Grapes of Wrath – Available at Amazon.com

There’s no need to feel intimidated by the fact it’s a comparatively long book from generations ago. You soon get used to the style and the more complicated language. It definitely takes a few chapters to really get into the meat of the subject matter, especially if you’re used to reading more modern literature. But, by the time the action shifts to the orange groves of California you begin to appreciate the depth in Steinbeck’s vaults of vocabulary.

The Grapes of Wrath begins from the viewpoint of Tom Joad, who was recently paroled from prison after a homicide snatched him out of his beloved rural lifestyle on the family farm in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. Over the next few chapters he meets up with an old preacher, in Jim Casy, and some of his former neighbors who have all cleared out of the area. The dawn of a new world sweeps over the young man as the true horror of the dust bowl, the oppression by the banks, and the desperate fight of the old families becomes apparent.

After meeting up with his family at Uncle Joad’s house, including his grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, and the ‘little ‘uns’, these tenant farmers soon resolve to move to California with the promise of work – a chilling ambition which brings together the reality of the past and the desperate hopes of many down-and-outs today.

In the beginning, it’s easy to laugh at Tom’s senile old grandparents as they enter a state of fanatical euphoria at the mere mention of God. And it’s simple to smile when you draw the parallels between the young people of the 30s to the moody teenagers of today, but these feelings soon turn darker. As members of the family begin to either pass away or leave by choice, you empathize with the futility of their endeavor. The resources run out, relationships begin to crack and splinter, and the reader closely follows the characters through their emotional bipolarism.

Looking at the characters themselves you are free to enjoy the differing (and sometimes clashing) personalities. Each has their own individual goals. And although it’s crystal clear the society of the 30s favored less individualism, the will to achieve dreams shines through. It’s what sets the reader up for the big fall when they eventually reach their objective; California.

When they arrive you can feel the will to keep going ebb away as they realize what they were told was a lie. There are no jobs. The locals hate the Joads and the rest of them ‘Okies’. Even the people who work only do so for so long; similar to the people stuck in chronic part-time employment today.

Even after their arrival, the family unit continues to drop and fall apart. The hatred coursing through the veins of the state begins to boil over. Their objectives soon change and traditional relationships soon change when they are forced to cooperate more closely than ever before. It’s heart-warming to see the family members bind together even as the hardships become greater. Steinbeck cleverly highlights the focus shifting from worldly possessions to human bonds.

Although Tom’s story is the central focus, Steinbeck always refers back to the story of Rose of Sharon (pronounced by the family as Rosasharn). She starts as a dreamy and naive pregnant teen, but throughout the journey she stomachs every hardship and transforms into a powerful and mature woman. It’s a symbol of growth and some would say this is why Steinbeck chose to name her Rose of Sharon.

With these moments of joy Steinbeck soon hits back with a dose of reality. You can see the characters’ resolve being tested, as well as your own. The vivid pictures this novel creates makes you feel as if you are living alongside them. If you’ve read Steinbeck’s most famous novel Of Mice and Men you’ll soon discover the theme of a disappointing and tragic reality is a regular feature of his work.

Overall, it’s a novel which feeds you with all the struggles and economic hardships expected of a family in this sort of global depression whilst still leaving you wanting more. By the end of the novel you want to know what finally happens to the family. And it does the same throughout. For the family members who leave by choice and the friends they meet and lose, you want to know where they end up.

It’s a bleak look into a world which resembles ours today. It focuses on the breakdown of society as we know it and masterfully crafts a world view which can easily resemble the current economic troubles. For these reasons, you will intend on spending an hour reading this book, only to realize you’ve actually spent four scouring the pages with avidity.

[important]A KloodIn Review!  The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is available at Amazon.com[/important]

Written in the format of a personal diary, of a young, teenage boy, Spud (aka John Milton) entering his first day at boarding school – at around age 13 or so, it is set in a momentous time during South African history, and the story begins in the year 1990, just before Nelson Mandela is due to be released.

Spud is about to leave the confines of his intriguing and eccentric family clutches to attend an elite, boys only private boarding school. The story revolves around a young, somewhat anxious boy, who soon finds he was horrendously unprepared for what lay ahead in the days at school. The result is a delightful, hilarious, heart-breaking and deeply moving story of the journey a boy takes to become a man.

Spud’s incredibly dysfunctional family provides a huge source of mirth to the reader, however, their antics are a source of complete and utter humiliation – especially as Spud’s nutty parents encounter a kindred spirit in his English teacher.

