October 28, 2008
New Books - Fiction
The Keepsake, - Tess Gerritson
Bestseller Gerritsen's at times lackluster series heroines prove they can shine in her solid seventh thriller to feature Det. Jane Rizzoli and Dr. Maura Isles (after The Mephisto Club). When medical examiner Isles studies an X-ray scan of Madame X, which everyone assumes is a newly discovered Egyptian mummy, at Boston's Crispin Museum, she realizes the mummy isn't a priceless artifact but a recent murder victim, gruesomely preserved. Rizzoli focuses the police investigation on Dr. Josephine Pulcillo, a young archeologist recently hired by the museum who may have something to hide. More victims soon turn up, including a tsantsa (shrunken head) in a hidden museum chamber and a corpse resembling a well-preserved bog body in Pulcillo's car. After Pulcillo disappears, Rizzoli and Isles must scramble to find her before she becomes another trophy in the killer's growing collection. As usual, Gerritsen delivers an intricate plot that will keep readers guessing. – Publishers Weekly
Books: A Memoir, - Larry McMurtry
It wasn't enough for Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry to become one of the most prolific, bestselling, and beloved of American writers. Besides writing nearly forty books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove, he has emerged as one this nation's greatest bookmen. In Books: A Memoir, McMurtry shares with readers his lifelong passion and dogged pursuit of books. In short, gem-like chapters, he paints a fascinating picture of the landscape of American book culture and book selling over a 50-year period. The story is as dusty, musty and crusty as any of McMurtry's fictionalized Westerns, and filled with characters that seem like they stepped out of central casting. Whether you love McMurtry, books, bookstores or a combination thereof, you'll find something to love in Books: A Memoir. Settle in with a cup of coffee and let McMurtry kindle your passion for physical books. --Lauren Nemroff
The Lucky One - Nicholas Sparks
Is there really such thing as a lucky charm? The hero of Nicholas Sparks's new novel believes he's found one in the form of a photograph of a smiling woman he's never met, but who he comes to believe holds the key to his destiny. The chain of events that leads to him possessing the photograph and finding the woman pictured in it is the stuff of love stories only a master such as Sparks can write.
Indignation - Philip Roth
Enter once again into the echo chamber of Philip Roth's memory and imagination. In the second year of the Korean War, a butcher's son--a straight-A student wound tight with aspiration--flees Newark and his father's increasingly unhinged fears for his safety. Heading Midwest, he finds a strange collegiate land of fraternities, football heroes, V-neck pullover sweaters and white buckskin shoes, panty raids, and mandatory chapel services, and, most startlingly, a young woman with desires of her own. Like another fiction grandmaster of his generation, Alice Munro, Roth seems able to spin infinite surprising tales from a few familiar building blocks, and in Indignation, his 25th novel, he has constructed a taut, haunting (and, as always, funny) story that ranks among his best. Reading at times like a buttoned-down Portnoy's Complaint (if it's possible to imagine such a thing), Indignation records a series of small explosions against '50s propriety and the dire consequences they lead to, capturing the misery of desire amid repression, along with the greater terror of being trapped in endless, relentless memory. --Tom Nissley
The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday, - Alexander McCall Smith
In Smith's winning fifth novel to feature Edinburgh philosophical sleuth Isabel Dalhousie (after The Careful Use of Compliments), Dalhousie, who's recently assumed ownership of the obscure journal she's edited for many years, the Review of Applied Ethics, applies her deductive gifts to the case of a disgraced doctor. When a patient dies after taking a new antibiotic that Marcus Moncrieff deemed safe in clinical trials, the doctor's original report turns out to contain falsified data. Did Moncrieff skew the data to please the drug manufacturers? – Publishers Weekly
The Given Day - Dennis Lehane
Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane’s long-awaited eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future. Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters more richly drawn than any Lehane has ever created, The Given Day tells the story of two families--one black, one white--swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power.
Hot Mahogany - Stuart Woods
One night at Elaine’s, Stone Barrington—back in Manhattan after chasing down the bad guys in the Caribbean—meets Barton Cabot, older brother of his sometime ally, CIA boss Lance Cabot. Barton’s career in army intelligence is even more top secret than his brother’s, but he’s suffering from amnesia following a random act of violence. Amnesia is a dangerous thing in a man whose memory is chockfull of state secrets, so Lance hires Stone to watch Barton’s back.
Heat Lightning - John Sandford
John Sandford’s introduction of Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers was an immediate critical and popular success: “laser-sharp characters and a plot that’s fast and surprising” (Cleveland Plain Dealer); “an idiosyncratic, thoroughly ingratiating hero” (Booklist). Flowers is only in his late thirties, but he’s been around the block a few times, and he doesn’t think much can surprise him anymore. He’s wrong.
