In search of Manu Chao
Peter Culshaw: Clandestino – In Search of Manu Chao (Serpent’s Tail, 2013) ’When they are looking for me I’m never there When they find me, it’s not me’ Manu Chao: Desaparecido Manu Chao was born in Paris on June 21, 1961. According to his own admission, he loves the sun so much because he was born on the summer solstice. He grew up with his Spanish parents in Sèvres, a suburb of Paris, where they hosted guests such as the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian writer Gabriel García Marquez. In the midst of rockers and bands, young Manu decided that his profession would be the music. After his first musical attempts and bands playing covers, he achieved the real big success with the band Mano Nerga, which was so successful worldwide that they could have been world stars at the level of U2, if they had focused more on American tours and…
Iraq
Michael Palin: Into Iraq (Hutchinson Heinemann 2022) I remember Michael Palin from my childhood because of his travel series. Every weekend I sat in front of the TV and couldn’t wait for the next episode to start, which was exciting not only because of the interesting landscapes and countries, but also because of Michael Palin’s unique perspective and humor. I wasn’t the only one who loved these series: they have had a profound effect on people all over the world and have drawn attention to exotic destinations to such an extent that the process has been named the Palin Effect. In addition to the travel films, the stories were also published in book form. After the worldwide lockdown Michael Palin’s latest adventure took him to Iraq. The country captured his imagination for several reasons. On the one hand, thousands of years ago, the Tigris and Euphrates created such a richly…
Classics – Emma
Jane Austen – Katy Birchall: Emma (Hodder and Stoughton 2019) Jane Austen was a pioneer of her time. She replaced romantic exaggerations in her works with critical realism. Her protagonists are strong, self-confident and independent women who are in stark contrast to their surroundings. These characters are so modern that they could cope with today’s world. Four novels were published during the writer’s lifetime, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are posthumous works, and her unfinished novel Sanditon was recently republished, from which a series was also made. There are many adaptations of each of her books, for example Clueless, an American comedy released in 1995, which reinterprets the story of Emma in Beverly Hills. When Katy Birchall was seven years old, she first encountered the world of Jane Austen in a BBC adaptation and immediately fell in love with it. Reworking Emma into a middle grade novel was one of the…
Everything for the eyes
In addition to their interesting stories, the following books also stand out from the rest with their special illustrations. Jaclyn Moriarty: The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst (Guppy Books 2020) You may have already read about the adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by the Australian writer Jaclyn Moriarty on BogiWrites. The special feature of the series is that – with the exception of the first volume – the protagonist of the stories is not Bronte, but one of her friends or relatives. In this way, the books are loosely connected to each other, you do not necessarily have to read them in order, they can even stand on their own. The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst is actually about Bronte’s cousin Esther, who attends a boarding school with her two sisters. Esther is the middle child, so her situation is not easy. They love each other very much, but Imogen and Astrid are…