Wish List

Alex's books

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
5 of 5 stars
Very nice and inspiring book about high school students just trying to get through. The character of Charlie is one of the most well developed characters by how clueless he is about our world and that he is a good kid but gets caught in ...
A Clockwork Orange
3 of 5 stars
Overall the book was very interesting and had a very interesting concept with the plot but how the book is written with the slang is very hard to understand and get a full grasp of what they are talking about.
Mockingjay
3 of 5 stars
Conclusion to the series but i'm not a very big fan of how it all ends up, Katniss starts to get annoying in my honest opinion.
Catching Fire
4 of 5 stars
Not as good as the first book but a very good squeal to a great book series.

goodreads.com

Monday, September 15, 2014

Post 3: Book 1 Project

Alex Testerman, Big Book Blog, Post 3

Book 1 Project:
            My idea for extending the fans ability to interact with the novel would create a scavenger hunt board game, which the scavenger hunt is like the one created by Amy to her husband and main character Nick.
            This idea stems from the scavenger hunt that Amy creates for Nick every year for their wedding anniversary which sends Nick across New York following the clues that lead him to other clues. This idea of the scavenger hunt from Amy is used later in the book for a different reason but it would spoil the novel. Nick can never find out the clues every year that he tries It is a do-it-yourself era: health care, real estate, police investigation. Go online and figure it out for yourself because everyone’s overworked and understaffed.” This is what said by Amy defending her husbands’ inability to solve the puzzle instead of thinking that “he doesn’t love her as much”.For the reader this scavenger hunt would come with a collectors additions of the novel which comes with the novel and a set of clues that have cryptic descriptions of the places and events that happen throughout the book. These clues and scavenger hunt would be set up as a game between other fans/readers of the where there will be a place, quote, or event and you have to guess what happens during that crucial event in the book, who says a certain quote, or what the place listed on and once you get an answer correct, you move a space on the game board and get closer to the final square which will read “AMY!”  Meaning the goal is to find Amy first at the end of the board. The quote from Amy saying “My mother had always told her kids: if you're about to do something, and you want to know if it's a bad idea, imagine seeing it printed in the paper for all the world to see.” This is when she is creating the second Scavenger hunt later in the novel and she doesn’t know if she wants to send it to Nick which ends up being a very critical point in the novel. Also said by Amy, “The worst feeling: when you just have to wait and prepare yourself for the lie.” Which is when Nick would tell Amy a list of different things while he thinks she doesn’t know he is lying but she obviously does, another crucial point which all can be used as the clues.
            I think this idea will work because it allows the readers who want more to not only re-live important moments from the book but also have new clues to look and think about which get these fans to double take an opinion on a character or the novel itself. Also and interactive board game where you go over the plot twists and deep quotes spoken but Nick and Amy throughout the novel. This idea allows/ encourages people who are already fans of the book to stay connected the book itself and with the author is the ability to put the readers into certain situations with the clues and answer a scenario the way they would think which can give them ideas about the novel or even some new takes on things that the fans haven’t noticed before when reading the piece. Also this game adds competition among fans to prove who is the bigger fan of Gone Girl which can cause others who do not do well in the game is to buy their own copies and becoming bigger fans of the series and spreading the game and book around to others, making the book more and more popular.


Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Post 2: What is a book?






Big Book Blog by, Alex Testerman
 
What is a book?

A book is a world. It is an entire planet of all new ideas and people in the palm of your hand, each page unleashing something new into your mind that can ultimately change how you perceive things in your day to day life. Having the paper world in your hand adds extra excitement to the novel before you even open to the first page, the mystery of the novel and the only knowledge you have is the cover that you can look at over and over again to try and see how it incorporates to the novels story.
 

As stated by Tom Piazza in his self-interview when asked about ebooks he says “They are strictly vehicles; you pick them us to step through them into some consensus reality.” And I couldn’t agree more. An ebook doesn’t have the same tender feel and physical touch a book has. A book shows how much work an author put into it because you can see its size and really see all that they put into it. With the ebook you get a soulless machine that doesn’t give you the picture of all the hard work the author puts into their novels. 


A book can be a physical thing in your hands where you can feel the paper between your fingers or bright text lit upon a ebook screen, either way it is still a story that an author put time and effort into to get it out to readers like us. Even though I said before that I prefer paper books rather than ebooks, a novel that is on an ebook is still the same story that you would read in a paper book, just electronic. I fear eventually that paper books will not be made anymore and ebooks will be the supplier for books, but you have to go with the times and adapt with the ever changing society.

 
 
 

Friday, September 5, 2014

Post 1: Why I read

Big Book Blog by Alex Testerman

This is The Big Book Blog and we read a large array of books and discuss them to all and the deeper meanings of all of them. Now, why I read is to see a different situations that I would probably not be able to get involved in in my life, a new reality. Reading allows your mind to think of different things and can also teach you important life lessons that will stick with you throughout your life. Reading also lets you escape to a new world that you may not be able to think of in your own imagination, places that have never been seen and new people to see. That is why I read and why I will always read until I can no longer.