A Most Wanted Man – John La Carre
When boxer Melik Oktay and his mother, both Turkish Muslims living in Hamburg, take in a street person calling himself Issa at the start of this morally complex thriller from le Carré (The Mission Song), they set off a chain of events implicating intelligence agencies from three countries. Issa, who claims to be a Muslim medical student, is, in fact, a wanted terrorist and the son of Grigori Karpov, a Red Army colonel whose considerable assets are concealed in a mysterious portfolio at a Hamburg bank. Tommy Brue, a stereotypical flawed everyman caught up in the machinations of spies and counterspies, enters the plot when Issa's attorney seeks to claim these assets. The book works best in its depiction of the rivalries besetting even post-9/11 intelligence agencies that should be allies, but none of the characters is as memorable as George Smiley or Magnus Pym. Still, even a lesser le Carré effort is far above the common run of thrillers. -Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
The Replacement Child – Christine Barber
Lucy Newroe, editor of the Capital Tribune, a Santa Fe newspaper, is given a tip from Scanner Lady, an anonymous reader who listens to her police scanner. That same night, the body of a young woman, Melissa Baca, is found at the bottom of a local bridge. When Scanner Lady is murdered, Lucy connects her tip with Baca's murder and tries to convince the police to investigate the link. Santa Fe police detective Gil Montoya is called upon to work with the state police to help investigate the crime, and he and Lucy end up exchanging information. Lucy is also working reluctantly as a volunteer medic and dealing with her recent romantic breakup, while Gil worries about his mother and her health. A strong sense of the city of Santa Fe and its environs and the appeal of the two well-developed main characters show why this mystery was the first winner of the Tony Hillerman Prize for the best debut mystery set in the Southwest. (Sue O'Brien Booklist )
New Books - Non-Fiction
The Way of the World : The Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism – Ron Suskind
From Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind comes a startling look at how America lost its way and at the nation’s struggle, day by day, to reclaim the moral authority upon which its survival depends. From the White House to Downing Street, from the fault-line countries of South Asia to the sands of Guantánamo, Suskind offers an astonishing story that connects world leaders to the forces waging today’s shadow wars and to the next generation of global citizens.
New DVDs
The Paul Newman Collection
The Long, Hot Summer
Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Orson Welles, Anthony Franciosa, Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury co-star in this riveting tale of life in the Deep South. Provocative and compelling, it simmers with sexual tension, bawdy humor and a powerful clash of personalities. When Ben Quick (Newman), a suspected barnburner drifts into town, he catches the eye of Will Varner, a tyrannical, intimidating patriarch (Welles) who decides Quick is the ideal husband for his spinsterish daughter (Woodward). But once the loner moves in, the two men lock horns, drawing Varner's family into a complex web of emotions and actions that leave all of them changed forever.
Sweet Bird of Youth
Drifter Chance Wayne returns to his hometown after many years of trying to make it in the movies. With him is a faded film star he picked up along the way, Alexandra Del Lago. While trying to get her help to make a screen test, he also finds the time to meet his former girlfriend Heavenly, the daughter of the local politician Tom 'Boss' Finley, who more or less forced him to leave the town many years ago.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
"I'm not living with you," Maggie snaps at Brick. "We occupy the same cage, that's all." The raw emotions and crackling dialogue of Tennessee Williams' 1955 Pulitzer Prize play rumble like a thunderstorm in this film version whose fiery performances and grown-up themes made it one of 1958's top box-office hits. Paul Newman earned his first Oscar nomination as troubled ex-sports hero Brick. In a performance that marked a transition to richer adult roles, Elizabeth Taylor snagged her second. Her Maggie the Cat is a vivid portrait of passionate loyalty. Nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture and also starring Burl Ives (repeating his Broadway triumph as mendacity-loathing Big Daddy), Judith Anderson and Jack Carson, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof sizzles.
The Towering Inferno
Disaster movies used to work because there was little certainty as to who would survive. Not so in this film, really an amalgam of two original stories, about a group of well-to-do celebrants at the top floor of a skyscraper. Cheapo electrical wiring and bad construction management cause an enormous blaze at the lower floors, steadily rising to consume the revelers. Newman's an architect, McQueen a firefighter, and Fred Astaire a kind old gentleman, for which he was Oscar-nominated. O.J. Simpson plays a security guard who rescues a cat. Now that's a disaster. --Keith Simanton
Mr. & Mrs. Bridge
Screen favorites Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward star as a well-off couple who raise their children in the comfort of country club society only to find their control over the family's fate slipping away. Daughter Ruth (Kyra Sedgwick) leaves for the artistic bohemia of New York, more conventional Carolyn marries the "wrong sort" of man, and brother Douglas (Robert Sean Leonard) joins the army. In an empty house, the Bridges' marriage shifts. Mr. Bridge grows more rigid. But Mrs. Bridge becomes more vulnerable and searching as she begins to wonder if her husband really loves her. Directed by James Ivory, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge offers a wryly emotional portrait of a marriage as it rides the tumultuous changes of 1930s and '40s America.