And his humiliation is entirely complete upon sports days where Spud’s family – wildly enthusiastic and complete with something resembling an impressive cocktail bar in a picnic basket – descend on the school field clinking glasses and enjoying far too many libations, joined happily by their new best friend – the English teacher and cricket coach- Mr Edly aka (The Guv).
It is soon clear not too far into the book, that Spud’s family are a lunatic liability in multiples. Spud’s father is a bit of a soak with a generous sprinkling of paranoia and has incoherent, unpredictable rages slash meltdowns with rantings of racism and slander just to spice things up completely. And as the current South African situation is about to change the country altogether, Spud’s family, and father in particular, bring some of the political situation in the country to the fore in the book. There’s hilarious contrast with Spud’s mother who doesn’t seem to have a clue that there is such turmoil on her very own doorstep.

In Spud’s diary account he introduces the characters each with a particular nickname; all the boys in the boarding school, the teachers and his parents, describing their quirks perfectly, and soon you have forgotten what their real names are altogether.

Spud’s journey is not unique and everyone, man, woman, teenager, grandmother, can relate to his story; the anxiety of leaving home for the first time, the relief when he realises that his mad family will be staying behind, disastrous family holidays, crazy grandparents and how a young man goes from being a scared teenager to becoming an independent almost-adult.

Spud – Available at Amazon.Com

The story is also about Spud’s journey through puberty as he crosses over the testosterone line and how he deals with this new information along with the other boys in the boarding school, his friends, who also seem to all have discovered girls for the very first time. And if Spud didn’t have all of that to deal with, along with older pupils at the school who bullied him and his friends, trying to stay out of detention, night swimming adventures, girls, that first kiss, that first girlfriend, and a grandmother, who for most of the book is either inebriated or delirious, encouraging him to ‘’sow his wild oats’’, there is the uncertainty of the impending political changes hanging over every student, teacher and South African family’s head at the time.

You won’t need to be South African in any way to find the story charming and hilarious; there is just enough of South Africa in there to make it so, without being partial only to the understandings of locals. Anybody who has been to boarding school must absolutely read this, and anybody who has been through the tumultuous journey of puberty and high school must read this as well – boys and girls. An innocent yet mature account of the antics of high school kids, the challenges, heart ache and emotions recorded in an award winning novel that is a must read for everyone.

[important]A KloodIn Review!  Spud by John van de Ruit is available at Amazon.com[/important]

At the forefront are Jim Butcher and his Dresden Files series of novels. The latest installment is the 14th novel in the series, and is titled Cold Days. The Dresden Files chronicles the adventures (and misadventures) of Harry Dresden, the only practicing and publicly advertising wizard-slash-private investigator in Chicago, Illinois. To be quite clear, this is NOT a paranormal romance series, but a paranormal detective series. From the beginning, the books have been written in an engaging manner that combines fantasy with realism, and gets it right. The paranormal elements are vibrant and integral, but not overplayed. Jim Butcher adroitly walks the line between a supernatural fantasy and earthbound detective stories. Harry Dresden’s magical abilities, and the complications that accompany them, do not tend to make his life magically easy. On the contrary, his special abilities often allow him to barely survive.

Perhaps most important is the sense of humor that is written into these books. The main character cracks wise at perfect moments. Reading the first-person sarcasm is enough to make you laugh right out loud – and then to look around in chagrin hoping no one heard you! There is enough action to keep the books moving along at a fast pace, with an intelligent enough plot that you remain interested throughout. While the books are not staged as a simple “whodunit”, there is enough real mystery that readers are often surprised by plot turns.

Cold Days – Available at Amazon.Com

Cold Days picks up some months after the end of Ghost Story, and sees the main character reunited with the cast of recurring characters from the previous novels. Former police officer Karrin Murphy, apprentice Molly Carpenter, coroner Waldo Butters, half-brother Thomas Raith, and barkeeper Mac all return in major supporting roles. Surprisingly absent are the characters Will Borden (occasional sidekick and werewolf) and the entire White Council (the governing body of all wizards). As the novels have developed, Jim Butcher has increasingly incorporated characters from classic fairy tales, like the queens of faerie Titania and Mab. This trend continues in Cold Days, with these summer and winter queens taking center stage and setting nearly impossible tasks for Harry Dresden to accomplish. Besides killing an immortal, he must also defend the city of Chicago from an impending disaster, prevent an invasion from a nigh-invisible enemy, and still manage to preserve his own free will against the encroaching power of queen Mab. The mysterious island in the middle of Lake Michigan takes center stage again as the locale of the novel’s final confrontation.

