A tale of two Cities by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth on 7 February 1812, he was an English writer and social critic. Set in London and Paris, his 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, is the best selling novel of all time.  I chose this book because I was planning to read it in Spanish. However, I think is a very good idea to read the book in your original language. 

Recently I have been interested in Victorian literature and Charles Dickens is one of the most important writers from this period. I think A Tale of two Cities will give me other view about French Revolution, and  how this impacted by different ways in the cities, London and Paris. And of course, what have been the principal consequences of this time, consequences that we can see now.   

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

This book is the third and last part of The Hunger Games trilogy. The author, Suzanne Collins, is an American novel and televison writer. She has written several tv shows for example Clarissa Explains It All, which was one of my favorite programs when I was little. Before being successful with The Hunger Games series, she'd had another best selling series called The Underland Chronicles.
This third part continues with the story of Katniss Everdeen and the rebellion agains the Capitol.

The reason I chose this book is because I've seen the movies that are based on the first two books and I really enjoy the plot, that's the reason I can't wait to know what's going to happen next. The premier of the next film is set for november of this year and that's a long time of waiting, and also they´re going to split the movie in two, so If I don't read the book now, I'll have to wait, approximately two years to know the end of the story. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

This is a philosophical fiction book written by the English author: Oscar Wilde.

The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by the artist Basil Hallward. He is impressed by Dorian's beauty and star to believe that his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and he suggests the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfilment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than he. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, and when he subsequently pursues a life of debauchery, the portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered a work of classic Gothic Fiction, and I am interested in this kind of literature, because I've never read it. So I believe this is the oportunity to do it and to know more about different literature topics.

I expect to improve my vocabulary and to get closer to any English culture' phrases that they used to use years ago. I also chose this author because he was borned in England, and well, you all know my story.

The Godfather by Mario Puzo.

Hello guys!

The book I plan to read is The Godfather written by Mario Puzo.
Mario Puzo. This a criminal novel first published in 1969, it narrates the story of an American-Italian mafia family living in New York City. The author is also an American-Italian writer who studied social sciences. Something interesting about Mario is that despite he assured he had been never in touch with mafia, the author made (in the opinion of many critics)  a great and logical explanation about the rules and relations in the illegal world.

I chose it because I asked my roomate if she had a book in English that could lend me, and she showed me this novel and also I  have heard about the movie and the book since I am a kid but never tried to know anything about it; so I took it.

I expect to find that great story everyone talks about :P, and learn  a little bit about the life developed in the mafia world. And as always you can do with every book try to get good things for a better understanding of the world and may be apply it in my social relations. (Don't worry I won't become a drug dealer jajaja).

Greetings!, Oscar Manuel Fierro Angulo.

Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer

This book was published in 1936, the author Ruth Sawyer won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1937,  the story placed in 1980 and it is a fictional version of one year of Sawyer' life.
Lucinda is the principal character, she is 10 years, she has a tomboy personality, she is sympathetic, stubborn and clever. Her parents left her with Miss Peters during one year because they trip to Italy. Lucinda  experiences unprecedented freedom so she can to explore the special places in New York on roller skates and she makes friends with all different neighborhood characters.

I chose this book because its introduction sound interesting, it is a different story for that time, and I hope to have a good time to reading it and improve my vocabulary.

A Game Of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin

A Game Of Thrones is the first part of a book collection called “A Song Of Ice And Fire” which has five finished books and the sixth is still underway, they were written by the American writer George R. R. Martin. These books are about epic fantasy and take place on fictional continents, where a lot of stories are told with a history of thousand of years before these days.

A Game Of Thrones was published in 1996 and has a particular way in which was written, it is each chapter is the description of a situation narrated by the characters' point of view, this makes it easier to follow it and involve the reader within the personages' thoughts .

I chose this book because I think fantasy is an excellent genre which has not limits. Also the TV series caught my attention, so I wanted to know the story with so much more details.

My expectations are have fun and mainly enhance the way I express my ideas in English.

