Reading and Writing Portfolio 4 Reading book reviews Reviewing a novel Wirting book reviews: organisation, useful phrases Review character adjectives; verb forms Read these reviews quickly. What connects the two books? They are both: written by journals. based on true stories. Cameron Crowe: Almost Famous © about real people. i Fend the eviews ageln and Fauick Reviews choose the best answer CAMERON CROWE was once a teenage reports or Co eae eae the famous America Tne man characteris Wii Mill 815-Yor © ves a ours. roel Aimost Famous. The mai ® was ina band naga who i hired by Rolin Stor worn unknown band a fe anton. crows wring DN ur with an 1e magazine to go on tO lace alloverthe 2 Willam goes on tour with interesting and believable, a famous group. ‘Te book lao includes an interview with Crowe abouts | b The Roling Stones. | adventurous life and he explains some of the m | © anew group the story. | oughtful inted by this book. The ending is thous! 3 The reviewer of Almost Famous ‘You will not be disappointed by Pieitine ‘otional and I'm going to remember it for and em« particularly likes athe end of the story » the interview with Cameron Crowe. © thetitle, PIM: 4 Henry James wrote ‘a Author! Author! eesrveres: David Lodge Author! Author! © a book about Nicole Kidman, 111916, Henry James, the famous author, was seriously in his home 5. The reviewer thinks Author! in London. He was waiting to de. And this is where David Lodge's Author! Re "storcal novel Author! Author! begins. Ledge tls the story of Henry eaten James’ successes and failures in his novels and plays from Portrait ¢ has a strange title. of a Lady (recently afm with Nicole Kidman) to his disaster. ‘ofa play, Guy Domvite, 6 On holiday, the reviewer is going . to read ‘Author! Author! again some more David Lodge Author! Author! would make an interesting historical fm, The title Isoif's fantastic and refers to what audiences used to shout if they tiked a play. Lodge's novel isa sensitive story ofan author who was books. ee ever confident of hi talent. And Honry James wil get many more =e: fans from people who read this book. Im going to take a couple of his novels on holiday myself{HELP WITH WRITING Book reviews: organisation, useful phrases Both reviews contain four parts, which each have a different function. Put parts a-d in the order they occur in the reviews. ‘a Recommendation: 4 » Plt: Introduction tothe story: 4. General comments: The reviews use different verb forms for the different parts. Match parts a-d in 3 to 1-3. 1. past verb forms: _¢ 2 present verb forms: _, 3 willbe going to: ‘The reviews contain some useful phrases for reviewing books. Match parts of phrases 1-6 to a-f and then find similar phrases in the reviews, 1. The book tals: a character 2 The main b really good and refers to 3. The tite is © agood film because 4 The story takes: 1d isamazing/disappointing 5 The ending 2 the story of 6 It would make 1 place in Complete this review with the correct verb forms. Remember the four parts of a review in 3 and the different verb forms in 4. eae About 10 years ago,1* went (go) skiing in Labti, Finland. And this was the reason that The Lahti File by Richard MacAndrew (Cambridge English Readers) * (attract) my attention. 13 also (learn) English atthe moment, and this book is written especially for students ‘The novel + (take) place in Finland, and MacAndrew 5 (describe) the town of Lahti very well. The main character ® (be) a spy called lan Munro, He's sent to Lahti to investigate several strange deaths, ‘The audio version of the book 7 {be) also available as an mp3 download. If you want to practise your English more, there ® (be) worksheets on the Cambridge University Press website If you like a good thriller, you 8 (love) The Lahti File, The ending is very exciting and there are several other books featuring Ian Munro in the series. "© (read) them all! Rewrite these sentences using the word in brackets, 1. Atthe end, the story is amazing. (ending) The ending is amazing. 2. The book is about a young boy who has no parents. (ts) 3. The most important person in the book is Jack. (main) 4. The story happens in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (place) think a fim version would be good because the book is so exciting. (make) 6 The name of the book is Loyal because of the relationship between the man and his dog. title; refer) Think about a book you have read recently and make notes in the table. title ofthe book some background Information takes place main characters general comments recommendation b Write a review of your book. © Use your notes from Ba. © Organise your review and use the verb forms in 4. © Use the phrases in 5, © Read and check for mistakes. © Give your review to your teacher next class. Tick the things you can do in English in the Reading and Writing Progress Portfolio, p88.