David M. Brown's Blog, page 16

The Diary of Mr Kain: Week #17

Monday

The job hunt continued for Beard Face today. He set his sights on being a multi-purpose road sign. After contacting the local council, the old boy convinced them to head outside and watch a demonstration of his signing ability. Examples of beardy’s actions included squatting (slow down), jumping (up your speed), smiling (most likely for intimidation), shaking his head (stop), nodding his head (proceed) and crying (hazard up ahead). Unsurprisingly, the council have decided to stick with the inanimate road signs.

Tuesday

Beard Face and Frizzy Hair have been watching Ramsay’s Hotel Hell. Whenever the title credits are played out they continue to complain about the theme song, saying it doesn’t make sense. They’re quite right, the lyrics are a load of nonsense, but then again the music accompanies Gordon wandering around avoiding flames and giant spiders so such complaints don’t really seem justified. Also, why does Gordon insist on displaying his bare arse in every episode? At least the underwear doesn’t come off in the kitchen…as far as we know!

Thank goodness for inanimate road signs. Beard Face’s alternative is still giving me nightmares.

Wednesday

“Why did the chicken cross the road?” Beard Face asked.

“Leave the room, or I jam this lamp up your emergency exit,” I responded.

“No, because it wanted to get to the other side.”

Beard Face is currently in A&E seeing a doctor, a surgeon and a lamp specialist.

Thursday

Charlie hasn’t been so good today. He seems to be in pain but is in complete denial to the rest of us. I shouldn’t be surprised. Charlie once told me that if one of his soldiers had an arm or leg blown off in battle, he’d insist they continue because you have two of each limb. Obviously if you lost both legs or arms then crawling while firing a gun with your teeth would be the next step.

Friday

It was a tough day for Charlie today. He ended up at the vets and much to his dismay they informed him he is going to have some teeth out. Charlie accepted the sentence but while a prescription for antibiotics was being written, he added the vets surgery to his little book of persons/things/others to eliminate.

Saturday

FA Cup shocks galore this weekend. Crazy stuff. Bradford won at Chelsea and it was beautiful. Charlie said it was obvious that the minnows would win because he had orchestrated the whole thing via the use of a little red button which, when pressed, turned the Chelsea players into zombies. Charlie pressed it four times during the match and on each occasion Bradford scored a goal. Unbelievable. I’m now curious about which team Charlie will try to help win the Cup. Definitely not Beard Face’s Barnsley FC. They went out months ago.

Sunday

Poor Charlie is really being made to suffer while he awaits his return trip to the vets. Frizzy Hair has bought him a coat designed for small dogs and that makes him look like a bank robber. He’s made his contempt for the outfit very clear with the infamous Feline Glare of Doom but Frizzy Hair continues to gush about how cute he looks. Normally I would revel in the self-proclaimed dictator getting his comeuppance for once but I actually feel sorry for him.

The post The Diary of Mr Kain: Week #17 appeared first on B-Lines and Felines.

Cover Reveal: Finding Us by Debra Presley

Book Title: Finding Us

Author: Debra Presley

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Release Date: March 2015

Hosted by: Book Enthusiast Promotions

Cover Designed by: Cover Me, Darling

Join the Facebook Party

Pop star Abby Murphy has fame and fortune and handsome boyfriend and guitarist, Sean. That changes the night she finds him in the arms of another woman. But Sean won’t accept the breakup, and she soon finds out he’s working with her mother, who’s also her manager, to keep him in her good graces.

As Sean ratchets up his threats against her, Abby turns to her bodyguard, Danny Nucci, who will do everything in his power to keep her safe.

But when Abby realizes her feelings for Danny run much deeper than she’d like, she pushes him away as much to keep her own independence as to protect him from Sean’s machinations.

When Abby finally finds the strength to confront all that is wrong with her life, she seeks refuge with Danny, but is it too late? Has she pushed him away one too many times for him to trust her now? Or can he put his own demons aside to help repair them both?

Debra is a native New Yorker who made her escape to the suburbs. She often visits her hometown to enjoy a bagel with butter from her favorite deli, because there’s no better bagel than a New York bagel. When not in search of bagels, Debra spends her time running Book Enthusiast Promotions, an online promotions company that helps indie authors spread the word about their books. She’s also the owner of The Book Enthusiast blog.

She started writing lyrics in her wall-to-wall NKOTB bedroom at the tender age of thirteen while dreaming of the day she’d become Mrs. Jordan Knight. That dream never came to fruition, but she has continued to write. Now she’s working on her first novel.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post Cover Reveal: Finding Us by Debra Presley appeared first on B-Lines and Felines.

The Diary of Mr Kain: Week #16

Monday

Beard Face continued the job hunt this week by applying for a position as a Predator. I don’t mean the animal kingdom type, I mean an actual Predator with a shoulder gun and mask with infra red vision. Beard Face was immediately invited for an interview but he missed out because the company deemed him just too hideous. They did give him a complimentary mask though so that was some good news to start the week off in style.

