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Post by Let It 🩸 on Jan 21, 2023 21:28:56 GMT -5
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Post by mimmihopps on Mar 2, 2023 5:26:57 GMT -5
Touching From A Distance by Deborah Curtis
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Post by theyknowwhatimean on Mar 24, 2023 13:12:19 GMT -5
Comfort-listening to Stephen Fry's audiobook recording of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Could have made a great movie, if the film franchise's producers, screenwriter, and director had been braver. It's a shame because the film that came out, as well as feeling hollow and bland in comparison to the book, undermined the Deathly Hallows films by neglecting to establish character motives and backstory detail for the grand finale.
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Post by matt on May 9, 2023 14:03:29 GMT -5
Comfort-listening to Stephen Fry's audiobook recording of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Could have made a great movie, if the film franchise's producers, screenwriter, and director had been braver. It's a shame because the film that came out, as well as feeling hollow and bland in comparison to the book, undermined the Deathly Hallows films by neglecting to establish character motives and backstory detail for the grand finale. Aside from Prisoner of Azkaban directed by the great Alfonso Cuaron, the remaining films were bland. No real artistic ingenuity to them, pretty much 'by the numbers' blockbusters but like the book, Azkaban had a darkness to it that separated it from the other films. I saw an interesting video that claims the studio decided on 'director for hire' David Yates merely because he could turn around production quickly due to his competent if bland and unspectacular filmmaking style. Bearing in mind he was working with child/teenage actors going through each of their academic years, I guess they couldn't afford to spend 2 years on each film (which they did with Azkaban) that the real artists crave.
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Post by Let It 🩸 on Jun 7, 2023 17:48:40 GMT -5
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Post by Beady’s Here Now on Jun 8, 2023 16:23:05 GMT -5
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Post by Elie De Beaufour on Jun 15, 2023 2:19:07 GMT -5
American Gods- Neil Gaiman
Is it me or does Wednesday remind me of Zeus?
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Post by Let It 🩸 on Jun 20, 2023 10:50:30 GMT -5
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Post by Let It 🩸 on Jul 13, 2023 19:14:29 GMT -5
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Post by Let It 🩸 on Jul 31, 2023 12:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by lubeck on Aug 5, 2023 5:22:58 GMT -5
Dreaming of Babylon by Richard Brautigan. Great book.
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Post by The Escapist on Jan 18, 2024 14:53:45 GMT -5
First book of 2024! I enjoyed it, a non-linear look at a preventable murder in a small religious town. I always enjoy Garcia Marquez's style and this was a nicely understated look at a tragic event based on real life. I never got round to posting it, but here is the list of books I read in 2023 in a rough ranking of enjoyment: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert 2. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne 3. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (Second Reading) 4. The Writer’s Tale: Final – Russell T Davies (Third Reading) 5. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (+ Three Short Stories) – Truman Capote 6. The Life Changing Magic of Tidying – Marie Kondo 7. Why Materialism is Baloney – Bernardo Kastrup 8. Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio – Pu Songling 9. The Idea of the World - Bernardo Kastrup 10. This is Vegan Propaganda – Ed Winters 11. How Jesus Became God – Bart D. Ehrman 12. At Home in the World - Thich Nhat Hanh 13. Things You See Only When You Slow Down – Haemin Sunim 14. Daemon Voices – Phillip Pullman 15. How to Eat – Thich Nhat Hanh 16. Brief Peeks Beyond – Bernardo Kastrup 17. Zen: Endless Path - James Harrison 18. Buddhism Without Beliefs – Stephen Batchelor 19. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Third Reading) 20. Factotum – Charles Bukowski (Second Reading) 21. The Book of Form and Emptiness – Ruth Ozeki 22. A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking 23. The Ruby in the Smoke – Phillip Pullman 24. Zen – Martine Bachelor 25. The Death's Head Chess Club - John Donaghue 26. The Buried Giant – Kazuo Ishiguro 27. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley 28. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J.K. Rowling 29. Living Buddha, Living Christ – Thich Nhat Hanh 30. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J.K. Rowling 31. The Essence of Buddha – Ryuho Okawa ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I know The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a controversial choice, what with the accurate criticism of how poorly it represents the reality of death-camps during the holocaust, and I certainly wouldn't argue with anyone who would place it much lower. For me, though, the key is in the subtext of "A Fable"; there is a non-real feeling to the story which suits the childhood aesthetic, and which is then destroyed by the ending. It's something I can see people finding as the work of a hack, and not being entirely wrong, but I can't pretend I wasn't crushed by it, and that I didn't feel gripped the whole way through. Perhaps on future readings it will slip down, but there we are for now. Eat, Pray, Love might also strike some as a superficial pick. I did find it bizarre how the book continuously returns to the idea of an all-merciful God who expresses Himself through the universe and infinite compassion for life, only to end with the Ms. Gilbert joyously recounting all the meat of dead animal's corpses she ate at a celebration. The casual disregard for things like empiricism were also jarring, but ultimately the humanity of the book caught me at the right moment, and started a journey for me which started from being a strident physicalist to the opposite end of the spectrum; someone who believes consciousness/mind is the primitive of the universe and everything else is a fluctuation in that, including our own minds. That book was the first domino to fall! I'd give a special shout-out to Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio; it's a collection of weird, fantastical, often erotic or folkish short stories written by an unknown Chinese civil servant in the 17th century. After his death, they became hugely influential, and are an absolute treat to read today. A gorgeous thing to stumble upon.
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Post by oasisserbia on Feb 2, 2024 3:57:02 GMT -5
Quentin Tarantino - Cinema Speculation
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Post by tiger40 on Feb 3, 2024 14:17:00 GMT -5
I don't read books unless they're Oasis or wildlife ones. I'm more into watching a good drama rather than reading a book about it.
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Post by jeffrey on Feb 3, 2024 14:39:16 GMT -5
Empire Of The Summer Moon
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