Writing Book Reviews

You can download any number of book reviews from the net. Times magazine publishes proper book reviews which could give you good models. There are five steps in writing a book review

1. Choosing a book
2. Reading it
3. Taking down notes
4. Planning and writing the first draft
5. Final draft

• Choosing a book:  For beginners, it is better to choose a 200 to 400 page novel with a good plot and interesting characters. It is good to buy a copy than to borrow one since you may have to scribble notes on the margins of the book itself. It is also good to choose a book in which the characters undergo some kind of change rather than those novels in which the characters are either heroes or villains, who have no change of mind or character, from the beginning to the end. Since you also have to mention a little bit about the writer, choose a novel by an established writer. Have some idea about a few of his other writing too so that it will be easy for you to see what the writer is actually telling us.
• Reading the Book: Read a little bit about the book before you actually read it. This will help you put the book in its right context and understand its true meaning. True meaning? Yes, some writers are good at saying one thing and meaning something else. For example, George Orwell’s Animal Farm is more about international politics than about an actual animal farm though the book keeps talking about animals and farms.
• Taking down notes: Since the book is quite long, it is easy to forget examples of different aspects of the book and its style, like dialogues and descriptions, characterisation and setting. So, it is good if you can keep some ‘running notes’ or scraps so that you don’t have to go back to the book or spent time searching ‘that crisp dialogue the heroine had with a rose-bush’.
• Planning and writing the first draft: Make sure you can write a convincing, interesting book review which will give a reader a clear idea about the book.   The following aspects should be mentioned in the review:

1. The author, his reputation, awards, publisher, year of publishing
2. The theme (what is it all about)
3. The plot, in three short paragraphs (how it all began, went ahead and ended)
4. Characters (what kind of people are they) the setting (where does it take place) narrations and style (how well written)
5. Personal Comments ( what is your final opinion on the book and why)

      5.  Final Draft: Make a good, legibly written final draft with no errors. Add a picture of the book or the writer at the end. Provide the list of URLs if you have browsed any. Read it out loud to yourself to see if it reads well.

The Song of Troy

Colleen McCullough's novel ' The Song of Troy' was a chance find at a book fair. The author is better known for her best-selling work ' The Thorn Birds'. For anyone who has given up reading Greek mythology having got mired in difficult to remember names and complicated genealogies here's a wonderful re-working that is hard to put down as told from the point of view of some of the protagonists themselves in Homer's Illiad and Odyssey.
The author has meticulously researched the characters and the time they lived in to create a rivetting, realistic account that makes it live up to the claim of the sub title of the book as 'A story that will outlast History.'
The abduction of Helen, the legendary beauty of Greece and wife of Greek king Menelaus, by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy is 

the widely believed reason for the decade-long war between the two countries that resulted in the loss of countless lives and some of the finest warriors on both sides. Recall the famous opening lines of Homer's epic - The face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Illium...Though this is made out to be the immediate cause of the war, the lesser known fact is the ambition of Menelaus'  brother, King Agamemnon  who had designs to enrich himself from the sack of Troy and carve an empire for himself in Asia Minor.
Hector remembered Menelaos' description of his wife Helen in superlative terms. But he always had his reservations when men called queens or princesses beautiful because too many of them inherited that epithet along with their titles! Yet, even Hector had to succumb to Helen's charms when she made her first appearance in Priam's court. This is how he describes her:
'...As I remember her on that day, she was just...beautiful. Masses of pale gold hair, dark brows and lashes, eyes the colour of springtime grass rimmed with kohl drawn outward in the manner of Cretans and Egyptians.
But how much of it was actual, how much of it a spell? That I will never know. Helen  is the greatest work of art the Gods have ever put upon Mother Earth.
For my father she was fate. Not so far gone in old age that he had forgotten the pleasures to be had in the arms of a woman, he looked at her and fell in love with her. Or in lust. But because he was too old to steal her from his son, he chose instead to take it as a compliment to himself that a son of his could lure her from her husband, her children, her own lands. Swelling with pride, he turned his wondering eyes upon Paris.
They were certainly a striking pair: he as dark as Ganymede, she as fair as Artemis of the forest. Without doing more than take a stroll, Helen won the silent room completely over. No man there could continue to blame Paris for his foolishness.'
The ancients believed in a sacred code of conduct even though their battles were brutal and steeped in blood. Any violation of this code spelt doom. Achilles was driven to fury when he was mocked at during a duel with Kyknos as duels between members of the Royal Kindred were as sacred as rituals  till one was killed and the ritual continued till the body was stripped, the head speared and exhibited and the carcass fed to the dogs. At nightfall all hostilities came to an end. An oath taken was  equally sacred and broken at peril to oneself.
When Priam finally gives the go ahead to his pride and joy to attack the Greeks, Hector cannot wait for the dawn. McCullough describes in detail the armour as Hector accoutres himself:
'...My armour lay ready. Andromache (his wife who tried in vain to dissuade him) forgotten as my excitement rose. I clapped my hands. The slaves came, put me into my padded shift, laced on my boots, fitted the greaves over them and buckled them on. I swallowed down the desperate eagerness I always felt before combat as the slaves went on to dress me in the reinforced leather kilt, the cuirass, the arm guards, the forearm braces and the sweat leathers for wrists and brow. My helmet was put into my hand, my baldric looped over my left shoulder to hold my swords on my right hip; finally they slung my huge, wasp-waisted shield over my right shoulder by its sliding cord and settled it along my right side. One servant gave me my club, another assisted me to tuck my helmet beneath my right forearm. I was ready.'
The biggest blow for the Greeks was the fall of the mighty Achilles as a result of Paris' cowardly treachery. Very poignant is the fate of old Nestor who already lost two sons in the course of the war and now with a heavy heart has to bury his youngest son who wouldn't be left behind at home and sneaked into Troy without his father's permission. Achilles had a premonition and had already entrusted his mistress Brise, a Trojan princess who fell to his lot, to the safe keeping of Agamemnon and others to be handed over to his son Neoptolemus.
The mighty giant Ajax, turns violently mad after the death of Achilles and kills himself upon his sword. In the words of Automedon, 'In eight days they were both gone: Achilles and Ajax, the spirit and the heart of our army.'
Read on to find out how the suspense-filled scheming of Odysseus finally brings to an end the ten-year long war and the fates of Helen and the survivors.

