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vodkafan

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  1. I watched about half hour of the new live action Jungle Book. Things started to go wrong for me right at the start because Mowgli didn't look Indian enough and spoke with an American accent. Then things just seemed to get worse with the animals all having the wrong voices. When I got to Bhaloo and his voice was also wrong I couldn't stand it any more.
  2. Catching up on films lately! I saw Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 A success for me. More of the same without being a formula. Ripping fun. Central Intelligence (mediocre) Daddy's Home (funny- about the only film I like starring Will Ferrell) A Monster Calls (my kids were riveted to the screen the whole time- I thought it was OK but couldn't get into it 100%) Passengers . (from the trailer I had a completely different idea of what it was going to be about. So I was really pleased when it turned out to be a "love story in space". A simple plot with a moral dilemma, but plenty enough danger and action. I enjoyed it very much . It stands up as SF and as a mainstream film, in my opinion.
  3. Welcome! Hmmm certainly a bit of a spread there. The fact that you don't have a specific genre does make it a bit harder to recommend I do agree with you about Stephen King though, I could never get into his writing. Maybe sticking with the crime thrillers, how about Donna Leon and her Brunetti series of books? I can also recommend the Millenium trilogy (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)
  4. Hmm. Not too much I can compare them with. The one I read is very lightweight and extremely improbable (if you know anything about Victorian times), but fun. I guess I would compare it with the Amelia Peabody series or the Miss Anna Dean whodunnits
  5. My mojo has come back with a vengeance, and I am reading loads at the moment. The trouble is, they are not books off my TBR pile, they are just ones I keep finding laying around places. So far this week I have devoured Mrs Jefferies Reveals Her Art by Emily Brightwell , Stir Fry by Emma Donohue and Man Walking On Eggshells by Herbert Simmons.
  6. Are you back now Angury? How did you enjoy India overall?
  7. Necropolis London and its Dead 4/5 Catharine Arnold A pretty informative and exciting read about London and how it dealt with disposing of its dead over the ages. I was most interested in the part dealing with the Victorian age but the whole book was good. It made me think about our modern relationship with death (we are now basically afraid of it and ignore it) and how it was different in times past. Some of the stuff is so surreal you could not make it up: dravediggers dropping dead in deep graves because of the gas from bodies in the soil, and the weird story of poor Catherine De Valois, wife of Henry V, who was left laying about as a mummy in a corner of Westminster Abbey for a couple of hundred years (Samuel Pepys picked her up and kissed her on the lips in 1669!) I have only a couple of criticisms: one is that the author made a mistake with dates at one point in the text (which should have been corrected by the proof reader, as the error was so obvious) and the other is that three times she referred to the Black Death as a virus . This is really very sloppy, it is very well known that the vector of Bubonic Plague is a Bacterium, Yersinia Pestis. But, aside from this, the book is a good addition to round out my collection of books both about London and of Victorian times.
  8. A Gull On The Roof 3/5 Derek Tangye This is subtitled "Tales from a Cornish Flower Farm". It is the true story of the author and his wife, celebrated socialites in 1950s London, who were sick of the false emptiness of their lifestyle and wanted to get away from it all. It was always a pipe dream to move to Cornwall and live a more rural life, and one year on holiday they saw a 500 year old derelict cottage on a clifftop and decided to go for it. They persuaded the owner of the land to rent it to them and some adjacent clifftop fields. They knew full well that the owner believed that they would give up before a year was out and he would get a renovated cottage out of the bargain, which made them determined to succeed. The land was fairly useless and was open to the salt laden air from the sea and at the mercy of the weather, but they decided to become potato and flower growers. This first book of a series documents the ups and downs (mostly downs !) of their first year. They had no children but their red cat Monty was a full member of the family. Anyone who likes animals (or Cornwall) will like this book. It was strangely gripping in a gentle quiet way. I only picked this up because I had nothing else to hand and thought I would read a few pages, but I had to keep reading for the next small victory or catastrophe, and to see if they were accepted by the peculiar insular Cornish people, who seem hardly English at all .
  9. My kids love that film for some reason, I find it so boring and implausible!
  10. Just so long as you don't start to feel the need to have a go at a murder yourself next time you are in similar circumstances
  11. The book is sort of on hold until my health gets more under control Janet, thanks for asking!
  12. I might give this one a go! Thanks Janet
  13. Very promising! It must be almost compulsory for someone to be murdered during a blizzard.
  14. I think I would read another Margaret Yorke murder mystery if it came into my hands. I will check your blog in future to see if you have read any!
