Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions and Heart
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In Minding Animals, Marc Bekoff takes us on an exhilarating tour of the emotional and mental world...
The Love Poems
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Ovid's love-poetry was typically original and innovative. His witty analysis in the Amores (Loves)...
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The Courtship of Morrice Buckler: A Romance
Book
Doomed to hang from the gallows, Sir Julian Harnwood has only one hope of saving his life –...
Forged in Fire (Destiny's Crucible #4)
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To forge: “Make or shape an object by heating in a fire or furnace and hammering.”—Oxford...
Empire of Pain
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'Put simply, this book will make your blood boil . . . Keefe . . . paints a devastating portrait of...
Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America
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In this provocative and original exploration of racial subjugation during slavery and its aftermath,...
Lee (2222 KP) rated A Discovery of Witches - Season 1 in TV
Nov 8, 2018 (Updated Nov 8, 2018)
The show begins in Oxford, England with Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer), a witch working as a historian. While carrying out research in the local library she discovers a book which had long been considered missing, and mysteriously only shows itself to Diana. It's return triggers a lot of interest within the supernatural community and she finds herself attracting a lot of unwanted attention, beginning with Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode), a local geneticist and vampire. They eventually forge a romantic relationship and begin working together to try and solve the mysteries within the book.
My wife absolutely loves this show and looking at some of the reviews for it on IMDB I know I'm in the minority here, but I mostly found A Discovery Of Witches to be a bit dull. The whole thing is very stylishly done, highlighting Oxford as the beautiful city it is, and we also spend a lot of time in Venice, and various other exotic international locations. But it's the slow burn and the characters themselves that didn't really do it for me. The vampires are mostly moody, throwing their weight around and showing off their lightning speed and reactions along with their heightened senses. The witches are generally wise and supposedly more powerful, but rarely exhibit any more power than setting something on fire, rattling something, or making it a bit windy to the point where people get knocked off their feet. And the demons... well, the demons don't really seem to do anything at all, acting and appearing just like normal humans throughout the entire show. There's a lot of dodgy acting, and as much as I've loved Teresa Palmer in other roles prior to this, I don't really feel she's well suited here. It's all just slow burn and forbidden love. Twilight, but with grown-ups and less special effects.
It's just been granted another two seasons, so I'm definitely in the minority with my opinions. To be fair though, there have been some enjoyable moments, and I'm certainly interested in the direction the show appeared to be heading in. The finale cliffhanger definitely opened up some fun and interesting potential for next season too.
Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert
Book
For the first time, John Drury convincingly integrates the life and poetry of George Herbert, giving...
Lindsay (1771 KP) rated The Study of Silence in Books
Apr 9, 2019
I know the story is somewhat told in a third person i believe anyway. I was wondering if was more about human nature or if the story was more set to be about Evelyn. Why someone is after her when she not does much to find out. Evelyn seems to get sucked into the murder and danger accidentally.
I do enjoy the fact that we learn about women's rights a bit during England era though this book. The story is set in the era of 1926 England. We experience or learn about Oxford and that time period and customs. That part of the story give the author a swell of job.
She touches a bit of things that might go one during this time that we do not like in our modern day time. The cause of this murder and the unlikely will be surprise of the reason for it. Was the professor living a double life or a secret life. Who is the murderer? To find out you will have to read the book.
Awix (3310 KP) rated The Mummy (2017) in Movies
Feb 11, 2018 (Updated Feb 11, 2018)
There's a good reason why sensible studios don't try to make horror blockbusters, and especially horror blockbusters starring Tom Cruise - every time the film starts to be effectively creepy or atmospheric, along comes a CGI-enhanced chase sequence, or Tom Cruise doing that smirk, or some other manifestation of corporate blandness. Isn't Tom Cruise too old for this sort of thing? Watching him flirting with a considerably younger actress is by far the creepiest thing in the movie, and he seems quite incapable of the moral ambiguity the part probably requires - Russell Crowe, in the Samuel L Jackson plot-device-character role, acts him off the screen.
You scratch your head wondering how this thing is supposed to work - are all the monsters going to team up together? And do what, exactly? No-one seems to have thought this through. It's much more of a zombie movie than one about an actual mummy, anyway. The depiction of the one-way system in Oxford City Centre is also very misleading; I nearly knocked off a point because of it.
Sarah (7800 KP) Nov 11, 2018
Karica Truebenbach (156 KP) Nov 12, 2018