creation, report contribution and involvement in video.

Photo-Wisdom by Lewis Blackwell

In an age in which, increasingly, we all take or view photographs, this book is an inquiry and inspiration as to why we do this.
Lewis Blackwell speaks about how photography has become a language that can be understood the world over, by all cultures. This book, through its various contributors, delves into why visual grammar works, even though we may not understand how it works.
The book is comprised of the thoughts, commentaries & selective works of 50 photographers from the world over. No two photographers are alike. Their specialities range from landscape to photojournalism, from portraiture to still life.
They each give their insight into how they chose their profession, or rather how their profession chose them. Each photographer delves into the stories behind some of their selective works, and what statements are made and stories told through the visual medium.
The insights are quite fascinating, sometimes delving into the philosophical aspects of photography, and sharing their wisdom on what makes a truly special photograph.
Each photographers profile is completely original, and was comprised from sometimes several interviews & conversations especially for this book.
My personal favourite is Massimo Vitali, who’s crowded beach lifestyle images he explains are the perfect environment for examining human behaviour, as it shows people at their most relaxed, with really nothing to do but to be who they are.

TIME MAGAZINES TOP 10 BOOKS 2015

We hope you have been enjoying our book reviews, but perhaps

they have not been your most loved genre of books?

Here is a complied list of TIME magazines top 10 books of 2015 - From July 2015.

1. A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson

2. Seveneves - Neal Stephenson

3. I take you - Eliza Kennedy

4. Get in Trouble - Kelly Link

5. Trigger Warning - Niel Gaiman

6. H is for Hawk - Helen McDonald

7. The Story of Alice - Robert Douglas - Fairhurst

8. The Brothers - Masha Geesen

9. The Folded Clock - Heidi Julavits

10. How Music got Free - Stephen Witt


The link is provided here: http://time.com/3935938/best-books-2015-so-far/

Book review: Dracula - Bram Stroker

Written in the later years of the 19th century, Dracula has gone on to become a cult classic, & is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of all time.
The story is presented & told through a collection of characters journal entries, letters, memos & newspaper articles. This style of writing means the story is told first hand, the writing (as one would in a journal) is straight forward & we get the advantage of having multiple narrators.

The beginning of the story is told through the journal entries of an English solicitor named Jonathan Harker, who has travelled to meet Count Dracula, to discuss a real estate transaction, in his castle in Transylvania. After several strange occurrences, Harker flees the castle to head back to England.

The rest of the story mostly takes place in England, & explores the terror that Count Dracula unleashes on the lives of those involved. It is told from the journal entries from Mina (Harker's fiancee), Lucy (Mina's friend), Dr Seward, Quincy Morris, Arthur Hollywood & Abraham Van Helsing. Each of the characters have their own values & opinions, & each tells of a unique point of view on different events.

It is interesting to note that Dracula is said to be based on a real person. Vlad the Impaler was a Transylvanian nobleman & ruler of Wallachia in the mid 15th century. He received the nickname, "The Impaler" after his reputation of excessive cruelty & practices of impaling his enemies.


There is a very good reason this book is rated so highly. It is a fantastic read, & even though many of you already know the ending, the journey to get there is very worth it.

Count Dracula, as portrayed by Bela Lugosi in the 1931 film, Dracula.

Book review: Looking for Alibrandi

“Melina Marchetta's stunning debut novel Looking for Alibrandi is one girl's story of her final year at school, a year she sets herself free. Josephine Alibrandi is seventeen and in her final year at a wealthy girls' school. This is the year she meets her father, the year she falls in love, the year she searches for Alibrandi and finds the real truth about her family – and the identity she has been searching for”.

- Penguins Books.

A moving and revealing book, unusual for its honesty and its insight into the life of a young person on the brink of adulthood. Multi-award-winning, a bestseller and made into an award-winning feature film, Looking for Alibrandi has become a modern classic.

The novel ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ is widely used in High-schools across Australia as a part of the English curriculum ‘study of Novel’ as it is relevant and explores a range of themes with an interesting plot synopsis.

The novel was extremely successful and became a film in 2004 as Josie was brought to life through the use of lighting, music and sound techniques the viewer could engage with the meaningful text on a deeper level.

