Beowulf

I went and saw the movie version of Beowulf, expecting it to be dreadful. I was quite surprised to find that I actually liked it, but more than that, I liked it AND the movie was a faithful retelling of the original epic poem.

Sure, they added a bit of plot that wasn't there (a good addition in my opinion), but I was pleasantly surprised to see how interesting a story Beowulf could be. I had liked Beowulf, but in a sort of "I have to read this for English class and what do you know? it isn't half bad" sort of way.

Anyhow, the movie made me want to re-read the poem, so I pulled out the nice, new Seamus Heany (read, Irish poet laureate) translation. The book is full of men drinking, men boasting, men getting attacked by a giant man/monster-thing, hero-man promising to kill said monster, hero-man fighting monster, hero man being brought low by his own pride. It's not a happy poem or movie by any stretch of the imagination, but its quite good.

Neither the movie nor the book will appeal to everyone, but if you liked the movie Beowulf, try the poem on for size. It's a relatively short read and you'll be astonished and how faithfully the movie follows the book. And if you remember the poem from English class and don't cringe at the thought of it, you may find the movie oddly compelling.

(Movie rated PG-13, by the way, for violence (the "bone breaking" part is straight out of the poem) and nudity/sexuality. The book is generally categorized as high-school/college reading.)

The Dangerous Book for Boys by Gonn and Hall Iggulden

You may have heard about the controversy surrounding this book's title or the controversy about the fact that it lists a pocket knife and matches among the supplies a boy should never be without. If the idea of pocket knives and matches and secret ink made from urine sound cool to you and not disturbing, then you need to check out this book.

The Dangerous Book is a book full of all those sorts of boy-scout, Saturday afternoon in the backyard kind of things that people blame video games for destroying. Such as...

* Backyard ballistics
* Guide to pirate flags
* A grammar guide
* A list of famous battles (so you can use those backyard ballistics properly)
* How to make a bow and arrow
* Secret codes and cyphers
* Guide to bugs
* A list of good Shakespearian insults and 10 poems you ought to know
* How to make traps
* How to skin and cook a rabbit
* First Aid
* Useful Latin phrases
and, of course:
* Girls

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

Always looking for new authors and books, a friend from B.C. recommended trying this author and when I looked in our Public Access Catalog I found several offerings including one I had already read! Spin was written in 2005 and is a science fiction novel about 3 friends. In their teens, a planet-spanning shield that blocks out the rest of the universe appears. The book basically tells the story of the next 30 years of their lives, during which around 300 billion years pass outside the shield because of an engineered time discontinuity. Many things happen and much speculative science is thrown around. Spin is a psychological narrative and a cosmological meditation and several other things in between. Wilson's characterization is rich and believable, and the ideas keep coming at a ripping pace. I'm busy looking in the catalog for another book by Robert Charles Wilson as soon as I post this.