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The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle
The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle
Neil Blackmore | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry, LGBTQ+, Romance
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle rather intoxicated me, if I’m honest. It’s one of those witty yet heart-rending books that I didn’t want to stop listening to.
Ben Aldridge, the narrator, did his part so well. I believed that he was each of the separate characters - he made each of them sound so different, and he especially made Lavelle sound just how I would have imagined him to.
Two brothers, Benjamin and Edgar are on what is probably the most exciting and daunting trip of their young lives - a Grand Tour of Europe. It was what all the well-heeled young men and women would do at the time, in the hope that they’d make good business and, you never know, romantic connections. However, it quickly becomes apparent that the Bowen brothers are looked down on as being of the mercantile class. This horrified me as a modern day reader. Firstly, that two sheltered, innocent boys should be sent out to travel across Europe alone (must be the ‘Mother of Sons’ in me), secondly, that the upper classes were so bloody rude! They had the power to destroy someone with just a word. I could have scooped these boys up and taken them home, just to remove them from these horrendous people.
This is also the story of Benjamin’s self discovery. He meets and falls in love with Horace Lavelle at a time when men could be hanged as a ‘sodomite’. The author is upfront at the start that he had taken some liberties with this book. Homosexuality was illegal. No-one would take a chance of showing that they were gay. And there is that element of danger, of being found out, in this book despite those liberties.
But it’s such a lovely book - I wanted Benjamin to be happy, and I could see the potential for a train wreck ahead. And that’s all I’ll say! What I will say, is that this is a novel well worth your time!
  
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
1968 | Horror

"Night of the Living Dead was one I saw with my dad. I was 18 years old. It scared the s— out of me. I think my dad and I had to sleep together that night. [laughs] I said, “No, that’s it. I don’t care how big I am!” And what I loved about it, too, was how [George] Romero could just take this film, and do it clearly on a budget, and yet make it work, have this sort of tongue-in-cheek humor with it. So part of what, I think, attracted me to the films I mentioned was not just the films themselves, but how they were made, what they meant politically, on all levels. I’m attracted to all those films that, in a way, engaged us across cultures. So, you look at Night of the Living Dead and you put these people in the 1960s in this pressure cooker, and one of them is the black guy, one of them is the white guy, one of them is the chick, and the brother and sister, and you see what happens. The unspoken subtext of it was huge. It was huge, it was revolutionary. Mutiny on the Bounty was the same thing. And even in films like Redemption Road, where I’ll take the black guy, and he’s the one who’s into country and western, and the white guy, he’s the one who’s into blues, and both of them, along the way, are going to encounter music that informs their personal narrative, and it also informs the musicality of the film. So, along the way they pick up some blues, some gospel, some jazz, and that feeds into the song they play at the end of the movie, the sort of redemptive song. So I think those movies actually speak to what I’m attracted to in film. I just like something that, on some level, even if it’s a horror film, is interesting and redemptive and makes you think."

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Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) created a post

Oct 10, 2020  
Stop by my blog, and read an emotionally charged deleted scene from the literary fiction novel LOW WATER CROSSING by Dana Glossbrenner. Enter the GIVEAWAY to win a signed copy of the book or signed copies of both books in the Sulfur Gap Series - two winners!

https://alltheupsandowns.blogspot.com/2020/10/book-blog-tour-and-giveaway-low-water.html

**BOOK SYNOPSIS**
Low Water Crossing is a tribute to those who endure heartache and nevertheless celebrate, to those who wait—and live full lives while waiting.

A backhoe unearths a human skeleton buried on Wayne Cheadham’s West Texas ranch. The investigation points a grisly finger at Wayne’s first wife. And so begins the wild ride through twenty-five years of love and heartbreak.

Wayne’s a highly eligible bachelor who runs into trouble, first because he’s naïve, and next because, well, life is unpredictable. He’s a loveable guy with a peaceful outlook. Just about anyone wants the best for him, dang it. To cope with sadness, he arranges for an old steel-girded bridge to be placed in the dry pasture in front of his house. Says it helps him adjust his perspective. Others say it’s the world’s largest yard ornament. He takes in stray emus and abandoned horses and becomes a mentor to a loveable little boy without much family. He sits and ponders his plight at a low-water crossing over the creek.

A cast of characters from the fictional small West Texas town of Sulfur Gap—the staff of a high school burger shop hangout on the Interstate, coffee groups at the Navaho Café, hair stylists from the Wild Hare, a local sheriff and his deputies, and the band at the local honky-tonk—knits together the community surrounding Wayne, and all bring their own quirks. People you’d find anywhere, some with thicker Texas twangs than others.

The town, the ranch, and familiar Texas cities such as San Angelo, Abilene, and Austin provide a backdrop for universal themes of love, grief, and loyalty.
     
    LiveFit with Jamie Eason

    LiveFit with Jamie Eason

    Health & Fitness and Utilities

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    As a fitness professional and Bodybuilding.com spokesmodel, I'm often asked, "How do I get in shape?...

No More Than Mystic
No More Than Mystic
John Medhurst | 2017 | History & Politics
5
5.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Russian Revolution
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

No Less Than Mystic: A Story of Lenin and the Russian Revolution for a 21st Century Left by John Medhurst is an in-depth historical and political insight to the truth about what really happened in Russia before, during and after the Bolshevik insurrection of October 1917. Beginning with the end of the Tsars rule and ending with Stalinism, Medhurst unearths the fact from the fiction, challenging the information the world has been led to believe.

As mentioned in Medhurst lengthy introduction, previous books on the subject are often biased and inaccurate. Swayed by political beliefs, authors and historians often pass judgement by using the information they have chosen to believe, dismissing anything that goes against their viewpoint. In this book, Medhurst filters through these false histories, preferring to cite from publications written at the time rather than those penned by people who did not witness the events between 1903 and 1921.

Medhurst’s narrative is more political than historical, often going off on tangents. In order to for the reader to obtain some sort of connection with the events described, the author contrasts them with more recent occurrences that readers may have observed or at least understand. These include the British miner’s strike, feminist movements, the Greek economy and a variety of other capitalist struggles.

The Russian revolution is a complex affair that cannot easily be condensed. As a result, No More Than Mystic exceeds 600 pages and covers every event, no matter how big or small, that contributed to the rise of USSR. Russia was a dangerous place to live during the 20th century, particularly when Leninism spiralled into Stalinism. However, Leninism was not all the history books make it out to be.

During GCSE History, one teacher led his class to believe that Lenin was good and Stalin was bad, however, the reality was much more complicated than that. Lenin was not the good guy that many painted him to be. Thousands died as a result of his policies from both execution and starvation. Yet, at the same time, Medhurst tries to point out the reasoning behind the ideas of the communist rulers, refusing to give a personal opinion without laying bare both sides of the argument.

Although this book is accurate and educational, it is not the easiest to sit down and read. Extensive chapters full of mind-numbing information detract from the comprehensive insightfulness of the content. Notwithstanding the fact that the inclusion of contrasting capitalist examples helps the reader to establish some form of familiar ground, the sudden changes in topic, location and time period are often confusing and hard to follow.

No Less Than Mystic is for the intellectual person with a great interest in 20th-century Russian history and communist affairs. Without any prior education on the topic, this book will not mean anything. It attempts to challenge the ingrained beliefs people have about what happened during the Bolshevik insurrection. Those who do not know anything will not benefit from the confronting enlightenment.

In all, No Less Than Mystic is a well-researched academic text that brings a fresh history of Lenin and the Russian Revolution. Those who want an unbiased truth need to read this book and be sceptical about any other on the topic. In order to form opinions, one must know the facts.