Watch the 2004 movie trailer here:

Book Review: The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain published in the United Kingdom in December 1884. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism.

It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels, Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective. It is a direct sequel to another american classic, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book follows Huck's adventure down the Mississippi River with Jim, a companion and a escapee slave. On the journey, he discovers that the world is different than what he anticipated as he continued down the river.

The book is eminent for its colorful description of various kinds of people, from the rich bureaucrats  to the slaves and places along the Mississippi River. The story is set in a Southern antebellum (pre-civil war period) society.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism and the notion of individualism and identity, ideals of companionship and betrayals. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remains a classic and has also been the continued object of study by literary critics across the world since its publication. It was however criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial slurs.

Meet the Writer: Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, born in November 30, 1835, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer  and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885. 

Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri. After an apprenticeship with a printer, he worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to the newspaper . He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his singular lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. In 1865, his humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", was published, based on a story he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, where he had spent some time as a miner. The short story brought international attention.

Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but later evolved into a chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, with Huckleberry Finn, he writing style included combined rich humor, sturdy narrative and social criticism. Twain was a master at rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes and language. Many of Twain's works have been suppressed at times for various reasons, for example, in Huckleberry Finn, racial themes and slurs were often repeated throughout.

Review: A Lot of Hard Yakka

A Lot of Hard Yakka

A Lot of Hark Yakka is a sports-biography by former cricketer and now sports-journalist Simon Hughes. Hughes recounts his misadventures of an english county cricketer in the 1980s and 90s. Despite never quite making it as a successful cricket, Hughes spent time with many of the players who did, indeed, the first line of the book states "I haven’t set the world alight, but I’ve hung around with people who have." For a cricket fan this book is a must as it reveals much about famous cricket players Gatting,Brearley, Botham, Gatting, Emburey, Edmonds, Daniel, Haynes. However, this book greatest strength is in its humour, as it is told in a highly self-depracating money, with funny story after another.

 A Lot of Hark Yakka is a must for any cricket for, but is not restricted to that readership as it is a highly engaging and funny story of a man who never quite reached the heights he had hope for; whilst still enjoying his journey on the way.

Meet the Writer: J.D. Salinger

Jerome David Salinger (January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010) was an American writer who won acclaim early in life. He led a very private life for more than a half-century. He published his final original work in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980.

Salinger was raised in Manhattan and began writing short stories while in secondary school. Several were published in Story magazine in the early 1940s before he began serving in World War II. In 1948, his critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" appeared in The New Yorker magazine, which became home to much of his later work. In 1951, his novel The Catcher in the Rye was an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read and controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year.

Salinger identified closely with his characters, as seen through many of his classic works, and used techniques such as interior monologue, letters, and extended telephone calls to display his gift for dialogue. Such style elements also gave him the illusion of having, as it were, delivered his characters' destinies into their own keeping. Recurring themes in Salinger's stories also connect to the ideas of innocence and adolescence, including the corrupting influence of Hollywood and the world at large, the disconnect between teenagers and "phony" adults, and the perceptive, precocious intelligence of children.

Salinger died of natural causes on January 27, 2010, at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire. In November 2013, three unpublished stories by Salinger were briefly posted online. One of the stories, called "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls", is said to be a prequel to The Catcher in the Rye.

Book Review: Animal Farm

Animal Farm

Animal Farm, written by George Orwell in 1945, is a dystopic allegorical novel reflecting the communist state in post 1917 revolution in the Soviet Union. The book sees the depiction of Joseph Stalin as the pig Napolean, Leon Trotsky as Snowball, and the civilians as other farm animals. The book concludes with the thirst for power, as well as the concept of pseudo-communism. Orwell believes that The Soviet Union, he believed, had become a brutal dictatorship, built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror.

The book is especially noted for the challenge towards free speech, as during the publication, the Great Britain and Soviet Union has a close tie, however Orwell challenges this. It is a classic novel as it was basically one of the main allegories which allowed people to see communism in all its terrible glory. It showed the people of Britain the truth about the Russian Revolution in a simple form, using only a farm, some animals and some humans.

