DVDs
Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig , Eva Green, Jeffrey Wright. I haven't seen this but boy it sure had universally good reviews. I have avoided reading those reviews or summaries since they might spoil the story for for me. So, look the description up yourself.
The Departed starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg. I haven't seen this one either. I have not read reviews or summaries for The Departed either.
Music CDs
Mali to Memphis: An African American Odyssey with Amadou and Mariam, John Lee Hooker, Guy Davis, Boubacar Traore, and others. Mali to Memphis traces the musical heritage of the blues from West Africa to the U.S. Try it out.
Taylor Hicks by Taylor Hicks. Debut album from some American Idol dude with prematurely gray hair. My brother has prematurely gray hair, too; I doubt he can sing worth a dang though.
Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing by Keith Urban. Latest release from the Australian country singer. I've never heard this guy's music but his wife is good looking.
AudioBooks
Sister Mine by Tawni O'Dell. This one sounds good (no pun intended). "Shae-Lynn Penrose drives a cab in a town where no one needs a cab - but plenty of people need rides. A former police officer with a closet full of miniskirts, a recklessly sharp tongue, and a tendency to deal with men by either beating them up or taking them to bed, she has spent years carving out a life for herself and her son in Jolly Mount, Pennsylvania, the tiny coal-mining town where she grew up." When Shae's younger sister, previously thought dead, arrives to town followed by a Russain gangster Shae has to deal with her sister's past activities and her own messy love life.
Innocent Man by John Grisham. A nonfiction piece by Grisham about a former baseball player convicted and sentenced for murder on a case "built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts...If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this audiobook will shock you."
Populatio: 485; with selections from Off Main Street by Michael Perry. Author Perry narrates his book about being a volunteer fireman in rural Wisconsin. This is a replacement for a damaged item. But, I took a long time to order the replacement so it may as well be new.
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. Jess Aaron becomes friends with schoolmate Leslie Burke. Jess and Leslie play in the woods and create the kingdom of Terabithia. This is a kid's book that ended up in my pile so I'm writing about it.
Too Far From Home: A Story of Life and Death in Space by Chris Jones. Donald Pettit, Kenneth Bowersox, and Nikolai Budarin were on a fourteen week mission to the International Space Station in November, 2002 when the shuttle Columbia fell apart on re-entry. All three astronauts were stuck in space indefinitely without a ride home. Jones relates the frantic work of engineers in Houston and Moscow to return them back to Earth.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
New DVDs
Action
Snakes on a Plane starring Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies, Kenan Thompson. Venomous snakes unleashed on a plane to kill a federal witness. Yeah. Yeah. I know. But, I haven't seen it either.
The Hexer starring Michal Zebrowski. Polish action-adventure story with swords, magic, monsters, and villains. Geralt - the White Wolf - is a weapons expert who fights any opponent. Geralt fights evil for humanity's sake and meets his destiny as a hero.
Bandidas starring Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, Steve Zahn, Sam Shepard and Dwight Yoakam. Penelope and Salma look pretty in Mexico while avenging the deaths of their fathers and "seizing the ill-gotten gains of [a] robber baron." Comedy action adventure with the always good Steve Zahn.
Horror
The Hills Have Eyes starring Aaron Stanford, Kathleen Quinlan and Ted Levine. Unrated edition with extra gore. A normal family is stranded in the New Mexico desert and attacked by a family of mutants.
Slither starring Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, and some other people. A meteor infected with alien plague crashes outside of a small town infecting the local rich guy. The local rich guy mutates into a hungry monster as his fellow space slugs start to infect other locals. Space zombies, worms, threats to humanity, that guy from Serenity (Nathan Fillion), how can you lose?
Comedy
Idiocracy starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard. Directed by Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and Office Space. In 2005, Army Private Joe Bowers is chosen for a secret hibernation experiement. Chosen because he is statistically average, Joe is forgotten when the army base hosting the experiment is closed. Awakened in 2505, Joe discovers that "society is so dumbed-down by mass commercialism and mindless TV programming that he's become the samrtest guy on the planet."
Wrong Guy starring Dave Foley, Jennifer Tilley. This film was lost in the ether after it's 1996 Canadian release. But, thanks to your brilliant Library Director, you can now laugh until you hurt at the antics of star Dave Foley. Foley plays a businessman convinced he will be getting a huge promotion. When he doesn't get the promotion, Foley stages a hissy-fit and threatens his boss. When Foley later discovers his dead and bloody boss he goes on the lam, afraid he will be arrested as the murderer.
