The brilliant minds at Screen Junkies have made one of their signature “Honest Trailers” in anticipation of Game of Thrones’ fourth season, which premieres on HBO this Sunday, and this one doesn’t disappoint. “It’s the abusive show you keep watching, no matter how many times it hurts you,” …
The trailer covers the first three seasons and skewers everything from Westerosi nomenclature (“Travel to Westeros, a place where everything is the [thing] of [nouns]”) to, perhaps inevitably, its tendency to offer naked ladies as eye candy while old men with beards deliver monologues. It’s more or less safe for work, despite all this, but those who haven’t caught up with the show should beware: Spoilers abound.
___ Meanwhile, I’m about half way through reading – A Feast for Crows … meh
A Feast for Crows is the fourth of seven planned novels in the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by American author George R. R. Martin. …
In comparison with the previous novels in the series, A Feast for Crows received more negative reviews. … many critics felt that this novel consisted of characters that people were less interested in.
Agreed.
I had very little interest in:
The Iron Islands:
• The Prophet, The Drowned Man: Aeron “Damphair” Greyjoy, and the rest.
• The Kraken’s Daughter: Princess Asha Greyjoy, daughter of Late King Balon of the Iron Islands
• The Iron Captain, The Reaver: Prince Victarion Greyjoy, Captain of the Iron fleet
In Dorne:
• The Captain of Guards: Areo Hotah, Captain of the Guards to Prince Doran Martell of Dorne
• The Soiled Knight: Ser Arys Oakheart of the Kingsguard
• The Queenmaker, The Princess in the Tower: Arianne Martell, daughter of Prince Doran and heir to Dorne
… there was also a sense in A Feast of Crows that Martin had lost his way. The characters whose stories he did tell wandered back and forth across a landscape devastated by war and
oncoming winter, but didn’t seem to be headed anywhere in particular. …
Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiographical work written by South African President Nelson Mandela, and published in 1995 …
The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison. Under the apartheid government, Mandela was regarded as a terrorist and jailed on the infamous Robben Island for his role as a leader of the then-outlawed ANC. He has since achieved international recognition for his leadership as president in rebuilding the country’s once segregated society. The last chapters of the book describe his political ascension, and his belief that the struggle continues …
His childhood name was Rolihlahla, which is loosely translated as “pulling the branch of a tree”, or a euphemism for “troublemaker“.
Indeed, many of the most winning anecdotes are stories of how the now sainted man bungled, cheated or lied.
Mandela oversaw the formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate crimes committed under apartheid by both the government and the ANC, appointing Desmond Tutu as its chair. To prevent the creation of martyrs, the Commission granted individual amnesties in exchange for testimony of crimes committed during the apartheid era. Dedicated in February 1996, it held two years of hearings detailing rapes, torture, bombings, and assassinations, before issuing its final report in October 1998. …
Though Mandela was influenced by his older contemporary, Gandhi, he did not subscribe to Gandhi’s non-violence. Nelson felt that non-violence worked in India because the British government was reasonable. But that it would not work in South Africa government.
Mandela said that he actually didn’t know Gregory very well. But did state:
“He was one of the most refined warders. Well-informed and courteous with everybody. Soft spoken. Very good observations. I developed a lot of respect for him.”
Yet another “book-length scavenger hunt” featuring Robert Langdon, professor of symbology at Harvard University.
Yet another beautiful, talented young woman — Sienna Brooks — somehow pushed into Tom Hank’s life.
Inferno received mixed reviews from critics. But the important and thoughtful plot did keep me going.
Scenes in Florence and Istanbul kept me going, as well.
If you liked the other Dan Brown books (as I did), you’ll like this clone.
Sony Pictures has dated a film adaptation to be released on December 18, 2015 with Ron Howard as director, David Koepp adapting the screenplay and Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon.
Soweto is an urban area of the city of Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city’s mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships. …
Population anywhere from 1.5 million to 5 million.
… 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. …
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.
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 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 …
Martin began the first volume of the series, A Game of Thrones, in 1991. He published it in 1996.
Rick McCharles 