Graham Swift’s The Light of Day opens with all the promise of a standard detective potboiler. We meet an ex-cop private investigator named George Webb and Rita, his trusted assistant.
Tag: Review
Making An Elephant, by Graham Swift
After reading Making An Elephant, I’m of the opinion that Graham Swift isn’t really interested in writing; he’s interested in people and writing is the pretext he uses to satisfy that interest.
The Certainty Dream
There’s a traditional view of how a poem relates to the world that has been with us for almost 2,500 years. This view is a reflection of an equally traditional view of how our world is organized. Although we’d like to describe ourselves as up-to-the-minute advanced scientific creatures, this ancient view is still with us in subtle ways.
You Are Not A Gadget, by Jaron Lanier
Technology can be frustrating. ou may remember reading a news item from July, 2009 about a 17-year-old Kindle user named Justin Gawronski who was reading George Orwell’s 1984 for a school assignment when the book disappeared from his device.
Kobo eReader Review update – scalable font size
In my review of the Kobo eReader, I acknowledged that pre-release reviews complained about problems adjusting font sizes, but I stated that I didn’t encounter these problems myself.
Review: Kobo eReader
Kobo, the offshoot of Canada-based Chapters/Indigo, released its eReader in Canada at the beginning of May and so I scurried out and bought myself one, reasoning that, at CDN $149, if it sucks, I won”t feel as bad as I did when I bought a Dell desktop computer.
Cities of Refuge, by Michael Helm
Something unusual happened as I was reading Michael Helm’s new novel, Cities of Refuge. I stumbled upon a couple paragraphs which I realized alluded to real events. At least I thought they alluded to real events.
The Other Sister by Lola Lemire Tostevin
The Other Sister is a story of twins and, perhaps necessarily, a story of personal identity. It concerns Julia, a freshly admitted resident of Evenholme, a home for the aged. At 97, Julia is sound in her mind, but growing frail in her body. Her daughter, Rachel, has given her a laptop computer and so Julia reluctantly agrees to spend a little time each day typing her recollections on this new machine.
The Convalescent, by Jessica Anthony
Have you ever wondered what would happen if Franz Kafka had written William Goldman’s The Princess Bride? Neither have I but I just thought I’d ask.
Love, etc., by Julian Barnes
Do you remember Michael Apted’s documentary Seven Up! He follows fourteen kids from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and poses (to the viewers) a simple question: is there truth in the Jesuit dictum “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”
Dissing the Oscars – Up
At last I look at the 10th and final film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar by the esteemed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Up, an animated feature film from Disney’s Pixar Studios.
Dissing the Oscars – An Education
Lone Scherfig’s An Education is the 9th of the Best Picture nominees I consider as I gear up for the Academy Awards this Sunday March 7th. Like another nominee, The Blind Side, this film is based on a true story (Nick Hornby’s adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir).
Dissing the Oscars – The Hurt Locker
The worst review I could find of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker comes from Variety. Nevertheless, it is better than the best review of The Blind Side (I am still incredulous that The Blind Side has been nominated in any category).
Dissing the Oscars – The Blind Side
The Blind Side is the fifth Best Picture nominee I consider in my quest for the worst movie review of an Oscar contender. I have to confess that I made a mistake when I wrote about Avatar, suggesting that it might win an award for the most heavily dissed film. The Blind Side is the clear winner.
Dissing the Oscars – Avatar & District 9
In my continuing quest for negative reviews of 2010 Best Picture Academy Award nominees, I turn now to the science fiction nominees. First up is James Cameron’s Avatar, the Rupert Murdoch financed 3D sci-fi extravaganza that has grossed more than $2.46 bn as of this writing.