Summer Bookworm 2014

SUMMER 2014 Swanshurst School’s Culture Magazine for KS4 & the 6th form

What are YOU reading this Summer?

Editorial Celebrating all that is good in the world of books and film whilst questioning authority and gazing unerringly at the miracles of the cosmos is no easy task. So remember - I’m brilliant and all the people that write for the Bookworm are brilliant. So there!

UNIVERSE-SIZED special thanks to Neelam who has written for every issue of the Bookworm over the last two years and who is, for the most part, unless she’s being particularly grumpy, ESPECIALLY brilliant.

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Contents So long, farewell, adieu, adieu, adieu . . .

4 BOOKS Prize News 6 Loads of it

The Fault in our Stars 10 If you haven’t read it then you’re probably still on our reservation list!

I’ve read it!

30 This is Mr Embury’s shelfie - I wouldn’t say his shelves are messy - I’d call them characterful. How do they compare with other members of staff?

6

Book of the Year!

12

Stuff Science Fiction

18 22

Frances Hardindge - ‘nuff said.

Why you should give it a go.

Shelfies

30

From the sublime to the ridiculous.

MOVIES Maleficent

40

Cinema Club Best of 2013 so far

42 48

Evil and proud.

You won’t agree but I’m (always) right.

Bollywood

50

Soundtracks & the Summer challenge

54

Yeah, Bollywood, yeah, yeah!!!!!

Do it.

So, it’s that time of the year again when we have to say so long, farewell, adieu, etc. to Year 11 and Year 13 SAD TIMES! Or not. Many of you will be glad to go, ready and excited to move on.

Me? I’m sad, crazy with grief [cries] . . . . (oh hold on, I’ve just been reminded its not all about me!) so, good luck, follow those dreams and try not to become reactionary in any way. It would be nice too if you could do something about climate change. And even better if one of you could invent faster than light travel so I could go to the Andromeda Galaxy. That would be excellent. Oh, and watch some Bollywood—it’s good for you. And obviously if you ever happen to meet Kajol, Beyonce or Nimrat Kaur tell them that I love them. Bye-bye [cries] . . . .

For Zakia!

For Bushra!

Kanisha’s Top 6* Beyonce songs.

1. Halo 2. Dance for you 3. End of time 4. Countdown 5. Crazy in Love 6. Drunk in Love *Why she couldn’t pick a top 5 like any normal person, I’ll never know. Spoilt and used to getting her own way? Probably!

Prize News

An extended this issue because there is SO much of it!

The winner of the Waterstones’ Prize and the Blue Peter Award was Rooftoppers congratulations to Katherine Rundell. One book that made the Waterstones’ shortlist seems to have been missed by the other prizes. Check out The Bone Dragon by Alexia Casale.

There’s a good review here.

Gillian Cross won the Little Rebels Award for her novel After Tomorrow.

It’s a new award for radical fiction aimed at children aged 0 - 12 so it’s a little young for readers of the Bookworm but Cross’s novel is well worth reading.

The Carnegie Award is doing things a little differently this year, so there’s a longlist of 20 novels—see the guide here that provides links to reader and critic reviews. The shortlist has 8 novels and there’s a

link to reviews of all of them here. There are some good books here, obviously. There’s a lot of love online for The Bunker Diary, The Wall and The Truth that’s in Me and I’m glad to see Susan Cooper there too BUT … I’ve just been looking back through previous shortlists and something is very wrong. It’s brilliant that the greatness of Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd, Philip Reeve and David Almond has been recognised in the last decade; great too that Sally Gardner’s stupendous Maggot Moon won last year. Yet Frances Hardinge has written 5 novels since 2005 and not one of them has been on a shortlist. This troubles me a great deal—it’s a travesty of gargantuan proportions and makes me wonder what’s going on with the world.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! (see P12) The Bunker Diary won! Congratulations to Kevin Brooks the controversy is only just beginning . . .

Prize News

The Costa Book awards are the most accessible, least highbrow, of the major fiction prizes. Nathan Filer’s The Shock of the Fall was the, er, shock winner of the overall award this year beating the favourite, Kate Atkinson’s brilliant Life and Life.

Both books are easy to read and well worth your time.

The Booktrust Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is one we’ve never covered in the Bookworm but then I saw that Revenge by Yoko Ogawa (reviewed by Yusra in a previous issue) had made the shortlist.

There’s details of the shortlisted novels here and a good article on the winner, Iraqi writer Hassan Blasim here. There’s also some good coverage of the award on David Hebblethwaite’s blog.

The winner of the Bailey’s Prize (formally the Orange Prize) this year is much more of a challenging read. There’s plenty of coverage at the Guardian if you want to try reading Eimar McBride’s brilliant novel. All the other novels are much easier to read. Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch has already won the Pulitzer Prize in the USA whilst Americanah and The Lowland are fantastic novels that focus on immigrant’s experiences.

And the winner is . .

ybe ss a m e N k ric t a P

and David Levithan o

ls a e Se

try Siobhan Dowd

Jenny Downham

Gayle Forman

Stephen Chbosky

More John Green!

Gabrielle Zevin

Marcus Sedgwick

David Nicholls

What should you read next?

Rainb

ow R owell

Cammie McGovern

Fantasy and Horror

Cuckoo Song - novel of the year? remember what has happened.