Tuesday

Frizzy Hair has been baking quite a bit recently and her latest composition has been granola bars. They look delicious as well. The only problem is they have such a crazy amount of ingredients in there that it’s giving me ideas on my own recipes. I’m wondering if bleach, apples, marzipan, crude oil, strawberries and bath salts would make a good concoction. Next time my owners are out I’m going to make some and leave them in a tin marked, “Beard Face’s stash.”

Oscar nominations this week. Boy was Charlie pissed!

Wednesday

I decided to take an hour out of the day to try and educate Bilbo and Buggles on the ways of modern life. I was aiming for an in-depth lecture on the local town and how it has adapted to numerous changes but we ended up spending the hour going over the patterns of traffic lights. Buggles and Bilbo couldn’t agree on the colour of the middle light. Buggles insisted it was orange, while Bilbo was adamant it was gold. It’s actually amber but who am I to get involved in the pointless disputes of two simpletons?

Thursday

The Oscar nominations were heavily discussed in the household today. Beard Face just relayed the nominations to the rest of us and insisted he knew who was going to win. All he had done was read what others had said and chose to adopt their views as his own. Charlie was furious with the nominations. He couldn’t understand how he hadn’t been nominated in every single category. Given that some awards are for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, coupled with the fact that Charlie hasn’t actually appeared in a movie, I was somewhat puzzled as to his chagrin.

Friday

Beard Face and Frizzy Hair were celebrating today. They finally published Beard Face’s latest novel. It’s one of his fantasy ones so probably has curvaceous women in it with big breasts and there’s bound to be an overuse of words such as “myriad,” “malevolent,” “grimace” and “suddenly.” Poor Frizzy Hair has toiled for years trying to get him to use different words but the old boy just won’t do it. We’ll wait and see how the book does but I can’t see it faring as well as the kitty books. Everyone loves a good cat tale.

Saturday

Beard Face was glued to the football again this afternoon. His beloved Barnsley were away at Doncaster. As expected, they lost the game and Beard Face nose-dived into the usual chorus of, “Now is the winter of our discontent.” That’s as far as be got with the Shakespeare reference. The rest of his monologue covered a variety of themes including useless football players, sweaty armpits and last week’s episode of Casualty. All very random.

Sunday

Beard Face spent most of the day watching the snooker final. He kept nudging us while we were sleeping and saying the blond one is gonna win, just you wait and see. The poor guy with the blond hair lost the final 10-2 and right up to the end the beard was adamant his man would win the title. To be honest, even after the other guy had lifted the trophy Beard Face was still telling us to wait and see. I often wonder how he’s still allowed to be part of human society. Even the animal kingdom wouldn’t have him and they’re very tolerant.

The post The Diary of Mr Kain: Week #16 appeared first on B-Lines and Felines.

Ansel’s Remorse Release Day

In 1999 I was studying at college when I began drawing maps for the world of Elenchera. I would eventually come to have more than 500 of these as the world history took shape. I still have them thank goodness! I attempted two novels set in Elenchera – Endeavour (2000-4) and The Voice of Elenchera (2006) – but neither came to fruition. I was more committed to building the history and making sure I knew each land and its people intimately before I attempted another novel. I spent more than a decade on Elenchera before another novel appeared.

In late 2008 I met my wife, Donna, who proved to be the main catalyst in my self-publishing the first Elenchera novel – Fezariu’s Epiphany (2011). The second – A World Apart (2012) – soon followed. I enjoyed writing both novels, especially A World Apart, but that had the negative impact of putting pressure on a third book. I wasn’t content to maintain and consolidate what I’d done before, I wanted to improve and write a better novel each time. Trying to get Ansel’s Remorse right has not been easy and were it not for Donna’s support I’m not sure it would be here today.

Though my latest novel, Ansel’s Remorse actually began life way back in 2004. I’d had a go at writing short stories as well as novels and the best one I wrote was entitled The Sparkling Dew on the Lakeside. It told the story of Lorenzo, a vampire taking part in raids along distant coastlines to acquire prisoners to bolster an army back home. As soon as Lorenzo stepped foot on land he began to suffer flashbacks to the man he was once, the life he once had and he went in search of the past. The vampires in that story were claiming prisoners on behalf of their ruler – Palatine – who never appeared in the story but there was an air of mystique about him.

As I built the history of Elenchera, Palatine entered the timelines and I chronicled the significant events of his life. Having read of his exploits, Donna convinced me to write a novel about him but I didn’t know how to begin. I wanted to include Lorenzo’s tale but I wasn’t certain how or why he and Palatine would come to interact. One day a new character popped into my head. His name was Ansel and he was intended to be the bridge between Lorenzo’s story and that of Palatine’s significant impact on history. What I didn’t expect was for the novel to become Ansel’s story. Palatine remains a crucial element in the story – Ansel’s Master and close friend – but Lorenzo’s story comes in the second half of the story and though that may seem quite late in the day to have any impact, it is integral to the events that follow.

