Stuy Shelf

Book Interviews

Posted on the June 9th, 2009 under Recommendations by dalzuga

Interview 1 with AM, a Stuyvesant senior who is attending MIT next year. AM used to be an editor Spectator.

 

Me: So what is your favorite book?

AM: The Phantom Toolbooth by Norton Juster.

Me: So what’s that about?

AM: It’s about a boy who gets a package in the mail and then rides this little plastic car into a mystical world to find rhyme and reason.

Me: So what are the main characters in the book?

AM: Well, the boy is Milo and then there’s Tock, the watchdog.

Me: What makes the book most interesting?

AM: Umm… oh the pictures! There’s little sketches on the pages and they’re very cute. Also, I love the part where he climbs stairs into infinity and meets the half boy.

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Interview 2 with AA, a Stuyvesant senior who will be attending Cornell University next fall. AA has previously volunteered at soup kitchens and worked one summer as a camp counselor.

 

Me: So what is your favorite book?

AA: The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Me: What makes this your favorite book? The plot? The descriptions?

AA: It was just really fun to read.

Me: So how is it different from the movies?

AA: Well, the movie is a little more character-focused than the book is. The book talks more about the overall setting. And there are some plot differences obviously, because it’s a movie.

Me: How many main characters are there?

AA: There’s like 20 of them.

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Interview 3 with KO. KO is a Stuyvesant senior who volunteered the summer after her sophomore year at the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn. KO was a Discovery Guide volunteer where you basically monitor different stations around the zoo and teach kids about animals. KO is also the vice-president of the Stuy’s Free Hugs Club which is a charitable fundraising organization that raises money for St. Jude’s Children’s Research hospital at a Carnival every year. Next year she will attend Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College.

 

Me: So what’s your favorite book?

KO: My favorite book is Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry.

Me: What’s it about?

KO: It’s about this alternate or future world where society is run a lot differently and there’s this girl who’s crippled that is kind of forced out of the society because she is crippled and ends up gaining favor because she is good at weaving things. In this society there’s no color and she can see the color blue.

Me: Is she the main character?

KO: Yeah.

Me: Are there any other secondary characters or is it mostly about that girl?

KO: It’s mostly about her.

Me: What’s the most interesting feature of the book?

KO: I think it’s the fact that this alternate society manages to say a lot about our society, about what we value, and what we take for granted.

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Interview 4 with AS, a Stuyvesant senior who is attending Carnegie Mellon University next Fall. AS was an editor to the Spectator, was on the basketball/volleyball team, was a Big Sib, participated in ARISTA, was the Cube coordinator the 2009 Stuyvesant graduating class, participated in producing SING!, and was a member of the DDR club.

 

Me: So what’s your favorite book?

AS: Right now one of my favorite books is Everything is Illuminated because I just finished it. It’s written by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Me: What’s it about?

AS: It’s about this Jewish American guy that goes to the Ukraine to try to find the woman who he thinks saved his grandfather. And so he meets up with this Ukrainian guy and they travel the landscape.

Me: What did you find most interesting about the book?

AS: I liked that sometimes the Ukrainian guy in the book, he narrated and it was really funny because he talks like a lot of Russians I know.

Me: Would you say that the plot is what makes the book?

AS: Yeah, I guess. The messages it conveys also.

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Interview 5 with MA, a Stuyvesant senior who is going to Harvard University next year. MA likes music, books, movies, and talking to people. MA plays saxophone and guitar, and was a writer for the Spectator.

 

Me: So what’s your favorite book?

MA: I really liked the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

Me: What’s it about?

MA: It’s about a man who has been wrongfully imprisoned during Napoleon’s Hundred Days when Napoleon returned from the island of Elba. Meanwhile, these people, due to their insecurities and jealousies, wrongfully accused him of being a traitor. They just placed all of their anger and inferiority issues onto him because he has a successful life with a beautiful bride to be, so they ruin his life. He goes to jail for about 13 years. He breaks out with the help of a reclusive priest who was in Napoleon’s army and got sent away as a political prisoner. The priest dies and the man acquires a massive fortune from the island of Monte Cristo. And he reintroduces himself into French society twenty something years later, completely disguised, a millionaire, he’s the Count of Monte Cristo, he becomes a completely different person and he takes his revenge but only realizes in the end that he lost his former youth and innocence.