Anyone who regularly reads the Bookworm will know I already think Frances Hardinge is the Cat’s Pajamas. I love her novels Fly By Night, Twilight Robbery, Gullstruck Island and A Face Like Glass. More than anything else reading a Hardinge novel is deeply pleasurable - on every page you’ll find a sentence, a figure of speech, a line of dialogue, a joke, an observation or a brilliant idea that will give you pause for thought or astonish. Hardinge brings sophistication and literariness to children’s fiction whilst never skimping on the entertainment and satisfaction quotient. So many characters in fantasy novels have special powers or have been touched by destiny to save the world - and I hate that, but Hardinge’s characters all start off pretty normal yet still find ways of rising to the extraordinary challenges that confront them.

Cuckoo Song is set in 1920s Britain. Aptly, in this centenary year, it’s a story about World War 1 and its aftermath as the social mores and attitudes of Britain began to be questioned and transformed. It’s a dark, potent and heady tale of doubles and doppelgangers, monsters and mayhem, courage and conviction.

Triss wakes up ill and discombobulated; she can’t really

Her mother and father, Celeste and Piers Crescent are in the room to reassure her. She has fallen into a large pond and become feverish. They reassure her that her memories will fully recover as she regains her strength. More puzzling is the reaction of her younger sister Pen who seems to hate and distrust Triss to an extraordinary degree. The reader finds it hard to understand why however – the narrator keeps very close to Triss so that we appreciate her kindness and honesty. However the novel quickly becomes mysterious, eerie and horrific.

The first quarter of the novel is an uneasy read as Triss questions her sanity and becomes increasingly uncertain and fearful.

Hardinge plays this particular literary game with aplomb so that it feels true and convincing rather than manufactured – how much is real?

How much is Triss imagining. What is really happening? In fact this first quarter is so successful I wasn’t sure Hardinge would be able to provide satisfactory answers and still drive the narrative forward. I shouldn’t have worried. As the story gathers momentum the sense of the uncanny does slip away a little but becomes instead an adventure with three marvellous heroines.

The novel is rich, in associations of all kinds but especially with fairy tales and classic children’s literature and you’ll think about the way Hardinge is investigating various tropes and stereotypes that you’ll recognize.

Reviewers often focus on the incredible dynamism of the worlds Hardinge creates— their social and political authenticity – and her abundance of ideas, but reviews don’t always acknowledge the depth and quality of her writing. Maybe they think they’ll turn younger readers off if they extoll her extraordinary literary skill.

Take her similes – I don’t know of anyone that writes similies with the skill, imagination and range of purpose that Hardinge manages. Her comparisons capture sensations and moments in time, create a sense of period and history and generate mood and atmosphere – sometimes you’re astonished by their accuracy, sometimes by their insight, sometimes by their attentiveness to detail and exceptional thoughtfulness. They also slow down the reading process a little

because they ask you to reflect and assess, rationalise and discuss. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Hardinge isn’t read quite as widely as some of the fast paced, plot dominated novels that populate the YA bestsellers lists.

Are there any negatives you may be asking? Well, kind of – towards the end there is a degree of sentimentality and a tendency to over explain a little that gave me some doubts. That said since the novel isn’t aimed at 42-year-old men I don’t really want to complain, especially as it fits with the mood and tenor of the novel. Cuckoo Song is more emotionally powerful than Hardinge’s other work, sad and heart-breaking, inspiring and fierce, whilst never losing the moral complexity that characterise her novels.

Reviewing Verdigris Deep in 2007 the SF and Fantasy academic Farah Mendlesohn wrote that “Frances Hardinge is the best new fantasy writer for children since Diana Wynne Jones.

There is simply no one to match her, and I include within that constituency the likes of Philip Pullman.” Seven years later and I’m confident that is still true and for me she stands with Margo Lanagan, Philip Pullman, Philip Reeve, and Patrick Ness as authors whose books I couldn’t bear to miss. What is more astonishing, and downright weird, is that Hardinge hasn’t picked up an award or three along the way and isn’t being heralded up and down the land as a national treasure. Hopefully that will change soon.

Fantasy and Horror

OUT IN SEPTEMBER

I love a good fantasy and the last couple of years has produced some excellent novels. Throne of Glass is the kind of book you read until you can’t physically stay awake anymore. It’s that good. In it we meet Celeana Sardothian, the most deadly assassin in Ardalan, the Crown Prince of Ardalan and the Captain of the Royal Guard. Together they face demons, plots and ancient magical Queens. It’s a captivating story that keeps you completely hooked; I couldn’t wait to read the sequel, Crown of Midnight as soon as I could. It’s a well written book and Celeana as a main character is fascinating. I can’t wait for the third in the series and I’m sure you won’t be able to either.

Seraphina is the best book I’ve ever read about dragons. The story centres around a woman called, surprise (!), Seraphina who becomes entangled in the murder of a prince during a time of fragile peace between humanity and dragons. It is a combination of everything you could want from a book; fantasy, romance, crime, thriller and adventure. It keeps you hooked with its interesting storyline and intriguing characters.

I couldn’t put it down for an instant. If you enjoy fantasy or just reading in general, do not hesitate, you won’t regret it. [Ella Crabtree]

Neil Gaiman is a bit of a superstar - he wrote one of the most influential comics series ever, he’s won almost every book prize going, his novels have been made into successful films AND he’s scripted episodes of Doctor Who! He doesn’t need to prove anything anymore yet his latest, The Ocean at the End of the Lane may be one of his best.