Being honest, I wrote three drafts of Ansel’s Remorse and just couldn’t get it right. I did feel added pressure given how well writing A World Apart had gone but I was also focused on trying to make Palatine live up to the expectations of Donna. She felt he would be a compelling character but I wasn’t convinced I’d nailed him completely until Donna read the book herself. My wife is my harshest critic and has never been afraid to question weaknesses in my work. I didn’t find the criticism easy to take at first but we both feel that I’ve come a long way in taking on board feedback and using it to improve as a writer.

Working through the manuscript for the final time, having taken on board all feedback, I do feel more confident about the book. It’s a different story to Fezariu’s Epiphany and A World Apart and for that I am grateful. I want to explore different themes with each new Elenchera book and visit different lands in this world that is such a big part of me. Work has already begun on a fourth Elenchera novel – The Stars Beneath the Parapets - which will be nothing like the opening three books in the series.

A lot has happened since Elenchera began in 1999. More than 15 years on I feel we have been through so much together, it hasn’t always been easy, but we have three novels to show for it. Do I wish there had been more? Certainly, but despite the gap between A World Apart and Ansel’s Remorse, I am glad I didn’t try to force this latest book to completion too early. It needed more time to bloom than the others, longer than I hoped or expected, but I think the wait has been more than worth it.

If you decide to join Ansel on his journey or to follow Fezariu or Demetrius in their respective tales then I hope you enjoy your stay in Elenchera. If you’ve already visited, myself and my characters would be delighted to see you again.

About Ansel's Remorse (2015) “That was Palatine, never diminished by setbacks. He didn’t believe in the impossible or in obstacles. Ansel had never known a man like him and after all these years he knew he never would.”

Only two things ever made Ansel happy: friendship and religion.

As a devout follower of Eglacion and a loyal kinsman to Duke Palatine of Aachen, Ansel has both.

Until one day Palatine’s treason forces Ansel to choose between his ruler and his faith.

Abandoning Eglacion, Ansel follows Palatine into the void of an eternal exile. It is supposed to be their end, but death is only the beginning.

Amazon US Amazon UK Goodreads

The post Ansel’s Remorse Release Day appeared first on B-Lines and Felines.

#RRBC Blog Tour: Author Liz Gavin

We’re delighted to welcome Liz Gavin to the blog today. Liz is the author of Luck of the Irish and is on tour with Rave Reviews Book Club (#RRBC), sponsored by 4WillsPublishing. Thanks to Liz for stopping by!

Marketing Indie Books (Part 3 of 5)

Welcome back to Lucky Blog Tour! I’m honored to have you here again.

Yesterday I talked about how hard and time-consuming creating covers can be. If you haven’t read the post, please, check the tour schedule on the Events page at 4willspublishing and click on the previous blog stop. I think you’ll have fun with the exercise I proposed there.

Today I will share my discoveries about – FORMATTING EBOOKS

Do you remember the first part I posted on this subject two days ago? We reflected on how frustrating it sometimes is to see that your beautifully written book looks ugly on somebody’s eReader. Have you felt that frustration as well?

I get it, my friend! You spent countless hours searching for your book. After all, it doesn’t matter if you write fiction or non-fiction – you research information before putting pen to paper. Or cursor to screen, nowadays. You poured your heart and soul into the story. You made sure it was the best story you could have written. You uploaded it to the online stores and crossed your fingers. Readers liked it. They posted positive reviews about it. One day, somebody pointed out the story was great but they couldn’t give your book five starts because there were too many blank spaces in it. The next reviewer stated that they wouldn’t have mentioned problems with the formatting if no one else had done so, because they valued the story; but, since another customer had mentioned it, they would like to say they agreed on that. All of a sudden, you started getting one-star reviews based solely on the formatting issues. Before you knew it, the online store froze sales of your book and sent you a friendly email asking you to fix said issues before they could put your book back on sale at their store. *PANIC*.

Do you think I exaggerated? Do you reckon the story is unlikely to happen? Well, I cannot gauge the frequency of cases like the one I described above, but I know at least one. It didn’t happen to me. A dear friend and fellow author went through this ordeal over Christmas and New Year. He ended up missing a good period of sales for his brilliant, non-fiction book because the major online store where he had published it froze the book’s sales until he fixed the formatting issues. Namely – a few words that weren’t properly separated on the final ebook file and extra spaces between paragraphs that ‘hindered the readers optimum reading experience’. Bottom line is – we never know when an apparently small issue will amount to a huge one.

Furthermore, I believe delivering the best quality product possible is the minimum a supplier should do. In the business of publishing books, writers are the suppliers. Ergo (don’t you love this word – ‘ergo’? I do!) we must do our best to offer our readers a good-looking, easy-to-navigate eBook for their enjoyment. The important question is – is formatting eBooks a difficult task?