The plot in Cold Days is complex, and the reader is never quite sure how things will play out. Those readers most familiar with the series may be able to catch on in advance to the major jaw-dropper at the end of the book’s final confrontation, but the foreshadowing is not obtrusive enough to really give the game away. Only by piecing together clues from previous stories with the events in this book gives a hint, and I think having the surprise is by far the better option.

The most recent three books in the series (Changes, Ghost Story, and Cold Days) have marked a bit of a change in the series, perhaps reflecting the maturity of the writer, and by extension the maturity of the main character. The writing style has become a bit darker, and the jokes have become fewer and farther between. Clearly this is due to the tribulations faced by the character, and is intended to show him finally growing up. As a dedicated reader of the series, I have to wonder if this is a good thing. We treasure the irreverence in the face of danger, the sarcasm against overwhelming odds, and the unavoidable “open mouth, insert foot” that we’ve come to expect from the protagonist. These traits are still there, but becoming fainter over time. Like his fans, Harry Dresden is growing older, wiser, and more powerful, but this is shown against a backdrop of an unmistakable world-weariness and isolation.

While Cold Days can be enjoyed as a stand-alone story, fully understanding all of the nuances and relationships between characters is best accomplished by reading the full series. Jim Butcher has skillfully created a world not so unlike our own, so suspending your disbelief and submerging yourself in these fantasies is quite easy. I can’t think of a better way to spend a day than reading Cold Days.

[important]Another KloodIn Review!  Cold Days is available at Amazon.com[/important]

Who would have thought that a slap across a cheek could cause such uproar and the reverberations be felt by so many? But when the cheek belongs to the 4 year old Hugo and the perpetrator is the abusive Harry, the fall out is felt by everyone at the family barbeque that day.

Christos Tsiolkas skilfully guides the reader through the tangled web of family interconnections, relationships and friendships, which are all pushed to their very limits because of this incident. Set in modern day Melbourne, a group of eight friends and their children meet to celebrate Hector’s birthday. As the afternoon wears on, the children are encouraged to play a game of backyard cricket. When things don’t go the way of little Hugo, he lashes out at the older Rocco, son of Harry, with the bat. Harry steps in. The slap happens. Everything changes. Everyone is involved.

Available at Amazon Books

The Slap takes turns on focusing on each of the main characters, eight in all. There is Hector: Greek-Australian, married to Aisha, adulterer, engaged in an affair with Year 12 Connie, frustrated at the banality of his life. Aisha: Anglo-Indian, veterinarian, passionate, loyal friend. Harry: cousin of Hector, father of Rocco, married to Sandi but in a long-term relationship with Kelly who also supplies his cocaine, wife beater. Rosie: Australian housewife, mother of Hugo, married to Gary the failed alcoholic artist, idealist. Anouk: successful screen writer, unmarried, no children, in a relationship with soap opera actor, Rhys, 20 years her junior. Connie: shy schoolgirl, involved in a relationship of reality and fantasy with Hector. Ritchie: awkward gay friend of Connie with an obsession with Hector. Manolis: elderly Greek, Hector’s father, married to the matriarch, Koula, incredulous at a life spent and wasted.

Tsiolkas introduces the characters in a frenzy, indicative of the chaos and frayed tempers at the barbeque. He then moves the story forwards by taking each main character and showing their perspective on the incident, but not by a sedentary rehash of the events. Each narrative progresses the unfolding events whilst giving the individual’s opinions on the actions of the others. The story moves from the initial slap, through the anger and divided loyalties of Rosie and Gary reporting Harry to the police to the final retribution of the court case and the aftermath. However, this is no courtroom drama. Tsiolkas intricately weaves the court case through the everyday lives of his characters. The incident influenced each one of them but it is the way that it worked its way into each of their lives that proves to be the real pull of the novel. This relatively minor event is the tiny thread that causes the unraveling.

The Slap does not attempt to make judgments of its characters; it is not a moral tale on corporal punishment. It only seeks to explore the relationships and tensions. Tsiolkas presents his characters so vividly that each new chapter and new perspective makes you question your own judgment of the events. Balanced perfectly with the four male and four female characters, the individual chapters distil the essence of each personality into a meager 80 pages, causing a rollercoaster of opinions as it jolts violently from one stance to another.