The narrator goes back to the village of his childhood and is overwhelmed by memories. He remembers how, when he was 7, one of his family’s lodgers committed suicide and how that set off a series of events that changed his life for ever: a dark presence emerges to threaten him and his family whilst he also meets the kind but mysterious Hempstock family especially the fearless Lettie.

The novel is short, only 250 pages, but Gaiman makes every word count. He evokes childhood brilliantly; how lonely it can be and how alien and mysterious adults can seem. The book is also brilliant on the consolations of a fantasy life.

The narrator is a solitary boy who finds escape and wisdom in the books that he reads. On more than one occasion they will be his saviour. The novel is exciting and unsettling when the characters are threatened by the scary Ursula Monkton but there’s a sadness to the novel too. Seen through the lens of his older self the narrator is also weighing up the value of the life he has lived and measuring it against the expectations of the 7-year-old boy he was.

Books, blogs and websites And a few more:  

Epic Reads Trapped by Monsters

  

Steel Thistles tall tales and short stories Bookwitch

More Bookworms

. . . you won’t find in the Daily Mail

I’ve been reading Americanah, a fantastic novel by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, shortlisted for this year’s Bailey’s Prize. All three of her books are brilliant as are those of her hero and fellow Nigerian Chinua Achebe. Of course you can’t read about Nigeria without thinking about current events and worrying about the future of the 200 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.

The great thing about novels though is how they encourage you to think for yourself, to remember the past and scrutinize the present. Adiche’s novels remind us about the legacy of imperialism and its impact on Nigeria today whilst a little further investigation will give you insight into the corruption and brutality of Goodluck Johnson’s current regime, the wealth of the oil-rich southern states compared with the poverty of the north and much more.

So yes the members of Boko Haram are indiscriminate murderers, renounced by Islamic clerics and ordinary Muslims around the world, but as sections of the Western press use the situation as just another weapon in its campaign of antiIslamic hysteria it’s worth trying to figure out what led to the current situation and what could make it better. As always you can find a whole range of articles and opinion online and in the press. Try to sift through all the evidence and all the statements to separate out the snippets of truth from all the hypocrisy and doublespeak. I’m not saying there are any easy solutions but at least you can attempt to think about it critically and independently.

I know Valentine’s Day has long gone but there’s a nice Guardian Top 10 here — Stephanie Perkins' top 10 most romantic books.

The Blood Never Dried – John Newsinger A must read for anyone with an interest in British history and colonialism, The Blood Never Dried presents the reader with the social and moral injustices of the British Empire and the atrocities that took place.

From the slave trade through to the Irish famine, Newsinger guides you through Britain's bloody footprints in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. While the ‘people's history’ element is a bit muted, those whose voices are loudest in the volume are former British military men, and at times their wives or other similar types of witnesses, all of whom narrate the events they committed to or participated in in one way or another. The books title itself is almost self-explanatory; the number of those who lost their lives at the empire’s hands is truly shocking. A definite read for all us historians and anyone that wants to look at world events from a different perspective.

[Charlotte Rooney] The Bookworm remembers and celebrates the life of two great authors who have died this spring.

Overleaf I’ve included one of Maya Angelou’s greatest poems Still I Rise and I’d also urge everyone to read a Sue Townsend novel too—they’re brilliant, acerbic, funny & life-affirming.

READ THIS

Still I Rise - Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard ‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise I rise I rise

Science Fiction Most of you will have seen a science-fiction film, think Avatar, I am Legend, Star Wars, Terminator, Ender’s Game, Star Trek - or one with science-fictional elements— think superhero films like The Avengers, Thor or X-men or the new crop of dystopian tales like The Hunger Games and Divergent. The trouble is—and I know I’m a grumpy old man—most of them aren’t that good. Sure, if you want some mindless fun then the latest superhero film probably fits the bill but if you want to have fun and let your imagination soar—let alone engage your brain—your options are limited. Don’t get me wrong, I still go to see all the blockbusters (actually I draw the limit at Transformers) because I try to live in hope, so this isn’t a lecture, more a quest to open up your minds to new possibilities. AND since many of you have read and enjoyed The Hunger Games I’m hoping this won’t be too painful.

So . . . . Science Fiction BOOKS.

We’re lucky that through a mixture of good luck and publishers demanding more books like The Hunger Games there’s a wealth of good YA novels about. If you’re even vaguely familiar with some of the films mentioned above will also be aware of many basic SF ideas— robots and androids, AI and cryogenics, FTL (faster then light travel) and teleportation; body-swapping and aliens. You’ll have a sense too that SF is concerned with ‘the sense of wonder’ - of travelling to distant planets or imaging Earth in the future; discovering alien civilisations; the potential of new technology and so on.

Once a SF book (or film) has provided that sense of wonder it usually goes on to ask ‘what if?’ So in The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins dazzles (and depresses) us with her vision of a totalitarian state and then goes on to ask: how does the state exert control? What if someone tried to rebel, how would they do it? Could they succeed?

How might the rebellion spread?

For the reader this can be very rewarding—not only do you get a great adventure but the more you read the more you start to question. Does The Hunger Games provide a realistic vision of the future? Are the Hunger Games themselves —brutal and somewhat unsubtle - good ways for a government to control to control its population? Are fear and spectacle useful weapons of any state and if so does their usefulness have limits?

The Hunger Games also gives us an idea of how SF as a genre is quite hard to pin down as it is always using the tropes of other genres, in this case, thriller and romance components.