The Verdict
Sidney Lumet's riveting courtroom drama earned five Oscar(r) nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor for Paul Newman's towering performance as a down-and-out alcoholic attorney who stumbles onto one last chance to redeem himself. When attorney Frank Calvin (Newman) is given an open-and-shut medical malpractice case that no one thinks he can win, he courageously decides to refuse a settlement from the hospital. Instead he takes the case, and the entire legal system, to court.
Hud
Newman plays a man at odds with his father, tradition and himself. His father is an old-line cattle rancher and Newman is the son whose only interests are fighting, drinking, hot-Roding and womanizing.
Hustler
Paul Newman heads a superb cast featuring Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott and Piper Laurie in the riveting film that received an Academy Award(r) nomination as Best Picture of 1961 and brought all four of its Oscar(r) nomination. Newman (Best Actor nominee) is electrifying as Fast Eddie Felson, an arrogant, amoral hustler who haunts backstreet pool rooms fleecing anyone who'll pick up a cue. Determined to be acclaimed as the best, Eddie seeks out the legendary Minnesota Fats (Gleason, Supporting Actor nominee), who's backed by Bert Gordon (Scott, Supporting Actor nominee), a predatory gambler. Eddie can beat the champ, but virtually defeats himself with his low self-image. The love of a lonely woman (Laurie, Best Actress nominee) could turn Eddie's life around, but he won't rest until he beats Minnesota Fats, no matter what price he must pay. Voted one of the year's ten best by "The New York Times" and "Time," and distinguished by 2 Academy Awards- Cinematography, Art Direction-Set Decoration (B&W), The Hustler is a dazzling cinematic triumph.
Road to Perdition
In Road to Perdition, Tom Hanks plays a hit man who finds his heart. Michael Sullivan (Hanks) is the right-hand man of crime boss John Rooney (Paul Newman), but when Sullivan's son accidentally witnesses one of his hits, he must choose between his crime family and his real one. The movie has a slow pace, largely because director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) seems to be in love with the gorgeous period locations. Hanks gives a deceptively battened-down performance at first, only opening up toward the very end of the film, making his character's personal transformation all the more convincing. Newman turns in a masterful piece of work, revealing Rooney's advancing age but at the same time, his terrifying power. Jude Law is also a standout, playing a hit man-photographer with chilling creepiness. This movie requires a little patience, but the beautiful cinematography and moving ending make it well worth the wait. --Ali Davis
Absence of Malice
The ethics of the press are roundly slapped around in an entertaining if not always believable drama from director Sydney Pollack. Sally Field is the Miami reporter who is set up to leak information on a dead-end murder investigation. A sneaky government official (a marvelous, rubber-band-spinning Bob Balaban) provides the information that implies liquor distributor Paul Newman is under investigation. When the story runs, it uncorks a legal quagmire that puts the spotlight on presumably innocent lives. As the lawyers explain, the paper's story is accurate, even though it may be untrue. The details of the story are sharply drawn by first-time screenwriter and former reporter Kurt Luedtke (who later went on to win an Oscar scripting Pollack's Out of Africa); the film could be used in a Media Ethics 101 class. Newman secretly counterattacks in a clever plot to derail the process that quickly encompasses his jittery friend (Oscar nominee Melinda Dillon). Field's continuing ethical gaps--including falling in love with her subject--stretch the film's credibility. Then again, who wouldn't fall for Paul Newman in the Florida sun? --Doug Thomas
The Color of Money
Legendary actor Paul Newman and Academy Award(R)-nominee Tom Cruise ignite the screen in this powerful drama. Brilliantly directed by Martin Scorsese, Newman re-creates one of his most memorable roles from The Hustler. As Fast Eddie Felson, he still believes that "money won is twice as sweet as money earned." To prove his point, he forms a profitable yet volatile partnership with Vince (Cruise), a young pool hustler with a sexy, tough-talking girlfriend, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, But when Vince's flashy arrogance leads to more than a few lost matches, all bets are off between Eddie and him. The Color of Money will electrify you with its suspenseful story, dazzling cinematography, and dynamic performances.
