The South Pole by Roald Amudsen

Roald Amudsen wrote this book, Robert Falcon Scott's his rival. However Scott died so Captain Amudsen lived so he wrote about the trip.

Robert Falcon Scott is a young man who's been in the navy all his life and passed out of Britannia as a midshipman, seventh overall in a class of 26, he knew he has to prove to everyone that he can do more by himself. Therefore, he took on the Discovery Expedition to South Pole, well no one knows it was to the South Pole, they only knew that its an expedition for discoveries. The ship they sailed on was named Discovery.

The book is really interesting as it talks about one person froma third party's point of view and you can see how the author goes "They see a huge ice shelf that's called Ross Ice Shelf but at that time, there wasn't a name for it so it was known to everyone as "The Barrier". A barrier that stops people from going to the South pole." The author tells you about what happened then, and how it could have been improved etc.

For all those travel-lovers out there, this is a "you-have-to-read-this-book-because-you'll-love-it" book! I personally don't like to read much, but this book did get me reading on and on, non stop. If you love to read non-fiction books, this is a great book too. It talks quite alot about the past because, well, Scott's from the past of course.

I hope whoever that reads it will enjoy as much I did. :)

Chasing Che by Patrick Symmes

Che Guevara a revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, military theorist, and major figure of the Cuban Revolution. Thousands of T-shirts with his face on it sold around the world. But how did he become such a famous person, what did he do and where did he come from. 'Chasing Che' follows the adventure of Ernesto Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado, through the authors eyes in a motorcycle journey through South America

Two hundred and twenty nine miles south of Buenos Aires, the engine of the BMW R80 G/S dies, and than silence. Nothing, nothing to hear or to see. These aren't the only problems Patrick Symmes since he arrived in Buenos Aires, first his luggage mysteriously disappeared and than no one could find his motorcycle in the harbor. In the book Patrick Symmes tries his best in being like Che, even if this means stealing office supplies from local newspapers.

I like how Patrick Symmes tries to follow the exact routes the two G's- as he like to call them- went, and even if those didn't exist he still tried to have the same experience the two young adults had.

Every book is different to others, this one connects history with travel, which I enjoyed. I learned a lot about Che, who was just another historic diplomat. Personally I would recommend this to people, who are interested in history and travel adventures.

I Am An Oil Tanker - by Fi Glover

This book is about a girl called Fi Glover who had a random appifany in a hotel at night, wanting to cross continents, seeking out truly unique radio stations in the world.
The book will introduce you to alot of different places like Austria, Belgium, Beirut, Montserrat, New york, Palm Springs and many more.

Its starts of in a bar in California and Fi Glover was suffering from an interesting collision in a bar with Dj Bob, his Texan lcik and some truly bad line dancers. She sat in her hotel room fiddlinng with the radio at 3am and began to wonder how often she'd been here, washed up in a strange town, searching for somthing familiar but local on the dials.

This book as a sort of sense of humour that would just be enough to make you laugh.
It is funny and exciting how she gets to places and how she gets interviewed.
I fully enjoyed this book and im sure you will too.

Journey to the Alcarria by Camilo Jose Cela

Its very common to hear that travel diaries all have boring features: endless descriptions, no dialogues and actionless! But the people saying that have probably never read this book by Camilo Jose Cela called "Journey to the Alcarria. The book is simply written, a bit more than 100 pages long and starts directly to the point by the begining.
The book is non fiction, about a traveler called Camilo Jose Cela, who anticipates a solo trip by foot to the center of Spain. The book is the story of his trip; the people he encountered, the landscapes he saw and what he thought. The author doesn't use any but an interesting type of writing which doesn't use too much descriptions but which offers efficient imagery by describing only the important parts

The purpose is mostly to tell you about adventurers who travel solo in dangerous places. I recommend this book to any fans of Spain and the country side.

The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson

In his travel book "The Lost Continent", Bill Bryson doesn’t write like most writers -a travel to an unknown country and all. He on the other hand, travels to small town America even though he grew up in Iowa. During his travel he uses many anecdotes relating what he is experiencing alone to what he experienced with his father and siblings when they would all go on a road trip together.
Near the beginning of the book Bill Bryson writes “As my father always used to tell me, ‘you see, son, there’s always someone in the world worse off than you.’ And I always used to think, ‘So?’”. I like this quotation because it is an anecdote without the reader noticing it much and at the same time it is humorous and true.
I would recommend this book to anybody who has or hasn’t been to America because if you haven’t you really will feel as if you have experienced the people.

Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure

One of the most interesting things I found about the book was the title, Hemingway Adventure. How did Palin come up with such title you ask? He started reading Ernest Hemingway's journalism, short stories, biographies and memoirs, including less fashionable novels for his research. Once he started to get to know Hemingway more, he was attracted to the same thing he was thirty-five years before - the unforced, unsesational, uncomplicated and magical ability to bring the world to life when he heard of Ernest Hemingway when he was a teenager.
Hemingway Adventure sets out to explore the amazing and rich territory of Hemingway's life. By his inspiration, Palin experiences Hemingway's adventure by either bull-running in Pamplona, fishing for marlin in the Gulf Stream or drinking daiquiris in Havana or even been attacked by cheetahs in Africa "The cheetah bares his teeth and backs up. My hand wobbles. I breathe deeply and keep it moving. It's almost there, hovering above the big, sad, yellow eyes, when the cheetah delivers a sharp and wholly unexpected right hook to my leg". I like it how he added suspension which shows the contrasts between the the big, sad, yellows eyes and when the cheetah attacks him.
Palin's writing is like no other; he allows his audience to portray what he wants as if a picture were to be painted. Humor is what makes his work so entertaining, along with his keen insights on life.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes humor or been taken on a short journey along with Michael Palin.

The Thunderbolt Kid- Bill bryson

Never before has history been laced with so much sarcasm and humor than in Bill bryson's book, "The Thunderbolt Kid". The judgmental, almost condecending, style of bill bryson mixed with a biography of his own childhood maranate together to make a deleciously filling and lively story about america in the late 50s.
The 'Thunderbolt Kid' was what young bill bryson pretended to be when he dresses up as one of the superheros in his comic books. Although he tries to use his powers for good, throughout the book he is constantly zapping people into a smoking piles of ash.

Here is an interview with him






As you can see bill bryson's natural humor greatly contributes to his style of
writing. This great humor is shown by constantly poking fun at himself,

the US, and his general way of life constantly throughout the book.

I recommend that you read through the first chapter, because this

book is to good to stop at one page.

Buy it here

I hope you enjoy this book

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

In the book, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson you can really experience a little piece of American wilderness, more specifically and better known as the Appalachian Trail.

A Walk in the Wood is a great book to read if you want to get a feel of nature. You experience everything he experienced and you feel the way he felt while he was hiking.

Bill Bryson lived in England for 20 years of his life and finally decided to move back to America where he was born. Not long after moving back he comes along a path that vanished in to the woods of the edge of town. There was a sign that read "Appalachian Trail." This trail runs 2,100 miles from Georgia to Maine which wanders through 14 states. With this Bryson decides to do the impossible, walk the whole Appalachian Trail (only a very few people walk the full 2,100 miles). To walk the total trail it takes about 4 months from beginning to end. He has lots of mixed feeling about his adventure because it is a somewhat dangerous journey and anything can happen. Bryson talks about how people have been attacked by bears and survived and really quite the opposite as well.

Before his journey-as we all probably know before going on a four month hike-he researched a lot about the park and about what sort of wild life he could encounter. He also spent a lot of money on equipment. Do you think he went on his journey alone? Well of course not. Who do know would go hiking through the woods alone??? He calls a whole bunch of his friends and only one of them decides to go with him. His name is Stephan Katz which was Bryson's hiking partner through Europe in an earlier book he wrote.

Bryson describes his journey in great detail but not only that he gives some history about the trail. You can witness things that you couldn't even imagine of while you are watching a movie. Bryson's sarcasm (which is really quite humorous) and his wonderful description of his surroundings makes this book fun to read. You can experience his humor for example in this quote: "Do you know what that was, Bryson? Cream soda. You know what else? I'm drinking it right now..." Bryson continuously descibes his hiking partner as a little child. Katz still complains that he wasn't able to watch the X-files and this makes him sound like a four year old instead of a forty-five year old. Bryson ends the explaination by saying, "Man, that was so good. Now --- you and good night."

After reading only a hundred pages of the book, it has really caught my attention. i highly recommed this book because it will cause you to roll on the floor laughing.

Facing Up By Bear Grylls

This book is written by Bear Grylls, a famous adventurer, writer and TV presenter. This book is about Bear Grylls going on a remarkable journey to the summit of Mt. Everest. In this story, Bear Grylls (author) wrote about his life experiences in the special force and childhood. Before Bear Grylls decided to 'conquer' Mt. Everest, he spent three months in the hospital in Africa, due to a broken vertebrae, caused by an accident when landing with a parachute. Eight months after the accident, he quit the special force.

Bear Grylls then have the idea of 'conquering' Mt. Everest, since he has recovered gradually throughout the year. He and his friend, Neil Laughton then decided to aim for the Indian Army, to gain access to the Himalayan Mountains. The expedition leader was Neil Laughton, as Neil has a great amount of experience on Mt. Everest as he had once organized an expedition, but failed due to a huge number of deaths.

I recommend this book as the author, Bear Grylls, used techniques like imagery, to depict the where he went and so on.

