Canny Minds Blog » Novel

Cutting for Stone

Jenny — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:33:40 +0000

A sprawling, epic story unforgetably set in exotic Ethiopia. Gripping and moving in its intensity.

Marion and Shiva Stone, born in a mission hospital in Ethiopia in the 1950s, are twin sons of an illicit union between an Indian nun and British doctor. Bound by birth but with widely different temperaments they grow up together, in a country on the brink of revolution, until a betrayal splits them apart. But fate has not finished with them – they will be brought together once more, in the sterile surroundings of a hospital theatre.

From the 1940s to the present, from a convent in India to a cargo ship bound for the Yemen, from a tiny operating theatre in Ethiopia to a hospital in the Bronx, this is both a richly visceral epic and a riveting family story.

What did you think of the novel? Comment below to share your thoughts.

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The Time Traveller’s Wife

Jenny — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:18:01 +0000

This extraordinary, magical novel is the story of Clare and Henry who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. His disappearances are spontaneous and his experiences are alternately harrowing and amusing. The Time Traveler’s Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare’s passionate love for each other with grace and humour. Their struggle to lead normal lives in the face of a force they can neither prevent nor control is intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.

Out in cinemas on 15th August.

Let us know what you thought. Comment below.

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Watch the trailer for the new film below:

Classic novels teach us good behaviour, say scientists

Jenny — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:17:19 +0000

Nineteenth century novels such as Pride and Prejudice and Dracula help to teach us how to behave, claim scientists.
Researchers believe that the novels act like “social glue”, reinforcing beliefs that maintain the community and warning against destructive influences and character traits.

The study suggests that good literature “could continually condition society so that we fight against base impulses and work in a co-operative way”, said Professor Jonathan Gottschall of Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, whose research is published in New Scientist.

The researchers asked 500 people questions about 200 classic novels. The respondents were asked to define characters in the novels according to their traits.

Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, for example, scored highly on conscientiousness and nurturing, while Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula scored highly on status-seeking and social dominance. Dr Carroll believes novels have the same effect as the cautionary tales told around the fire in older societies.

“Maybe storytelling – from TV to folk tales – serves some specific evolutionary function,” he said. “They’re not just by-products of evolutionary adaptation.”

By Richard Alleyne, The Telegraph, June 2009

See our Recommended Novels to buy some great reading!

Photo courtesy of Moriza

The Secret Scripture

Jenny — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:16:29 +0000

Nearing her one-hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental hospital where she’s spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval, she talks often with her psychiatrist Dr. Grene, and their relationship intensifies and complicates.

Told through their respective journals, the story that emerges is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne’s story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland’s changing character and the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope.

Chapter One

Roesanne’s Testimony of Herself

(Patient, Recommon Regional Mental Hospital, 1957-)

The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say. He forgot to say, with every death it ends. Or did not think he needed to. Because for a goodly part of his life he worked in a graveyard.

Let us know what you thought. Comment below.

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The Book Thief

Jenny — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:27:36 +0000

Nazi, Germany. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This book is a story of: a girl; an accordionist; some fanatical Germans; a Jewish fist fighter; and quite a lot of thievery.

What did you think? Please post your comments.

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