By Marc Bekoff
Many animals display their feelings openly, publicly, for anyone to see.
Tag: 5 Stars
Daybreakers
IMDb ; Official Site ; MetaCritic This film is utterly meh-worthy. It isn’t entertaining enough to be enjoyable, but isn’t bad enough to merit a walk-out. You’ll most likely forget about it two minutes after you leave the cinema. It’s supposed to be an “original” take on the vamp movie I suppose, with its vampires […]
Her fearful symmetry
Author: Audrey Niffenegger
For a lot of this book I really really liked it. I never quite loved it; but for a while I did really enjoy it. The writing is great. And the premise was interesting. But it just didn’t work in the end. And I think that one of the major problems was that the character who makes this big decision, well, I just didn’t get why she made it. And I really didn’t understand why other characters went along with her. That wasn’t the only problem, it just meant that I was less forgiving of the others
The historian
ISBN: 0316730319 In 1972 I was sixteen – young my father said to be travelling with him on his diplomatic missions. The one word that sprang into my mind, more than any other, when I finished this book was “unsatisfying”. And really, in a nutshell, that is how I feel about this novel. It never […]
W.
This is an odd sort of a film. I mean, it clearly isn’t meant to be full of praise for George W. Bush. But at the same time it is almost gentle in its treatment of him. Presenting him as a somewhat simple-minded, but well-intentioned, fool. With Daddy Issues. The film cuts back and forward […]
The Mutant Chronicles
See also: IMDb ; Elsewhere Okay so I knew this was going to be rubbish. But then again look at that cast. How could I resist? And to be honest I was expecting something resembling a plot to show up somewhere. It never did. And without a plot it is pretty hard to have characters […]
Heart-shaped box
ISBN: 9780575081864
See also: Other reviews ; Joe Hill Fiction.com
Jude had a private collection.
He had framed sketches of the seven dwarves on the wall of his studio, in between his platinum records.
Judas Coyne has just bought a ghost. Or at least, he has paid for a suit, on the understanding that with the suit will come a ghost. Just one more thing to add to his collection. The collection of a retired death-metal rock star. Only it turns out that it wasn’t just an accident that led to Jude visiting that e-bay wannabe website. Some one really wanted Jude to buy that suit. And once bought there are no returns and no refunds.
The thistle and the rose
Read with Historical Favorites
See also: LibraryThing ; Literature Map ; Scandalous Women ; Susan Higginbotham
In an apartment of that royal palace which recently, by the command of the King, had had its name changed from Shene to Richmond, three children were ranged about a blazing fire.
This novel tells the story of Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England, and sister to King Henry VIII. As a teenager she married King James IV of Scotland in an effort to bring peace between England and Scotland. The rose and the thistle of the novel’s title.
Jean Plaidy has written plenty of historical fiction books. This is the 8th in the Tudor series alone. But it is the first one I’ve ever read by her. And I’d have to say I’m not really all that impressed.
Christine Falls
ISBN: 9780330445320
Book 1 in the Quirke series
See also: MetaCritic ; Grumpy Old Bookman ; PopMatters ;
She was glad it was the evening mailboat she was taking, for she did not think she could have faced a morning departure.
Supposedly this is the first book in a series of crime novels by John Banville, writing as Benjamin Black, but to be honest there really isn’t that much crime in it. A few people being beaten up, some documents being faked, but it is a long way from the murder-thriller that readers may be expecting.
Christine Falls is set in 1950’s Ireland, so right away you know to expect the Catholic Church to be the “ebil authority” for our protagonist(pathologist Quirke) to rail against. And we even have the nun-run “laundries” for unmarried mothers and the whisking away of babies to the United States of America.