Well… yes and no.

It took me a while to figure out how to do it. I wasted a lot of time downloading apps, reading their instructions, and proceeding to create eBooks that looked awful. You see, it turned out I was doing things the other way around. I wrote my texts on Word® documents first and used apps to convert them into eBooks before uploading them to the online stores. Or I uploaded the .doc files directly to the stores automated converters. In both cases, I would set up the fonts, margins, headings on those Word® documents as I pleased. I didn’t know I needed to set the files in a specific way before converting them.

Almost by accident I stumbled on a comprehensive guide on formatting Ebooks called ‘Building Your Book for Kindle’. I downloaded it free of charge at the ‘Help’ section on my KDP Account Dashboard. It is a step-by-step text with screenshots to guide you through the whole process – from setting up your .doc file to uploading it to the automated converter on Amazon KDP. Once I created a compatible file, I used it as template for the following ones.

Although most of my titles are published exclusively on Amazon, I have a handful of books published elsewhere. Smashwords also offer good guides to formatting and publishing on their store. If you want to sell your books on Barnes & Noble and Apple, I recommend Draft2Digital. They offer excellent service for free, and attractive royalties plans.

To quote Bugs Bunny: ‘That’s all, folks!’ Come back tomorrow, at the next stop on Lucky Blog Tour. I’ll talk about the ancient question – ‘to turn or not to turn’ your eBook into a printed book.

C U then!

Liz Gavin

About Liz Gavin

Liz Gavin

When Liz Gavin was in Second Grade – just a couple of years ago, really – her teacher told her mother the little girl should start a diary because she needed an outlet for her active and vivid imagination. She was a talkative child who would disrupt the class by engaging her colleagues in endless conversations. She loved telling them the stories her grandfather used to tell her.

Apparently, the teacher wasn’t a big fan of those stories, and Liz’s mother bought her a diary. She happily wrote on it for a couple of months. Unable to see the appeal of writing for her own enjoyment only, she gave up on it. She missed the audience her friends provided her in class. She went back to disturbing her dear teacher’s class.

Since then, she has become a hungry reader. She will read anything and everything she can get her hands on – from the classics to erotica. That’s how she has become a writer of erotica and romance, as well.

As a young adult, she participated in a student exchange program and lived in New Orleans for six months. She fell in love with the city and its wonderful inhabitants. NOLA will always hold a special spot in Liz Gavin’s heart. Nowadays, living in Brazil, Liz’s creativity has improved many times because it’s such a vibrant, gorgeous and sexy country.

Welcome to her world of hot Alpha males and naughty, independent women. Add a touch of the paranormal in the presence of some wicked souls and you’ll get the picture.

Amazon Blog Twitter Facebook Email

Blog Tour Links

Goodreads Event Page Rafflecopter Giveaway Link

 

This tour sponsored by 4WillsPublishing.wordpress.com.

The post #RRBC Blog Tour: Author Liz Gavin appeared first on B-Lines and Felines.

The Diary of Mr Kain: Week #15

Monday

The New Year is in full swing now and Beard Face has upped the ante on his job search. His latest idea was to try his luck at carpet cleaning in the neighbourhood. Sounds reasonable enough but to convince customers of his qualifications, Beard Face invited himself into their homes and decided to urinate on their living room carpet before cleaning it up (and not very convincingly). I have seen many cleaning adverts but am yet to come across one where Mr Muscle gets his bits out.

Tuesday

Poor Frizzy Hair is continuing to edit Beard Face’s novel which is at least 600 pages. This sounds like a huge challenge for anyone but given the spelling, grammar and inconsistency errors throughout the tome it’s become something of a nightmare for the old girl. Errors include a Medieval setting having knights suddenly stop at a Burger King for a meal, some damsel in distress having only a minor headache after a sword is plunged through her forehead, and a very informal king turning to his queen and saying “Shall we leave the banquet, my dear, for I wish to watch Top Gear in my chamber.” Classy stuff.

This isn’t Judge Rinder!

Wednesday

This was a very embarrassing day. Beard Face has been watching a lot of films recently. He did this at the start of last year before his enthusiasm started to wilt. Today he delved into world cinema and began watching Blue is the Warmest Colour which is a drama about love between two young students in France. I should add that both students are female and that the film had some rather graphic sex scenes in it. Beard Face handled such moments with his usual aplomb. Such outbursts as “Boobies,” “More boobies” and “Not sure what that is” completely detracted from what was a great film.

Thursday

Beard Face and Frizzy Hair are on cloud 9 this week. One of their favourite programmes, Judge Rinder, is back on television. This is the British equivalent of Judge Judy except the judge is male though in some respects more feminine than his American counterpart. I do enjoy the show to be honest. Whenever I watch it though I can’t help but imagine Beard Face being up there in front of a judge and getting a dressing down. I never know what his offence would be though. There are so many possibilities.