One of the other great things about sci -fi and speculative fiction of all kinds is its metaphorical richness. What do I mean? Take war: lots of people wouldn’t necessarily want to read a book about the Iraq war but a story about humans fighting giant insectoid aliens—with lasers—might be much more appealing. And done well that novel could ask us to think about the nature and experience of war as well as, if not better than, any kind of ‘realist’ text. One of the great sci-fi novels of the 1970s is Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. In this war the humans must travel vast distances to get to the battlefront and thus the combatants traveling to and from the war across interstellar space age much slower than the people left on earth. The metaphor allows Haldeman to examine the way men and women in the military become alienated and divorced from life at home and how soldiers are changed, often irrevocably, by their experiences.

There is a poetry and wonder at the heart of sci-fi that begs for your attention. Get stuck in.

After reading Wonders of the Universe you will agree with me in saying that the universe is an amazing place. At 13.7 billion years old, we are taken on a journey of the universe by Professor Brian Cox who introduces us to a place where anything can and does happen. Planetary Nebulae, Stellar Nurseries and Supernovae are just some of the many things explained to us in a way that even a person with no science background could understand.

The EL Tatio Geysers in Chile explain the process of spontaneous symmetry and helps to form our understanding of the early universe. The Karnak Temple in Luxor gives us an insight into how early human civilisations viewed the cosmos. The origins of life are explained whilst standing on top of a Himalayan mountain showing us that all the material we’re made out of is what the universe is made up of and in Kathmandu, science and religion agree in saying that when cremated, the elements of the body vacated by the soul are returned to Earth to be re-used and recycled. Through using simple analogies like sandcastles, concepts like the arrow of time are explained, allowing us to see that time has always been here whether we’ve been here or not. And where better to explain this than at the Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia, where time seems to just stand still but yet on a molecular level everything is constantly moving every second.

We can see how far we’ve come in discovering how and why the universe has been shaped the way it has from the various images provided to us, allowing us to visualize all the different processes that have and haven’t taken place. The Hubble

Telescope has allowed us to view the cosmos in a whole new light so we can now see further than ever into the ever expanding universe. We are shown all the different stages of a star’s life and how, after running out of hydrogen it undergoes several different stages until finally it becomes a white dwarf, a neutron star or a black hole.

We discover how scientists have overcome one of the most important forces in the universe, gravity. Loosely called the Vomit Comet, the sensation of weightlessness is experienced as we cancel out the force of gravity by decelerating towards the ground at 9.81 metres per second inside an aircraft. And in billions of years from now when our sun’s life finally comes to an end and then hundreds of billions of years after that when the last stars have decayed away to nothing, when the temperature of everything remains the same, and the cosmos remains permanent and unchanging. A place where nothing can or does exists. Now that will be the end of the universe.

However, we still have plenty of time before that happens (!) and so much to discover about the cosmos. Wonders of the Universe is a great place to start discovering the bizarre processes that take place and to gain an understanding of the fundamentals of our universe. Brian Cox does a great job of keeping it simple, showing us that physics, taught well, is fascinating and rewarding AND isn’t as hard as it is made out…..(or, at least, it’s not impossible). [Neelam Narshi]

Manisha lurves him

Science Fiction

Divergent is a dystopian novel. Now I know what you’re thinking— some of you will know what that is but for those who don’t here’s the definition from our great Oxford Dictionary: “An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.”

Okay, so I see why you would turn the page because that’s not exactly inviting you to read the book. But I assure you; Divergent will most definitely blow your socks off.

Imagine the future (not exactly tomorrow but not so far we’re flying cars). Humanity has divided into five factions who each value a certain attribute. Abnegation, for instance, values selflessness above everything and places others before themselves. Candor, value the truth and serve as lawyers or speakers. The Dauntless faction value bravery. People that value knowledge and intelligence are known as part of the Erudite faction and those that value friendly relations are recognised as Amity. At a certain age, every year, teenagers are able to choose the faction they wish to belong to and transferring to a different faction is considered a betrayal.

I hope you’re with me so far.

From the very start, we meet 16-year-old Beatrice Prior from the Abnegation faction. At first you kind of want to shoot her because let’s be honest she’s your average looking girl who’s well, a little boring? Thankfully she grows on us just like the plague and we end up kind of liking her. A little. Okay, a lot. As the book develops, Tris begins to realise that her world isn’t what it seems. Much like every other book, it’s a battle between what’s right and you guessed it, what’s wrong. It is our choices that define who we are, and that is the sole message of Divergent.

I would recommend Divergent because we see before us an ordinary girl who becomes so much more as the book develops. As she chooses her faction, Tris faces battles with her identity and who she is. A series of tests and physical simulations such as a ‘fear landscape’ really make this book original in the sense that this futuristic world is so very different from our own. It is clear that Tris doesn’t ‘fit’ into just one faction and this proves to be threatening because it doesn’t agree with the natural order of the world she lives in. Her divergence makes her dangerous.

But for a moment, let’s forget about the heroine and talk about Four.

Yes, Four, you did read that correctly. Oh my. If you’re a bit like me and can’t help falling for book characters (don’t lie you know you have) well then, Four is your man. As much as I would like to tell you why he’s called Four, I really can’t. With his mysterious ways and fighting skills oh and those dark deep blue eyes…wow. I think you should just read Divergent just to meet Four. Honestly.