  15. Thanks Athena. It doesn't hurt to read outside my normal boundaries once in a while. But I really need to make a dent in my proper TBR pile next month!
  16. I have this book but haven't read it yet. Like Frankie, when I was young I read whatever I wanted and don't feel it did me any harm. If I read something that I wasn't adult enough to understand the concepts of then I would leave it. Sometimes I would go back to it a couple of years later when I had "connected the dots" and sometimes I wouldn't. If she has expressed an interest in the book, why don't you both read it and then you can discuss it with her if she wants to?
  17. Lies We Tell Ourselves 4/5 Robin Talley This was in my opinion a good YA novel. I got it for my daughter. It was engaging and quite disturbing in places. The year is 1959 in rural Virginia and schools are integrating. Ten black students are attending the all white Jefferson High School. They are basically being thrown to the wolves. There is a real sense of menace and danger here. As they span all year groups, there is usually only one in a class. It is one thing for adults to have to confront such situations, but eleven, twelve year olds? It is something I had not previously thought about and it was a shock to know it really happened. (The author includes some historical notes at the back of the book) The main black character is Sarah, who is in the final year. She has been promised a place at college in Washington and only has to get through these few months. She soon comes up against Linda, the white daughter of the town's most obnoxious segregationist. Despite their differences, they are curiously attracted to each other and a friendship starts to build up that neither can acknowledge even to themselves. They think they might be gay. So, this is a novel that is about confronting and breaking down various sorts of prejudice. The children are in some ways pawns of their parents on both sides of the civil rights divide. The plot does have some weak points, which is why I couldn't award a 5/5. . The strong points are the dialogue between the two main characters as they work out political differences. The principal characters are quite well rounded and complex for a YA novel in my opinion. Linda has to make the greatest changes to her world view, and it realistically doesn't happen all at once. Linda is not completely obnoxious, as she does look after and protect her naive friend Judy who has a portwine birthmark . Sarah's younger sister is a good character who is strong in her own way, and the difference of just a couple of years in age gives her a totally different perspective on the situation.
  18. The Secret Of Annexe 3 2/5 Colin Dexter A murder in a hotel . Inspector Morse is on the case. In this novel though the first chapter gives the reader who the murderer is, so what's going on? The delight of reading Inspector Morse is the banter between the grumpy sleuth and his sidekick Lewis, and the way they unravel how the dastardly deed was done, rather than who. There is a good twist about 2/3 of the way in , but then So only 2/5.
  19. Gone Tomorrow 2/5 Killing Floor 2/5 Lee Child My daughter said I should read me some Jack Reacher. Well I tried. I read them in the wrong order but they were pretty much of a muchness to be honest. Gone Tomorrow was the more readable in terms of making me want to know what the mystery was, but it flagged a bit in the middle plot wise then got interesting again at the end. The Reacher character is not infallible and he does make mistakes, so I didn't feel the ending is a forgone conclusion. I read Killing Floor in two sittings, half on the train down to London and half on the train back next day. So only a three hour read, because it was very linear and I didn't need to think about it much. I won't be reading any more of these.
  20. The 100 1/5 Kass Morgan I started this YA book, got half way through and gave up on it, then finished it last night while cooking dinner as it was still laying about. First off in it's defence I have to say that I am not the readership it is intended for. But, that's as far as I can go in defending it because it was abysmal. The SF component is minimal. The story is entirely teenage level about who is in love with who and who hurt who's feelings by kissing someone else. The flashbacks are annoying and the administration decisions of the spaceship colony don't make any sense.
  21. April has been a really mixed bag. Have read one great book and some that I would not have normally picked up at all. Very behind on reviews.
  22. Just watched Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them . Enjoyed it.
  23. Finished Songs Of The Dying Earth. I must thank Hayley for what has been a magical reading experience I have enjoyed to the fullest. I will review this and a couple of other books Saturday to bring my reviews right up to date.
  24. I agree that his dialogue was good. I really enjoy the language of the time. When you read a book by a modern author set in Victorian times they often get things wrong. His monologues though can be endless, I have to admit. He will just sometimes go off on one and get all philosophical for several pages. But it only usually happens once in a book. Demos was quite clever. A good study on character. That one is set outside London for most of the book. Thyrza has some very touching moments, although the titular character seems a little bit ethereal at times. Will Warburton is a lighter story with comic moments if you are finding Gissing a bit bleak. Our Friend The Charlatan has a wicked streak if you like to see someone get their just desserts
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