Inti Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

When Jon Krakauer, the narrator, had finally reached the summit of Mt. Everest successfully. On May 10, 1996, his teammates hadn't sleep for at least fifty-seven hours and they were all tormented by effects of oxygen depletion.

Therefore, this disaster ended with a disaster where his teammates perished one after another. How could Jon Krakauer manage to survive through this freezing inferno to tell the story?

The quote that I liked the best within this book is the following: "Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet..." In this quote, the author used strong imagery like magnets to attract the readers into the story. Therefore, it makes you feel like if you are just standing beside the narrator also starring into the vastness.

This author's style of informing story is more than just story-telling. It is also pulling the readers into the actually place where you can feel your skin getting ripped by the coldness of Mt. Everest or the brain-altering effects of lack of oxygen.

Are You There God? Its me, Margaret by Judy Blume.

This is a book I read when I was 12, it was my birthday present from my friend's mom. For girls, we go through puberty when we're 12 (well, on average) and my friend's mom thought that it was a "guide" for me, and the book did help me. Its also about religious intolerance, like against Jewish and etc.

This book is basically about this girl named Margaret who's in sixth grade and has no religion. And throughout the book you can see the process and the problems she faced during her quest for a single religion. She's also confronted by many preteen females issues such as buying her first bra, having her first period and coping with belted sanitary pads, jealousy towards another girl who has developed womanly figure earlier than others, liking boys and voicing opinions if it differs from other girlfriends.

The book is quite simple so that's all I can say about the book or else there won't be any surprise when you read it. :) I recommend young girls to read it like, Year 5-7s. don't really recommend boys it read it, of course.

So Much To Tell You by John Marsden

This is a book I read a while back and thought it would be interesting to share. Its the story of a young girl, Marina, who has a very troubled life, she is a mute. She also has a scared face given to her by her father due to an acid spill after the accident she refuses to talk to anyone during recovery and her mother (who grows tired of her being mute) sends her to Warrington Boarding School in an effort to improve her communication, but even there she continues to silence. Until her English teacher Mr Lindell gives the glasses journals to write in, Mariana takes to it a sort of a joke writing down very trivial things about her life at school, but as time goes on she starts to write more deep things and this becomes her only source of communication, as the book progresses she meets a girl by the name of Cathy Preshill, she is the closest thing Marina has to a friend she is tall and thin and likes to read poetry, by the end of the book she goes to meet her father in what appears to be prison but the author isn't clear. And says her only words in the entire book: "Hello, Dad," and "I've got so much to tell you..."

This is a book that nearly every teenager in the world should read its got the whole deal: boys and girls, sex and family defiantly a good book that I love reading and its won a few awards which is cool too :)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice is for sure one of the most famous novels of Jane Austen.
With the main character Elizabeth Bennet, we enter the world and lifestyle of the 19Th century:

Elizabeth is intelligent, attractive, but she often judges people on first impressions. She first meets Darcy, a wealthy young man who's handsome and smart but seems to be proud and cares too much about his social status, at a dance and starts immediately to think that Darcy is a hateful person. As time passes by, Elizabeth finds other reasons to hate Darcy, mainly because of his maltreatment of Wickham, Elizabeth's new-met friend, and also due to the rumors of Darcy trying to separate his friend, Bingley and Jane, Elizabeth's older sister.
But funnily, despite Elizabeth's repugnance towards him, Darcy finds himself drawn to Elizabeth.

But too proud to declare his love, he continues to stay cold and distant.

These two young persons, one blinded by prejudice and the other too proud to declare his true feelings, continue to confront each other until one day when all the misunderstandings are clarified.

This book is one of my favorites out of all the books that I've read. In it, I found humor, beautiful descriptions of people and places, and mostly, an intriguing plot full of suspense which kept me reading, and wondering what was going to happen next.

If you like to read classics, then you would definitely love this book!

Demon haunted world - Ryan Weinstein

Before you start to peer down the twisted labaryth that is "The demon haunted world" I must remind you to bring your ball of string because you will soon find you need it dearly.
This book is the perfect book for those who are interusted in TOK. You will also find this book perfect if you are a terrible sceptic that only wants to go deeper into strange ideas. As is all physics books, especialy those that are leaning more towards quantom mechanics rather than physics, you must allow yourself to realize that this book will make you a much worse person before there is any hope of becoming a better one. When you read this book, if you are able to grasp the strange truths, you also need to know that in no way should any of this ever be used in an argument. Reading this books like this is the closest you can go to reading a book on dark magic. Also if you want to take a bit of advice from me, mentioning this in an argument with a highly religious person will get you thrown out of whichever dwelling you happen to be in.
This book is ludicrous, strange, and blasphemy in most churches. It is also true.


If you don't mind a used torn up one with the latin phrase, "God have mercy on my soul" written over and over again in blood on the last 2 pages.
You can get one here


-Deus kave Misericordia an Meus Animus!

