Coming April 6th, 2014.
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
I’ve just finished book 3 and season 3 of the series, still impressed with the TV adaptation of the complex novels.
If you can get past the ultra violence, there’s plenty to praise.
The end of season 3 was weakest, so far. But season 4 looks great. 🙂
I’m liking Tyrion Lannister, Arya Stark, The Unsullied, Brienne, Ygritte, Daario Naharis, Samwell Tarly, Jon Snow …
Jaime Lannister’s character has developed well.
The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World) by Karen Armstrong (2008)
… the world’s most widely distributed book and its best-selling, with an estimated six billion copies sold in the last two hundred years. But the Bible is a complex work with a complicated and obscure history. Its contents have changed over the centuries, it has been transformed by translation and, through interpretation, has developed manifold meanings to various religions, denominations, and sects.
… acclaimed historian Karen Armstrong discusses the conception, gestation, life, and afterlife of history’s most powerful book. Armstrong analyzes the social and political situation in which oral history turned into written scripture, how this all-pervasive scripture was collected into one work, and how it became accepted as Christianity’s sacred text, and how its interpretation changed over time. …
Great idea.
A biography of The Bible.
Karen Armstrong is expert. I respect her opinion.
At one point she asks, Why so much hatred in sacred texts?
Joshua 8 – “The Capture of Ai; Blesses and Curses at Mount Ebal” …
1-2: The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be frightened or dismayed. Take all the fighting troops with you, go and march against Ai. See, I will deliver the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land into your hands. You shall treat Ai and her king as you treated Jericho and her king; however, you may take the spoil and the cattle as booty for yourselves. Now set an ambush against the city behind it.”
18: The LORD then said to Joshua, “Hold out the javelin in your hand toward Ai, for I will deliver it into your hands.” So Joshua held out the javelin in his hand toward the city.
24-25: When Israel had killed all the inhabitants of Ai who had pursued them into the open wilderness, and all of them, to the last man, had fallen by the sword, all the Israelites turned back to Ai and put it to the sword. The total of those who fell that day, men and women, the entire population of Ai, came to twelve thousand.
29: And the king of Ai was impaled on a stake until the evening.
The Koran is criticized as violent.
I’d make the same criticism of our current version of The Bible. It was translated into Latin more by one man than any other — Sophronius Hieronymus (Saint Jerome 342-420).
Did Jerome get it right?
There are all kinds of stories like the Capture of Ai out of line with my understanding of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Slavery. Polygamy.
Anyone who takes the Bible literally has not read it.
The Afghan is a 2006 thriller novel by Frederick Forsyth.
… reaped mixed reviews.
I give it a mixed review, as well.
Forsyth is author of The Day of the Jackal (1971), perhaps the first Thriller I ever loved.
The plot of Afghan is superb — yet wildly unbelievable at times.
I do have one friend who I think will like it as a regift.
The Cuckoo’s Calling is a 2013 crime fiction novel by J. K. Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It is the first novel in the Cormoran Strike series of detective novels and was followed by The Silkworm in 2014. …
Cormoran Strike is a down-on-his-luck private investigator. He has few clients, a large debt, and is obliged by a recent break-up to move into his office on Denmark Street. He lost his leg in the Afghan war.
Robin Venetia Ellacott, aged 25, is Strike’s temporary secretary, and has recently moved from Yorkshire since becoming engaged. She is enthusiastic about detective work and is very intelligent and competent. …
… In 2007, during the Edinburgh Book Festival, author Ian Rankin claimed that his wife spotted Rowling “scribbling away” at a detective novel in a cafe. Rankin later retracted the story, claiming it was a joke. The rumour persisted with The Guardian’s speculating in 2012 that Rowling’s next book would be a crime novel. …
Before Rowling’s identity as the book’s author was revealed, 1,500 copies of the printed book had been sold since its release in April 2013, plus another 7,000 copies of the ebook, audiobook, and library editions. The book surged from 4,709th to the 1st best-selling novel on Amazon after it was revealed on 14 July 2013 that the book was written by Rowling …
The book received almost universal critical acclaim despite not being a huge commercial event …
On December 10th, 2014, it was announced that the Cormoran Strike novels would be adapted as a television series for BBC One …
Ezra Klein:
“a joyous romp through the seedy underbelly of presidential campaigning“.
Though not nearly as good as Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (2008), I still enjoyed hearing insider anecdotes of the dirty dealings.
Double Down: Game Change 2012 is a book written by political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin about the 2012 United States presidential election, in which Barack Obama was re-elected as President of the United States, defeating Mitt Romney. …
… a behind-the-scenes narrative of the Obama and Romney campaigns.
The book relies on over 400 sources, most of whom are anonymous. The authors treated their interview subjects with alcohol in a private suite or restaurant to get them to open up …
… Rep. Michele Bachmann‘s belief that as a “branier” Sarah Palin she could win the nomination, only to suffer horrible stage fright and a series of gaffes …
Herman Cain‘s initial appeal deflated by charges of sexual harassment and a poor understanding of U.S. foreign policy
Jon Huntsman‘s campaign collapse due to poor organization and attacks by both the Romney campaign and the Obama White House, each viewing the ambassador as a turncoat …
Gov. Rick Perry‘s gaffe-ridden campaign, apparently the result of painkiller use. …
… Karl Rove‘s role in the primaries, pushing Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee to enter the race, only to have both decline over issues of finance. …
Biggest idiot of all — as usual — was Donald Trump.