Okay but for now, enough of Four. There’s quite a lot of him in the book so you won’t be disappointed. It’s quite sad actually, seeing as the book is to do with Beatrice finding herself and the faction she belongs to and I’ve somehow morphed it into a romance.

So go read! (Or watch – Divergent is currently screening in cinemas!!)

And then talk to me about Four. [Henna Nabi]

Science Fiction

Neelam Narshi gets to grips with the first in the Planesrunner series— a new trilogy of YA novels by acclaimed, prize-winning SF novelist Ian McDonald.

Planes, Plenitude, Infundibulum, Multiverse, Palari, Steampunk, Airish…….. and so on. None of these words will mean anything to you until you’ve read Planesrunner.

This fast paced book full of Airships, Heisenberg Gates and a power hungry villainess will keep you hooked till the end.

It begins with Everett, a typical geeky teenager with his mother’s knowledge of cooking and father’s knowledge of physics. After witnessing his father, Tejendra Singh’s kidnapping, he’s left with an app in the corner of his drop box. The app is The Infundibulum, a map of an infinite number of parallel universes made by Tejendra. After figuring out how to work The Infundibulum on his tablet, Dr Quantum, Everett finds himself being chased by Charlotte Villiers, our power hungry villainess with glossy red lips and a ‘killer’ look. In desperate attempt to run Everett opens a Heisenberg Gate to Plane E3 to escape from Charlotte Villiers and find Tejendra.

Plane E3’s London is in a parallel universe where the electricity-run city never went through the steam age and space exploration never happened. Whilst on a train Everett meets Sen who takes him to Hackney Great Port where he sets up home with Captain Anastasia Sixsmyth and the crew of Everness, the most bonaroo airship in the entire town. Hired as cook on the airship, Everett’s culinary skills are put to the test as he uses food to persuade the Captain to help him on his mission.

The alternate London is one of the best things about the book. It’s described as Baroque Gotham with air that tastes oily, dirty and greasy. Within it is Hackney Great port, home to the Airish, the lowest classed people in society. It’s a place where airships hover above your head like ‘the leaves of immense trees’ and all the people always look so. The crew of Everness are a tight knit group of people, all with different backgrounds

and crazy attributes. Sen, adopted daughter of Captain Anastasia, is a wild, attitude-filled pilot who is slightly in love with Everett (well maybe a bit more than slightly). With her full on nature and street charm she helps Everett in planning Tejendra’s escape risking her own life in the Tyrone Tower (headquarters of the Plenitude of Known Worlds).

Planesrunner is 365 pages of awesomeness filled with adventure from the very first page. It leads you into a world where billions of Earth’s each with their own unique evolutionary paths, exist and you have access to whichever one you want. This is only book one of a series which I hope just goes on and on and I just know I won’t read anything as good as this for a while.

And then try one of these . . .

Ms Wright

Swanshurst Shelfies

Mr Stock

Ms Osgood

Ms Place

Ms Else

Ms Bridger

Ms Wheeler

Ms Prinson

Ms Bennett

Ms Taylor Mr Tulloch

Mr Glover

Ms Wright

Ms Hardwick

Ms Whittaker

Ms Tigue

Ms Kelly

Mr Beniston

Ms Leadbeater

Swanshurst at the Movies We’ve already celebrated the good looking men of the film world (page 3) so in the film section we focus on some great roles for women and girls.

Tony Revolori and Saoirse Ronan in Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel.

Mia Wasikowska (and a camel) in Tracks

Kangana Ranaut & Lisa Haydon in Queen.

Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin and Liv LeMoyne in

We are the Best

Summer films

S

o, I love animated films as much as anyone - Toy Story, Wall-E, Spirited Away and Watership Down, I can watch again and again, but I’ve always been less enamoured with Disney films. I’m sure this has something to do with the way many of them have tended to reinforce stereotypes about gender and race whilst also cute-sifiying (great word, huh?) fairy tales. It’s a roll call of evil witches, evil stepmothers, beautiful princesses, noble kings and so on.

Before you start to shout at me, I DO realise that this is a generalisation and that some films have bucked the trend. Still, I dare you to compare the number of beautiful, noble, princes and princesses with the number of ordinary folk forced to deal with the inequity of royal families and the power of the rich.

But Mr Beniston its just a film!!!!

Yes, I know, I know, but I’d argue that so many of the ideas and institutions we take for granted are reinforced, rationalised and legitimised in lots of different ways and by lots of different people throughout our society: culture is just one of those ways.

And that dear students is why you should question everything!

Actually fairy tales are a brilliant way of questioning and subverting ideas, in part because they are so familiar. We all know the story of Sleeping Beauty, a princess cursed by an evil witch to sleep for eternity unless awakened by a true love’s kiss.

But why is the witch evil (and why isn’t it an evil warlock)? Why does it have to be a princess? Wouldn’t we care just as much if it were an ordinary girl (or boy).

True love? Please don’t make me give you the statistics on divorce and domestic violence! And that’s without mentioning any other aspects of the story - is the princess white? Could it be another girl even a serving girl that fell in love with the princess? And so on.

When I first went to university I was lucky enough to be introduced to Suniti Namjoshi’s Feminist Fables and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber - two story collections that did exactly this challenge and subvert all kinds of assumptions and stereotypes.. Namjoshi writes: The fable form should make it clear that they question what happens to anyone whenever there’s an imbalance of power.

