the portal

In case you haven’t noticed, Mutiny on the Bounty is the flavour of the month, and not just at Scotch Senior Library! Ms Boyd has already published a review on The Portal, but the book warrants a second one. We’d love to hear from any boys who have read it…

 Many have been waiting with bated breath for John Boyne’s next novel after the acclaimed The Boy in Striped Pyjamas. They won’t be disappointed.

Mutiny on the Bounty is thick with atmosphere and dripping with adventure. This is a startlingly different interpretation of the events that took place on the King’s ship The Bounty between Dec 1787 and March 1790. Boyne tells the story through the eyes of a 14 year old boy, John Jacob Turnstile, who is given the choice between 12 months in gaol for petty theft, and setting sail on The Bounty as the captain’s servant boy. WIth no knowledge of seafaring life or where the ship is headed, John chooses the path of adventure rather than a year in a rough, overcrowded prison. Over the next two years he has many reasons to doubt the wisdom of this choice, but the story of his transformation from an abused, street-wise, unloved urchin to a wiser, stronger and ambitious young man is a riveting one.

The mutiny against Captain Bligh by Fletcher Christian and his followers is a well known episode in seafaring history. The extremely dangerous attempt to round the Cape of Horn on the way to Tahiti, the crew’s hedonistic existence upon reaching the island, and their subsequent unrest on the return voyage have been explored many times in fiction, non-fiction and cinema. The outstanding difference in Boyne’s description is the voice. Turnstile, known to most as ‘Turnip’, is a totally believable, likable, naive in some ways and wily in others, memorable character. His is the voice that sustains the novel and urges you to turn the page…and those pages are quickly going to become dog-eared!

Mrs Sweeney

No, I haven’t been reading self help books, in fact ‘Losing My Virginity’ is the title of Richard Branson’s autobiography. I don’t normally read biographies but this was very entertaining. The book starts off with how Branson and a few friends started the record label Virgin. As a music fan, he was shocked to hear that the recording studios of the big record labels were so fully booked that A list bands like the Rolling Stones were being forced to record their music at eight o’clock in the morning. As a smart, young entrepreneur, he bought a large house just outside of London and converted some of the rooms into studios. He then invited different bands to come out and stay at the house for weeks on end and record their music at any time they pleased. As you can imagine the sex, drugs and rock and roll that were going on in that house lead to some pretty interesting stories. The book goes on to cover how Branson got into other industries such as airlines, credit cards and cola drinks. If you’ve ever had a great idea for a business why not read this book and see how one man turned his idea into an absolute fortune.

Mr Graham

The shortlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize has been announced, and once again Australian authors feature. Steve Toltz has been shortlisted for A Fraction of the Whole, and Aravind Adiga has also been shortlisted for The White Tiger.

The four other books on the shortlist are:

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant

The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher and

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

We’ll have these in the library as soon as we possibly can, because they’re bound to provide some satisfying reading.

Mrs Sweeney