The blind side

Books

The Strain by ,

A plane lands at JFK airport and almost instantly it descends into darkness. Air traffic control get no response. It stopped dead on the runway. There are no lights, no engine noises, and no sounds. Response units break in and find a dead body. Instantly people’s thoughts turn to terrorism; is this some sort of gas attack? Or a biological agent?

Abraham Setrakian, the owner of a small downtown pawnshop is one of the few who knows the truth about the horror to come.

6 July 2010
Books

Fun home : a family tragicomic by

Like many father, mine could occasionally be prevailed on for a spot of ‘airplane’.

This is the memoir of Alison Bechdel, her recollections of growing up in an emotionally-distant family, the role of literature in her, and her father’s, life, her identifying as a lesbian at college and coming out, by letter, to her parents. It is the story of growing up in a house that can seem more like a museum than a home. Of living in a funeral home. Of trying to connect with her father. All told in graphic form.

26 June 2010
Books

The help by

9780141039282 ; Author’s site Read with HistoricalFavorites Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960. The Help of the title refers to the black women domestics who...

13 June 2010
Books

Black Hills by

Author: Dan Simmons

I’d never read any of Dan Simmons work before picking this one up. I’d heard good things about Drood but that’s about it. So picking this up was a total impulse decision. I hadn’t heard anything about the book, and I don’t really trust blurbs.

In the opening sentence we meet our main protagonist, Paha Sapa, a young Lakota boy who has raced into the middle of the Battle of Little Big Horn in order to go counting coup, there he touches the dying George Custer, the infamous Long Hair, and from then on shares his mind with Custer’s ghost. The book shifts in time, usually within Paha Sapa’s life, but occasionally we get to hear from Custer. He usually talks about his wife, Libby, and the sex they had. To be totally honest this was the one bit I wasn’t that interested in. Okay, so he and his wife have a great sex life, and so…
The rest of the book though, well, it is one I recommend you take a look at.

6 May 2010
Books

The Lace Reader by

Author: Brunonia Barry

When I first started reading this book I’ll admit to being a little bit confused. It was group read, for HistoricalFavorites, where was the history aspect. I kept waiting for flashbacks to old Salem and witch hunts. But instead I got the story of Towner Whitney and her family, and how the past is always around, especially when you try to ignore it.

Many of the Whitney family have the gift of reading lace, they can tell a lot about a person and their future, but ever since her sister committed suicide Towner has tried to escape that life. She herself suffered so much from the trauma of that experience that she felt she needed electro-shock therapy in order to overcome her anxieties. But that treatment ripped away many of her memories; now, back in Salem after her aunt’s disappearance Towner is forced to reconnect with people; friends and enemies from her past.

4 May 2010
Moving Pictures / Reviews

Whip it! [based on the book] by dir. by

Dir: Drew Barrymore
Writ: Shauna Cross, based on her novel

Bliss Cavender works at a typical American diner, under her mother’s guidance she does pageants, and she goes to school. It isn’t an ideal life. She wants out. One day, while out shopping she sees some local roller derby girls and wants to investigate. Herself and best friend Pash pretend to be going to see the local football team but instead head for the roller derby, and before you know it Bliss is trying out for a team.

Can I just say that I loved this film. It was teh awesome!

22 April 2010
Moving Pictures / Reviews

Kick-ass dir. by

Dir:Matthew Vaughn
Writ: Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar & John Romita Jr.
With all the people out there who love comic books, with all those millions of people who love superheroes, why hasn’t anyone ever tried it. That’s what Dave Lizewski wonders. It isn’t that he thinks it is sensible, but surely it stands to reason that someone, somewhere will try it? Or has tried it? Well, why not him. So he goes online and buys a scuba diving suit, and low and behold, Kick-ass is born. Things do not go well for him. He’s a weedy teenager out on his own trying to fit the bad guys. He gets his ass kicked, on more than one occasion, but he also gets famous. And comes to the attention of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, two real superheroes who know enough about their job to keep themselves totally secret. Did I mention that Hit-Girl is like eleven or something?

22 April 2010
Books

The underneath by

Author: Kathi Apelt
This is the story of an abandoned cat, an old hound dog who becomes her friend and her kittens, and the family they become. But it is also a tale of old Grandmother Moccasin, a shape-chaning lemia, who is trapped in jar and by her own anger and resentment at her betrayal, as she sees it, by those she loved. And through its blending of myth and floklore it is the perfect fit for my Once Upon a Time reading list. It is also a children’s book, so it shouldn’t take you to long to get through. Although that does not mean that this doesn’t have darkness.

19 April 2010
Moving Pictures / Reviews

The blind side by dir. by ,

I was a bit uncertain about this film. It sounded just a bit too heart-warming, as though it’d be full of overly sentimental “and everything works out in the end” stuff that makes me think of the flawed philosophy behind stories such as The Pursuit of Happyness:””:http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2007/01/18/the-pursuit-of-happyness/, you know the sort of victim blaming that says you wouldn’t be poor if only you tried harder.

Luckily enough this film is not like that. Okay, it has the heart-warming aspect. Heart-warming by the bucket-full. But it is told in such a way that you just can’t help but smile.

29 March 2010
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