Me: Oh I see. So it focuses mainly on this character only?

MA: No, there are a lot of plot arcs. The book is also about the development of his fiancé. The men who sent him away. It’s about everyone. But he’s the main character.

Me: Was it fun/straightforward to read?

MA: It was pretty straightforward. It was just very long and very dense. It’s more interesting if you know the history behind it. It’s not just the plot itself it’s the context. There are a lot of historical references throughout the writing. And I read it freshman and sophomore years while I was taking AP European History. If you understand the 19th century French sociopolitical situation, if you understand the Thermidorian Reaction from the French Revolution to Napoleon back to all the failed democracies, that’s pretty much the background for everything that’s going on. And also knowing the political trends in Italy, Germany, other countries like that because it takes place all around Europe.

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Interview 6 with CH, a Stuyvesant senior going to the University of Texas at Dallas next year. CH tried a little bit of all types of clubs, going to the chess club after school sometimes and joining the debate team for a while.

 

Me: So what’s your favorite book?

CH: I’m gonna have to go with Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

Me: Oh I see. So what did you find interesting?

CH: I don’t know just I guess the political aspect of the book. You know, the whole post-apocalyptic world and how the process of how that came to be and how they had total control over everybody. It was a very interesting read.

Me: Yeah and I guess there’s a strong message that the book sends out, that this, in fact, could happen. Does that seem realistic?

CH: Actually, it’s weird because when you first read it you say to yourself “Oh no that’s ridiculous that could never happen.” But you can find a lot of parallels in today’s world with what was said in that book so it may be more realistic than we think.

Me: Well, it is definitely a scary prospect. What do you think makes the book? Is it the plot? Is it more the story or the descriptions?

CH: It’s mostly the ideas in the story.

Me: Is it a light read? Is it straightforward/hard to read?

CH: I guess it’s not that hard to read but it’s a little bit dark, so if you’re looking for a book that will put you in a good mood, that’s not the one for you necessarily.

Interviews

Posted on the June 9th, 2009 under Recommendations by cherring

Interview with David Weintraub, a senior:

Q: What is your favorite book?

David: My favorite book would have to be Firebringer, by David Clement-Davies.

Q: Which character in this story do you most closely relate to?

David: I’d say I relate to Rannoch, the main character, the most.

Q: What is your favorite aspect of this book? What about the book do you find appealing?

David: I like the fact that the tone of the book is very serious in nature, even though you wouldn’t be able to guess it by just reading a summary of the plot.

Q: Could you please elaborate on what you mean by that?

David: Well, the whole fact that the main characters of the story are actually deer might make it seem as if the story is, I don’t know, a children’s book?  But it is definitely not, which becomes apparent as you read it.

Q: For what type of person would you recommend this book?

David: Well, I am a self-proclaimed “nerd,” so I suppose that anybody who is interested in magic, and things like that, would probably like this book a lot.

Q: Are there any similar, more commonly known books that you could compare this book to?

David: Well, there is a sequel to this book which is pretty similar.  But as far as classics are concerned, Firebringer is a lot like a combination between Lord of the Rings and Lord of the Flies.

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Interview with Junichi Koganemaru, a freshman:

Q: What is the most enjoyable book you have ever read?

Junichi: I’d have to say Harry Potter, I guess.

Q: What is the plot of the book, if you had to briefly sum it up in a sentence or two?

Junichi: I think almost everybody knows what the plot of Harry Potter is! It’s about a boy who discovers he is a wizard and then gets taken away to a magical wizard’s school called Hogwarts and, well, you know the rest.