In short a good fable should challenge oppression rather than fortify it and perhaps go further by helping us to understand that being oppressed is never something to be ashamed of. In the words of Namjoshi again “it’s doing the oppressing that is so very wrong” Maleficent is the story of why and how someone commits wicked acts because of the violence done to them but who then remembers the wonder and goodness of the world. It’s about kings, craven and worthless, who prioritise ambition, wealth and power over anything worthwhile and about a love that deepens and develops over time. It’s not perfect: its pretty simple, everyone is white, there’s still a princess and she is still cute, and there might even be a handsome prince, but when it could have got so much wrong it keeps on being brave. Go see it.

CINEMA CLUB The Selfish Giant is a film about two young lads growing up in Bradford. Both boys come from poor families and have challenging home lives, find school difficult and when they are excluded take to ‘scrapping’ – scouting around their neighbourhood on horse and cart to find metal, spare parts and furniture to sell at the local scrapyard. It’s great but it really is a grim, sad and challenging film with a 15 certificate – LOTS of swearing.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because it reminded me of a film called Kes and thus of a film club when I was at school. Yes, this briefly is one ‘when I was young’ stories but be patient and read on. We were shown 6 films over a number of weeks. The films were well attended – hundreds possibly. I can remember 4 of the films: Hawk the Slayer – a ridiculously naff fantasy; Gregory’s Girl – a cute tale of an awkward teenage boy falling for a girl who is great at football; The Blues Brothers – a bit of a laddish action-comedy and Kes – a gritty socialrealist drama about a young boy growing up in difficult circumstances in the north of England. It doesn’t matter that most of you will never watch these films but what is interesting is their range – silly fantasy (though we boys loved it), romantic comedy, risqué comedy (Blues Brothers was a 15 cert) and serious drama. We were trusted with some difficult subject matter and with films that included swearing and a little bit of bare flesh (I seem to remember!) even though we weren’t all 15.

It made me want to come up with a list that would work for Swanshurst – a mixture of fun, serious, provocative, romance, action and horror without anything too pretentious (difficult for me). To include 15 certificate films we’d have to make sure everyone was 15 or over! Here’s what I came up with:  Little Miss Sunshine (15): a dysfunctional family set off on a road trip. Very funny and one of those films you’ll want to discuss afterwards.  Wadjda (PG): the first film ever made by a woman in Saudi Arabia about an 11 year-old girl desperate to ride a bicycle. Sounds serious but is cheeky, funny and full of life.  The Bourne Identity (12): most of you love a good action film so why settle for anything less than the best. It’s Matt Damon innit?  Shuddh Desi Romance (12): a very modern Bollywood film – quite a bit of kissing and (even) the odd swear word; about three young Indians not sure that marriage is such a good idea.  Moonlight Kingdom (12): a boy and a girl, tired of the hypocrisy of the adults around them set out together to survive alone: cute, silly, whacky, bizarre and very funny.  Let the Right One In (15): a Swedish Vampire Horror. One of the most beautiful, moving and sad films of the 21st century.

It’s very subjective of course, but I reckon anyone remotely interested in films would enjoy most of these; but then I am ancient.

What would you choose? The challenge isn’t to come up with 6 of your favourite films but to provide a programme with a bit of everything.

Have fun. Overleaf a couple of Swanshurst’s biggest film fans choose their programme.

Momina at night, spreading rebellion

Momina smashed her word count limit but her list is so brilliant I’ll let her off. Here’s Swanshurst Film Club Khan style:  Dead Poets Society (15): WARNING: MAJOR FEELS. If you ever find yourself stuck at a particular time in your life during Swanshurst or just need a burst of inspiration then I highly recommend this period drama starring Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard (who no denying was a hottie back in the day). It had me welling up in tears and definitely bursting with motivation. If you have any empathy whatsoever you will weep, and then just get on with your life!  10 Things I Hate About You (12): Apparently you’ll be familiar with the story line if you’ve read Taming Of The Shrew in this teenagery romantic comedy which is highly entertaining to watch with your mates. The new kid Cameron (played by a foetus Joesph Gordon-Levitt) who inevitably hangs out with the geek notices the hottest girl at the High School, here comes the twist (!) she cannot date until her older sister Kat (Julia Stiles) does.

Cameron being the clever clog he is his tries to set Kat up with the cool but unusual dude Patrick (Heath Ledger) – oh gee I wonder what happens next! As predictable as it is, it’s hilarious to watch, and don’t forget to let your inner Kat shine afterwards. I’d like to add this title does not do the movie justice!

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V for Vendetta (15): I guess this is a mixture of action, thriller and a hint of lurve. This is one of those go against the system, question everything you see-hear-read, wake-up call type of movies. You know the type. Thought provoking for any amateur conspiracy theorists out there and vast for your vocabulary.

Bicentennial Man (PG): Considering I haven’t seen this family movie for about a decade (give or take a few years), this one sticks out the most. I don’t even remember what happens all i know is I enjoyed watching a robotic man turn somewhat human.

Disturbia (15): Not famous anymore Shia LaBeouf stars in this not so scary but enjoyable mystery thriller. This suspenseful movie will truly get your heart pumping (who needs exercise when you can enjoy a thriller eh), and even make you jump a few times if you’re a scaredy cat, which you probably are. Entertaining movie to watch in the company of others.

The Terminal (12A): Once again a bubbly, very funny, heart-warming and definitely intriguing movie from Tom Hanks; a foreign man is trapped in JFK IA in NYC with his Krakozhian passport taken off him.

