Part One

The Book Report

For classes of literature or of extensive reading, book reports may be assigned to students by teachers who want to find out how the students are doing with the reading assignments or how well they understand those books. As a matter of fatc, many conscientious students write book reports of their own will, because, as they have discovered, writing book reports can help them improve their reading comprehension and enhance their ability to analyze the story and the characters.

Generally speaking, a book report is usually composed of three major parts. They are:

information about the writer (his name, the books he has published, the years of his birth and death, the publisher of the book)
asummary of the book (the story and main characters)
some comments on the book (personal interpretation of the meaning of the book)

When giving the information about the writer, the student writer should include some historical and social background to which the book is related. To make things clear, the student writer should read some reference materials, such as biographies of the writer and histories of the period in which the book was written.

As we have mentioned in the previous part, a book report should contain a summary of the book under discussion. The summary should be concise, clear and easy to understand. The student writer should make sure that the summary be subjective and center on the major theme of the book. As for the tense of the book report, it depends on the subject matter of the book. If it is a novel or a play or a science fiction, the present tense is more appropriate while the past tense is required for nonfiction such as history books.

The third part and also the most important part of a book report is the comment. In this part, the student writer’s job is to evaluate the book according to his or her own personal interpretation and discuss the merits and demerits of the book, the social and/or historical significance of the book. If the student writer is competent enough to discuss the writing style of the author, he or she should feel free to do so.

Here are some samples:

Sample 1

The Mayor of Casterbridge is a novel written by Thomas Hardy and it was first published in 1886 in London by Macmilllan.

The setting of the story is in the 19^th century England and Henchard is the major character of the book.

Henchard was a hay worker when he was young and he sold his wife and daughter in a drunken state. Later, he succeeded in business and became a good mayor. When he decided to marry his love Lucetta, his ex-wife appeard. He remarried his ex-wife. After her death, he became much annoyed by the accidental discovery that Elizabeth, his daughter, was not his biological daughter. Meanwhile, his business partner, Farfrae, deserted him. Bankrupt and shameful, he was thrown into disorder and his indecent behavior began to spread. Treated indifferently by Elizabeth on her wedding day, Henchard left Casterbrdge and died in misery.

Henchard’s life experience was complicated and full of unexpected events. His tragedy can be said to have been brought about by his own character. His impulsiveness and jealousy caused his estrangement from his wife, daughter and his friends. He was isolated and doomed to suffer the consequences incurred by himself. From his point of view, we can conclude the Henchard was a typical representative of the old type peasant of the 19^th century England. He embodied the degenerating rural society and economy. He was honest and upright, but conservative and narrowminded. He was experienced in his hay trussing, but lacked the modern scientific knowledge and adminstrative ability. All these were the distinct characteristics of the peasants of his generation.

Farfrae, the former partner and later competitor of Henchard, on the other hand, represented the emerging new force of the countryside. He was intelligent, knowledgeable and open to new ideas. The competition between Henchard and Farfrae reflected the competition between the traditional and the modern ways of production. The conflict between them reflected that of the two generations. The failure and death of Henchard signaled an end to the traditional rural life and the backward mode of production.