Contents
About the Author…………………………………………………………………...6
About the book………………………………………………………………………8
Review………………………………………………………………………………..9
Pre-reading Tasks………………………………………………………………….10
CHAPTER ONE – MIRACLES…………………………………………………...11
CHAPTER TWO – GHOSTS……………………………………………………...14
CHAPTER THREE – REUNION…………………………………………………16
CHAPTER FOUR – PHONE CALLS…………………………………………….18
CHAPTER FIVE – KAYAKS AND FORGOTTEN DREAMS………………....20
CHAPTER SIX – SWANS AND STORM………………………………………..22
CHAPTER SEVEN – AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR……………………………25
CHAPTER EIGHT – WINTER FOR TWO………………………………………28
Control Tests on Words:…………………………………………………………..33
Test on Words from Chapters 1-4.……………………………………………….33
Test on Words from Chapters 5-8………………………………………………..38
Control Tasks on the Book Content……………………………………………...41
Watching the Movie:………………………………………………………………42
Part 1………………………………………………………………………………...42
Part 2………………………………………………………………………………...44
Movie Quiz…………………………………………………………………………46
Control Tasks on the Movie Content…………………………………………….55
Appendix I – How to Write an Essay……………………………………………56
Appendix II – Linking Words…………………………………………………….57
Appendix III – Word List for Film Summaries…………………………………59
Appendix IV – How to write a Character Analysis in 10 Easy Steps………...60
Appendix V - How to write a Film Review (Variant 1)………………………..62
Appendix VI - How to write a Film Review (Variant 2)……………………….64
Appendix VII - How to write a Book Review…………………………………..66
A bout the Author
Nicholas Charles Sparks was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on December 31, 1965, the second son of Patrick Michael (1942-1996) and Jill Emma Marie (Thoene) Sparks (1942-1989). His siblings are Michael Earl Sparks (b. Dec. 1964), and Danielle Sparks (b. Dec. 1966, d. June, 2000). As a child, he lived in Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Grand Island, Nebraska, finally settling in Fair Oaks, California, at the age of eight. His father was a professor, his mother a homemaker, then an optometrist’s assistant. He lived in Fair Oaks through high school, graduated valedictorian in 1984, and received a full track scholarship to the University of Notre Dame.
After breaking the Notre Dame school record as part of a relay team in 1985 as a freshman (a record which still stands), he was injured and spent the summer recovering. During that summer, he wrote his first novel, though it was never published. He majored in Business Finance and graduated with high honors in 1988.
He and his wife Catherine, who met on spring break in 1988, were married in July 1989. While living in Sacramento, he wrote his second novel that same year, though again, it wasn’t published. He worked a variety of jobs over the next three years, including real estate appraisal, waiting tables, selling dental products by phone, and started his own small manufacturing business which struggled from the beginning. In 1990, he collaborated on a book with Billy Mills, the Olympic Gold Medalist, and it was published by Feather Publishing before later being picked up by Random House. (It was later re-issued by Hay House Books.) Though it received scant publicity, sales topped 50,000 copies in the first year of release.
He began selling pharmaceuticals and moved from Sacramento, California to North Carolina in 1992. In 1994, at the age of 28, he wrote The Notebook over a period of six months. In October 1995, rights to The Notebook were sold to Warner Books. It was published in October 1996, and he followed that with Message in a Bottle (1998), A Walk to Remember (1999), The Rescue (2000), A Bend in the Road (2001), Nights in Rodanthe (2002), The Guardian (2003), The Wedding (2003), True Believer (2005), At First Sight (a sequel to True Believer) (2005), Dear John (2006), The Choice (2007), The Lucky One (2008), The Last Song (2009), Safe Haven (2010), The Best of Me (2011), and a non-fiction memoir, Three Weeks With My Brother (2004), written with his brother, Micah, all with Warner Books / Grand Central Publishing. All were domestic and international best sellers, with almost $80 million in worldwide sales, and were translated into more than 45 languages.
The film version of Message in a Bottle, starring Kevin Costner and Robin Wright, was released in 1999, A Walk to Remember, starring Mandy Moore, was released in January 2002, and The Notebook, starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, was released in June, 2004. Nights in Rodanthe, starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane, was released in September 2008. Dear John, starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, and The Last Song, starring Miley Cyrus and Greg Kinnear, were released in 2010 to great box office success. The Lucky One, starring Zac Efron, will be released on April 20, 2012.
His ancestry is German, Czech, English and Irish; he’s 5’10” and weighs 185lbs. He is an avid athlete who exercises daily. He attends church regularly and reads approximately 125 books a year. He contributes to a variety of local and national charities, and is a major contributor to the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame, where he provides scholarships, internships, and a fellowship annually. Along with his wife, he founded The Epiphany School in New Bern, North Carolina, and he spent five years coaching track and field athletes at the local public high school.
Nicholas lives in North Carolina with his wife and family.
(http://www.nicholassparks.com/about/biography)
About the book
T
he
Notebook
is a 1996 romantic novel by American novelist Nicholas Sparks, based
on a true story. The novel was later adapted into a popular romance
film of the same name, The
Notebook
(film), in 2004.
The novel was Nicholas Sparks' first published novel, and the third written after The Passing and The Royal Murders, which he did not publish. He wrote it over a period of six months in 1994. Literary agent Theresa Park discovered Sparks after picking the book out of her agency's slush pile. Park offered to represent him. In October 1995, Park secured a $1 million advance for the book from the Time Warner Book Group, and the novel was published in October 1997. It was on the New York Times best-seller list in its first week of release. The Notebook was a hardcover best seller for more than a year.
In interviews, Sparks said he was inspired to write the novel by the grandparents of his wife, who had been married for more than 60 years when he met them. In The Notebook, he tried to express the long love of that couple.
Review
When author Nicholas Sparks sat down to write THE NOTEBOOK, a tender love story inspired by the enduring relationship of his wife Cathy's grandparents, he wanted his readers to walk away with a renewed spirit of hope.
"I'll never forget watching those two people flirt," he recalls. "I mean, you don't see that very often. They'd been married 67 years, and yet they still loved each other. I wanted to write a book about that kind of love. I wanted people to know that unconditional love does exist."
So Sparks created THE NOTEBOOK, the simple story of Noah Calhoun, a soft spoken North Carolina outdoorsman who carried his love for the willowy Allie Nelson with him long after their youthful romance had ended. He paralleled Noah's silent passions with Allie's haunting thoughts – feelings she could not escape even after she became engaged to another man. He asked his readers to consider what it might mean if these relatively happy, middle-aged people found their destinies once again overlapped.
He presented a question all but universal in appeal: What would happen if two people were given a second chance at the love of a lifetime?
Sparks deftly answers that question. But it's the inspiration drawn from his real life grandparents that makes THE NOTEBOOK more than just a novel of flames reignited. The novel opens and closes with an elderly Noah Calhoun reading aloud from his personal journals and "notebooks." And as he shares the delicate details, the good with the bad, it's clear he is as enchanted with Allie in old age as he was on the day they met.
"And that's the legacy of THE NOTEBOOK," according to Nicholas Sparks. "When love is real, it doesn't matter what turns the road takes. When love is real, the joys and possibilities are endless."
Reviewed by Kelly Milner Halls on February 1, 2004.
(http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/the-notebook)
Pre-reading Tasks
Present the information about the author of the book, using the text given above or other different sources.
Try to find any other information and interesting facts concerning the creation of the novel The Notebook. Share it in class.
Find out other reviews in the Internet. Read them in class and discuss with your groupmates.