Book Review: Undisputed Truth - Mike Tyson

Undisputed Truth, is the autobiographical life story of one of boxing's, & sports, most godlike figures, Mike Tyson. No holds are barred in this book. Tyson's story details his journey from a poverty stricken kid in Brownsville (by the time he was 13, he had been arrested 38 times!), to, at the age of 20, becoming the youngest heavyweight champion of all time & then, after an excess & drug addiction, back to being broke.
He tells all about his very public relation & subsequent break up with actress Robin Givens, his 3 year prison stint in the early 90's, his business relationship with promoter Don King & that biting incident with Evander Holyfield.
Some of his stories are very humorous, including encounters with a young Brad Pitt & with boxer Mitch Green, & his tales of excess spending & sex romps are so ludicrous that his life starts to sound like a Hollywood movie.
This is book is a great read, & i can recommend it for not only sports fans, but those who want an insight into the mind of the greatest entertainers of our time.

Meet the Writer: Jodi Picoult

The last two book reviews on the blog post have been fascinating novels, by the highly regarded

author Jodi Picoult. 

Jodi Picoult is the bestselling author of of twenty-three novels including, Picture Perfect(1995), Mercy (1996), The Pact (1998), Keeping Faith (1999), . Her last eight novels have debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Her books are translated into thirty four languages in thirty five countries.

Jodi is part of the Writer's Council for the National Writing Project, which recognises the universality of writing as a communicative tool and helps teachers enhance student writing. She is a spokesperson for Positive Tracks/Children's Hospital at Dartmouth, which supports youth-led charity fundraising through athletics; and is on the advisory committee of the New Hampshire Coalition Against the Death Penalty. She is also the founder and executive producer of the Trumbull Hall Troupe, a New Hampshire-based teen theater group that performs original musicals to raise money for local charities; to date their contributions have exceeded $100K. She and her husband Tim and their three children live in Hanover, New Hampshire with two Springer spaniels, two rescue puppies, two donkeys, two geese, ten chickens, a smattering of ducks, and the occasional Holstein.

To read more her Australian website provides a lovely insight into the author, her life and the writing of her books. http://jodipicoult.com.au/ 

below read an extract from Jodi Picoult's Interview with New York Times - Feb 08 2013

Terrible things happen to your characters. Your new book, “The Storyteller,” features a woman in Auschwitz. Past characters have included victims of a school shooting and parents of kids born with horrible diseases. Is it a little sadistic to put your characters through all this? 
I don’t think I’m sadistic. I’m superstitious. There’s a part of me that illogically believes if I write about a child with cancer, then my kids are going to be safe. If I write about a school shooting, it won’t happen where we live. If I write about infidelity, then my marriage is going to be safe. Of course it does not work that way, and I know that.

So there’s actually a neurosis behind this? 
Oh, gosh, of course there is.

What did you, an author of serial No. 1 best sellers, make of “50 Shades of Grey”? 

E. L. James has been upfront about the fact that this was “Twilight” fan fiction. As a writer, I find it pretty reprehensible that someone who began a story cycle with somebody else’s created characters would go on to make gobs of money off those characters simply by slapping new names on them. Honestly, if I were Stephenie Meyer, I wouldn’t have been that gracious.

Jodi Picoult's Interview with Ellen 

Book Review: A Day At Bondi - Eugene Tan

16 years ago, Eugene Tan started sending daily emails, to a small subscription base, containing photos of Bondi Beach. 11 years ago, Eugene quit his office job as a creative director, & focussed all of his attention on Aquabumps, which by then had opened a gallery in Bondi.
Every morning, Eugene rises before dawn and heads down to Bondi Beach, where new and exiting photo opportunities await. Then, through various social media outlets, he shares a select few images for his subscribers, giving those stuck in less desirable places a few moments of bliss.
Released in 2010, A Day at Bondi is a book which showcases all that Bondi has to offer. The book is in chronological order, it starts before sunrise & finishes after sunset.
The photos are shot from every angle, including underwater & above from a helicopter, looking down over the swimmers & surfers (my personal favourite).
 It is showcased in a beautiful 208 paged A3 sized hardcover book. Different types of paper are used for different photographs, to fully achieve the desired effect.

Looking through this book can be bring a touch of summer to even the dreariest of winters days.