Q: Okay, fair enough.  Which character or characters do you most closely identify with?

Junichi: I relate most closely with Harry, I guess.

Q: And why would that be?

Junichi: Well, he is just this normal kid like you or me, and then one day he discovers that he has these crazy magical powers! It’d be pretty cool if that happened in real life, you know?

Q: When or how did you get introduced to this book?

Junichi: Oh, I have no idea.  I heard about it a long, long time ago.  The book is so famous that it’s hard to tell where you heard it from first.  Probably from everywhere at once, I’d say.

Q: For what type of person would you recommend this book?

Junichi: I’d recommend this book for anyone really, but especially younger children.

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Interview with Lena (I didn’t have a chance to ask her for her last name)

Q:  What is your favorite book?

Lena: My favorite book is called An Unaccustomed Earth.  It is written by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Q:  Are there any important, underlying messages that really stood out to you?

Lena: I feel I can personally relate to the relationship that the immigrants in the story had with their second generation descendants.

Q: What is the setting in which the book takes place?

Lena: The setting of the story is the Northeast United States, in the 1980′s.

Q: Is there any specific group of people for whom you would recommend this book?

Lena: I would recommend this book to anybody who has parents who immigrated to this country.

Q: What were the main features of this book that you liked the most?

Lena: I really found this book to be moving and personal.  Lahiri has really intricate writing and well-developed characters, and the story can be humorous at times.

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Interview with Danny Alzugaray:

Q: What is the most interesting book you have ever read?

Danny: My favorite book is called “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman,” by Richard Feynman.

Q: When or how did you get introduced to this book?

Danny: I really don’t remember, but I think it was probably word of mouth.

Q: Could you briefly describe the premise of the story?

Danny: Well, basically, this book is an autobiography about Richard Feynman.  It contains a collection of amusing stories about different parts of his life.  These stories basically tell about the highlights of his life, like when he was working on making the atomic bomb or when he talked with Einstein.

Q: Which of these stories is the most interesting to you, and why?

Danny: There is one story in the book, which takes place at the time when Mr. Feynman was working on the Manhattan project.  The area around the facility he and other scientists were working at had very high security, with security guards constantly monitoring the gates.  In this story, Feynman describes how one day, he and a few other scientists decided to play a prank on the security guards, so they dug a hole under the fence surrounding the testing facility, and walked through.  One of the scientists would walk through the gate, around to the hole, crawl through the hole, and come back around to the gate so that from the perspective of the security guard, it looked as if the scientist was exiting the facility without reentering every 5 minutes or so.

Q: What type of person would you recommend this book to?

Danny: I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a light yet engaging read.

Q: Was there are message in this book that particularly stood out to you?

Danny: To me, the main message of the book was that you should do what you want to with your life, and have fun.  In other words, you can have fun and be productive at the same time.

Q: Do you have any criticisms of this book?

Danny: No, not at all.

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Interview with Ruchi Jain:

Q: What is your favorite book?

Ruchi: My favorite book is The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde.

Q: Could you give a brief summary of the plot of the story?

Ruchi: Basically, the story begins with Dorian, who is a young, attractive, and wealthy young man.  Basil, another character in the story, paints a portrait of Dorian, who he admires for his good looks.  The story then follows Dorian as he is negatively influenced by Lord Henry. I won’t give away everything, but as Dorian begins to commit sins, the portrait of him begins to likewise worsen in its condition.

Q: Do you usually read books like this?  If not, what compelled you to choose this book?

Ruchi: Normally I would be more inclined to read books like Harry Potter, but I was made to read this book for an English class at Stuyvesant.

Q: Was there a message in this book which particularly stood out to you?

Ruchi: I think the most important lesson I learned from this book is that it is important to go out and learn more about the world, and to become more knowledgeable about things around you.

Q:  Who is the most likeable character in the story, and why?

Ruchi: I suppose that Lord Henry is the most likeable character, simply because he influences Dorian to learn more about the world, and is both charming and persuasive.