Night, by Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiessel is a Holocaust survivor, he earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his writings about his World War II experiences and his lifelong humanitarian efforts to prevent similar atrocities.

Night is the first of tree books written by Elie Wiessel about his experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps, at the height Holocaust  and toward the end of the World War II.  Wiesel writes about the death of God and his own increasing disgust with humanity. In this book, everything is inverted, every value destroyed. "Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends", "Everyone lives and dies for himself alone".

I choose this book in order to learn more of human extreme behaviors and to feel through the author the sensations that he felt in that situations. Also, I expect from this book to learn more about human history.

Converting Words, by William F. Hanks

The title of the book I’m reading is Converting Words. Maya in the Age of the Cross. It was published in 2010 and was written by William F. Hanks, who is a professor of Linguistic Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is interested in the ethnography and history of Yucatan, and has written other books and articles about Yucatec Maya language, history and culture. 

In this book, Hanks shows us how, after the Spanish conquest of Yucatan, the process called Reducción modified the space, conduct and language of maya people. It was a project of  the Spaniards that sought “to inculcate a coherent set of mental habits and practices” in order to convert Maya people into christians and "ordered Indians". Nevertheless, this changes did not occurred in the way the Spaniards had thought, but in an unexpected and uncontrollable manner in which Maya people could express their creativity and resilience. I had already read one chapter of this book and it made me wonder what happened with other indigenous peoples, since the Reducción was implemented in all the regions of New Spain, so I wanted to know more about this research.

A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole (Diego Trejo).

John Kennedy Toole was thirty-one when he committed suicide in 1969. He only wrote two novels: The Neon Bible (1954) and A Confederacy of Dunces (1964) (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981), both published posthumously. Nowadays, he is regarded (despite his scant literary corpus), among Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor, as one of the best authors that has ever come up from the south of the U.S.

He was born in New Orleans in the middle of a depressing homely environment, an atmosphere indulged by his obsessive mother Thelma Ducoing Toole. She played a big role in his life, introducing him to literature, poetry, music, theater (art in general) and, in a way, filling the role of an intrusive guide who, indirectly, managed almost every aspect of her son's life. 

Quickly involved in the academic life of Louisiana, John Kennedy Toole worked in a handful of universities around the area before he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961. He spent two years in Puerto Rico teaching English to illiterate recruits and, at the same time, he began to write A Confederacy of Dunces.
After his return to the U.S., still working as a professor, he completed his novel and started to look for an editor and a publishing house. Unable to find any interest in his literary work, he fell into depression and started to drink heavily, an habit that led to a chronic stage of paranoia, delusion, and, ultimately, his death.

A Confederacy of Dunces follows the path of Ignatius J. Reilly, "an educated but slothful 30-year-old man living with his mother in the Uptown neighborhood of early-1960s New Orleans who, in his quest for employment, has various adventures with colorful French Quarter characters." (Yes, I got this from Wikipedia. How am I supposed to know the details of the novel if I haven't read it?)

What do I expect from the book? A writer at the peak of his genius who, unfortunately, died way too soon.

Hello guys! My name is Oscar Manuel Fierro Angulo. First of all I want to apologize because I couldn't post my entry since I had problems with my internet since thursday morning.
I am studying medicine and I am in the second year, my objectives for the future is to make my residence in neurology or pediatrics. My hobbies are running in the afternoons (not all the days :/), visit my friends on the weekends and speak with my family. I love learning languages because is a great way of making friends from all over the world.
My expectations for this course is to improve my skills in this language, I have almost 2 years without practicing so I tend to have mistakes while speaking and writing. I think writing is a good way to improve since you have to make a mental work to express what you want to say in the adequate words.

Luis Aguilar

Hi! I'm Luis. I'm studying Computer Engineering, and this is my tenth semester; therefore, I'm a fossil. I'm thinking in my thesis' topic, but I would prefer another graduation method. I like to play football(both), but I didn't play in any team rigth now. I like to play videogames and I really enjoy to meet people that know how to play because I really like the challenges. Also i like to play cards, but i don't like to bet because it causes a lot of problems.

