chesilbeach
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Posts posted by chesilbeach
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I have started reading Twilight and I am absolutely hooked
Excellent! Always great when someone sees the (sparkly) light
Your library is open!!!??!!! Mine is not open until tomorrow, has not been open since before Christmas *Cries*I guess it must have been! I must admit, I haven't been near it since before Christmas, as I do all my reservations online (more convenient and cheaper than in person), and I just visit to collect the books when I get an email to say they're in.
Well yesterday I started and finished Scorpia by Anthony Horowitz and it was great re-read. Now to his new one that happened to wander into my basket not so long ago.
I loved the new one, Ben! Just as good as all the rest of the Alex Rider stories
As for me, well, I'll be reading more of Moral Disorder today.
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Twilight's on while I'm doing other stuff so not really concentrating on it, but it's great background noise!
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AAARGH! You guys are killing me. I've never seen Gilmore Girls, but all this talk of Rory and her reading list, frankie's avatar and all the snack foods, and I'm now hunting out where I can get the DVD's (as they're currently only showing series 5 over here as far as I can see), so that I can go back, start from the beginning and see what this is all about!
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Forgive me for being such a fangirl here, but I'm going to spout off about my feelings on RTD the scriptwriter. Although I agree that RTD didn't write the best episode of Doctor Who ever, I would like to defend him as I think he has written some great ones in the past. However, it is interesting that from what I understand, the scripts I think are his best, are also the ones he apparently had to deliver in very tight timescales and mostly with small budgets. My three favourites are Boom Town from series one, and Tooth and Claw and Love and Monsters from series two. Boom Town was a last minute script which had to be low cost and I thought was an incredibly thought provoking piece on the moral dilemmas facing the Doctor. Tooth and Claw was written in the space of a week when another script had to be dropped, and I think has almost everything I want in a Doctor Who episode - scary monster, comic moments, lots of running and a thrilling plot. Love and Monsters was the first "Doctor-lite" episode due to the last minute inclusion of a Christmas special that year, meaning they had to film 14 episodes in the time allotted for 13. I know it really divides opinion, but I think it is a fantastic moment of reflection on the consequences of coming into contact with our great hero.
And this leaves me with an issue with the series to come this year. I think RTD wrote too many scripts in the series he has been in charge of, and that he had too much control over his own work, leading to these supposed "epic" finales, which I think for the most part, were too big on budget and effects and trying to impress, and not about the story and the characters. The best scripts from all of the new series so far, have come from other writers, who have been limited to one story each (in my opinion, the top two writers have been Steven Moffat and Paul Cornell). So, the probiem I have is that will one of my favourite writers be able to deliver the same level of scripts and stories he's produced in the single stories he's written in previous series, or will he spread himself too thin in his time as head writer? For the first time since the launch of the new series, I have been trying to avoid looking at the news and forums around Doctor Who, as I want to be surprised and (hopefully) delighted when the new series with the new Doctor starts, but this means I have no idea how many scripts Moffat himself is writing, or who the other writers are. I hope that Paul Cornell will be writing a new story and that Moffat sets himself limits better than RTD has done, but I have such high hopes for him, I worry that I'm setting him up for a fall in my own eyes.
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I read the book in my late teens and don't really remember it very well, except that I know I was glad to get to the end, and couldn't understand why this was a supposed classic book.
However, I've just seen on IMDB that Baz Luhrmann has a new film version of this "In Development". Luhrmann is my favourite director, so if he is going to make this film, I know I'm going to have to think about adding a re-read of this to my TBR list, although at least it's unlikely to be out until at least next year, if not two or three years time, so that will give me plenty of time to schedule the reading time in!
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I didn't really mind the self-indulgence. I thought it wrapped everything up nicely
and let us see some well-liked characters for possibly the last time, so I liked it. I would have liked Donna's wedding to have been the last "visit" though.
I still think it would have been better if
Rose had never come back. For me, the return appearances have taken away from the awesome emotional ending to series two (which has me in floods of tears every single time).
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Read the first couple of chapters of Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood this evening, and also got an email to say my reserved copy of Men of the Otherworld has arrived at the library
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PDC Darts semi-finals.
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(even Billie Piper had got rid of that annoying lisp)
Yes, but it was supposed to be
a meeting before she ever met the Doctor, and yet she looked far too old for that. In the Doctor Who timeline, it was meant to be just before she meets the ninth Doctor for the first time, so why not give her back her trademark make up (the big black eyes and pale lipstick) and a wig which was obvious dyed blonde with dark roots, instead of giving her a more natural looking, mature look? And, as a director who worked with her at the very beginning, why not ask her to try and raise the pitch of her voice as it was in the early series as well?
And, there is no way I think
Mickey would have married Martha or vice versa
. Sorry, but that's just not believable to me.
I would rather have left it with one final visit back to
Donna's wedding
and left it at that. Even more evidence that this was self indulgent on RTDs behalf to
bring back all "his" characters.