Sandpiper

Ahdaf Soueif was born in Cairo and educated in Egypt and England. She studied for a PhD in linguistics at the University of Lancaster. Her debut novel, In the Eye of the Sun (1993), set in Egypt and England, recounts the maturing of Asya, a beautiful Egyptian who, by her own admission, "feels more comfortable with art than with life." Her second novel The Map of Love (1999) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, has been translated into 21 languages and sold over a million copies.  She has also published two works of short stories, Aisha (1983) and Sandpiper(1996) - a selection from which was combined in the collection I Think Of You in 2007, and Stories Of Ourselves in 2010.

Soueif writes primarily in English,  but her Arabic-speaking readers say they can hear the Arabic through the English. 

 She was married to Ian Hamilton, a famous English literary critic.

She lives in London and Cairo.

The short story Sandpiper by Ahdaf Soueif reads more like a poem than a short story. The basic elements air, water, fire and earth interplay with one another in this story highlighting the events that happen in the life of the main character. There are very few specifics; even the names of the main character are not mentioned. The place names are mentioned very rarely which gives this story a certain universality and timelessness.The story is told from the first person point of view of the central character, Lucy's mother and Um Sabir's daughter-in-law. This is a typical example of feminist writing.
There is no intriguing plot in the story and the conflicts are mainly internal. Marital discord due to cultural differences can be cited as the theme of the story.
The narrator, Lucy's mother, herself a writer, takes us into her first short utterance itself. It is a simple sentence which sounds like part of a private casual conversation and it sets the mood of the story.

                                      Outside, there is a path.

The rest of the story is about how she is unable to find her own path to happiness. She had met her husband, an Egyptian, in her own country. After a long courtship of four years, they got married and every year she has been six months in her husband's place at Alexandria near Cairo, Egypt.

"...:twelve years ago, I met him. Eight years ago, I married him. Six years ago, I gave birth to his child."
This cold objectivity is also heard when she talks about her motherhood.

As the story opens we see her at the beach near her husband's home in Alexandria. She is describing how she used to spend her time at the beach. Her description tells us a lot about how she loves to see the basic elements interacting with one another. They are very gentle to each other. They chase, cajole, fondle, unite, get into each other's being. This even forms a cycle. She is very passionate about everything in her life. She takes an interest in everything around her. The stranger the subject of her interest, the stronger her involvement. She is hungry for more and more varied experiences.

On the other hand her in-laws are very protective of her like they are generally of the women folk. It has been spelled out to her at the Cairo airport that women are considered second sex in Egypt. Coming from a more liberal land like Europe, it mattered much to her though she managed to adapt herself  to that.
After her first child was born, he husband became less passionate about her. He would have tried to harmonize her with his culture for long and then gave it up when he got really frustrated. She would have lavished all his love and time on her child, ignoring him. From the way she talks about how expectant she was when she was expecting this sound only natural. The part where she talks about how she played with her child even when it was still inside tells us that certain things are universal and do not pertain to any single culture.