Drama
Manderlay starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe and Chloe Sevigny. Grace is traveling across America and discovers isolated Manderlay, an old plantation where no one knows slavery has been abolished. "Grace tries to emancipate the slaves and open the residents' eyes to the truth...with surprising results."
Wah-Wah starring Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson, Miranda Richardson. Based on actor-director Richard E. Grant's childhood experiences in colonial Africa. Ralph Compton's parents divorce in British Swaziland in the 1960s. "Faced with the emotional fallout of the divorce, boarding school, and his father's re-marriage, Ralph manages to find solace through friends, acting and the love of a beautiful young girl."
Conversations with Other Women starring Aaron Eckhart, Helena Bonham Carter. Two guests, and strangers, at a wedding reception become entangled in a battle of wits. As they continue talking you discover they are not strangers and used to be lovers. Told in a split screen with the present reception directly compared to their past.
One Knight with the King starring Peter O'Toole, Tiffany DuPont, Omar Sharif, John Rhys-Davies, and Tommy "Tiny" Lister. The title implies an Elvis connection but there is none is the biblical drama about Hadassah who becomes Esther, Queen of Persia. Born in poverty, Jewish Hadassah marries King Xerxes. When Judaism is decreed illegal, and punished by death, Esther defends her people.
Flags of our Fathers starring Ryan Phillipe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach. Story of the raisers of the Iwo Jima flag and how their lives changed from the experience.
Documentary
An Inconvenient Truth. Documentary about global warming featuring Al Gore. Depending on your politics you can watch this and be scared, or you can watch it and grind your teeth.
Music
From Tokyo to You: Live in Japan by Cheap Trick. Sixteen tunes in Cheap Trick's 25th anniversary to the Budokan.
Snakes on a Plane starring Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies, Kenan Thompson. Venomous snakes unleashed on a plane to kill a federal witness. Yeah. Yeah. I know. But, I haven't seen it either.
The Hexer starring Michal Zebrowski. Polish action-adventure story with swords, magic, monsters, and villains. Geralt - the White Wolf - is a weapons expert who fights any opponent. Geralt fights evil for humanity's sake and meets his destiny as a hero.
Bandidas starring Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, Steve Zahn, Sam Shepard and Dwight Yoakam. Penelope and Salma look pretty in Mexico while avenging the deaths of their fathers and "seizing the ill-gotten gains of [a] robber baron." Comedy action adventure with the always good Steve Zahn.
Horror
The Hills Have Eyes starring Aaron Stanford, Kathleen Quinlan and Ted Levine. Unrated edition with extra gore. A normal family is stranded in the New Mexico desert and attacked by a family of mutants.
Slither starring Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, and some other people. A meteor infected with alien plague crashes outside of a small town infecting the local rich guy. The local rich guy mutates into a hungry monster as his fellow space slugs start to infect other locals. Space zombies, worms, threats to humanity, that guy from Serenity (Nathan Fillion), how can you lose?
Comedy
Idiocracy starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard. Directed by Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and Office Space. In 2005, Army Private Joe Bowers is chosen for a secret hibernation experiement. Chosen because he is statistically average, Joe is forgotten when the army base hosting the experiment is closed. Awakened in 2505, Joe discovers that "society is so dumbed-down by mass commercialism and mindless TV programming that he's become the samrtest guy on the planet."
Wrong Guy starring Dave Foley, Jennifer Tilley. This film was lost in the ether after it's 1996 Canadian release. But, thanks to your brilliant Library Director, you can now laugh until you hurt at the antics of star Dave Foley. Foley plays a businessman convinced he will be getting a huge promotion. When he doesn't get the promotion, Foley stages a hissy-fit and threatens his boss. When Foley later discovers his dead and bloody boss he goes on the lam, afraid he will be arrested as the murderer.
Drama
Manderlay starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe and Chloe Sevigny. Grace is traveling across America and discovers isolated Manderlay, an old plantation where no one knows slavery has been abolished. "Grace tries to emancipate the slaves and open the residents' eyes to the truth...with surprising results."
Wah-Wah starring Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson, Miranda Richardson. Based on actor-director Richard E. Grant's childhood experiences in colonial Africa. Ralph Compton's parents divorce in British Swaziland in the 1960s. "Faced with the emotional fallout of the divorce, boarding school, and his father's re-marriage, Ralph manages to find solace through friends, acting and the love of a beautiful young girl."
