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LISTENING COMPREHENSION -B2 (wrzesień)

And finally, for those of you who are staying at home this bank holiday weekend, two books that you won’t be able to put down. The first is a novel that has become something of an obsession for reading groups around the country sińce winning the Orange Prize for fiction last year. It is quite an unusual book in morę than one way. The author is called Lionel, but she is a woman, and much morę importantly, its story has a theme that confronts one of our oldest surviving taboos - a rełationship of dislike, even of hatred, between mother and son. It is: We Need to TalkAbout Kevin. Lionel Shriver found it difficult to have it published, but when it appeared, it immediately attracted compulsive readers in huge numbers. Though if s told in the form of letters and recollections, the book has breakneck pace and suspensę, and I can safely say, for those of you who don’t know it yet, that Kevin, who’s the figurę at the centre of it all, is guilty of a school massacre in the United States, like the one at Columbine. He is now in prison and his story is also the story of his mother Eva. There are other plot surprises, which perhaps we should withhold and will, but that is the setting for their rełationship, which is the real subject of this story. It’s a very upsetting book, but one that seems to have a magnetic power. Certainly, if s one that our readers will be unable to react to in a neutral way. If s a novel that inspires passions.

Back on the right side of the law we have the second book - the latest by Scot Turów. His attempts to get published in the earły 70’s left him so disappointed that he took a law degree instead. Ironically, it was a book detailing his experiences as a youngster in his first year of studies at Harvard Law School that paved the way for a lucrative and much-praised writing career, and he’s combined both jobs ever sińce. As of today, he’s written six bestsellers, the most famous of which,

Presumed Innocent was also a Hollywood hit for Harrison Ford. Turow’s high-ąuality legał thrillers all take advantage of his day job, by featuring a lawyer at the heart of the action. The latest - Ordinary Heroes - is no exception in that respect, but if s an involving tale of two Americans playing cat and mouse in the closing months of World War II that takes him into new territory. The story centers on a miłitary lawyer, David Dubin, and Robert Martin, the war hero he’s under orders to detain. And of course there’s a woman - the glamorous French Resistance fighter Gita, who captures the hearts of both men. If s a story that not only offers a page-turning adventure, but addresses important questions about the impact of war on the human soul, our desperate determination to cling to life at all costs, and the true naturę of heroism. The book contains a horrific description of a concentration camp. Scott Turów wrote the book using his own fathefs war diaries. Ordinary Heroes is published by Picador.

While neither of today’s choices can really be considered light reading, they will surely keep your interest to the last page. That’s all we’ve got time for today. Enjoy the weekend, we’11 be back on Tuesday.