The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith

This book is by far the best book I've ever read, well the only series of book I've ever read actually. I don't read books in the past but after watching the drama on TV (and this is very different from Twilight and way more interesting), which kept me in so much suspense that I couldn't stand it anymore and went to the bookstore and bought the whole series back and read all the way from the beginning.

This series contains up to 6 books (one still unpublished till late 2010 or early 2011) and it is about two Salvatore brothers who fell in love with a girl named Katherine in 1864. They had no idea that she was a vampire until she turned the both of them into vampires. There were a lot of hatred between the brothers because of Katherine and they couldn't even stand the sight of seeing each other. As a vampire, you get to live an eternal life which the Salvatore brothers did. And now in 2006, Stefan Salvatore met Elena, queen bee of high school who looks exactly like Katherine but with the exact opposite personalities. Elena has two best friends, Bonnie, who discovers to be a witch/psychic eventually and Meridith who's oddly calm with all that's happening. Stefan and Elena fell in love very soon and Damon tried to ruin the relationship by trying to turn Elena into a vampire because of both the hatred he has for Stefan and how impossibly alike Elena and Katherine looks.

There are many twists in the series and I love the book very much. I know every young adult of our generation would like it too since we're being called the "Vampire-kids" these days after the Twilight craze.

Dragon's Nest by Emily Rodda

If you enjoy reading about impossible quests in fantasy worlds, you should really try this book: "Dragon's nest" is the first book of the series "Dragons of Deltora". The book is written by Emily Rodda and uses simple words for easy understanding. This is the type of book that can be read in on week if you really like it.

The story is about three companions who must defend their kingdom, called Deltora, from four evil sisters sent by their enemy, the shadowlord, to poison the earth whith their singing and make people die of hunger.To destroy the four sisters, they must require the help of the ancient dragons of Deltora, hidden away long ago to prevent from extinction. Surprisingly, the three companions get away with it in each episode!

I really liked the story, it made me want to read the other episodes. The story is good from the beginning but it starts to get really interesting by the middle until the end where most of the action occurs. This book is recommended to anybody not too serious.

Please write a comment if you like my review!

;)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J.K. Rowling

For all you Harry Potter fans, i would recommend this book.

Its been a year after Dumbledore was killed and Harry, Ron and Hermione have to do what seems like to be an impossible task: to destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. He has doubt and has never felt more alone or faced a future so full of shadow. But he has look inside of himself to find the strength he need to complete the almost impossible task of destroying the Horcruxes. He must leave the safety, and coziness of The Burrow and follow his destiny, the dark dangerous path that was laid before him.

He encounters many different and dangerous things than he would if he'd gone to back to Hogwarts. It consists of many twists and turns of the unexpected, running from Voldemort's Death Eaters, and fighting the battle that will decide the fate of Harry, his friends and Hogwarts.

Once you start to read this book it is going to be hard to put it down. I am speaking from experience. I personally think Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows is the best book of the series.

If you find Harry Potter interesting think about reading it, even though i think a lot of people have.

Who Moved My Cheese?

Change. It happens to every one. Spencer Johnson presents his thoughts as a fable about dealing with change in business and personal life.

The story revolves around four imaginary characters; two mice, "Sniff" and "Scurry" and two "littlepeople", "Hem" and "Haw". They are used to represent the simple and the complex parts of our lives. They live in a maze where they spend their time looking for, running around and eating cheese. In this case, cheese represents our goal or what we want in life.

Each day, they would race around the maze racing and searching for their favorite cheese. They would find their own cheese at the end of one of the corridors in Cheese Station C until finally, they started to establish their own routines.

What do you want when your world is changing?

Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz

A fourteen-year-old teenage boy called Alex Rider had been recruited as a spy since the death of his uncle, Ian Rider. He had saved the world six times within a year, but the costs were: a wound from a sniper, fighting with someone twice the size of him, having your friends and family in danger or even worse.

Finally, this time he thought that he could get away from being a teenage spy and continue his school life just like other ordinary people.

However, another ambitious person wanted to rule the world again. But this time, Alex will face something unimaginable...

Shopaholic & Sister

In the beginning, Becky Bloomwood returns to Britain with her husband, Luke after nearly a year of honeymoon all over the globe to surprise her family and friends. She then realizes that she has changed plenty, however, the world she knew back in Britain hasn't. When she arrvies home, Becky ends up being the most surprised when she finds out about unexpected things such as: her best friend Suze now has a new close friend, she now has a sister, Jess, which in her absence her parents discovered, her husband is no longer "the husband" she knew before their honeymoon, her parents are determined to work hard on their marriage and she is still a shopaholic.
Becky soon finds out how Jess is the complete opposite of her and seem to not be able to get along. Therefore, she tries to do every thing she can to make up for her absence...