Conversations with Other Women starring Aaron Eckhart, Helena Bonham Carter. Two guests, and strangers, at a wedding reception become entangled in a battle of wits. As they continue talking you discover they are not strangers and used to be lovers. Told in a split screen with the present reception directly compared to their past.
One Knight with the King starring Peter O'Toole, Tiffany DuPont, Omar Sharif, John Rhys-Davies, and Tommy "Tiny" Lister. The title implies an Elvis connection but there is none is the biblical drama about Hadassah who becomes Esther, Queen of Persia. Born in poverty, Jewish Hadassah marries King Xerxes. When Judaism is decreed illegal, and punished by death, Esther defends her people.
Flags of our Fathers starring Ryan Phillipe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach. Story of the raisers of the Iwo Jima flag and how their lives changed from the experience.
Documentary
An Inconvenient Truth. Documentary about global warming featuring Al Gore. Depending on your politics you can watch this and be scared, or you can watch it and grind your teeth.
Music
From Tokyo to You: Live in Japan by Cheap Trick. Sixteen tunes in Cheap Trick's 25th anniversary to the Budokan.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
New Slew of Paperbacks
A mix of new and old titles by:
Allison Brennan
Vince Flynn
Randy Wayne White
Lee Child
Robin Cook
Linda Fairstein
Lisa Gardner
Lee Harris
Tamar Myers
John Ridley
Karin Slaughter
W. Michael Gear
Elaine Viets
Allison Brennan
Vince Flynn
Randy Wayne White
Lee Child
Robin Cook
Linda Fairstein
Lisa Gardner
Lee Harris
Tamar Myers
John Ridley
Karin Slaughter
W. Michael Gear
Elaine Viets
New Fiction
Christian Fiction
Storekeeper's Daughter by Wanda Brunstetter. Naomi was happy with life in Amish Pennsylvania until her mother died, she had to work in her father's store, and she became the surrogate mother to her seven siblings. After Naomi turns her back on one of her duties, her status and happiness are endangered.
Promise for Ellie by Lauraine Snelling. Ellie and Andrew have wanted to marry each other since they were in grade school. When their wedding has to be postponed Ellie takes it in stride , but Andrew is angry and does not understand why Ellie is not.
Reaper's Song by Lauraine Snelling. The Bjorkland's traveled from Norway to farm the plains of the Dakotas. Haakan and his neighbors harvest success with a steam powered separator takes them on the road to other communities leaving Ingeborg facing an early change of season.
A Land to Call Home by Lauraine Snelling. Penny stays in the Dakotas as her boyfriend Hjelmer travels West to work on the railroad. When Penny receives only one letter from Hjelmer her other suitors start to turn her head.
When the Heart Cries by Cindy Woodsmall. Hannah is from an Old Order Amish family but loves a Mennonite, Paul. When Paul proposes and Hannah accepts, she has to face her family with the decision.
Fiction
Two-Way Split by Alan Guthrie. Mystery master Guthrie returns to Edinburgh, Scotland with another crime caper. Robin Greaves wife has been cheating with a fellow gang member of Robin's. When the gang's post office robbery ends in carnage the gang is on the run and Robin's revenge plans go awry.
Taming the Beast by Emily Maguire. Maguire is an Australian author who published this in Australia in 2004. Sarah Clark is fourteen when she is seduced by her 38 year old teacher, Daniel. The relationship ends badly, of course, and Sarah is devastated. Sarah spends years having a series of encounters in an attempt to ignite the intensity of that first relationship. When Daniel returns several years later how will the matured Sarah deal with him?
Blue Devil Island by Stephen Mark Rainey. The Solomon Islands, 1943. U.S. Navy pilots are fighting the Japanese from an airfield on Conquest Island. As the air battles rage the unknown, and non-human, natives start to take a toll on the island's new inhabitants. Soon, the sailors are fighting on two fronts and the Japanese are the less deadly opponent.
Large Print
Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy. Father Flynn is concerned when a highway is planned to go through Whitethorn Woods. St. Ann's Well, on the edge of town, is in the path of the highway and slated for destruction. The generations old meditation place is loved by some and dismissed by others and Father Flynn has to listen to all sides.
At Some Disputed Barricades by Anne Perry. The Great War continues it's destructive path through 1917 as chaplain Joseph and his ambulance driving sister, Judith, continue their work on the front lines. Their brother Matthew remains in England trying to find the murderous Peacemaker who is trying to stop the war through violence at home.
