Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
1. Brohaan: What type of people will enjoy it? Why?
Evilika: Everyone will like it because it’s a timeless masterpiece. It’s deep, raw, and everyone with a heart will feel for the protagonist. And cry, like I did.
2. Brohaan: Did you find yourself relating to aspects of it/did it change your views of anything?
Evilika: Hmm, I don’t remember, sorry. But probably and probably.
3. Brohaan: was it a required reading? if so would you have read it if it wasnt? if it wasnt, why did you read it?
Evilika: I was required to pick from about 100 books and picked it because it was the first one I found in the library. I’m so glad I did. I’ve read it since and loved it again. So yes. I’d read it now!
4. Brohaan: What else would you recommend to people who like it?
Evilika: Wall-e
Brohaan: …how about a book?
Evilika: Umm, I haven’t read anything like this book. It’s slighty sci-fi. Twilight, HAHA HELL NO. I really don’t know the answer to that. Something deep with a clever writing style.
5. Brohaan: If there was one thing you could say you took away after reading it, what would it be?
Evilika: Hmm, I guess for the first time, I learned to appreciate sad endings. They’re unconventional and sharply portray human cruelty, failure, etc that other scenes can’t. I actually crave for innovative novels like this.
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A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnoly
1. Brohaan: What type of people will enjoy it? Why?
Kait: Romantics, feminists, basically most teenage girls because it has a happy ending and it has romance and heartbreak and it’s about a smart and independent chick at the turn of the century.
2. Brohaan: Did you find yourself relating to aspects of it/did it change your views of anything?
Kait: I totally related. She fell in love with this guy she found really attractive but who was actually an asshole and then realized it wasn’t really love. She was also a good writer and I wanna be a writer. It didn’t really change my opinion about anything.
3. Brohaan: Was it a required reading? If so would you have read it if it wasnt? If it wasn’t, why did you read it?
Kait: I don’t remember why I read it, I like reading, I like books. I probably got it as a gift or picked it out at the library after reading the blurb.
4. Brohaan: What else would you recommend to people who like it?
Kait: Umm, stuff by Ann Rinaldi. It’s more girly historical fiction stuff.
5. Brohaan: If there was one thing you could say you took away after reading it, what would it be?
Kait: That being in love doesn’t mean your relationship is perfect, but it can still work, it can still be a forever thing. Because there’s this one couple and it’s like 1900 so they’re pretty young and they get married and she has a kid and after she has the kid things kinda fall apart and they’re overwhelmed, but after a few months they work things out and they’re in love and everything.
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The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas
1. Brohaan: What type of people will enjoy it? Why?
Michael: English buffs and people who know European history because of the context and the 19th century writing style.
2. Brohaan: Did you find yourself relating to aspects of it/did it change your views of anything?
Michael: I related it to the European history I studied when I read it sophomore year.
3. Brohaan: Was it a required reading? If so would you have read it if it wasnt? If it wasn’t, why did you read it?
Michael: I thought the movie was awesome and decided to read the book. The book was exponentially better than the movie.
4. Brohaan: What else would you recommend to people who like it?
Michael: Erm, not Moby Dick
Brohaan: Wow, helpful.
Michael: Oh! The Sound and the Fury (see next person’s book)
5. Brohaan: If there was one thing you could say you took away after reading it, what would it be?
Michael: The longer the book the more enjoyable it is if it’s good. Wait, no. Hmm. 19th century literature is sometimes great. Here, it is. Sometimes it sucks.
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The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
1. Brohaan: What type of people will enjoy it? Why?
Abby: Anyone can like it. Faulkner writes in a very nuanced way and his prose challenge you to rethink the way you previously view narration.
2. Brohaan: Did you find yourself relating to aspects of it/did it change your views of anything?
Abby: It definately changed how I viewed mentally challenged people because the narration starts off in a challenged kid’s point of view.
3. Brohaan: Was it a required reading? If so would you have read it if it wasnt? If it wasn’t, why did you read it?
Abby: It was a required reading but I think I would have read it anyways because it was my dad’s favorite book.
4. Brohaan: What else would you recommend to people who like it?
Abby: Ender’s Game. Yay!
5. Brohaan: If there was one thing you could say you took away after reading it, what would it be?
Abby: My perspective changed and my whole view of narration changed because it’s a stream of conciousness which I found really interesting.
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Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
1. Brohaan: What type of people will enjoy it? Why?
Eli: People who think and have an absurd sense of humor.
2. Brohaan: Did you find yourself relating to aspects of it/did it change your views of anything?
Eli: Yes, alot of things like human interactions and war.
3. Brohaan: Was it a required reading? If so would you have read it if it wasnt? If it wasn’t, why did you read it?
Eli: It was, but a friend of mine recommended it to me so I think I would’ve gotten around to it.
4. Brohaan: What else would you recommend to people who like it?
Eli: I don’t know, I’ve never really read anything like it before.