Each character finds themselves in an uneasy state of contentment and disillusion. The surface does not have to be scratched particularly hard to reveal the depths that they have plunged to, however, this unsettling incident causes them first to jump to the judgement of their close friends. Throughout the novel, the threads of their relationships are tightened and slackened as they deal not only with ‘the slap’ but the realities of their lives. Aisha and Hector have, outwardly, a perfect marriage. Both attractive, both successful in their careers but the fire has gone out. When temptation comes their way, their resolves cannot hold. Rosie and Gary had sought to bring up their child in a utopian world, away from the constraints and influences of materialism. However, when the light of the outside world is shone on them, the picture is not quite as they had hoped. Rosie’s development throughout the novel is one of the most complex as she seeks justice for Hugo and affirmation that her parenting is not to be blamed. The reader jumps from empathy to frustration as she gradually breaks all of her bonds in pursuit of sanctification.

The Slap was widely received with critical praise when it was published in 2008, winning the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2009 and appearing on the Man Booker Prize Long List. Tsiolkas had long been regarded as the wild child of Australian prose, but this novel marked his steady transition into the popular market. He may have veered away from some of the dark subtexts of his previous works, but The Slap is by no means a soap opera novel. His examination of the characters with their flaws and gnawing tensions adds a depth and reality that is not found in similar literature. Having said this, The Slap is also easy to read. This is certainly more down to the craft of the character work than the light content of the novel, but it does mean that once you have begun on the journey of the facts behind ‘the slap,’ you will not be able to get off before Tsiolkas has brought you to his destination.

[important]A KloodIn Book Review!  Discover “The Slap” at Amazon.com[/important]

With all of the hype that the release of the new movie has brought, many people new to Tolkien are wondering whether The Hobbit is really worth a read. Well, whether your interest in the series has been forced upon you by a partner dragging you to the movies or whether you’ve always ‘meant’ to pick up the book but just never got round to it, now really is the time to get into one of the greatest books ever written.

Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s a children’s book: the main difference between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is that The Hobbit is simpler, more straightforward and lighter (both in weight and content!) but it’s far from childish. Tolkien injects some real fun into a story that could otherwise be quite serious and heavy going (it can, for example, be read as an allegory of World War I), as we are invited to have a giggle at the expense of Bilbo Baggins, the ultra-conservative hobbit who is utterly bemused by the arrival of thirteen dwarves at his dinner table.

The Hobbit is like a coming-of-age tale where Bilbo, of the well-respected Bagginses who “never had any adventures or did anything unexpected”, is thrust head-first into one of the greatest adventures that Middle Earth has ever seen: the quest to win a share of the treasure hidden deep inside the Lonely Mountain. Unlike just any other treasure hunt, however, this treasure is guarded by the fearful Smaug the Magnificent, a dragon that destroyed the surrounding town and villages and captured the mountain with all of its treasure.

Expect to laugh until your sides ache at poor Bilbo’s naivety, and feel a sense of pride when he finally becomes a man (actually, he becomes a hobbit, but a grown up one). Hobbits are actually not so different from us, besides the obvious size difference, and you may well spot aspects of an old uncle, a work colleague or even yourself in Bilbo Baggins, and it is our ability to identify so closely with him that makes him such a lovable character.

You’ll also enjoy getting to know the individual personalities of the dwarves, which may seem a little daunting at first with names such as Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori and Ori. But, all are so vibrant and colorful, with differently colored beards and cloaks and extremely varied personalities, that you will feel like you know them all in no time at all, from the young and energetic Fili and Kili to the majestic leader Thorin Oakenshield.

The Hobbit also sees our first encounter with Gandalf, the slightly eccentric old wizard who Bilbo has to thank for his little adventure, as Gandalf is entirely to blame for Bilbo’s involvement in the quest. You will no doubt enjoy watching the friendship between the two develop into the blossom into the perfect mutual understanding that we see in The Lord of the Rings.

Gandalf is far from perfect as a guide, however; like with any good treasure hunt, things don’t go exactly to plan, leading to battles, deaths, and a first encounter between Bilbo and Gollum. It is encounters like this that make The Hobbit an essential read for anyone that has always wanted to try Tolkien’s great Lord of the Rings trilogy, but found it a little daunting, because you get a good amount of back story to help you along, from Bilbo’s acquisition of the One Ring, to the presence of the dwarf Gloin, father of Gimli who forms an important part of the Fellowship of the Ring.

However good the movie reviews may be, it is always well worth reading the book first because it gives you real space to exercise your imagination, so pick it up and give it a go! Or, if you’ve already seen part one of the movie trilogy, if you pick up the book you won’t have to wait a couple of years to find out how it ends. Read it to your children, read it in the bath, or even listen to it in your car. However you enjoy it, chances are that you’ll be so hooked that you’ll finish it in no time at all.

[important]KloodIn note:  Enjoy “The Hobbit” for yourself from Amazon.com[/important]