Storekeeper's Daughter by Wanda Brunstetter. Naomi was happy with life in Amish Pennsylvania until her mother died, she had to work in her father's store, and she became the surrogate mother to her seven siblings. After Naomi turns her back on one of her duties, her status and happiness are endangered.
Promise for Ellie by Lauraine Snelling. Ellie and Andrew have wanted to marry each other since they were in grade school. When their wedding has to be postponed Ellie takes it in stride , but Andrew is angry and does not understand why Ellie is not.
Reaper's Song by Lauraine Snelling. The Bjorkland's traveled from Norway to farm the plains of the Dakotas. Haakan and his neighbors harvest success with a steam powered separator takes them on the road to other communities leaving Ingeborg facing an early change of season.
A Land to Call Home by Lauraine Snelling. Penny stays in the Dakotas as her boyfriend Hjelmer travels West to work on the railroad. When Penny receives only one letter from Hjelmer her other suitors start to turn her head.
When the Heart Cries by Cindy Woodsmall. Hannah is from an Old Order Amish family but loves a Mennonite, Paul. When Paul proposes and Hannah accepts, she has to face her family with the decision.
Fiction
Two-Way Split by Alan Guthrie. Mystery master Guthrie returns to Edinburgh, Scotland with another crime caper. Robin Greaves wife has been cheating with a fellow gang member of Robin's. When the gang's post office robbery ends in carnage the gang is on the run and Robin's revenge plans go awry.
Taming the Beast by Emily Maguire. Maguire is an Australian author who published this in Australia in 2004. Sarah Clark is fourteen when she is seduced by her 38 year old teacher, Daniel. The relationship ends badly, of course, and Sarah is devastated. Sarah spends years having a series of encounters in an attempt to ignite the intensity of that first relationship. When Daniel returns several years later how will the matured Sarah deal with him?
Blue Devil Island by Stephen Mark Rainey. The Solomon Islands, 1943. U.S. Navy pilots are fighting the Japanese from an airfield on Conquest Island. As the air battles rage the unknown, and non-human, natives start to take a toll on the island's new inhabitants. Soon, the sailors are fighting on two fronts and the Japanese are the less deadly opponent.
Large Print
Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy. Father Flynn is concerned when a highway is planned to go through Whitethorn Woods. St. Ann's Well, on the edge of town, is in the path of the highway and slated for destruction. The generations old meditation place is loved by some and dismissed by others and Father Flynn has to listen to all sides.
At Some Disputed Barricades by Anne Perry. The Great War continues it's destructive path through 1917 as chaplain Joseph and his ambulance driving sister, Judith, continue their work on the front lines. Their brother Matthew remains in England trying to find the murderous Peacemaker who is trying to stop the war through violence at home.
New NonFiction
Mommies Who Drink: Sex, Drugs, and Other Distant Memories of an Ordinary Mom by Brett Paesel. Paesel adjusts from her single days where she had nightly Ladies' Night, to her mom days of sleep deprivation and no spare time. A comedic look at the adjustment from boozing night owl to nursing night owl.
MTV Europe by Lauren Berger et al. Another new travel guide.
Penny Pincher's Almanac: 1,552 Suprising Ideas for Getting the Most Value Out of Your Money, Home, and Possessions edited by Reader's Digest. "You can live a whole lot better for a whole lot less."
Air Conditioning and Refrigeration by Rex Miller and Mark R. Miller. A repair guide with 800 illustrations.
Jay's Journal of Anomalies by Ricky Jay. Master magician and historian Ricky Jay's shortlived Journal of Anomalies is reproduced here in entirety. Jay covers some of the "bizarre entertainments" of history. Including: nose amputation, Aztec Lilliputians, armless calligraphers.
MTV Europe by Lauren Berger et al. Another new travel guide.
Penny Pincher's Almanac: 1,552 Suprising Ideas for Getting the Most Value Out of Your Money, Home, and Possessions edited by Reader's Digest. "You can live a whole lot better for a whole lot less."
Air Conditioning and Refrigeration by Rex Miller and Mark R. Miller. A repair guide with 800 illustrations.
Jay's Journal of Anomalies by Ricky Jay. Master magician and historian Ricky Jay's shortlived Journal of Anomalies is reproduced here in entirety. Jay covers some of the "bizarre entertainments" of history. Including: nose amputation, Aztec Lilliputians, armless calligraphers.
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