Books

Little Brother

My name is Marcus Yallow. I was tortured by my country, but I still love it here. I’m seventeen years old. I want to grow up in a free country. I want to live in a free country.
– Little Brother, Cory Doctorow

There was one book that I thought everybody should read at least. It was Animal Farm by George Orwell. Now I add another one to that list, Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. You can read it FREE. The book is available in every format you can think of. Read it and if you like it spread the message.

Mockingjay

This is what they’ve been doing. Taking the fundamental ideas behind Gale’s traps and adapting them into weapons against humans. Bombs mostly. It’s less about the mechanics of the traps than the psychology behind them. Booby-trapping an area that provides something essential to survival. A water or food supply. Frightening prey so that a large number flee into a greater destruction. Endangering off-spring in order to draw in the actual desired target, the parent. Luring the victim into what appears to be a safe haven—where death awaits it. At some point, Gale and Beetee left the wilderness behind and focused on more human impulses. Like compassion. A bomb explodes. Time is allowed for people to rush to the aid of the wounded. Then a second, more powerful bomb kills them as well.

– MockingJay, Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay, the final book in the Hunger Games trilogy was released a couple of days ago. Although I didn’t find a natural flow in the story sometimes, it was a great read. The world is not black and white. It’s in shades of gray.

A hovercraft marked with the Capitol’s seal materializes directly over the barricaded children. Scores of silver parachutes rain down on them. Even in this chaos, the children know what silver parachutes contain. Food. Medicine. Gifts. They eagerly scoop them up, frozen fingers struggling with the strings. The hovercraft vanishes, five seconds pass, and then about twenty parachutes simultaneously explode.
A wail rises from the crowd. The snow’s red and littered with undersized body parts. Many of the children die immediately, but others lie in agony on the ground. Some stagger around mutely, staring at the remaining silver parachutes in their hands, as if they still might have something precious inside.

– MockingJay, Suzanne Collins

The Handmaid’s Tale

There are some books such that when you read a couple of pages you want to read the next page, and the next page, and the next page until the end or until it is late night or early morning. On the other hand there are some books such that reading the beginning pages is like a roller coaster climbing slowly to the starting high point. If you finish reading the book half way then you want to read the next page and the next page until the end. But it is hard to go through the first few pages or chapters until you build enough momentum to whisk thorough the remainder.

For me, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood was like the latter. I have started reading this a few months back. But it didn’t create enough momentum to carry me through the end. But today I started anew and finished up the book.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a narrative by a woman about the life in a totalitarian government. It is like 1984 by George Orwell. The Government of the United States was overthrown. The president and all the congress were murdered allegedly by a terrorist organization. The Constitution was suspended. A male-chauvinist, theocratic, military dictatorship was formed called the Gilead. The woman tried to run away out of the country with her husband and her daughter. But she failed. She got separated from her family. She was put into a camp and forced to be a child bearing slave to a commander of the new regime. The book ends with a future conference proceeding on Gileadean studies. The story is like the Anne Frank’s diary. This is one of the best books I’ve read.

Catching Fire

I stand there, feeling broken and small, thousands of eyes trained on me. There’s a long pause. Then, from somewhere in the crowd, someone whistles Rue’s four-note mocking-jay tune. The one that signaled the end of the workday in the orchards. The one that meant safety in the arena. By the end of the tune, I have found the whistler, a wizened old man in a faded red shirt and overalls. His eyes meet mine.

What happens next is not an accident. It is too well executed to be spontaneous, because it happens in complete unison. Every person in the crowd presses the three middle fingers of their left hand against their lips and extends them to me. It’s our sign from District 12, the last good-bye I gave Rue in the arena.

If I hadn’t spoken to President Snow, this gesture might move me to tears. But with his recent orders to calm the districts fresh in my ears, it fills me with dread. What will he think of this very public salute to the girl who defied the Capitol?

The full impact of what I’ve done hits me. It was not intentional—I only meant to express my thanks — but I have elicited something dangerous. An act of dissent from the people of District 11. This is exactly the kind of thing I am supposed to be defusing!

I try to think of something to say to undermine what has just happened, to negate it, but I can hear the slight burst of static indicating my microphone has been cut off and the mayor has taken over. Peeta and I acknowledge a final round of applause. He leads me back toward the doors, unaware that anything has gone wrong.

I feel funny and have to stop for a moment. Little bits of bright sunshine dance before my eyes. “Are you all right?” Peeta asks.

“Just dizzy. The sun was so bright,” I say. I see his bouquet. “I forgot my flowers,” I mumble. “I’ll get them,” he says. “I can,” I answer.

We would be safe inside the Justice Building by now, if I hadn’t stopped, if I hadn’t left my flowers. Instead, from the deep shade of the veranda, we see the whole thing.

A pair of Peacekeepers dragging the old man who whistled to the top of the steps. Forcing him to his knees before the crowd. And putting a bullet through his head.

– Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins is the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy.This is great writing. It was hard to put the book down in the last two nights until the very end. A single act of one girl has sparked a rebellion in the Districts against the cruelty of the Capitol. Mockingjay, the final book comes out in a few days. I am looking forward to it.

I look back to the crowd, but the faces of Rue’s mother and father swim before my eyes. Their sorrow. Their loss. I turn spontaneously to Chaff and offer my hand. I feel my fingers close around the stump that now completes his arm and hold fast.

And then it happens. Up and down the row, the victors begin to join hands. Some right away, like the morphlings, or Wiress and Beetee. Others unsure but caught up in the demands of those around them, like Brutus and Enobaria. By the time the anthem plays its final strains, all twenty-four of us stand in one unbroken line in what must be the first public show of unity among the districts since the Dark Days. You can see the realization of this as the screens begin to pop into blackness. It’s too late, though. In the confusion they didn’t cut us off in time. Everyone has seen.

– Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Hunger Games

I started reading Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins yesterday. After reading the first few pages I couldn’t put the book down until the end.

The story happens in the future in the region we now call the United States of America.  After facing dozens of wars and disasters the country is now called Panem.  The Panem consists of the Capitol and 13 surrounding districts. A powerful  government has emerged in the Capitol after defeating the rebel districts and taking them under their control just like the United States was formed. Each of the poor districts serve the Capitol in someway. District 12 is the coal country but the district is in dark most of the time unless the government is telecasting an announcement in which case it is mandatory for people to watch it. District 11 is the agricultural district where people are starved to death. All the while the people in the Capitol live a luxurious life fussing over the latest fashions.

The hunger games is a reality television show. It is an event where one girl and one boy older than twelve is selected from each district as contestants by drawing the names at a ceremony at the beginning called the reaping. It is like any other reality show today but the contestants have to kill each other until one emerges as the victor. The hunger games is a cruel reminder to the people of the districts that the Capitol is in control. The Capitol can do anything even kill their children. And the district people have to watch the show, cheer and celebrate the event every year.

Though it seems far-fetched and absurd, in the unwritten human history this must have happened thousands of times in arenas all over the earth in known and unknown civilizations. Hunger Games is the first book in a trilogy. It seems the third book is going to be released next week.