Reading my books - Book Reviews

The most anticipated fashion books of in 2011

2011-09-25T02:13:00.000-07:00

This year has brought a number of fundamental changes in fashion, absolutely necessary in an environment that became too fragile for a society driven by information obtained dependent easy and free. In 2011 fashion is slowly if we think of the premises that gave it the special note, intangible note. Dreams are no longer build in front of the monitor, but arise as a result of a permanent journey around the world.

These being said, I urge you to put up a reading fashion list to follow and read the most interesting books that were launched this year.

Ugly Beauty

If you're into fashion books, "Ugly Beauty: Helena Rubinstein, L'Oréal, and the History of Looking Good Blemished" (Harper Collins Publishing) is a must. Ruth Brandon, novelist and fine connoisseur of the history of culture and civilization, is trying to bring the spotlight on two legendary icons: Helena Rubinstein and Eugene Schueller, L'Oréal founder. The volume is especially interesting to study, is a successful attempt to penetrate the secrets of business sites that have dominated the cosmetics market since the early years of the Second World War (“War Paint: Madame Helena Rubinstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden”, “Helena Rubinstein” de Catherine Jazdzewski etc).

Rose, c'est Paris

"Rose, c'est Paris" is not itself a book of fashion but more of an inspirational volume. Bettina Rheims's vision and Serge Bramly's talent meets in pages that evokes Paris in a whole new way. A city animated by artists, identity is confused, obsessions, fetishes and manipulation concealed in the darkness of nights, which is materialized both in fashion and in the film or photography. "Rose, c'est Paris" is published by Taschen.

Christian Lacroix and the Tale of Sleeping Beauty

In 2011 fashion stories are told with a more consistent dose of involvement, not necessarily related to marketing. It's all about an area that constantly fascinates female audience. Beautiful story of Sleeping Beauty, The Brothers Grimm is transposed and told in a new and original manner. The fashion dream becomes real and closer to fulfillment for women who have not forgotten to look at the world through the eyes of a child.

Top 10 Books of All Time

2011-09-23T23:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, lists are shameful, but irresistible. But let's play a little: the last battle of authors, a transgression of genres (fiction, journal, poetry), even of styles (modern, classic). The result can be interesting.

In addition, it is a kind of parlor game that adapts perfectly at global narcissism that floods the Internet every day. The exercise has been applied and J. Peder Zane has written book, The Top Ten, published in 2007. The author took 125 great names of literature and came up with a sentence. Here are the best books, in his view:

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy,

2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert,

3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy,

4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov,

5. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

9. Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Cekhov,

10. Middlemarch by George Eliot.

(you can find all these books on Amazon)

It is an American point of view, because Zane has applied a survey among Americans that can be said to have a certain insight regarding literature. Maybe that explains why Asians are missing, Kazuo Ishiguro, Murakami or South Americans, Allende, Llosa, Marquez.

There are no women in this top. There is no Muriel Spark, no Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and Iris Murdoch. There is no Kundera, Musil and Mann. And you should consider ontemporary authors that are not detected by radars of our whimsicaltimes, but that will dominate the literary space in a century from now.

Is there a finality for the game above? It's just a taste of test guidance, reading. For that, we can rest assured that we live in the golden age of reading (never before have so many books been available), but we are tortured by the need to choose. What book to read? Where to start? Zane thinks that modern reader works on coordinates described by opportunity and confusion.

The irony is that dedicated readers does not have an apetit for force reading. Libraries are build out of passion, not according to some lists. Reading a book of our choice may be the last freedom we have.

How to cure molluscum book review

2011-04-15T02:30:00.000-07:00

I know this is supposed to be a blog about all the good books I've been reading recently but right now I'm going to recommend you a book wrote buy Clark R. about Molluscum Contagiosum. I'm sure there are many folks out there that will die for a Molluscum treatment. Dermatologists don't know much about this condition and they will tell you that it will pass in 4-6 months. But what they will not tell you is that Molluscum can take up to 2 years until it's gone. That's why you need to speed up the process. I hope you'll enjoy the book!

Click here to read it!

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption book review

2011-02-05T01:57:00.000-08:00

On a May day in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber plane went down into the Pacific Ocean and vanished, leaving only a spray of junk and a trail of oil, petrol, and blood. But out of thin air and water, a face came out. It was the plane’s bombardier, a teen lieutenant,who was fighting to a Carling float and drawing himself aboard. This is the beginning of the most exceptional odysseys of the Second World War.

Read more about his journey on Amazon.

Autobiography of Mark Twain review

2010-11-13T00:06:00.000-08:00

Mark Twain is the king of suspense, keeping us expecting for a century in order to reveal memories of his life. The rumours of his demise became accurate 100 years ago and one of Mark Twain's dying wishes comes to live: an extended, forthright and prophetic autobiography which he committed the last 10 years of his life to composing is finally here. UC Press is gallant to propose for the first time Mark Twain's uncensored autobiography in its totality and incisively as he left it.This major well-written event is just like a gift to the lecturers, supporters, and students. The book is the first of three volumes and introduces Mark Twain's authentic and uninhibited voice, full with humor, ideas, and beliefs, and speaking intelligibly from the grave as he designated.