He has no choice but to stay at the airport as he cannot go back home or enter US ‘land’. Watch how he spends his time at the airport and find out what his story is.

That famous Italian Anisa Younis also makes some excellent choices, 

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Frozen would start off our film club on a high.

It is now one of my favourites. Call me a child but I went to watch it in cinema twice and I’m still in love with it. I even know all the songs by heart thanks to my little sister. The retelling of the Snow Queen with two sisters who are constantly torn between being loved and having freedom from society. Throw in a gorgeous snowman and you have one of Disney’s best creations yet.

Inception: this movie left me doubting so many things around me and left that “I feel so cool vibe” on me. A story of recruits who are given the job to plant an idea in a business mans head if they want to walk away alive and with a handful of money.. In order to do so they have to plant a dream with in a dream which proves difficult. But for all you girls who like Leonardo Di Caprio...he’s here!

The Hunger Games series of books are absolutely superb but the movies have taken the world by storm. Everyone who hasn’t watched it is out of their minds! Female power and determination oozes out of Katniss Everdeen every time she picks up her bow to defy the capital, but the capitol wont let her do so without a price. It’s made even better by a fantastic supporting cast.

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Next on our line-up is Letters to Juliet. An American girl, Sophie, on vacation in Italy finds an unanswered "letter to Juliet" - you know THAT Juliet: ‘O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo”. It’s just one of thousands of letters left at the fictional lover's Verona courtyard by unrequited lovers.

Sophie then goes on a quest to find the lovers referenced in the letter. This movie has to be noted as a chick flick and you will look forward to what Americans think our accent is like! 

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Now we need a movie with two beautiful men and so I present Thor: Rise of the Dark World: Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston—aaahhhhhh! Loki is back in an Asgardian prison but when the whole of Asgard is threatened by an evil force with the potential to destroy the world, old heroes and new heroes arise. And they’re not all wearing costumes!

My last movie that I am completely and utterly in love with is Mulan; Rise of the Warrior. It’s a very different film to the Disney effort where everything always works out. This is the story of what happens when a woman really does join the Chinese army in her father’s place. She has to hide when the captain takes an interest her but the film shows her to be a clever, strategic warrior who is filled with compassion. Brilliant!

New films

We’re almost half way through the year so it’s time to assess the year in film so far. Overleaf I’ve chosen the best of Bollywood so here I’ll concentrate on Hollywood and the rest of the world.

The first half of 2014 has given us some very good films. First of all let’s talk about the blockbusters. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m going soft but they’ve been alright haven’t they? I’ve actually kind of enjoyed all of them so far especially X-men and Godzilla. I doubt it will last so

make the best of it whilst you can!

The year started off brilliantly with Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave and David O Russell’s American Hustle - both are out on DVD or to download already.

For the film buffs amongst you there were some great films; Only Lovers Left Alive, The Invisible Woman, Calvary and Frank are all well worth seeking out. Meanwhile Hollywood has given us The Book Thief (quite good), Divergent (OK) and 22 Jump Street (very funny indeed!).

My top 3 mix art-house sensibilities with crowdpleasing pleasures. First, try to see Mia Wasikowska in Tracks. This is the true story of a young woman who trekked alone across Australia in the 70s. It’s a beautiful and inspiring film. Second is Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Lot’s of people think it’s his best ever. I disagree but its still very funny and surprisingly moving. Finally We Are the Best is a Swedish film about three girls growing up in the 80s who start a punk band. Funny, acutely observed and still very relevant—its almost perfect.

Wadjda

A young Saudi girl signs up for her school’s Quran recitation competition in an attempt to raise money she needs in order to buy the green bike she can’t seem to forget about.

However she has been told several times that bike riding isn’t for girls.

Haifaa Al Mansour, the director of this poignant movie has revealed the inequality that clearly lives within Saudi Arabian society. She is the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia and is viewed as one of the most inspirational cinematic figures. She has cleverly made the bike the focus point of the movie and you could say that the bike represents the amount of freedom that women lack in Saudi Arabia.

The movie does address the superior and inferior roles between women and men and this definitely sparked a reaction from me, for example a scene in the movie shows two girls laughing and then being shouted at by a female teacher because ‘the men may hear you’ and I think Haifaa-al -monsour has smartly made Wadjda a token of inspiration for the women in Saudi Arabia because she challenges the views and is determined that she will get the bike; the bike representing the freedom.

This movie will definitely leave you smiling and as independent young women I think it’s important for us to recognise the very traditional, and without being blunt, reactionary ideas that some nations have. [Henna Nawaz]

Bollywood

I celebrated my first year of Bollywood film in May, proving that however old you are, there are always amazing things out there in the world to discover and fall in love with. I’ve also finally been to see some of the films at the cinema. Three of them will be released on DVD etc. during the summer. I’m particularly pleased because they all feature brilliant leading parts for women.

There have always been great actresses and great parts for women in Bollywood films but its still rare for women to be at the centre of films.

Alia Bhatt is brilliant in Imtiaz Ali’s road movie Highway. I love two of Ali’s previous films, Jab We Met and Rockstar, so my hopes were high. It’s a complex, exuberant and thought-provoking film that makes you ask difficult questions.

Just as good is Queen starring Kangana Ranaut. She plays Rani, a young woman looking forward to her wedding when, at the last the minute, the groom calls it off. Rani is grief-stricken but plucks up the courage to go on her honeymoon to Europe alone. This becomes a fantastic and funny journey of self-discovery— something of a cliché, you might think, but Queen pulls it off. It’s full of joy, courage and wonder; it’s a treat to see Ranaut’s character evolve, finding confidence and self knowledge.