October 21, 2008
Foreign Films on DVD
Camille Claudel with Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu, Laurent Grévill, and Alain Cuny (French with English subtitles)
We first meet the sculptor as she digs clay with bare fingers from a frozen ditch, in the winter of 1885. By the time the film leaves her, in 1913, she's an acclaimed, if socially scorned, artist who's been committed to an asylum. In the interim, Claudel (Isabelle Adjani) falls in love with the famous, older, womanizing Rodin (Gérard Depardieu). Claudel abandons her work to assist the creatively bankrupt Rodin, filling in as his muse, assistant, and lover. When pregnancy forces Claudel to ask him to choose between her and his longtime mistress, he won't, she leaves, and their alliance ends. This proves to be the turning point for Claudel's mental health; when her affair with Rodin ends, she begins her intimacy with insanity.
Breathless (French and English with English subtitles)
Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg play two young lovers on the run from the law after Belmondo kills a cop and steals a car. Soon they are on an odyssey through the streets of Paris searching for some money he is owed so that he and his American girlfriend can escape to Italy. As a chase picture it features some startling photography on the streets of Paris, but as a romance it defies expectations, existing as part tragedy and part Bonnie and Clyde crime movie. The result is a wholly original film experience. Inspiring not only a remake starring Richard Gere but numerous films and television series, Breathless is an essential part of motion picture history. --Robert Lane
L’auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment) – Jean-luc Godard (in French and English with English subtitles)
An absolute delight, L'Auberge Espagnole captures a moment in a life, seemingly about nothing and everything all at once. Xavier (Romain Duris), a young Parisian not sure what his life is about, decides to spend a year in Barcelona studying economics--leaving behind his unhappy girlfriend (Audrey Tautou, Amélie) but joining an international mix of students in a hectic, crowded apartment. Arguing and partying with his British, German, Danish, and Italian roommates--not to mention getting lessons in love from a Belgian lesbian (Cecile De France) so that he can seduce a friend's wife (Judith Godreche, Ridicule)--Xavier learns more about life than economics. The movie, beautifully shot on digital video, has a freshness and spontaneity that make its simple events--a series of arguments and flirtations--feel like a miniature portrait of the European Union as it comes into focus (the title can be translated as "Euro pudding"). Vibrant, charming, and all-around entertaining. --Bret Fetzer
Manion of the Spring- Yves Montand (French with English subtitles)
Less a sequel than a seamless continuation of its predecessor, Jean de Florette, Manon of the Spring brings with it a more epic scope as it depicts the growth to womanhood of the daughter (Emmanuelle Béart) of the doomed farmer of the first film. As she discovers the truth of what happened to her father as a result of the scheming of their neighbor (Yves Montand), who took the land for himself, she vows revenge, realizing that the neighbor's deeds have irrevocably shaped the course of her life. Her moves toward avenging her father's demise provide an ironic twist to this harsh and thought-provoking saga, and French director Claude Berri perfectly illustrates the lasting consequences of deceit, greed, and revenge. Manon of the Spring is a very special foreign film choice, destined to be revered for years to come. --Robert Lane
La Dolce Vida – Fredrico Fellini, Director. (Italian with English subtitles)
At three brief hours, La Dolce Vita, a piece of cynical, engrossing social commentary, stands as Federico Fellini's timeless masterpiece. A rich, detailed panorama of Rome's modern decadence and sophisticated immorality, the film is episodic in structure but held tightly in focus by the wandering protagonist through whom we witness the sordid action. Marcello Rubini (extraordinarily played by Marcello Mastroianni) is a tabloid reporter trapped in a shallow high-society existence. A man of paradoxical emotional juxtapositions (cool but tortured, sexy but impotent), he dreams about writing something important but remains seduced by the money and prestige that accompany his shallow position. He romanticizes finding true love but acts unfazed upon finding that his girlfriend has taken an overdose of sleeping pills… -Dave McCoy
The Double Life of Veronique (French, Italian, Polish with English subtitles)
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s international breakthrough remains one of his most beloved films, a ravishing, mysterious rumination on identity, love, and human intuition. Irène Jacob is incandescent as both Weronika, a Polish choir soprano, and her double, Véronique, a French music teacher. Though unknown to each other, the two women share an enigmatic, purely emotional bond, which Kieslowski details in gorgeous reflections, colors, and movements. Aided by Slawomir Idziak’s shimmering cinematography and Zbigniew Preisner’s haunting, operatic score, Kieslowski creates one of cinema’s most purely metaphysical works: The Double Life of Véronique is an unforgettable symphony of feeling.
