Last week’s reading:
My first Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs, is a refreshing revelation. Moore’s highly individualistic writing style, all quirky similes and metaphors, laced with lyricism, is nothing like what I tend to read. As with other stylistic writers like Cormac McCarthy, I found the going slow because I needed to roll the [...]
Last week’s reading:
Parrot and Olivier in America is Peter Carey at his most exuberant, wild almost. Recounting the fictional tale of the trip to the new, troubling democratic nation of the United States of America by French nobleman Olivier-Jean-Baptist de Clarel de Barfleur and an artistic servant thrust upon him, John ‘Parrot’ Larrit. Carey succeeds marvellously in retelling [...]
Last week’s reading:
‘What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?’: Jimmy Carter, America’s ‘Malaise,’ and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country is an intriguing single-topic book by Kevin Mattson, an Ohio historian. He tells the story of the critical speech given by Carter on July 15, 1979, covering the energy crisis causing [...]
Three films over the last year captured my heart because, I belatedly recognized, they’re set in the 1960s music scene. Make no mistake, The Boat that Rocked, Taking Woodstock, and Nowhere Boy are all superbly crafted movies, but what tugged at my emotions was their overt affection for the period. Nostalgia had struck me!
Nostalgia is [...]
Last week’s reading:
Robert Harris’s Lustrum is the second of two novels recounting the life of Roman philosopher/orator/lawyer/politician Cicero. Harris can write smoothly and entertainingly about any subject, modern or ancient, Lustrum being a good example. It’s an enjoyable and intriguing read, although the five-year period covered by this book is telescoped at the end, at [...]
For a stay-at-home reader like me, seeing two films each week, one hundred annually, represents a major challenge, one I’m only gradually tackling. Even a hundred movies a year is barely sufficient for one to aspire to be a film fan. Over 2009, I managed to view 54 current or near-current movies, so I guess [...]
The brilliant book Mao’s Last Dancer, Li Cunxin’s memoir of childhood conscription by the Chinese state into ballet boot camp redeemed by defection and global stardom, was always going to be tough to translate to celluloid. Cunxin’s life story has so many turning points ripe for saccharine treatment – a Hollywood blockbuster approach would have ruined [...]
After two affectionate filmic glimpses into the turbulent late Sixties – The Boat that Rocked and Taking Woodstock – An Education took me back slightly further, to pre-hippy England in 1961. Based on a memoir and scripted by Nick Hornby with his usual flair for dialogue, the film gently tackles the onset of feminism.
Sixteen-year-old Jenny, studying [...]
I came to Duplicity because of its lead actor Clive Owen, knowing little about it other than it was a thriller and co-starred Julia Roberts (something I was less than enthused about). But from the rapid-fire opening scene at a resort, when the two stars first engage, I knew I was in capable hands. Duplicity [...]
I only managed seven films last month, nearly all DVDs of recent or last-year releases. I’m not convinced November will prove much better, but here’s what I’m aiming for, a potpourri of intriguing movies:
Mao’s Last Dancer – the trailers fill me with dread but the book was so evocative, I have no choice
Cold Souls
A Serious Man
In [...]