Friday

It was a day of celebration today. Beard Face and Frizzy Hair have completed the editing of the old boy’s novel. It was an epic and has caused them both a lot of stress along the way. Had Beard Face written a proper novel that made sense and wasn’t full of inconsistencies then this should have been a more straightforward process. Frizzy Hair celebrated with a well earned glass of port while the beard sat in the corner, rocking back and forth, saying “cheeseburgers.” I don’t know why. When you witness the bearded one behaving in such a manner it’s usually best to just leave the room.

Saturday

It was a day of rest for Beard Face and Frizzy Hair today after all their editing shenanigans this week. Frizzy Hair had a productive day reading while the beard resorted to cleaning the house in his usual bizarre manner. He stripped naked and put on a pink apron before wandering the house with a feather duster and the hoover. Beard Face reasons he’s just giving all of his body a bit of air but I would prefer to interpret it as overexposure.

Sunday

Beard Face is finally over his irritating cough. He’s been milking this so-called illness since before Christmas so it’s about time the charade came to an end. I can’t help but feel he’s getting this performance in just as the Oscars are looming in the distance. Someone should point out to the old boy that it takes more than feigning illness to bag an Academy Award. If it were so easy then the beard would have won more awards than Walt Disney by now.

The post The Diary of Mr Kain: Week #15 appeared first on B-Lines and Felines.

The Diary of Mr Kain: Week #14

Monday

As the year drew to a close Beard Face continued his hopeless search for a job. He’s given up on teaching having realised you actually have to do some work. Instead he’s now focused on ventures including inflatable things such as giant sharks that you can take in the ocean. He’s even talking about starting his own business involving inflatable dolls that people take to bed with them. I’m not sure what for but presumably just to have arguments with about what TV show to watch.

Tuesday

There’s still plenty of food and alcohol from after Christmas. This is remarkable given what a blubber monster Beard Face is. Frizzy Hair has helped him clear the goodies as best she can but no one has an appetite like the cousin of the Cookie Monster. He’s been pretty sparing with treats for the rest of us. We sniff around the food he and the Frizz tuck into but the old boy continues to spray us with water until we bugger off. Such a vicious little turd.

It’s a new year but little has changed in the Brown household…sadly.

Wednesday

The final day of 2014 was spent doing very little in the Brown household. Beard Face and Frizzy Hair enjoyed a few drinks while the rest of us just slept or sat on the floor licking ourselves. As midnight came round the fireworks in the neighbourhood started and it scared the hell out of us. By us I mean all the cats except Charlie. As soon as the noises began and the skies lit up, Charlie’s eyes widened and he bellowed, “Bring it on! The war is here at last.” After the fireworks subsided 20 minutes later Charlie was under the impression that his forces had conquered the world but reality set in for the would be Napoleon after an hour or so that nothing had actually changed. Happy 2015 you dimwit.

Thursday

The first day of the New Year and time to put those Resolutions into play. I made none so was very successful at keeping mine. Beard Face planned to be fitter, healthier and less of a dick head but thus far he has failed on all fronts. Frizzy Hair is doing much better in being fitter, healthier and more awesome than ever before. I hope 2015 is a better year for all of us and that maybe Beard Face will finally grow a pair in the next twelve months.

Friday

I’m not sure why or even how this happened but Beard Face dressed up as Elvis today and gave a very crap rendition of Always on my Mind. It was a combo of the King, Pet Shop Boys and the sound of a rodent with cheese wire tied around its testicles. I’d like to offer comparisons with contemporary artists but I honestly don’t think any are as bad as what the beard churned out on this day.

Saturday

Beard Face and Frizzy Hair were having a romantic walk home from town today when they heard a loud cheer in the distance. It was coming from Oakwell and Beard Face grinned inanely and started working some crazy dance moves by the side of the road. He was convinced that the huge cheer could only have come from the Barnsley faithful but on returning home he discovered it was just Middlesbrough scoring the first of two goals to secure a convincing win. New year, same old shit for the beard and his hopeless team.

Sunday

Today feels like the last day of the Christmas holidays before the daily grind of work resumes again tomorrow. It must be tough being a human. For me, I have the pressure of waking up, going out, eating and sleeping again. The thought of going back to that after a couple of weeks of doing exactly the same is really bothering me at the moment. I sometimes wish I could be human just to unburden myself of all this responsibility. You people have it far too easy.

The post The Diary of Mr Kain: Week #14 appeared first on B-Lines and Felines.

The Best Films I Saw This Year (2014)

Amour (2012)

Insightful. Original. Exquisite. Georges and Anne have known a lifetime of love within their intimate marriage. Though their bond has survived time’s test, it’s about to meet its greatest challenge. Acclaimed director Michael Haneke brings a performance tour-de-force to the screen in a film that exalts the beautiful, compassionate and courageous within us all.

