World Book Day 2025

 The World Book Day badge has a lot of appeal (like all of the monthly badges), and it was a little difficult to try to decide which clauses to do. However, I had to be sensible, and think about what I could realistically manage - and as reading is one of my ‘winding down’ activities at night, I knew I would struggle to get through lots of books. 

The first book I read was ‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck - a book on the banned reading list. I chose it as it is quite a short book. The language used in it about black people is one of the reasons it is on the banned list. Another reason is the depiction of what George does at the end of the story - which could be argued to be an act of love for his friend - the end result was always going to be the same, but George’s actions were perhaps a kinder way of doing it. 

Another clause asked us to read a book which was then made into a film, then watch the film and compare. I chose to read ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ by John le Carré. In the film the characters are the same as are in the book, and their roles generally are the same - there is a mole in the Circus, and George Smiley has to work out who it is. However, some of the locations where the action takes place have changed - the secret mission is carried out in Hungary rather than Czechoslovakia, Ricky Tarr was in Turkey rather than Hong Kong; we don’t get much of an idea about the personality of the characters, or the unravelling of a very clever knot. Some of the differences are that in the film Jerry Westerby is the night duty officer, and Bill Roach seems quite an insignificant character. At the end of the film, as part of the special features on the DVD, there is an interview with John le Carré which I found very interesting - as he stated that the film maker’s job was to make a film of the film - not a film of the book, and he had a small role in the film and was one of the Executive Producers. ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ is one of my favourite books and so it was only natural that I would have the DVD of the television series, which I watch at least once a year. The series sticks to the book a lot more closely - even using a lot of the dialogue; there are some small changes - Ricky Tarr’s assignment is in Portugal rather than Hong Kong, Max doesn’t appear in the series at all. All in all the series is much closer to the book than the film.