humour

Do butlers burgle banks? by P.G. Wodehouse

Read originally 19/07/2010. Reread June 2014 On my reread I enjoyed it just as much as the first time round, if not …

Adam’s Rib dir. by George Cukor

Warren Attinger has been a bad husband, but his wife, Doris, has caught him out. She follows him one day and when …

The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi

Part of my Sci-Fi 2014 Experience When a book opens with a death by farting, two deaths by farting actually, you know …

Snuff by Terry Pratchett

A Discworld Night Watch story. Although the Night Watch is now the city watch, and this isn’t set in the city… still. …

Default fox is the defaults - Image taken from page 40 of 'Travels in Africa during the years 1875-1878 (1879-1883-1882-1886) ... from The British Library

It all seemed a bit out of order to me. Yes, I thought it was offensive and no, I didn’t find it funny… but I don’t remember arriving at a place where we decided we had a right to not be offended. I don’t like the sound of that place. I don’t like it at all.

→ 1 December 2011

Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer

ISBN: 033236490 Miss Annis Wychwood is in her late twenties, and as she is still unmarried, she believes her future to hold …

Unseen academicals by Terry Pratchett

In the back streets of Ankh-Morpork football is king. And those “Faces” in the shove, or crowd, are just as important as …

The BFG by Roald Dahl

by Roald Dahl

Sophie couldn’t sleep.
A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through a gap in the curtains. It was shining right on to her pillow.

One night, a young girl, unable to sleep makes her way to the window and spies a mysterious giant, with a suitcase and some sort of a trumpet. Discovering that he has been spotted this giant kidnaps the little girl, Sophie, and takes her off to Giant Country. There Sophie discovers that this giant, The Big Friendly Giant, is not like the other giants. He is much smaller than them for one thing, but also, they are murderers who delight in guzzling up human beans, whereas the BFG is only interested in sharing Dreams with people. Can Sophie and the BFG come up with a plan to defeat the like of The Fleshlumpeater and The Childchewer.

The blind side by Karen Russell dir. by John Lee Hancock, Lasse Hallström

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.