My Blog
Books
"Invisible" by James Patterson and David Ellis
I love James Patterson! The first review I posted here was Miracle on the 17th Green, one of his more atypical stories. Invisible is not my favorites of his. It’s a good story and it’s well written, I just found several unsatisfactory resolutions. A word of caution: It’s the goriest one of his that I’ve read.
"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
You have to have heard of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It hasn’t become quite as much a part of the vernacular as Harry Potter, but when the first book came out in 2008, it was an instant best-seller. The other two books in the trilogy met with almost the same enthusiasm. And then there are the movies. Huge hits, all of them.
"Paul Lynde: A Biography" by Cathy Fitzgibbon Rudolph
He was one of the greatest comic actors we’ve ever known. He had such good timing and delivery that even people who wrote jokes for him couldn’t keep from laughing when he said them. He is probably best known as the center square in the original Hollywood Squares. We also knew him as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched. He was the slightly neurotic father who sang “Kids” in Bye-Bye Birdie.
"Roman Holiday" with Gregory Peck
I’ve been getting into old movies a lot lately. You know, the ones you always hear references to but haven’t seen? Roman Holiday was Audrey Hepburn’s breakout film, the first one she starred in. Gregory Peck had been a star for nearly years by then.
"An Affair to Remember," aka Whatever Happened to Fun?
Back to movies this week. We’ve all heard about this film, haven’t we? How romantic it is, that whole meet-at-the-top-of-the-Empire-State-Building thing that Sleepless in Seattle pulled from. But how many of us have actually seen the movie?
"Exposive 18" by Janet Evanovich
Janet Evanovich is one of the better known names in the cop/action/mystery novels genre. She is probably best known for her Stephanie Plum series, the numbered books. So at the airport once, I got one of them, kind of like why I read a Patricia Cornwell novel. And as with Ms. Cornwell, I don’t get it.
"The Big Short," the Movie
This is the most frightening movie I’ve seen. It’s about the housing bubble burst in 2008 that triggered a global financial crisis. It was co-written by Michael Lewis and is based on his book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. He also wrote the books The Blind Side and Moneyball were based on, so you know it’s gonna be good.
"Spotlight," Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church Scandal
Note: This month it’s another Movie of the Week.- Like I said in The Danish Girl post, all the big movies this year are true stories or from true events. What’s up with that? Anyway, Spotlight was the name of the Boston Globe‘s team of crack investigative journalists. They were the ones who broke the story about the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.
"The Danish Girl" with Eddie Redmayne
Note: As you know if you follow me, I’m doing Movie of the Week for a little while because I have to watch a whole bunch of movies right now so I don’t have a lot of time to read. All the big movies this year are true stories! Or based very closely on true stories. Trumbo, Bridge of Spies, Room, Straight Outta Compton, Steve Jobs, The Danish Girl, Beast of No Nation, The Revenant, The Big Short, … I don’t know why, but there you have it. So, whether or not these movies are good, they are important. You should try to see all of them.