This semester, I expect to learn techniques that make more easy to write a formal text, and maybe this helps me to realize that making a thesis will not be too difficult. 

Daniela Campos

Hi! I'm Daniela, I'm studying managment, this is my fourth semester and I want to make a specialization in marketing and I also want to retake the language french or start with portuguese. One of my favorite things in life is playing tennis, last semester I enter to the interfaculty tournament, I won second place and I really hope to win the first place in the next tournament. I like going to the movies and eat popcorn, the last movie I watched was The Wolf of Wall Street and I really liked it, except for for the fact that it last too much (3 hours).
 For this course I expect to learn how to make an adequate essay, so it would be more easy for me to start with my thesis. I also want to expand my vocabulary and improve my english in every way.

 

Amelia Sánchez

Hi guys, I'm Amelia, I studied the bachelor in Economics and now I'm finishing my professional thesis, it is about manufacturing prices in Mexico, how these help to create profits and generate growth in the country. I really like topics about economy that are in touch with sociology, history and maths.  What about my hobbies? I love watching movies and reading books with different phylosophies, I like to learn from the history, how other people did their knowledge. In the past I used to play tennis, this is my favorite sport and Rafa Nadal is my favorite tennis player, :P

I took this course because I want be better in the English language,  I would like to study a master in abroad. I really am enjoying this course and I hope to improve my writing in English, and the other abilities: speaking, listening, and of course, reading. Now I understand how difficult is to be concise, jeje, thanks for reading me! :)

Week 2

Hello everybody! I´m still waiting for some people to write their introduction in the blog and to write a comment for at least one classmate. Don´t forget to do this. Deadline: Friday, February 7, 2014. 

Here is the work for week 2 (starting Saturday, February 8, 2014): 

Write a short paragraph about the book you plan to read during the semester. You may include the following information: 

• The title of the book
• Some information about the author
• Information about the book
• Why you chose it
• What you expect to find in it

Deadline: Friday, February 21st, 2014. 

Lilia Paz

Hello everyone! My name is Lilia Paz. I finished my major in Economics. Some years ago I watched on TV a Korean drama and I liked it very much, and I liked how  the music sounded and the voice of singer so I became interested in a Korean music, drama and culture, now I´m learning the Korean language, I hope at the end of this year take the exam for certification of Korean level for foreigners so I need to study hard.

I hope at the end of semester write English more easily, without many grammar mistakes, to organize ideas and choose the better words to express my ideas correctly,  and I think it will help in Spanish too. With the course I am motivated  to write and learn more.

David Angeles

Hi guys, I am David Angeles, I accomplished all the subjects from Mechatronics Engineering last year and  nowadays I'm writing my thesis which is about aerial vehicles, particularly Quadcopters. I have several likes as technology, music, reading, sports, and my favorite hobby is cycling.

From the course I'm expecting, in general, to upgrade my English level and more specific to improve the formal way I write, because of both, professional and academic applications.

Beatriz Cruz

Hi. My name is Beatriz Cruz López and I’m an ethnohistorian. I studied my bachelor's degree at ENAH and then I studied a master's degree in Mesoamerican Studies at UNAM. I'm focused in Zapotec culture and history because my family and I are Zapotecs (Unfortunately, I'm not a Zapotec speaker. But they are!). I’m currently doing my M.A. thesis, working in a research project and attending my English classes. I don´t have many hobbies, but I like cooking, skate-rolling (I’m a beginner), listening to music and watching TV. But, except cooking, I don't have enough time to do these activities now.

I hope to learn in this course how to write more and better. I like to write properly in Spanish, and I would like to be able to do the same in English... one day. I think one of my challenges this semester is to increase my vocabulary both, in general and specific topics (history, linguistics, anthropology and archaeology). The other is to strengthen my grammar knowledge by writing a lot, trying with different ways to express my ideas. I would like very much to be able to write a brief paper that can be submitted to an academic journal.

Thank you.