SM

I snapped up this book firstly because of Ivan Brunetti's lovely illustrations on the book cover. But my secondhand copy of this 2011 edition is worth having just for the introduction by Lev Grossman, Time magazine book critic and author. In it, he compares Willy Wonka's chocolate factory to “Dante's Inferno, and to the Mines of Moria dug by the dwarves in The Lord of the Rings.” Unlike those places,

“Wonka's underworld isn't a hellish underworld. It's an inverted paradise. The dwarves, Tolkien wrote, “dug too greedily and too deep,” and they were punished for it: they disturbed the sleep of the terrible Balrog. But in Dahl's imagination the rules are reversed. He gives us the impression that Wonka can dig as greedily and deep as he likes, and things will just keep getting better.”

it is only when he gives in to buying a second candy bar, with money he doesn't really have, that Dahl rewards him with the Golden Ticket.

Found this title while looking up actual Chinese-English dictionaries. It was very amusing and engrossing for the first half of the book and then the pace slowed down (for me, anyway) along with the lovers' ardour for each other. I liked the observations of the differences between east/west culture, told through the main character's gradually improving English. I'd enjoy re-reading this.

A very quick read for pointers on how to unlock creativity. Nothing really groundbreaking here, but put together like this, it's a great start for anyone needing a kick in the butt to pursue their ideas or get unstuck. There are fun reflection exercises and the book (printed in $ingapore!) is beautifully produced with thoughtful and surprising typography and illustrations.

Good read. But I thought the title didn't have much to do with the real story, which (I feel) is more about a family coping with life in a different country that happens to be ‘less developed'. I don't think the protagonist even fully grasps what ‘democracy' is, yet. The more interesting story for me was the roles the main character had to play within her family and all the accompanying emotional struggles. Everything else was just... kind of background.