5. Brohaan: If there was one thing you could say you took away after reading it, what would it be?
Eli: That everyone on Earth is somewhat insane.
Sharang Tickoo
Without further ado, the interviews…
Robert Colbourn
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny
By Robin S. Sharma
1. Who would you say is the target audience? Would you say there is one?: I’d say the target audience is the West, and it’s capitalist/consumerist slaves. I guess Western or modern society is probably the most appropriate term.
2. So what’s the plot? Or the theme, or whatever. What’s it about, more or less? : It’s basically about this big, bad lawyer who has a big bad heart attack
and he decides that he wants to see more in the world than he has so far… lets call it mid-life crisis type changes, although he wasn’t that old. He sells ALL his possessions and goes to India
and the book is from the point of view of his return to the United States, and he tells his associate/colleague about all that he learned through the monks who taught him about their different, more simple, world. Basically the story is told to his colleague but it’s the story that the lawyer (Julian) was told by the monks, and it holds all the lessons that are key to life according to the monks.
3. How did you find it? ‘Find’ as in, ‘on the street’, not as in ‘enjoyable’. : I was desperate for reading material, and found it on my cousin’s bookshelf in, appropriately enough, Mumbai.
4. What would you say was your favorite line from this?: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual
beings having a human experience” It basically put into words better than i could the way i feel about the unknown in life and death. The day I became a happy person was the day i realized that whatever came before or after (whether anything did or does come), it’s the “human experience” that i never want to forget in my life. To have this human experience is the reason i wake up happy everyday and do something, anything that I love everyday, no matter how big or small. Deep, I know (Laughs).
5. What did you learn? Did you take anything away from this? : As a whole, the book was a reminder of the importance of living your life daily. With modern society, everyday blurs into every other day between work and various responsibilities. It’s important to not allow life to become a monotonous blur. I learned that before but the book reinforced it through a simpler view of life. The book was actually reminding me what i learned in the past four years, but it was good to hear it described through a folk tale type of narrative. And written down too, obviously. Also… the book was a bit too preachy and unrealistic in it’s recommendations… I took away the lessons but it had suggestions of ways to change your life but those were kind of pointless. I mean no one is going to become a yogic, meditative monk… but the perspective was what I took away.
Marilyn M. Barnett
Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card (Not the abridge, cut, fifth-grade version. The big-boy explicit one)
1. Who would you say is the target audience? Would you say there is one?: I think the target audience is actually not-kids. There isn’t really a target audience; I wouldn’t even specifically recommend it to people who read a lot of science fiction. If you’re at stuy, then you’re okay to read it, pretty much.
You wouldn’t say the young-male-action-oriented demographic? No, it’s a much more psychological story then that.
2. So what’s the plot? Or the theme, or whatever. What’s it about, more or less?: It’s about a young boy who goes to battle school in space in order to train to command a fleet of starships against an alien invasion. That’s the premise.
But I would assume there’s more to the story than just that?
Of course, but I don’t want to give it away. The major themes are competition in human nature and xenophobia, and a bit of adult exploitation of children.
3. How did you find it? ‘Find’ as in, ‘on the street’, not as in ‘enjoyable’. : My cousin lent it to my dad, and I was bored in the airport on the way bake from Spokane.
4. What would you say was your favorite line from this? : “Bonzo’s strategy couldn’t win a salad fight.” Why [this line]? Because it’s hilarious. For some reason, I always crack up when I read it. The combination of the name Bonzo with ‘strategy’ and ‘salad fight’.
5. Have you learned anything from the book, or taken anything away from it?: After reading Ender’s Game, I was better able to figure out why people do things. I almost wrote a college essay about Ender’s Game. The whole book is about Ender and Peter sort of sensing the motivations behind everyone else’s actions and then doing what they needed to to achieve their various goals.
Linda Zhang
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, by Milan Kundera (Nonfiction)
1. Who would you say is the target audience? Would you say there is one?: I’d say you should be college age plus, maybe high school. It’s a pretty short book, but pretty heavy stuff.
2. So what’s the plot? Or the theme, or whatever. What’s it about, more or less?: It’s about forgetting in relation to history. Which makes a lot of sense, because it’s written post World War II, kind of immediately pre-Cold War, and the Russians did crazy sh** in Czechoslovakia. There’s a lot of sex in it, but that’s not super important. It’s divided into five sections, without any linear plot line- like, things don’t go in chronological order. It’s more like a bunch of short stories/personal rumination connected by the theme of forgetting, sex, communism and a whole menage of crazy shit. It’s nonfiction, there’s this whole section where it’s just him talking about the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia and his father loses his mind. There’s also this chick named Tamina who escapes to France but something happens to her husband and she ends up in this relationship with this young dude Hugo but she kind of hates him and he also has really bad breath she goes back to get her love letter from her husband in Prague but she ends up canceling the trip and the letters are lost, at which point she goes on this crazy journey and ends up getting raped- you know, I think I’ll stop here. The whole book is kind of like a giant plot twist, it’s really intense.