Romney was criticized for being an out-of-touch fat cat, beholding to the very rich. I feel that charge was fair. Like George W, if elected, he would have had to do everything he could to make the rich richer.
Chris Christie comes out looking best of the many who might have got the nomination instead of Romney. I do hope he runs in 2016. He’s a heavy weight legit candidate. Smart enough and tough enough to do the job. Sadly, skeletons in the closet could derail.
Paul Ryan was a gutsy choice for VP. He kept arguing to put forward alternative policies to Obama — but Mitt’s people wanted to make few specific promises, sticking with anti-Obama rhetoric. Of the Republicans covered, Ryan’s to my mind the closest to a fiscal conservative. His budget was Micky Mouse, hardly better than Obama. But I was hoping it was a first step in the right direction. For example, this week he defended cuts to military retiree benefits. Ryan’s got balls.
Mitt Romney is a good man. He might have been a good President. Might have been better than a term 2 Obama. We’ll never know.
I supported Romney when he first got the nod, hoping that a business man might better manage the nation. Unfortunately he voiced no platform. Weaseled or flip-flopped out of every question. It was embarrassing to listen to him interviewed.
His best moment was in the 1st presidential debate, Wednesday, October 3rd. Romney was good. Obama was terrible.
There are no scandalous reveals in the book regarding Mitt. He’s just as boring in real life as he was on the campaign trail.
HBO Films, which produced Game Change, the film version of the book, has optioned the rights to Double Down. When asked about casting, Halperin suggested Will Smith or Giancarlo Esposito would be his choices for Obama, while George Clooney or Jon Hamm could play Romney.
I’d love to see Clooney playing a Republican. 🙂
In some ways the respective National Conventions symbolize the respective Presidential campaigns.
The Democrats tightly scripted. Disciplined.
Their celebrity loose cannon the biggest hit of the event. Read the transcript of Bill Clinton’s Speech to the Democratic National Convention.
The Republicans. … Not so good.
No need to read Clint Eastwood‘s GOP convention speech: Full transcript. It was a mess, though I still like Clint personally.
2016?
I can’t see any Republican beating Hillary.
They’ll have to take a shellacking before finally turning to fiscal conservatism, abandoning Tea Party trivialities.
Most Tea Party candidates are no more competent to govern than Occupy Wall Street extremists.
If you are interested in what’s really happening in the campaign war rooms, read this book. You’ll never again believe a word an American politician says.
Kelley Durbin-Williams linked to this great truth:
“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he is always doing both.”
A Clash of Kings is the second novel in A Song of Ice and Fire, an epic fantasy series by American author George R. R. Martin …
Like its predecessor, A Game of Thrones, it won the Locus Award (in 1999) for Best Novel and was nominated for the Nebula Award …
A Clash of Kings picks up where A Game of Thrones ended. The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros are plagued by civil war, while the Night’s Watch mounts a reconnaissance force north of the Wall to investigate the mysterious people, known as wildlings, who live there. Meanwhile, in the distant east, Daenerys Targaryen continues her quest to return to and conquer the Seven Kingdoms. All signs are foreshadowing the terrible disaster that is to come. …
The highlights for me were Tyrion Lannister (the Imp) and Arya Stark, the Tomboy daughter.
The subplot of the Night’s Watch on The Wall is fascinating.
Though Clash was not nearly as good as Game of Thrones, I’ve downloaded book 3 – A Storm of Swords (2000)
I’ve also started watching Game of Thrones, the TV series.
A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels written by American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. …
A Game of Thrones (1996)
A Clash of Kings (1998)
A Storm of Swords (2000)
A Feast for Crows (2005)
A Dance with Dragons (2011)
The Winds of Winter (forthcoming)
A Dream of Spring (forthcoming)
I listened to audio versions of the first two on my recent travels.
Long … But engaging. Especially during dark nights in the tent.
… While the first novel contains nearly no magic at all, the prominence of magic grows within and beyond each novel to the next. The assortment of disparate, subjective, and not always accurate points of view confronts the reader with a variety of perspectives on each of the other characters from one chapter to the next. The reader may not safely presume that a favorite prominent character will prevail, or even survive. Violence, sexuality and moral ambiguity frequently arise among a set of over a thousand named characters. …
Too violent, I’d say.
Still, I’ll likely download A Storm of Swords for my next trip.
And watch the TV series.
Click PLAY or watch the season 1 trailer on YouTube.
As is everything Mistry.
Excellent.
Tales From Firozsha Baag is a collection of 11 short stories by Rohinton Mistry about the residents of Firozsha Baag, a Parsi-dominated apartment complex in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Mistry’s first book, it was published by Penguin Canada in 1987.
Rick McCharles 