A few years ago I was involved in a fabulous book club and we were given the opportunity to review Dave Boling’s Guernica for The Richard and Judy Book Club, this was back in the day when they were still on television. We were all sent a shiny hardback copy of the book to read in advance of our on-screen debut…
Archives for January 2014
12 Years A Slave
20 January 2014 by Leave a Comment
I’ve not been terribly good at getting to the cinema recently, but the Oscar nominations last week have focussed my mind. I didn’t want 2014 to be yet another year where I hadn’t seen the winner of the Best Picture Academy Award in advance of the ceremony. Given that until today I had only seen two of the nine nominees…
Top Ten: Oscar 2014 Snubs
16 January 2014 by 5 Comments
The Oscar nominations were announced earlier and everyone has an opinion on them. Including, as it turns out, me. I haven’t seen all of the films nominated and with so many strong performances and the high level of technical craft on show I wouldn’t dream of second-guessing The Academy. Having said that…
The Midnight Rose
16 January 2014 by Leave a Comment
I love getting review copies of books through the post – no matter how many I receive there’s still a real excitement when they arrive. Someone wants me to read their book and give my opinion to other people. It’s a true thrill. I’d be lying though if I said there aren’t days that I look at my post and sigh…
The Dinner
13 January 2014 by 2 Comments
Whenever I’m reading publicity material for books my hackles are raised by phrases such as “If you loved xx then you’ll love this”. It’s such a cheap way of selling a book which ignores the merits of the book being sold and attempts to piggy-back on the popularity of a previous success. I can see the merits of such tactics…
2014 Blogging Resoultions
10 January 2014 by 1 Comment
Well, 2014. Who expected that to come around so quickly? Not me – I still can’t believe it’s a year and a half since the London 2012 Olympics. Or slightly more than a year since Les Miserables was released in UK cinemas… I can remember writing news posts about casting announcements. 2013 wasn’t the best year I’ve ever had…