Go to top

The Best Intentions (1992)

Bille August (Goodbye Bafana, The House of the Spirits) directs legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s The Best Intentions. A turbulent love story based on the lives of his own parents, which features long-time Bergman collaborator, Max Von Sydow (The Seventh Seal, Flash Gordon, Victory).

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992, The Best Intentions tells the story of a family and a bygone era played out against a background of a Sweden stifled by a rigid class system and in the throes of a General Strike. Poverty stricken young Henrik meets a beautiful and vivacious upper-class girl, Anna, who is adored by all, especially her father, the affectionate but ailing Johan Akerblom (Von Sydow). The two fall in love and eventually wed despite Anna’s mother’s attempts to discourage the relationship.

With love and not a little pain, Ingmar Bergman depicts his parents and their complex love story over a decade of upheaval – from 1909 when they first meet to the summer of 1918 when Bergman was in his mother’s womb, about to embark on his own journey through life. As the author writes, it is all a game but a game that nevertheless requires considerable effort.

Go to top

Dear Diary/Caro diario (1993)

Nanni Moretti directs himself playing himself in this wry look at life. Presented in three chapters, Moretti uses the experiences of traveling on his motor-scooter, cruising with his friend around a set of remote islands in search of peace to finish his new film and consulting doctor after doctor to cure his annoying rash to cast a humorous look at his life and those around him.

Go to top

Harakiri (1962)

Following the collapse of his clan, an unemployed samurai (Ran’s Tatsuya Nakadai) arrives at the manor of Lord Iyi, begging to commit ritual suicide on his property. Iyi’s clansmen, believing the desperate ronin is merely angling for a new position, try to force him to eviscerate himself— but they have underestimated his beliefs and his personal brand of honor. Winner of the 1963 Cannes Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize, Harakiri, directed by Masaki Kobayashi (The Human Condition) is a fierce evocation of individual agency in the face of a corrupt and hypocritical system.

Go to top
**FILM OF THE YEAR**

The Hunt (2012)

THE HUNT is a disturbing depiction of how a lie is taken as truth when gossip, doubt and malice are allowed to flourish and ignite a witch-hunt that soon threatens to destroy an innocent man’s life. Lucas is just starting to get his life back together after losing his job and facing a difficult divorce, when his life is shattered by an untruthful remark throwing his small community into a collective state of hysteria. As the lie spreads, Lucas is forced to fight a lonely battle for his life and dignity.

Go to top

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

With its stunning camerawork and striking compositions, Carl Th. Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc convinced the world that movies could be art. Renée Falconetti gives one of the greatest performances ever recorded on film, as the young maiden who died for God and France. Long thought to have been lost to fire, the original version was miraculously found in perfect condition in 1981-in a Norwegian mental institution. Criterion is proud to present this milestone of silent cinema in a new special edition featuring composer Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light, an original opera/oratorio inspired by the film.

Go to top

Patton (1970)

A critically acclaimed film that won a total of eight 1970 Academy Awards (Including Best Picture), Patton is a riveting portrait of one of the 20th century’s greatest military geniuses. One of it’s Oscars went to George Patton, the only Allied general truly feared by the Nazis. Charismatic and Flamboyant, Patton designed his own uniforms, sported ivory-handled six-shooters, and believed he was a warrior in past lives. He outmanoeuvred Rommel in Africa, and after D-Day led his troops in an unstoppable campaign across Europe. But he was rebellious as well insight and poignancy, his own volatile personality was one enemy he could never defeat.

Go to top

Rush (2013)

Two-time Academy Award-winner Ron Howard delivers the exhilarating true story of a legendary rivalry that rocked the world. During the sexy and glamorous golden age of Formula 1 racing, two drivers emerged as the best: gifted English playboy James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, The Avengers) and his methodical, brilliant Austrian opponent, Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl, Inglourious Basterds). As they mercilessly clash on and off the Grand Prix racetrack, the two drivers push themselves to the breaking point of physical and psychological endurance, where there’s no shortcut to victory and no margin for error. Co-starring Olivia Wilde (TRON: Legacy), it’s the heart-racing, epic, action-drama that critics are calling “one of the best movies of this, or any, year” (Pete Hammond, Movieline).

Go to top

Wings of Desire (1987)

Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) is one of cinema’s loveliest city symphonies. Bruno Ganz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin who can hear the thoughts—fears, hopes, and dreams—of all the people living below. But when he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he is willing to give up his immortality to come back to earth to be with her. Made not long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this stunning tapestry of sounds and images, shot in black and white and color by the legendary Henri Alekan, is movie poetry. And it forever made the name Wim Wenders synonymous with film art.

Go to top

The post The Best Films I Saw This Year (2014) appeared first on B-Lines and Felines.

