Reading anything?

[Rev. Powell]

2015 Leonard Maltin Movie Review Book.

 I read somewhere that the 2015 edition will be the last: I don't know how true that is.

It's true (unless Maltin changes his mind).

[Trevor]

2015 Leonard Maltin Movie Review Book.

 I read somewhere that the 2015 edition will be the last: I don't know how true that is.

It's true (unless Maltin changes his mind).

I was hoping to perhaps read what his thoughts were on Searching For Sugarman: perhaps it's included.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!

2 mysteries

Carol Miller's
Murder and Moonshine
1st novel

When an inoffensive old man's moonshine is poisoned, and the possible poisoner is killed in a vehicular accident, the heroine decides to investigate before she or her mother become the next victim. And our heroine finds herself trapped between a revenuer and a moonshiner.

Kristna Ohlsson's
The Disappeared
3rd in the Alex Recht series


2 non-fiction books

Elizabeth L. Cline's
Overdressed :
the Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion
1st non-fiction book

High cost in terms of economics, environmentalism, and geographic exploitation. While centering on female fashions and the East Coast, there are still things worth reading in it.

Sarah Pinborough's
Mayhem :
the Thames Torso Killer

Who, apparently killed 1 person in Paris and 4 in London, between 1886 and 1889, One reason this serial killer is not better known, as it killed at the same time and in the same place as the more notorious Jack the Ripper.


2 graphic novels

[Marvel's] The Heroic Age

a dozen opening chapters from a dozen comic books +
25 brief bios, featuring both friend and foe, on the character got their start in comic books +
a directory of 55 other characters. Again, both friend and foe, individuals and groups.

Doctor Who :
Prisoners of Time

3 doctors in 3 stories + all 11 doctors and 2 old friends from the past in the final story.

[ER]

Downloaded a public domain translation of the Hindu epic "the Mahabharata." Since this is the longest poem ever written---3 times the length of the Old and New Testament together---I am not planning on finishing it anytime soon. I'll read a little here, a little there.

Hindu scripture is some of the best reading in the world. Arjuna's dialogues with Krishna are brilliant.

[Derelict Coin-op]

My reading spurts tend to come and go. Right now I'm reading the non-fiction The Eerie Silence by Paul Davies, a book on the search for extraterrestrial life. Musashi Miyamoto's Book of Five Rings. Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained, though that one will probably take awhile. The Feminist Papers by Alice s. Rossi, kind of old,but for a cheap pickup at a sale I thought it'd be worth a shot. And my two fictions Voltaire's Candide and Monster by A. Lee Martinez a book about a guy who runs a supernatural monster extermination service. I have a lot of other books that need reading, but those are the ones that capture the majority of my attention for now.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!
2 by 2 by 2

2 mysteries

C. S. Harris'
Why Mermaids Cry
3rd in the Sebastian St. Cyr series

Who is killing the only sons of prominent men who live in the London area, and what if anything do the murders have to deal with a shipwreck of several years ago. A shipwreck that began in mutiny and ended in murder and cannibalism.

One of the early ones in the series, but in an interesting series, some of them I find readable, and some I find unreadable, I think it is one of my favorites.

18- and 19-year-olds may be pass the age of majority, and they may be on the cusp of manhood, but they are really just still wee bairns, as they still wet themselves when scared.

Jussi Adler-Olsen's
The Purity of Vengeance
4th in the Department Q series


2 non-fiction

Dinah Williams'
Secrets of Walt Disney World :
Weird and Wonderful Facts About the Most Magical Place on Earth

The subtitle says it all.


Melinek and Mitchell's
Working Stiff :
2 years, 262 bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner
1st book

Welcome to New York City. Our writer is there less than 2 months, when September 11 happens, and she is one of those who have to identify the remains found at the crash site. But, as interesting as her story is, her husband actually comes across as being the more interesting. Here is a man who gave up his career, his family, and the city where he lived to follow his wife, so she could have her own career. That did just not happen in that time and place. Let alone today.


2 graphic novels

Aguirre Sacasa and Francavilla's
Afterlife with Archie
bk.1. Escape from Riverdale

with a dollop of . . .
Sabrina, the Teenaged Witch
Pet Sematary
and Night of the Living Dead

When zombies, including Jughead, invade Riverdale, it is up to Archie to lead the human survivors to safety.

Back stories on many of the characters. Surprisingly or may be not, the most poignant features Smithers the butler or the butler Smithers.

On the other hand, while I do appreciate the effort to make Riverdale something besides all-white, all-heterosexual, it is these new characters that I find the hardest to recognize.

Gail Carriger's
Soulless :
the Magna
v.3.

The continuing story of our heroine, a human, and her husband, the leader of a clan of Scottish werewolves. And when the werewolves and the vampires go to war over our heroine, and you throw in a sect of humans, who may or may not be a threat to one or the other or both werewolves and vampires, anything can happen.

One of those magna that is rated for Older Teens for its language, nudity, sex, and violence, and all the other good stuff.

Next time: more 2 by 2 by 2

[ER]

Farewell, Colleen McCullough, and thanks for some fine books...

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!

2 by 2 by 2


2 mysteries

Victoria Thompson's
Murder in Chelsea
15th in the Gaslight Series

When a woman who comes to NYC seeking to find the heroine's adopted daughter is murdered, then the mother of the girl, who also comes to NYC, is murdered, the heroine decides to investigate the murders, before she or her adopted daughter become the next victim.