Eat Drink Man Woman (Cantonese and Chinese with English subtitles)
This is not a movie to see on an empty stomach. Writer-director Ang Lee's 1994 Oscar nominee tells a family story about a chef and his three daughters through the meals the chef prepares and serves his family. This touching, dryly funny story of a family coping with personal lives and the way those lives intersect with the family relationships captures a shift in generations in Taipei. The father, a famous chef who has lost his taste buds, still cooks, though he draws no pleasure from eating. His daughters, meanwhile, deal with both the disappointments and surprises of daily living and the way their adult lives compare to the expectations the widowed father had for them. A subtle, amusing--and mouth-watering--comedy of impeccable manners. --Marshall Fine
October 14, 2008
New Additons to Our Movie Collection (DVD)
Ed Wood - Johnny Depp
Edward D. Wood Jr. was an actor writer-director-producer, occasionally in drag, who combined meager bursts of talent with an undying optimism to create some of the most bizarrely memorable "B" movies to ever come out of Tinseltown. Though Wood died in obscurity as an alcoholic in 1978, his films have been considered cult classics for years. He is consistently voted the worst director who ever lived. You would think this an odd subject, but director Tim Burton harnesses the undying hopefulness that made Wood such a character. Shot in black and white, just like Wood's creations, this stylized, witty production captures the poetic absurdity of Wood's films and his unconventional life.
Rosemary’s Baby – Mia Farrow
Psychological terrorism and supernatural horror have rarely been dramatized as effectively as in this classic 1968 thriller, masterfully adapted and directed by Roman Polanski from the chilling novel by Ira Levin. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) is a young, trusting housewife in New York whose actor husband (John Cassavetes), unbeknownst to her, has literally made a deal with the devil. In the thrall of a witches' coven headquartered in their apartment building, the young husband arranges to have his wife impregnated by Satan in exchange for success in a Broadway play.
Sweeny Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again in a big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning musical thriller "Sweeney Todd." Depp stars in the title role as a man unjustly sent to prison who vows revenge not only for that cruel punishment but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to reopen his barber shop Sweeney Todd becomes the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who "shaved the heads of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard from again."
Turtles Can Fly – A Foreign Film in Kurdish with English Subtitles
From acclaimed director Bahman Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses) comes the first film shot in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Heart-wrenching as well as spirit-raising (The Hollywood Reporter), Turtles Can Fly mixes humor and tragedy to startling effect, resulting in a very timely masterpiece (TV Guide) about children struggling to survive in an endless war zone. On the Iraqi-Turkish border, enterprising 13-year-old 'satellite (Soran Ebrahim) is the de facto leader of a Kurdish village, thanks to his ability to install satellite dishes and translate news of the pending US invasion. Organizing fellow orphans into landmine-collection teams so that they can eke out a living, he is all business until the arrival of a clairvoyant boy and his quiet, beautiful sister.
Arthur – Dudley Moore
When you get caught between the moon and New York City (ahem), chances are you'll find yourself taking another look at this hit comedy starring Oscar-nominated Dudley Moore as the charmingly witty, perpetually drunken millionaire Arthur Bach. Arthur falls in love with a waitress (Liza Minnelli) who doesn't care about his money, but unfortunately Arthur's stern father wants him to marry a Waspy prima donna. The young lush turns to his wise and loyal butler (Oscar-winner John Gielgud) for assistance and advice. Arthur was a huge hit when released in 1981, as was its Oscar-winning theme song by Christopher Cross. Few remember that the movie was, sadly, the only one ever made by writer-director Steve Gordon, who died less than a year after the film's release. Consistently funny and heartwarming, Arthur was hailed as a tribute to the great romantic comedies of the 1930s. --Jeff Shannon
Being Julia – Annette Bening
Annette Bening's outstanding performance is the best reason to see Being Julia, a highly melodramatic adaptation of the 1937 novel Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham. With a prestigious pedigree (director Istvan Szabo and screenwriter Ronald Harwood share impressive theatrical backgrounds) and a stellar cast including Jeremy Irons, Bruce Greenwood, and Juliet Stevenson, the film's backstage and onstage theatrics take place in pre-World War II London, when the venerable actress Julia (Bening) fends off middle-age by romancing a stage-struck young American (Shaun Evans) in a calculated attempt to retain some youthful vitality while airing her own dirty laundry onstage in a glorious act of divine diva behavior. Treating life and theater as one big play in which she's the perpetual star, Julia's nothing if not a master thespian, and Bening's got all the chops to keep her in the spotlight. If the film isn't quite worthy of Bening's excellence, at least it gives her performance the showcase it deserves. -- Jeff Shannon
Julia – Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave
Part of the late-'70s wave of films about strong women (as if none had existed before that); Julia starred Jane Fonda as writer Lillian Hellman in a story based on some of Hellman's own writings. The stronger woman here is the title character (Vanessa Redgrave), a socially active young woman who teaches Hellman the importance of sticking to her beliefs--even in the face of Nazi terror. The subplot focuses on Hellman's growth as a writer, under the supportive wing of lover Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards). Lushly photographed by Fred Zinnemann, it's one of the few films that projects a sense of how a writer writes; it also was unafraid to explore the dark consequences of conscience, when Resistance-fighter Julia is captured by the Germans. Robards and Redgrave both won Oscars (leading to Redgrave's Zionist hoodlums acceptance speech). Watch for Meryl Streep in a tiny role in her film debut. --Marshall Fine
Iris – Judi Dench, Kate Winslet
Iris teems with fussy charm and the intimate joy found only in a lover's foibles. Adapted from the memoirs of literary critic John Bayley, the film recounts his courtship of and long marriage to British novelist Iris Murdoch. The scenario tacks back and forth from the young Iris (Kate Winslet)--ready to seduce one and all with her coy command of words and sex appeal--to the elder Iris (Judi Dench)--slowly giving way to the cruel erasure of Alzheimer's--and it is impossible not to be moved by the film's denouement of loss.
