The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying
Book
An exquisite memoir about how to live—and love—every day with “death in the room,” from poet...
The Day the King Died: A Terrible Miscarriage of Justice
Book
The Day the King Died concerns the shooting dead of two police officers and shows how the police...
Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare
Book
PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ARE THE THIRD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH AFTER HEART DISEASE AND CANCER. In his...
Ingmar Bergman
Robin Wood and Barry Keith Grant
Book
At a time when few reviewers and critics were taking the study of film seriously, Robin Wood...
The Spiritual Awakening Guide: Kundalini, Psychic Abilities, and the Conditioned Layers of Reality
Book
The first modern, comprehensive resource on spiritual awakenings, this pragmatic, clear guide covers...
The Spectre of Alexander Wolf
Bryan Karetnyk, Gaito Gazdanov and Julien Pacaud
Book
A superb early postmodern classic by one of Nabokov's fellow emigre writers, rediscovered after more...
Ross (3284 KP) rated Just Mercy (2019) in Movies
Jun 15, 2020
Jordan plays young lawyer Bryan Stevenson who moves to Alabama to fight for justice for death row convicts. Among many cases he meets Jonny D (Foxx), who initially refuses to fight any more despite the paper-thin conviction he received. Persuaded, the pair start their fight against the system, met time and time again with prejudice, injustice and an unfair system that is unwilling to review past cases.
The irony of this unfolding in the town that is so proud to have been where Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, the story of a black man facing an unfair trial accused of crime against a young white female, was not lost on me. This wasn't made much of in the film, I would guess out of respect for the family of the actual murder victim here, and not wanting to suggest a parallel with the false crime in the book.
The film does well to portray the racial injustice, unbalanced legal system and prejudice experienced by the authorities and smalltown America, but not overdo it. This leaves the viewer to mull it on their own, which is especially important to do in the current climate.
An excellent film that gets the balance right between story, faithfulness to the facts and sewing thoughts and parallels with modern day life.
ClareR (5686 KP) rated Six Tudor Queens: Katharine Parr, The Sixth Wife in Books
May 23, 2021
It’s clear that Alison Weir did loads of research on Katherine’s childhood and early years, and it was so interesting to learn more about that part of her life. Usually, any of Henry VIII’s wives are only spoken about in relation to their marriage. But Katherine Parr certainly lived in the years before Henry. She was a dutiful, supportive wife to both of her husbands before Henry, and had happy marriages - but no children. She didn’t have children with Henry either. It must have been a great sadness for her. I loved reading about the relationships she had with all of her stepchildren, and how she convinced Henry to re-establish Mary and Elizabeth in the succession. Not so good in Mary’s case (she wasn’t nicknamed Bloody Mary for nothing), better in Elizabeth’s. Indeed, Mary and Elizabeth seem genuinely fond of Katherine, and both even live with her for a time.
Things don’t run smoothly for Katherine - the knives are out for her whilst she is Queen, and remain out after Henry’s death. So when she marries the man that she truly loves after Henry’s death - without permission - there is scandal.
This is a captivating chunk of a book. I do enjoy a big, historical book, and this delivers in spades. I loved it!
Many thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for my ARC of this book.
Walkaway: A Novel
Book
From New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow, an epic tale of revolution, love,...
Science fiction fiction
The Virgin Elizabeth: A Novel
Book
A book of passion, of sixteenth-century England, of greed and political ambition unto death....