Rhys Bowen's
City of Darkness and Light
13th in the Molly Murphy series

After their house is firebombed, because of her husband's role as a NYC police captain, our heroine and her newborn daughter flee to Paris to stay with two friends who are studying art in Paris, only to find out that her friends have disappeared, after being the last ones seen with an American ex-pat artist, who has recently been murdered. Now our heroine not only have to find her friends, she has to try to solve the murder to absolve her friends of the crime. Which she does with the help and unhelp of characters both fictional and factual.


2 graphic novels

Boudreau, Cavalcanti, and Fabela's
Black Acre :
v.1. An Errand into the Wilderness

Swierezynski, Saiz, and Foreman's
Birds of Prey :
v.1. Trouble in Mind -- v.2. Your Kiss Might Kill


2 non-fiction books

Ray and Lesley Adkins
Jane Austen's England
(husband and wife writing duo)
5 more non-fiction from the writers

A social history of England during the time of Jane Austen. What I came away with is how many prejudices existed at that time. There were . . .
sexual prejudices -- sex prejudices -- religious prejudices -- racial prejudices -- geographical prejudices -- and class prejudices.

Anne de Courcy's
The Fishing Fleet :
Husband-hunting in the Raj
5 more non-fiction books by the writer

The subtitle says it all with the Raj being India between the 2nd half of the 19th century and the 1st half of the 20th century.


Next time: 2 by 2 by 2

[indianasmith]

A COUNTRY OF VAST DESIGNS by Robert Merry is a biography of President James K. Polk, one of America's most consequential but least known Executives.  This book tells the story of his election to the Presidency and the Mexican-American War that followed.  Through all the intense political battles as well as the military struggles of the war itself, this book traces the path of this incredibly hard-working but colorless executive.  A very worthwhile read.

[ER]

The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Even second-tier Gaiman is still better than 95% of what's out there in his genre(s). Worked a little better on a re-read than it did last year.

Also still plowing through The Biography of a Marriage, by Clementine Churchill, which is her inside description of her parents' nearly sixty-year union. A well-written and interesting book, but dense and frustrating in some of the things she sidesteps, though I understand why she chose to do so.

Soon I hope to finally begin some vintage PD James paperbacks I was given at Christmastime.

Happy reading to all!

[Rev. Powell]

Finished this one. Nothing in here that would surprise or enlighten any of our regular posters but he did give badmovies.org a shout-out at the end.

Now I picked up



One of the first regular comic strips, started in 1905, a more adult comic from the guy who went on to do "Nemo's Adventures in Slumberland."

[FatFreddysCat]

MAD Art: A Visual Celebration of the Art of MAD Magazine and the Idiots Who Create It, by Mark Evanier

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!
2 mysteries by 2 graphic novels by 2 non-fiction


2 mysteries
Barry Maitland's
The raven's eye
12th in the Brock and Kolla series

Richard Castle
Wild storm
part of the Derrick Storm series


2 graphic novels
Lob and Rochette's
Snow piercer
in 2 volumes: v.1. The escape, which I have read and v.2. The explorers, which I have yet to read, but will read later.

I have yet to see the film based on v.1., but I have seen the trailer, and I can understand why the filmmakers had to make changes to the graphic novel, which is not the most visual of works, but what a metaphor it is for life. Train journeys always make good metaphors. I guess the reason they are not used more often in films today is that fewer people travel by train than in the past, when it was one of the main means of mass transportation.

Bendis, Pichelli, Immonen's
The trial of Jean Grey
Combining Guardians of the galaxy issues 11 - 13
and The All new X-men issues 22 -24.

The characters (primary)
Who'd have thought that a gun toting raccoon and a sentient tree would become two of my favorite characters in the Marvel Universe. "Not I," said he.

The characters (secondary)
Most of them fully fleshed out.

The humor
The raccoon noticing the tree noticing a grove of trees on Earth, where they are at the moment. "You are not going to go all weird again right last time. Are you?" ROTFL!

The in-jokes
One character says: "I feel like a Disney princess!" Well, we know where they got that, don't we?

The sexuality
Not everyone is heterosexual in the Marvel Universe. There are hints of homosexuality and bisexuality, if not lesbianism, in the story.

The villains
Not people who do wrong, because they know it is wrong, but people who do wrong, because they think it is right. Thus more like us.

Anyways, it is a great read.


2 non-fiction
Hampton Sides'
In the kingdom of ice :
the grand and terrible polar voyage of the USS Jeanette
5 more non-fiction by the writer

The subtitle says it all!

Wiley and Jenkins'
Walt Disney World with kids 2015 :
with Universal Orlando, SeaWorld and Aquatica

When the writer wrote the 1st one in this series, she was pregnant with her daughter. Now, years later, her daughter has a daughter and is old enough to be her mother's co-author.

There's a great story in the book, and one of the most memorable I have ever seen.

A 2-year-old girl making her first visit to Walt Disney World is with her parents on the bus that runs between the Orlando airport and Walt Disney World. When she first passes under the gates that lead to Walt Disney World, she stands up on the bus seat and yells out as loudly as he can: "Hold on, Mickey! We're coming!" And it is said that the human roar that tore through the bus after that was like nothing you have most likely never heard before.


Next time: 2 by 2 by 2

[alandhopewell]

     I just finished reading AMERICAN SNIPER; a great read, that if nothing else shows why Jesse Ventura is in need of a physical intervention.

[lester1/2jr]

Ventura won that lawsuit though