Anna Begins

This was also in the news, last week: Orwellian fiction and reality appeared to blur into one on Sunday when reports suggested that an Egyptian undergraduate had been arrested for possessing a copy of Nineteen Eighty- four. A student identified only as Mohamed T had been caught in possession of the book at Cairo University, where a year-long wave of anti-government protests has seen several students killed by police, dozens expelled and hundreds sent to jail. Government critics have likened the country’s return to strongman rule to the book’s plot. Police said, they were unaware of its literary significance, and had instead accused him of filming security forces without their permission. “None of us knows anything about this novel in the first place,” Mahmoud Farouk, the local investigations chief, claimed to a Cairo-based news website. In Egypt, the regime claims to have seized power to save democracy and says its authoritarianism will build a freer future – an argument Orwell pre-empted more than 65 years ago when he wrote that many regimes in history “pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal”. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/10/egyptian-student-arrested-1984-orwell

Before Mockingjay tonight, I saw this preview for Project Almanac, that will be out in January 2015, could be good or really bad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yih-CxTWsw

Ok... I will say Mockingjay is just as good as Hunger Games and Catching Fire. I sat straight up in my seat with my knuckles to my mouth for about 1/3 of the movie. Lots of Finnick and Gale , no surprise as the movie follows the book closely, just like with the other two. The 3 movie marathon in the cinema, was really fun! I thought by the middle of Catching Fire I'd be weary and be wanting to go, but nope! I hung on through 8 hours of Hunger Games with 2 intermissions! Oh- and I feel the need to add- LionsGate showed their sorry excuse for an Insurgent trailer... ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ql1T41Jw5U )

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/thai-exhibitor-pulls-mockingjay-from-theaters-103128672222.html The Hunger Games have returned to Thailand, but probably not in the way some people would have hoped. Five university students were arrested in the country on Wednesday for flashing the franchise’s signature three-fingered salute at the country’s Prime Minister during an official government event ahead of the opening of the film in the country on Thursday. Hours later, local cinema chain Apex Group, which was scheduled to start screening The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 in its theaters on Thursday, announced that it had pulled the film’s release. The company told the Bangkok Post that it wasn’t pressured by the government, but “did not want to become embroiled in a political movement.” According to local paper The Nation, the five were taken to a nearby military camp for “attitude adjustment.” A local human rights lawyer told the Bangkok Post that the students were forced to sign a document promising not to engage in political activity, under threat of further detainment and expulsion from the law school where they study. Pro-democracy activists began using the franchise’s memorable protest gesture as an act of defiance during Thailand’s military coup in May. At the time, the military junta threatened to arrest anyone who was caught using it.

Ok, I admit I am dragging my feet on The Death Cure because the end is near and I don't want it to end. I also do most of my reading outside and I am so cold, I am wearing a scarf inside the house. I might try and finish Matt Haig's The Humans today, but I am going to that Hunger Games movie marathon at the cinema today, so I won't have that much time... I should get started!

I just bough John Grisham's A Time to Kill, Ken Follett's Fall of Giants and Stephen King's Under the Dome for $2.99 each!

Tomorrow, a day ahead of the official release of Mockingjay, a local cinema will be showing Hunger Games, Catching Fire and then Mockingjay all as one package ticket! I get to go and am so excited!

I finished James Dashner's The Scorch Trials and started the third and final book in the Maze Runner series, The Death Cure. It's going as quickly as the others have. I've got about 18 chapters or so left (the chapters are short) and I don't want it to end! I might end up reading the prequel, The Kill Zone, after all. If I can't hang, at least I've got Gaia I think I am off to buy some books, I am feeling like I need too

I'm hoping by tonight I am quite busy today though! Doctors, nails and school, hopefully in that order. Now I am running late lol....

Thanks, I read a little more than 1/2 yesterday!

Me too!

Well, not the best "chick lit" book you've read, but a good review and at least you enjoyed some of it! What's up next?

Yes! We'd be happy to chat with you about it! Maybe after Revival... how's that going by the way?

I can't wait to read it, honestly. My dad has read it, long ago. I've always wanted to read Shogun.

I agree about her hair and when I saw her on the Hollywood Film Awards, I was wondering about it, if she just cut it, wore extensions or it was just short because she was getting the award for FiOS.

Title: The Scorch Trials Maze Runner series #2) Author: James Dashner Pages: 370 Genre: Science fiction/ dystopian Age Range: YA Dates: 11/13- 11/17 Book # 68 for 2014 From Amazon (partial): Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. Thomas was sure that escape from the Maze would mean freedom for him and the Gladers. But WICKED isn’t done yet. Phase Two has just begun. The Scorch. My thoughts: Dropping you right back into the sense of nervous calm left at the end of The Maze Runner, James Dashner's The Scorch Trials has you already feeling goose bumps as you know not all is right in the dormitory where a handful of left over teenage boys from The Maze slumber. And so begins a chain of events that lead them to a new test. And no, Dashner doesn't have you weary of their troubles or tired of the Trials. In fact, you skim the next Chapter just to make sure a beloved character is still alive or just to find out how the current Chapter will end, scan to the end of pages in the hope of a glimmer of what is next. What is The Scorch? And when will the Trials finally end? I assure you, as soon as this review is finished, I will be headed off to read the third book in the Quartet, The Death Cure. Recommended.

I'm finished! And I loved your review- I am having a hard time with mine! I don't really know what to say. The Epilogue was almost, almost the most screwed up part of it all!! Definitely in the mind frame to continue... in fact, I am going to start on The Death Cure right now!

A trailer is out for Insurgent You've got to be kidding me. https://screen.yahoo.com/divergent-series-insurgent-trailer-092910175.html

Edit for the spoiler.

I'm scared to peek *nail bitting* lol Ok

Oryx and Crake is as bizarre as its name and I almost finished the trilogy (It is first in the MaddAddam trilogy, which made my head spin). I haven't read Cat's Eye, but Atwood and I have had a little tango this year and if it is anything like her other novels, it will be strange. I think most people probably start off with the easier and more popular, The Handmaid's Tale.

Ok now I'm on Chapter 50 and I have to go to school! I don't want to stop! I think I like Scorch Trials better than Maze Runner too.

Ugh- I'm at my moms and always read outside. BUT today it is so cold (40F, 4C) I can't go out/ don't want to go out. It's throwing a major kink in my reading. What's going on in Scorch Trials where you are, Devi? Wait! Don't tell me that you might be farther along than I! lalalalalala

Have you made it through her MaddAddam series or read Oryx and Crake? I can't wait to get to Revival, I'm totally stalking you The Maze Runner series is going much faster than I thought, so it looks like I might get to it in December! Hey- maybe by then, the price will have gone down...