3. How did you find it? ‘Find’ as in, ‘on the street’, not as in ‘enjoyable’.: Alright, so one summer I was working in this secondhand bookstore (I interrupt to ask her if the bookstore in question was Housing Works. Turns out it was). I was just browsing around for some [Gabriel Garcia] Marquez, and I found it lying there, and I was like, “cool”. Also, it was only for two dollars.
4. What would you say was your favorite line from this?: “Litost is a Czech word with no exact translation into any other language.
Litost designates a feeling as infinite as an open accordion, a feeling that is the synthesis of many others – grief, sympathy, remorse and an indefinable longing. The first syllable with is long and stressed sounds like the wail of an abandoned dog.”
So i like the line because I think it’s pretty representative of the general mood of the book. I mean, a lot of the characters have litost. In a way, I think even Kundera has litost- the whole concept of laughter and forgetting is to escape litost. it’s also kind of ironic that laughter and forgetting is connected. even though one wouldn’t think it would be, because laughter is perceived as a positive and forgetting as a negative, but by laughing you are forgetting- thus escaping your litost.
5. Have you learned anything from this book? Have you taken anything away from it? : I think I appreciated my circumstances a lot more, but really, I just made me really annoyed by modernity. The whole book is a commentary about the ridiculousness of modern life. It’s just one giant machine aimed to make you forget, to forget history, and the significance of the past. It’s exactly what advertising does, and trashy vh1 shows, and local news. Do you know how much I hate local news? It’s about as trashy as Tila Tequila. Who cares which 90 year old lady gave all her money to her dog? Why don’t you stop feeding us this bull and start giving us the real news like what’s actually going on in the world, and not in hicktown, Alabama?
Ray Hicks
A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
1. Who would you say is the target audience? Would you say there is one?: Bleeding heart liberals and commie pinko bedwetting perverts, for the most part.
2. So what’s the plot? Or the theme, or whatever. What’s it about, more or less?: Well, it’s about this world in the future, where the raising and creation of children has been taken out of the hands of the uniformed masses and placed in the hands of the state. Education is done through sombulant conditioning (playing them everything they need to know while they sleep). Essentially, a caste system is formed, except it’s not arbitrarily placed as it was in say, India. Rather, the persons of a given caste, from Alpha Double Plus, Alpha Plus, down to Epsilon minus, are born, conditioned, and raised to love their lot in life, and dislike the other castes only to the point where they would not like to be in another caste, and yet still value them as members of society. He portrays it as a dystopia- I would love to live in such a world. Oh, instead of saying O Lord, they say O Ford. They have an industrialized culture based on capitalism and consumerism, controlled by the state.
3. How did you find it?: [After some initial misunderstanding where he started talking about how he found it (as in, he found it interesting)]; I was doing my laundry, and it was in my building library, and I was like “Hmm. A Brave New World?” And I heard other kids talking about it. They got assigned it, and nobody read it, but I heard there was sex and drugs in it, so I was like, “Let me read this while I wait for this shit to get done”, and I read the first chapter. I was pretty intrigued, and then I had to go to Jersey for a couple of days, so I brought the book and finished it.
4. What would you say was your favorite line from this?: Oh, I actually know the line… Just trying to remember it…. It was like “Yes, Soma; euphoric, narcotic, and pleasantly hallucinant.” Bro, that is such a dream drug.
5. Did you take anything away from it? Did you learn anything? : Well, if I ever have to retool society later in life, I have the perfect guide to usher in a new world order.
Bibi Lewis
Dress Your Family in Courduroy and Denim, by Dave Sedaris.
1. Who would you say is the target audience? Would you say there is one?: Not really, but I’d say, like, older audiences. I mean, it’s not a children’s book, but otherwise, it’s pretty general.
2. So what’s the plot? Or the theme, or whatever. What’s it about, more or less?: Well the book is about him pretty much, it starts in his awkward years and is a bunch of comical anecdotes about different moments throughout his life.
3. How did you find it? ‘Find’ as in, ‘in the street’, not as in ‘enjoyable’. : So I was waiting to go to a doctor’s appointment, and my mom gave me some money and shoved me in a bookstore so I wouldn’t bother her, and on the “staff recommendation” table was this book, and some post-it note exalting it, so I got it.
4. What would you say was your favorite line from this?: “It had now become the kind of masturbation that’s an exercise in determination rather than pleasure. You’d give up but, goddammit, you the kind of person who carries a job through to the end, whether its making a fool of yourself in front of a stranger or vacuuming somebody’s living room. I will finish this, you think, i will finish this.” Cause it was scarily relatable, like I could picture myself vacuuming someone’s rug while they looked on and masturbated, which freaked me out.
5. What did you learn? Did you take anything away from this? : What I took out of it… Um, I dunno, I guess that I’m glad I’m not him. Its not really like a learn something sort of book.
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