Decision Points by George W. Bush

2010-11-12T00:37:00.000-08:00

Let me keep this straight to the point and simple: this book is fascinating, down-to-earth. Appealing at certain turns and wildly unbelievable at others. The surprise is coming near the end: Decision Points is well-written and it's a pleasant reading.

This autobiography is centered around “the most consequential decisions” of his administration and his personal life from his determination to abandon drinking in 1986 to his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to his decisions regarding the financial crisis of 2008. It's a book can bee seen as a twist, part asking for forgiveness to the world, part family scrapbook, part self-conscious attempt to rewrite his political legacy.

Best Books of the Month (October)

2010-10-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

At Home by Bill Bryson

"With waggish humor and a knack for unearthing the extraordinary stories behind the seemingly commonplace, he examines how everyday items--things like ice, cookbooks, glass windows, and salt and pepper--transformed the way people lived, and how houses evolved around these new commodities. "Houses are really quite odd things," Bryson writes, and, luckily for us, he is a writer who thrives on oddities. He gracefully draws connections between an eclectic array of events that have affected home life, covering everything from the relationship between cholera outbreaks and modern landscaping, to toxic makeup, highly flammable hoopskirts, and other unexpected hazards of fashion. Fans of Bryson's travel writing will find plenty to love here; his keen eye for detail and delightfully wry wit emerge in the most unlikely places, making At Home an engrossing journey through history, without ever leaving the house. --Lynette Mong"

Great House by Nicole Krauss
In each of the short stories that nest like rooms in Nicole Krauss's Great House looms a tremendous desk. It may have belonged to Federico García Lorca, a poet and dramatist who was one of thousands executed by Fascists in 1936, when the Spanish Civil War began. We know that the desk stood in Weisz's father's study in Budapest on a night in 1944, when a stone shattered their window. After the war, Weisz hunts furniture looted from Jewish homes by the Nazis. He scours the world for the fragments to reassemble that study's every element, but the desk eludes him, and he and his children live at the edges of its absence. Meanwhile, it spends a few decades in an attic in England, where a woman exhumes the memories she can't speak except through violent stories. She gives the desk to the young Chilean-Jewish poet Daniel Varsky, who takes it to New York and passes it on (before he returns to Chile and disappears under Pinochet) to Nadia, who writes seven novels on it before Varsky's daughter calls to claim it. Crossing decades and continents, the stories of Great House narrate feeling more than fact. Krauss's characters inhabit "a state of perpetual regret and longing for a place we only know existed because we remember a keyhole, a tile, the way the threshold was worn under an open door," or a desk whose multitude of drawers becomes a mausoleum of memory. --Mari Malcolm

Worth Dying For by Lee Child
Worth Dying For You'd think that after 14 novels featuring hardscrabble hero, Jack Reacher, Lee Child's pulse-pounding series would start showing signs of wear. It is nothing short of remarkable that Child is not only able to continually reinvent his ex-military cop, but that each installment is better than the last. Worth Dying For finds our battered hero hiding in plain sight in a tiny Nebraska town, trying to recover from the catastrophe he left behind in South Dakota (no spoilers here, but readers are still arguing over 61 Hours’s cliffhanger ending). Fans rarely see such a physically vulnerable Reacher (in the first part of the book he is barely able to lift his arms) but it just adds to the fist-pumping satisfaction of seeing our weary good guy take on the small-town baddies. --Daphne Durham

All these can be bought from Amazon.com

A Powerful Life: The Lost Writings of Wallace D. Wattles

2010-09-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

Do you believe there's a power that can cause people or things to be brought to us or cause us to be brought to them?

Wallace Delois Wattles (1860–1911) was an American author. A New Thought writer, he remains personally somewhat obscure, but his writing has been widely quoted and remains in print in the New Thought and self-help movements. [wikipedia]

Wattles' best known work is a 1910 book called The Science of Getting Rich in which he explained how to become wealthy. [wikipedia]

Now, you can buy the 25 Long Lost, Extremely Rare Books And Articles Written By Wallace D. Wattles, Author Of The Science Of Getting Rich!

Out of the Dark - Book Review

2010-08-16T00:22:00.000-07:00

Out of the Dark

Author: David Weber
Genre: Vampire Science Fiction | Alien Invasion
Hardcover: 384 page

Place to buy the book: Amazon.com

Built up a short story, this trilogy beginning combines ingredients of military science fiction and dark fantasy. In the very near future, Earth is aimed for colonization by a galactic conglomerate known as the Hegemony. Humanity has been written down as bloody-minded, disposable savages. When the Hegemony’s collaborators, the loyal Shongairi, come out to suppress Earth, the resistance is far from anything they had ever thought, particularly when vampires come along to help the humans. Weber brings off this vanity in daring style with a focus on military-powered action that will exalt fans of his Honor Harrington series, and he keeps the pedal to the metal right up to the almost incredible conclusion.