Volver (in Spanish with English subtitles) – Penelope Cruz
From two-time Academy Award®-winner Pedro Almod var (2003 Best Original Screenplay Talk to Her; 2000 Best Foreign Language Film All About My Mother) comes VOLVER a comedic and compassionate tribute to women and their resilience in the face of life’s most outrageous tribulations. A luminous Penelope Cruz leads an ensemble of gifted actresses including Carmen Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). Raimunda (Cruz) and her sister Sole lost their parents in a tragic fire years ago or did they? Superstitious villagers claim that the girls’ departed mother Irene (Maura) has been seen wandering around their Aunt Paula’s home. When Irene appears to Sole she explains that she has returned to set right her daughters’ troubled lives and reveal shocking secrets that will impact everyone! Raimunda has "female troubles" of her own least of which is a corpse in the freezer! Winner of numerous film festival and critics™ awards VOLVER is a hilarious tale of love loss and forgiveness.
New Books - Non-Fiction
War Journal – Richard Engel
In the most dramatic and intimate account of battle reporting since Michael Herr's classic Dispatches, NBC News's award-winning Middle East Bureau Chief, Richard Engel, offers an unvarnished and often emotional account of five years in Iraq.
Engel is the longest serving broadcaster in Iraq and the only American television reporter to cover the country continuously before, during, and after the 2003 U.S. invasion. Fluent in Arabic, he has had unrivaled access to U.S. military commanders, Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, Iraqi families, and even President George W. Bush, who called him to the White House for a private briefing. He has witnessed nearly every major milestone in this long war.
New Books - Fiction
People of the Book: A Novel – Geraldine Brooks
One of the earliest Jewish religious volumes to be illuminated with images, the Sarajevo Haggadah survived centuries of purges and wars thanks to people of all faiths who risked their lives to safeguard it. Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, has turned the intriguing but sparely detailed history of this precious volume into an emotionally rich, thrilling fictionalization that retraces its turbulent journey.
Breaking Dawn – Stephanie Meyer
To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hang.
New Moon – Stephanie Meyer
Recovered from the vampire attack that hospitalized her in the conclusion of Twilight (Little, Brown, 2005), Bella celebrates her birthday with her boyfriend Edward and his family, a unique clan of vampires that has sworn off human blood. But the celebration abruptly ends when the teen accidentally cuts her arm on broken glass. The sight and smell of her blood trickling away forces the Cullen family to retreat lest they be tempted to make a meal of her. After all is mended, Edward, realizing the danger that he and his family create for Bella, sees no option for her safety but to leave…
October 7, 2008
New Books - Fiction
Skylight Confessions – Alice Hoffman
In her latest gothic fairy tale of doomed passion and indelible guilt, Arlyn, 17, is utterly alone in the world until, like a mermaid casting her spell over a lost sailor, she pulls John Moody into her orbit and refuses to let go. A student at Yale, he is the lackluster son of an architect famous for building a Connecticut house known as the Glass Slipper. In a sinister variation on the nursery rhyme about the woman who lived in a shoe, the mismatched couple dwells precariously in the comfortless glass mansion with their solemn son, Sam, and, later, a daughter, Blanca. –Booklist
The Story of Marriage – Andrew Sean Greer
Andrew Sean Greer, one of the most talented young writers of our time, has written a beautiful and moving tale of war, sacrifice, race, and motherhood. But ultimately, as with The Confessions of Max Tivoli, this is a book about love, and it is a marvel to watch Greer probe the mysteries of love to such devastating effect. —Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Dead Room – Heather Graham
At the start of this chilling paranormal thriller from bestseller Graham (Kiss of Darkness), anthropologist Leslie MacIntyre eagerly accepts an invitation to work on an archeological dig near New York City's Hastings House, a historic building that survived the explosion which a year earlier seriously injured her and killed her fiancé, Matt Connolly… Leslie's paranormal powers lead her to not only important archeological discoveries but also grave personal danger. The intense, unexpected conclusion will leave readers well satisfied.