Finally there’s The Lunchbox. This is more of an art-house film and stars Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur. Each day Ila (Kaur) cooks food for her husband’s lunch and sends it off to travel across the city in a tiffin box. But the food goes to Saajan (Khan) instead. They begin to send each other notes and thus start to see beyond their loneliness and despair. It’s a beautiful, tender film.

Contemporary Classics

Lost in Translation (2003)

is a touching

and quite wonderful film about loneliness and rejection. Set in Tokyo, the story is set around an unexpected meeting between two Americans strangers; Charlotte (played marvellously by Scarlett Johansson), who is a young wife accompanying her workaholic husband on a business trip and Bob (played by Bill Murray), who is an ageing movie star in Tokyo to film a Whiskey advert.

Both of the characters deal with some form of rejection; Charlotte barely gets any attention from her husband and Bob’s wife also doesn’t discuss much with him besides asking him what sort of carpet he wants in his study. By chance they meet in the hotel restaurant and later in the night they run into each other, due to their insomnia. From here an unlikely but intimate friendship begins that ends up profoundly affecting both of them.

They then venture through Tokyo together with many moments of hilarity and later on, understanding. Oddly the busy setting of Tokyo complements how lonely both of the characters are and the cinematography and just the way Tokyo is portrayed is beautiful and stunning. The film also has a spectacular soundtrack; My Bloody Valentine, Air and The Jesus and The Mary Chain feature and together and just perfectly fit with what the film is showing.

Both, Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murrays performances are impressive and moving. The dry humour and sarcasm that Bob has really is enjoyable to watch. The film ends ambiguously and we never really find out what happened or even what was happening, but the relationship the two strangers built in a few days seemed to be deeper than most people mange to do in years. Just go watch it, it really is fantastic. [Khadija Tahir]

Easy A (2010)

is about a girl losing her virginity. Or

not. Emma Stone is Olive, a quick witted teenager who really doesn’t want to go camping with her best friend Rhiannon and so makes up an excuse that she has a hot date. Next week at school Olive becomes slightly annoyed with Rhiannon’s desire for titillating details of the date and so lies. Unfortunately another girl hears the conversation and within minutes everyone around school thinks that Olive has slept with the boy. I won’t spoil what happens from there but it’s enough to know that events spiral out of Olive’s control and become entertainingly complicated.

Some of the best teen comedies of recent years have been the ones loosely based on classics. So we’ve had Ten things I hate about you (The Taming of the Shrew), Cruel Intentions (Les Liaisons dangereuses) and Clueless (Jane Austen’s Emma). In Easy A Olive’s English class are reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter about a woman who becomes pregnant after having an adulterous affair. Olive takes ironic inspiration from the tale when she begins to realise how her school friends are starting to view her.

It’s a rare pleasure to celebrate an intelligent and funny teen comedy that doesn’t reduce everything to the lowest common denominator or come ladled with huge dollops of sexism and homophobia. Stone is brilliant, as she was in 2009’s Zombieland, fasttalking and uber-smart, plus there is a great supporting cast too.

Easy A also quotes and reflects upon the great John Hughes teen comedies of the 80s that Khadija reviewed in a previous Bookworm.

Soundtracks

A great film soundtrack is one of the great pleasures in life.

There are loads of great soundtrack related gems here and a great article by film director (and music journalist) Cameron Crowe here.

My challenge for the summer is to go away and think about your favourite soundtracks, your favourite film tunes and your favourite film songs. Answers to me, on a memory stick, in September.

Also, if you’re interested, read the article on the adjacent page and try to identify a film where music was used inappropriately.

Enjoy your summer!

One of the reasons I hate The King’s Speech as much as I do - which is A LOT—is because of the soundtrack. If you ever watch it try to think about the way it uses the music of Beethoven. Beethoven wrote his music in the first decades of the nineteenth century. This was a time of revolutionary fervour when the emerging bourgeoisie hoped to sweep away the power of kings and aristocrats across Europe and beyond. Many envisioned a better world free from inequality and poverty. These feelings are palpable in Beethoven’s music—you can actually hear his hopes for, and faith in, humankind. It’s stirring and passionate and if used in a film loads the images with dignity, importance and gravitas that perhaps they don’t deserve. This is just one of the ways filmmakers can attempt to manipulate our feelings.

Don’t get me wrong, films use a whole range of techniques in order to get their ideas across but there is a huge difference between films that want us to think for ourselves and films that want us to accept what we’re being told and imbue that understanding with false importance and solemnity.

Blockbusters do it too—think of those big, dramatic and exciting scores created by composers like John Williams and Hans Zimmer. Perhaps it’s a little easier to accept in these kinds of films because they are often solely concerned with entertainment and spectacle. Most films however still want to engage with the world and want their audiences to do so too. Then music can act as a simple way to engage our sympathies even if the film has failed to give depth through characterisation and story, or via images and camera techniques.

So my challenge is this. Next time you’re watching a film try to think about how the music makes you feel. Does it compliment the sadness of the film or does it try to create sadness? Does the music make you feel manipulated or are you content that it fits with the mood and success of the film as a whole? Does it spell out the meaning of the scene or does it add to the ambiguity? Is it one (vital) component amongst many or does it dominate and get in the way of thinking clearly?