David Nicholls 'Starter for ten’

'Starter for ten’ is one of the favorite books of my fav Booktuber. And the book mostly lived up to my expectations, though it was not a genius piece of work. I enjoyed the language, interesting final and three-dimensional characters. I saw unidealized youth, ordinary young people trying to prove something to someone, to stand out from the crowd and find their place in the big world. Characters didn't easily delve into philosophical debates about nature of life, love, etc. (I look at you John Green) .

“I want to be able to listen to recording of piano sonatas and know who's playing. I want to go to classical concerts and know when you're meant to clap. I want to be able to 'get' modern jazz without it all sounding like this terrible mistake, and I want to know who the Velvet Underground are exactly. I want to be fully engaged in the World of Ideas, I want to understand complex economics, and what people see in Bob Dylan. I want to possess radical but humane and well-informed political ideals, and I want to hold passionate but reasoned debates round wooden kitchen tables, saying things like 'define your terms!' and 'your premise is patently specious!' and then suddenly to discover that the sun's come up and we've been talking all night. I want to use words like 'eponymous' and 'solipsistic' and 'utilitarian' with confidence. I want to learn to appreciate fine wines, and exotic liquers, and fine single malts, and learn how to drink them without turning into a complete div, and to eat strange and exotic foods, plovers' eggs and lobster thermidor, things that sound barely edible, or that I can't pronounce...Most of all I want to read books; books thick as brick, leather-bound books with incredibly thin paper and those purple ribbons to mark where you left off; cheap, dusty, second-hand books of collected verse, incredibly expensive, imported books of incomprehensible essays from foregin universities.
At some point I'd like to have an original idea. And I'd like to be fancied, or maybe loved even, but I'll wait and see...And all of these are the things that a university education's going to give me.” 

Brian is a simple, bit of artsy guy. He isn’t exceptionally good-looking, cool or smart and doesn’t really distinguish smattering of facts from wisdom. In the early days at college, 2 major life changing events take place: he falls head over heels in love with a beautiful nymph, Alice, and enters the "University Challenge" team. The author uses ten points quiz questions as epigraphs and divides the book into the game rounds, which is a nice touch to Brian's whole quiz obsession.

This is a novel about growing up, or rather about the experimental transitional period in a teenager's life, when the inner sense of maturity and sophistication doesn’t not quite match the reality yet. The time of ambitious plans and a errors through the lens of British youth, ie, alcohol, sex and weed (if you watched British YA TV series, then you know what to expect. otherwise, I highly recommend "Skins" (1-2 or 3-4 seasons).

Is it a new "The Catcher in the Rye"? I would not say that. A good YA book about "growing up"? I’d agree with this definition.

Book Review: The Day of the Triffids. John Wyndham

When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.

      This is the first sentence of the post-apocalyptic novel by John Wyndham under the intriguing title "The Day of the Triffids."

      The plot revolves around the main character, Bill Mason, who finds himself in a world where virtually the entire population of the planet has suddenly become blind. An additional layer of panic and confusion is brought by the Triffids - carnivorous plants, which have become very popular in recent years thanks to the nutritious and cheap oil that they produce. Now that the population is not able to keep them on a leash, they are transforming into active hunters. Their ability to move around and attack defenseless people with the poisonous sting creates even greater havoc.

It must be, I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that "it can't happen here" -- that one's own time and place is beyond cataclysm. 

        However, the book does not focus so much on the action and a battle with the plants (though there are plenty violent scenes as the author skillfully maintains the tension), but it deals with the moral values ​​and their relevance in the post-apocalypses world, habits and people’s motivations.  

Most people […] prefer to be coaxed or wheedled, or even driven. That way they never make a mistake: if there is one, it's always due to something or somebody else.

      One of the grate scenes takes place during the first days after the disaster, when millions of blind people are robbing the nearest shops in search of food. The protagonist sees as a blind man steals a can from a helpless woman bank only to discover that it’s a paint can.

     At the same time, the author perfectly conveys the desperate situation. The small number of sighted people that remained in the country is facing a difficult choice. To save themselves or to help the blind? Whose well-being is more important – tat of the mankind or of a small community? Which decision is more noble - to give an easy death to the doomed or to prolong their suffering?

    

       Usually I'm not a big fan of post-apocalyptic books, because they often fall under established clichés. However, "The Day of the Triffids" is one of the best books I've read this year. And I'm eager to recommend it to all fantasy lovers.