-Publishers Weekly
Woman in Red – Ellen Goudge
Returning home to the snug offshore community of Gray's Island, Washington, after nine years in prison for the attempted murder of the drunk driver who killed her son, Alice Kessler finds that much has changed. For one thing, her intended victim, Owen Wilson, now confined to a wheelchair, has been elected mayor and uses his infirmity to great political advantage…. Wanting only to lead a quiet life so she can rebuild a relationship with her surviving son, Jeremy, Alice quickly discovers the depths of Wilson's need for revenge when Jeremy is falsely accused of rape. –Booklist
Atmospheric Disturbances – Rivka Galchen
Imagine what it might be like to realize that the person you love is, in fact, not the person you love but a doppelgänger: or, what Leo Liebenstein coolly terms a "simulacrum" of his wife Rema at the outset of Atmospheric Disturbances. David Byrne's infamous cry that "this is not my beautiful wife" seems the most likely response, but Leo's reaction to this sea change takes unpredictable and dazzlingly plotted turns in the story that follows. Leo's journey to recover the "real" Rema is nothing short of byzantine; among its many mysteries is the delightfully inscrutable Dr. Tzvi Gal-Chen, a master meteorologist who in cleverly constructed flashback sequences takes up residence in the daily rhythms of Leo and Rema's marriage and becomes as much a focus of Leo's obsession as his wife's whereabouts. -Anne Bartholomew
Dark Possessions – Christine Feehan
Best seller Feehan's steamy and dreamy 18th Carpathian novel (after 2006's Dark Celebration) explores the erotic allure of ancient shape-shifters, Brazilian rain forests and vampires. Manuel Manolito De La Cruz, one of those dark, irresistible Carpathian hunks who can only thrive with one woman by his side, has found his life mate in MaryAnn Delaney, a Seattle counselor for battered women who flies to his Brazilian family compound to help a pregnant rape victim. It takes a while for MaryAnn to accept Manolito's love, as Feehan, with her usual expertise, draws out the foreplay between the two. –Publishers Weekly
The Palace of Illusions – Chitra Banerjee Divakarun
The Palace of Illusions is a woman's look at crime and punishment, loyalty, promises and love and vengeance. With The Palace of Illusions, along with her other bestselling novels, Divakaruni has proven that her storytelling talents put her right up there with the best. —The Miami Herald
Someone to Love – Jude Deveraux
In Deveraux's familiar latest, Jace Montgomery's fiancée, Stacy, commits suicide while they're vacationing in England—or so, three years after her death, everybody but Jace believes. The chance discovery of a letter Stacy received days before she died and a photo of Priory House in Margate, England—the village where Stacy committed suicide—prompt Jace to investigate. Finding Priory House for sale, Jace buys it despite its ugliness and expense. Dwelling in the house is the ghost of young Ann Stuart, who lived there in the 1870s and committed suicide just before her wedding… -Publishers Weekly
The Watchman – Robert Crais
Robert Crais wrote for the hit television shows Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, and L.A. Law, among others, so it comes as no surprise that his novels (including 11 featuring Elvis Cole and Joe Pike) have a hard-boiled feel and seamlessly incorporate cutting dialogue (see the recently reviewed The Two-Minute Rule, HHHJ May/June 2006). In The Watchman, Crais maintains his reputation as an edge-of-your-seat plotter with a psychological bent. –Bookmarks Magazine
The Girl with Braided Hair – Margaret Coel
Coel's 13th Wind River mystery (after 2006's The Drowning Man) is far more engaging than its bland title might suggest. The discovery of skeletal remains still bearing a long dark braid of hair opens deep wounds among the Native Americans who live on Wyoming's Wind River reservation. Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden's efforts to identify the woman, apparently a murder victim, cause tension with her love interest and law partner, Adam Lone Eagle, driving her to enlist the aid of their friend Fr. John O'Malley. A rash of threats and the murder of a woman Vicky questioned confirm her suspicions that members of a 1970s activist group, the American Indian Movement, are still on the rez and somehow involved in all the happenings. Bringing her trademark western flair to nonstop action, Coel keeps danger hanging over Vicky's head as she follows a trail of clues to their startling conclusion. - Publishers Weekly
Bangkok Haunts – John Burdett
At the start of Burdett's superb third mystery-thriller to feature Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep (after Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Tattoo), Jitpleecheep shows old friend Kimberley Jones, an American FBI agent, a vicious snuff film he's received depicting the murder of an ex-lover of his named Damrong. Jitpleecheep and Jones maintain their complex platonic relationship as, helped by Jitpleecheep's assistant Lek, they pursue Damrong's killers. –Publisher’s Weekly
Junkyard Dreams – Jeanette Boyer
