REVIEW: THE CRUCIBLE by Arthur Miller

Title: The Crucible
Author: Arthur Miller
Series: -
Genres: Fiction, Plays, Historical, Drama
Publisher: Penguin Classics,
Release: March 25th, 2003
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 143

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Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing, "Political opposition... is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence.

REVIEW: CALL ME BY YOUR NAME by Andre Aciman

Title: Call Me By Your Name
Author: Andre Aciman
Series: -
Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Picador/Farrar Straus and Giroux
Release: October 3rd, 2017
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 248

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Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. It is an instant classic and one of the great love stories of our time.

 

REVIEW: WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy

Title: War and Peace

Author: Leo Tolstoy
Series: -
Genres: Historical fiction, Classics
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release: 1998
Source: Audiobook
Pages:1392


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Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately connected with the national history that is played out in parallel with their lives. Balls and soirees alternate with councils of war and the machinations of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles with everyday human passions in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed.

The prodigious cast of characters, seem to act and move as if connected by threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will, fate, and providence. Yet Tolstoy's portrayal of marital relations and scenes of domesticity is as truthful and poignant as the grand themes that underlie them.

Martyna's Autumn Book Haul

 

Happy Friday fellow readers!

Today I ask you to join me in discussing books I received this Autumn. I say Autumn, but honestly, I think I got all these books during October.

Nevertheless, I am really exited about all these books, I am happy to have them, read them and discussing them with all of you! So without any further ado, let's see what bookish adventures awaits!

REVIEW: ANGELS & DEMONS by Dan Brown

Title: Angels & Demons

Author: Dan Brown
Series: Robert Langdon #1
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Detective
Publisher: Pocket Books
Source: Hardcover
Pages: 713


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When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol—seared into the chest of a murdered physicist—he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati ... the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy—the Catholic Church.

Langdon’s worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.

Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair ... a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

REVIEW: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee

Title: To Kill a Mockingbird

Author: Harper Lee
Series: -
Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Classics
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 324


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The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior—to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

REVIEW: A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS by Khaled Hosseini

Title: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Author: Khaled Hosseini
Series: -
Genres: Drama, Adult Fiction, Fiction
Publisher: Jotema
Source: Hardcover
Pages: 380


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Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them—in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul—they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation.

REVIEW: PRIDE & PREJUDICE by Jane Austen

Title: Pride & Prejudice
Author: Jane Austen
Series: -
Genres: Romance, Classics, Comedy, Drama
Publisher: The Modern Library Classics
Source: Paperback
Pages: 278

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First published in 1813, "Pride and Prejudice," Jane Austen's witty comedy of manners - one of the most popular novels of all time - tells the story of Mr and Mrs Bennet's five unmarried daughters after the rich and eligible Mr Bingley and his status-conscious friend, Mr Darcy, have moved into their neighbourhood. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." So begins the novel, that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues.
This brilliant novel is a must-read of classic literature and will delight readers of all ages.