The Best Books I Read This Year (2014)

Stephen King – 11.22.63 (2011)

Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family. Jake is blown away…but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jake’s friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping through a portal in the diner’s storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke… Finding himself in warmhearted Jodie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten…and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.

Go to top

Haruki Murakami – 1Q84 (2010)

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.

As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s — 1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

Go to top

George Tiffin – All the Best Lines (2013)

Pithy put-downs, hard-boiled snarlings, words of love and regret… ALL THE BEST LINES presents 500 memorable movie quotes, embracing both one-liners (‘My name is Pussy Galore’) and slices of snappy dialogue from pictures as diverse as When Harry Met Sally and Pulp Fiction. Arranged under such timeless themes as Dreams, Friends, Libido and Memories, the quotes juxtapose films and stars from every era and every genre.

Dotted throughout the text are feature capsules focusing on themes and stories in the movies from Goldwynisms to Mae West, plus a generous scattering of cinema anecdotes, making the book both a joy to browse and an authoritative reference.

Lavishly illustrated with full-colour photographs, ALL THE BEST LINES will delight and entertain you in equal measure, reacquainting you with your favourite movies and introducing you to some forgotten classics.

Go to top

Chris Hadfield – An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth (2013)

Colonel Chris Hadfield has spent decades training as an astronaut and has logged nearly 4000 hours in space. During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft. The secret to Col. Hadfield’s success-and survival-is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst-and enjoy every moment of it.

In An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Col. Hadfield takes readers deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement-and happiness. His own extraordinary education in space has taught him some counterintuitive lessons: don’t visualize success, do care what others think, and always sweat the small stuff.

You might never be able to build a robot, pilot a spacecraft, make a music video or perform basic surgery in zero gravity like Col. Hadfield. But his vivid and refreshing insights will teach you how to think like an astronaut, and will change, completely, the way you view life on Earth-especially your own.

Go to top

Garth Stein – The Art of Racing in the Rain (2008)

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver.

Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn’t simply about going fast. On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through.

A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life…as only a dog could tell it.

Go to top

Atul Gawande – Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science (2002)

In gripping accounts of true cases, surgeon Atul Gawande explores the power and the limits of medicine, offering an unflinching view from the scalpel’s edge. Complications lays bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually is—uncertain, perplexing, and profoundly human. 

Complications is a 2002 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.

Go to top

Matt Haig – The Humans (2013)

Body-snatching has never been so heartwarming . . .

The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable novel about alien abduction, mathematics, and that most interesting subject of all: ourselves. Combine Douglas Adams’s irreverent take on life, the universe, and everything with a genuinely moving love story, and you have some idea of the humor, originality, and poignancy of Matt Haig’s latest novel.

Our hero, Professor Andrew Martin, is dead before the book even begins. As it turns out, though, he wasn’t a very nice man–as the alien imposter who now occupies his body discovers. Sent to Earth to destroy evidence that Andrew had solved a major mathematical problem, the alien soon finds himself learning more about the professor, his family, and “the humans” than he ever expected. When he begins to fall for his own wife and son–who have no idea he’s not the real Andrew–the alien must choose between completing his mission and returning home or finding a new home right here on Earth.

Go to top

Nelson Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom (1994)

The book that inspired the major new motion picture Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa’s antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality.

LONG WALK TO FREEDOM is his moving and exhilarating autobiography, destined to take its place among the finest memoirs of history’s greatest figures. Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela tells the extraordinary story of his life–an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph.

Go to top

Randy Shilts – The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982)

The Mayor of Castro Street is Shilts’s acclaimed story of Harvey Milk, the man whose personal life, public career, and tragic assassination mirrored the dramatic and unprecedented emergence of the gay community in America during the 1970s. His is a story of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassination in City Hall and massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.

Go to top
**BOOK OF THE YEAR**

Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day (1988)

In 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper. Ishiguro’s dazzling novel is a sad and humorous love story, a meditation on the condition of modern man, and an elegy for England at a time of acute change.

Go to top

Jonathan Miller – Stripped: The True Story of Depeche Mode (2003)

Depeche Mode became the world’s best -selling synth-led group selling in excess of 40 million albums. Contains exclusive interviews with founder member Vince Clark and producer Gareth Jones. Also includes previously unpublished interview material with the band members themselves.

Go to top

Richard J Evans – The Third Reich at War (2005)

The final volume in Richard J. Evans’s masterly trilogy on the history of Nazi Germany traces the rise and fall of German military might, the mobilization of a “people’s community” to serve a war of conquest, and Hitler’s campaign of racial subjugation and genocide.

Already hailed as “a masterpiece” (William Grimes in The New York Times) and “the most comprehensive history… of the Third Reich” (Ian Kershaw), this epic trilogy reaches its terrifying climax in this volume.