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It's morning. For now, night is over. It's time for the bad news.
Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood
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Gavin and Stacey - The Out-takes
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This thread in the Fiction section has some useful tips on writing book reviews
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Once by Morris Gleitzman
I hope you like it, Janet - I thought it was excellent
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I'm another convert thanks to the likes of Kell, Charm and Paula! I've read all the Women of the Otherworld and the first two of Darkest Powers trilogy since July, and am completely hooked!
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Title: Missing: Missing You
Author: Meg Cabot (writing as Jenny Carroll)
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Synopsis (from blurb on book cover):
All Jessica Mastriani ever wanted was to be normal. But a walk home on a particularly stormy night changed all that. Struck by lightning, Jess suddenly developed psychic powers - and the ability to find anyone, anywhere, dead or alive.
Her newfound talent made her invaluable to the US government, but her work for them took a terrible toll. Now back home, aged nineteen, and with her power gone, Jess is Lightning Girl no more. Starting again in a new town, intent of finding a new life, she's less than happy when her ex, Rob Wilkins, shows up at her door, begging for her help in finding his long-lost sister. But how can Jess find anyone - let alone the sister of the man she once loved - when she can't even find herself?
Review:
There was a five year gap between the fourth and fifth books in this series being published, and the dedication indicates that it was encouragement from her readership that made Meg Cabot write the final instalment for Jess. In story terms, it's three years in the last book finished, and Jess has been through a hell it's hard to imagine, and finds herself adrift in her own life, when ex-boyfriend Rob turns up to ask for help.
I think this was a great end to the series, allowing our heroine to grow up and find out what she wants from her life, but also allowing us readers to get closure on Jess's story. On top of that, knowing the readership is likely to be mostly young, impressionable teens, Meg Cabot writes about a pretty tough storyline involving a fifteen year old girl, and some of the dangers that can be out there in today modern world, but never is there anything graphic or truly nasty for them to have to deal with, more just a warning tale of what might happen.
And in addition to that,
I'm a sucker a happy ending
!
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After an enforced change of plans for this weekend, had more free time than expected and have finished the final Missing book this afternoon. Need to read one of my book group books next, so will be either Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood or The Way I Found Her by Rose Tremain. Both are authors I've been wanting to read more of, and can't make up my mind which to start first.
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I'm going to be the voice of dissent here, but I didn't enjoy the book much at all. I found Queenie irritating in the extreme, and although I learnt a lot about the plight of people who found themselves bombed out of their homes during the blitz, I was pretty much underwhelmed by the book on the whole.
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The reading group I meet with had read The Poisonwood Bible in one of the months before I joined, and it was apparently one of the few books that everyone agreed was excellent and they all loved, so I think I will probably read it at some point, but it's never jumped out at me in the bookshop or the library, so it might be a while before I get to it.
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I've done my first design for the bookmark stitch-a-long, but I just used a standard spreadsheet programme. To try to get the right shape to the letters, I typed the text in a font like the one I wanted and saved it as a small jpeg, then zoomed in on the image so it became pixelated, and it was easier to see how to create the right shapes using the stitches.
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The Darts quarter finals from earlier today.
I'm catching up with last nights matches now. Phil Taylor is a legend.
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Finished the fourth Missing book by Meg Cabot this morning, and will move onto the fifth and final book in the series today. A good fun diversion before it's back to work on Monday
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Title: Missing: Sanctuary
Author: Meg Cabot (writing as Jenny Carroll)
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Rating: 3/5
Synopsis (from blurb on book cover):
Sixteen-year-old Jess Mastriani knew she couldn't hide her psychic powers from the US Government forever. Now they want her to join a unit of "specially gifted" crime solvers headed up by one of their agents.
However much Jess want to use her visions to find missing people, she's not prepared to go missing herself while on some 'classified' FBI project. But when a local boy disappears, Jess decides it's better the devil you know - anything to help find him. Can she and her would-be boyfriend Rob help unit a community and save a life - without losing their own?
Review:
I'm enjoying this series of books a lot, but even I think the denouement of this story is a bit too far fetched. I've mentioned before how grounded Meg Cabot usually makes her characters, and the only minor complaint I have about this fourth book in the series, is that the home life takes too much of a back seat while the ramped up action is a bit too unbelievable. However, this is really a minor quibble, and it's still a punchy story keeping me entertained nicely.
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Kylie, I suspect you have the most impressive TBR list we'll ever see here, and so well organised! Happy reading
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Planet of the Dead was my favourite, and I although I know what you mean about the lonely doctor theme, I did still think The Waters of Mars was a great piece of drama, and well written to boot, but The End Of Time was just a mess as far as I'm concerned, and pure self indulgence on RTD's part.
The last DVD you watched? (Cont..)
in Music / TV / Films
Posted
BBC Pride & Prejudice Episode 5