Boyer's competent debut follows the outspoken, lonely Rita Vargas, who obsesses over preserving her old family junkyard and open desert land in the face of Santa Fe's relentless suburban sprawl. She fills up her empty hours by reading books and welding steel. The unusual junk art created by her adult son, Parker, decorates the junkyard. Nearby, Joe Oakes, 39, renovates houses with his girlfriend, Chloe, who also runs an upscale art gallery. They decide to erect their dream house on the scenic hill behind Rita's junkyard and the book's main conflict takes shape. Soon, however, Joe needs to establish a subdivision on the hilltop to stave off certain bankruptcy; to do it, he must skirt a building code restriction. The hilltop seller and an unscrupulous city official collude to approve Joe's submitted plan. The antagonists aren't quite sharp, but Boyer deftly dramatizes Western land development, with its ominous impact on small family landowners, and offers vibrant depictions of the threatened natural desertscape. –Publishers Weekly
New Books - Non-Fiction
Fair Game: How a Top CIA Agent Was Betrayed by Her Own Government – Valerie Plame
On July 6, 2003, four months after the United States invaded Iraq, former ambassador Joseph Wilson's now historic op-ed, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," appeared in The New York Times. A week later, conservative pundit Robert Novak revealed in his newspaper column that Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA operative. The public disclosure of that secret information spurred a federal investigation and led to the trial and conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and the Wilsons' civil suit against top officials of the Bush administration. Much has been written about the "Valerie Plame" story, but Valerie herself has been silent, until now. Some of what has been reported about her has been frighteningly accurate, serving as a pungent reminder to the Wilsons that their lives are no longer private. And some has been completely false--distorted characterizations of Valerie and her husband and their shared integrity.
The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World – Alan Greenspan
After 9/11 Alan Greenspan knew, if he needed any further reinforcement, that we're living in a new world - the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than it was even 20 years ago. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. The Age of Turbulence is Alan Greenspan's incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world - how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill-channeled through his own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. He begins his account on that September 11th morning, but then leaps back to his childhood, and follows the arc of his remarkable life's journey through to his more than 18-year tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, from 1987 to 2006, during a time of transforming change.
Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries Tag: Author of In Search of Schrod. Cat– John Gribben
Science has not stood still in the years since In Search of Schrödinger's Cat was written, and in this new book, Gribbin brings us up to speed on the latest developments. New interpretive models have been put forth about the nature of particles and light; experimental evidence has turned over many of the basic precepts of the Copenhagen interpretation, which says that until it is observed, the subatomic world exists only as a probability wave, lacking any objective reality independent of observation. The new models offer not only a paradigm independent of an observer, but also begin to unite quantum phenomena with relativity and Newtonian mechanics. This is not to say that the quantum realm has become more comprehensible. With particles existing simultaneously as particles and waves, feedback loops, and waves that move forward and backward in time, the quantum world is still a strange, strange place; it's just a little less solipsistic.
The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy’s Dossier on Hillary Clinton – Amanda B. Carpenter
Here's your one-stop guide to everything Hillary and her staff don't want you to know. Written in the style and format of Regnery Publishing's New York Times bestsellers The Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and Politically Incorrect GuidesT, the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Dossier on Hillary Rodham Clinton is full of fresh reporting, devastating quotes, scandalous stories, funny sidebars, and forgotten but telling incidents from Hillary's past.
How I Helped O.J. Get Away With Murder – Mike Gilbert
You Don't Know the Full Truth About O.J. Simpson and the Murders that Gripped a Nation. But Mike Gilbert does, and after nearly two decades of being O.J. Simpson's sports agent, business advisor, and trusted confidant, Gilbert is breaking his silence and telling the full story of the man he idolized, but now despises.
New Mexico’s Crypto-Jews- Image and Memory – Cary Hertz
Herz's photographs and the accompanying essays honor the people whose ancestors, through families' oral histories and genealogical records, knew about their heritage. Other New Mexican Hispanics have recently begun to explore their families' customs and are only beginning to examine their possible blended lineage. To help complete her exploration, Herz sought out symbols—gravesites, artifacts, and icons—that might point toward the presence of the descendants of crypto-Jews who came to the New World. There has recently been a renewed interest in crypto-Jews, as DNA tests have revealed the Jewish heritage of a number of Hispanic New Mexicans.