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Kansas City, Missouri

Inanimate Alice

Inanimate Alice is the story of a young girl growing up in the first half of the 21st century. It's an example of digital fiction - a new multimodal way of reading, using a combination of text, sound, images and games. It's written by novelist Kate Pullinger, in partnership with digital artist Chris Joseph.

The first four episodes are up and running on the Inanimate Alice site, and you can watch (and read!) them by clicking on the image above. And here's a link to an interview with Kate Pullinger in the Guardian.

Please drop a comment and let us know what you think of the future of reading!

Angels and Demons

We are two students from IH Braga, and we are going to talk about the only book that we both have read. It's called... Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.

We have opposite opinions about it. One of us liked it a lot, because it has an interesting and complex story which creates a lot of suspense and has a unexpected end. But the other one think that it was really boring, the language wasn't that good and it was way too much fiction.

Read it and tell us who you agree with.

Simão and Sofia

Batman The Dark Knight Returns

This is one of the best Batman stories off all time.
In this graphic novel Frank Miller presents us the last stand of batman against all the famous criminal of Gothen City, like Two Face and the lovable mass murder Joker.
The art work is amazing and the story mind blowing just like Miller's got us used to.

Frederico and Sérgio

O Auto da Barca do Inferno, by Gil Vicente

Gil Vicente is probably one of the greatest playwright of Portuguese History. He lived in the 15th century, just before Renaissance hit Portugal. As such, Catholic Church was extremely powerful.
The play is an alegory to the rite of going to the after-life, whether Heaven or Hell. A series of characters representing the social classes of the time (nobility, clergy, bankers, workers, judges, among others) arrive to a dock, representing the Purgatory, and are judged by the Angel and the Devil. They are all punished for their sins, except for a fool, whose humility allows him to go to Heaven, and four brave Knights.
Gil Vicente uses the humour on the play to scrutinize the actual sins of the society of the time. What is amazing on the play is how it relates to the present times, how it can be transposed with flawless perfection. It is a very pleasant story to read and even to dramatize.

Tomé and Leonor

The girl who played with fire

I came across this book because it was recommended to me by my IH teacher. She recommended it with such fervorous passion that I was very curious to read it."The girl who played with fire" is the second entry to the Millenium Trilogy and, while the first one focused more on introducing the characters and getting us familiarised with them, this one goes on to dig into the background of the trilogy's, by far, most intriguing and interesting charcter: a nearly anorexic-looking woman who, despite being in her 20's, still looks like a 15 year-old teenager, Lisbeth Salander. Salander has serious anti-social tendencies and a somewhat invulgar view of the world. However, she's a deeply moralistic and super-intelligent person, a person scarred by a very troubled past. And it's on that past that the book focuses on, as it comes back to haunt Salander, and she is forced to put her demons to rest. She will count with the aid of people who, despite her knowledge of such, care for her a real lot. Out of these helpful characters, the one who distinguishes himself from the others is Mikael Blomkvist. Blomkvist is a very altruist and sensitive journalist who continuously fights to detroy corruption and "evil" using any means available to him. He had a moral debt to Salandar, for she had saved his life more than once earlier, and so he risks his life countless times to save her. In the book, Salander due to controversial circumstances, becomes one of the most hated women in Sweden and wherever she looks she sees enemies.
One of the curious aspects of the author's style is the fact that he shows the same event through different character's perspective, and constantly shows what they feel about each others. It's a very addictive book, because whatever the character's do to save themselves, their enemies always seem a step ahead of them and we're always looking forward to see what happens next.
Salander's story is complex, envolving, and surprisingly touching and it's due to present you with a good time.

Luís

"The Lovely Bones"

This is a story about a girl, called Susie, who was murdered by a neighbour (Mr. Harvey) when she was coming from school.
When she died, she went to Heaven and she was seeing everything that was happening in Land with her family and friends.
I think it's very sad, because she tells with all the detail the terrible time that her family was going through and the police couldn't find Mr. Harvey in time.

Bárbara