Evans interweaves a broad narrative of the war’s progress with viscerally affecting personal testimony from a wide range of people–from generals to front-line soldiers, from Hitler Youth activists to middle-class housewives. The Third Reich at War lays bare the dynamics of a nation more deeply immersed in war than any society before or since. Fresh insights into the conflict’s great events are here, from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler’s suicide in the bunker. But just as important is the re-creation of the daily experience of ordinary Germans in wartime, staggering under pressure from Allied bombing and their own government’s mounting demands upon them. At the center of the book is the Nazi extermination of Europe’s Jews, set in the context of Hitler’s genocidal plans for the racial restructuring of Europe.

Blending narrative, description and analysis, The Third Reich at Warcreates an engrossing picture–at once sweeping and precise–of a society rushing headlong to self-destruction and taking much of Europe with it. It is the culmination of a historical masterwork that will remain the most authoritative work on Nazi Germany for years to come.

Go to top

The post The Best Books I Read This Year (2014) appeared first on B-Lines and Felines.

This Month’s Films (December 2014)

Re-Animator (1985)

A dedicated student at a medical college and his girlfriend become involved in bizarre experiments centering around the re-animation of dead tissue when an odd new student (Jeffrey Combs) arrives on campus.

Verdict: 6/10

Go to top

Would You Rather (2012)

What would you do if a millionaire offered you a chance to solve all your life s problems? After the tragic death of her parents, Iris (Brittany Snow, Pitch Perfect) is desperate to make ends meet while caring for her terminally ill younger brother. When seemingly philanthropic aristocrat Shepard Lambrick (Jeffrey Combs, Re-Animator) expresses an interest in helping them by inviting her to an exclusive dinner party that offers the chance at untold riches, Iris finds herself in a group of similarly desperate individuals all looking to make some easy money. But the guests soon find themselves trapped in Lambrick’s mansion and forced to play a sadistic game of Would You Rather, where only the winner will get out alive. As the game progresses, Iris must decide how far she will go to save her brother… and herself. Featuring a terrific ensemble cast that includes Sasha Grey (The Girlfriend Experience), Lawrence Gilliard Jr. (Army Wives), Eddie Steeples (My Name Is Earl) and Charlie Hofheimer (Mad Men), WOULD YOU RATHER is an edge of your seat horror thriller that invites you over for a quiet evening of murder.

Verdict: 5/10

Go to top

Mulan (1998)

To save her father from death in the army, a young maiden secretly goes in his place and becomes one of China’s greatest heroines in the process.

Verdict: 7/10

Go to top

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Takes place in a chateau, an ambiguous story of a man and a woman who may or may not have met last year at Marienbad.

Verdict: 8/10

Go to top

Breathless (1960)

There was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless. Jean-Luc Godard (Band of Outsiders) burst onto the film scene in 1960 with this jazzy, free-form, and sexy homage to the American film genres that inspired him as a writer for Cahiers du cinéma. With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, anything-goes crime narrative, and effervescent young stars Jean-Paul Belmondo (Pierrot le fou) and Jean Seberg (Bonjour tristesse), Breathless helped launch the French New Wave and ensured that cinema would never be the same.

Verdict: 8/10

Go to top

Cop Land (1997)

Sylvester Stallone stars as Freddy Heflin, the sheriff of a place everyone calls “Cop Land,” a small and seemingly peaceful town populated by the big-city police officers he’s long admired. Yet when Freddy uncovers a massive, deadly conspiracy among these local residents, he is forced to take action and make a dangerous choice between protecting his idols and upholding the law. Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, and Ray Liotta head an incredible cast in the Director’s Cut of this intense action thriller, which explodes with nonstop excitement!

Verdict: 7/10

Go to top

Alpha Dog (2006)

They grew up together in the suburbs of LA, living their own version of the American dream, with every day a blur of partying and looking for the next thrill. Johnny (Emile Hirsch, Lords of Dogtown) is the leader in their sordid world of drugs, greed, power and privilege. But when he is double-crossed by another dealer, things quickly begin to spiral out of control, and an impulsive kidnapping leads to a shocking conclusion. Justin Timberlake (Edison), Sharon Stone (Bobby) and Bruce Willis (Lucky Number Slevin) co-star in this powerful and controversial film.

Verdict: 6/10

Go to top

The Magic of Belle Isle (2012)

Morgan Freeman plays Monte Wildhorn, a famous Western novelist whose passion for writing hits an impasse. He takes a lakeside cabin for the summer in picturesque Belle Isle, befriending the family next door an attractive single mom (Virginia Madsen) and her young daughters who help him find inspiration again.

Verdict: 6/10

Go to top

Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

In Mexico, two teenage boys and an attractive older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life, friendship, sex, and each other.

Verdict: 8/10

Go to top

Alphaville (1965)

A U.S. secret agent is sent to the distant space city of Alphaville where he must find a missing person and free the city from its tyrannical ruler.

Verdict: 6/10

Go to top

The post This Month’s Films (December 2014) appeared first on B-Lines and Felines.