Isaac Asimov 1986 Interview

2010-04-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

Read Isaac Asimov Books on Amazon.com

The Last Olympian Book Review

2010-04-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

The Last Olympian is a fantasy-adventure novel based on Greek mythology by Rick Riordan published on May 5, 2009. The book is the 5th and concluding installment in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series and serves as the direct sequel to The Battle of the Labyrinth. The Last Olympian circles around the demigod Perseus Jackson as he leads his acquaintances in a last stand to protect Mount Olympus. The book received many positive reviews.

The title relates to Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, who denotes to herself as such in a conversation with Percy. Additionally, there's a affirmation at the end of the book citing the close of "the first Camp Half-Blood series," arguing that there could be a lot to come after.

Kindle is no1 Product selling on Amazon

2010-03-05T14:24:00.000-08:00

Well, Kindle is one of the great devices ever invented for book lovers like myself. Here are few reasons why I bought this second generation Kindle from Amazon.com:
- Battery life can last weeks.
- I can purchase books, magazines and newspapers. Wikipedia can be browsed free of charge. If Wifi is available I can browse the internet
- Slim design, cool and easy to read a book and tons of available information.
- Audio Reading Function
- The most important thing: for me, Kindle is my own personal mobile library

Buy Kindle (Latest Generation) on Amazon.com for $259

Foundation by Isaac Asimov (review)

2009-11-14T23:09:00.000-08:00

Foundation by Isaac Asimov is one of those books that bears become a specified historical tentpole of the literary genre that it's facile to disregard and accept for granted, a lot in the same direction new moviegoers nowadays could find it difficult to puzzle out the brilliance in Citizen Kane. Foundation by Isaac Asimov is not what you will call "a great book" plainly because critics tell you so. You have to read it, and find for yourself how staggeringly written and diverting piece of sociopolitical SF aggregated with brilliant storyline, and its finest dimensions could appear unusual to nowadays lecturers until you recognise just how magnificent they are accomplished. If you count over the years how SF genre has changed, becoming burdened by either futile style or clumsy plotting masquerading as epic legendry, Asimov's aphoristic language found in Foundation is a real breathing place full of energising air. Isaac Asimov acknowledged possibly better than anybody in that literary genre that SF is all about communicating. Isaac Asimov wrote as clearly as it gets, but not laconically. There's more than plenty humour to go around. To the highest degree imposingly, Asimov's plots were as complex as any of nowadays top novelists'. Nevertheless he still managed to maintain his lecturers' heads free from mental confusion and thwarting.

The stage for Foundation is set 13,000 years in a potential future, after human race has colonized space so exhaustively that just about everyone have lost any information regarding Earth. Foundation opens as the Galactic Empire is in its terminal years, having ruled across the galaxy for over 10 millennia. One-person on the capital planet of Trantor (a planetary which, by the way, George Lucas unabashedly abstracted and renamed Coruscant for use in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace) dares to arise and evidence the dying Empire that its descent and capitulation is ineluctable. Hari Seldon has acquired the science of psychohistory, which aims to anticipate the behavior of wide populations across huge periods. Seldon has anticipated not alone the decline of the Empire, but the reality that a bashing 30,000 years of savagery will accompany that fall, unless his system, the Encyclopedia Foundation, is able to complete its vast task of cataloguing and maintaining millennia of compiled human knowledge and history. So, maybe, the 30,000 years could be trimmed to a bare millenium.

If you can't find any of the books in the Foundation Series, check Amazon:

All The Books in the Foundation Series

Read more about it on Wikipedia

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper (book review)

2009-09-12T01:48:00.000-07:00

This is where I leave you is a magnificent and funny saga about family. Tropper brings brilliant balance between the family history and its present-day fallout, proving his ability to create touchingly human characters and a deliciously page-turning story.

Tropper mines old themes with his new book, This is Where I Leave You. Love relationship with college soul mate? Check. Father whose love is silent and unspoken and strong? Check. Sex with old high school fantasy? Check. Issue with athletic brother and other sibling rivalries? Check. I could go on.

The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman family-including Judd's mother, brothers, and sister-have been together in years. Conspicuously absent: Judd's wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with Judd's radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public.

This Is Where I Leave You is Jonathan Tropper's most accomplished work to date, a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind—whether we like it or not.

Lord of Flies Book Review

2009-08-16T02:09:00.000-07:00

Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. Central idea of the book is very simple: a group of children from different ethnic groups are found isolated on a deserted island (do not know how and why, but a vague mention atomic cataclysm) tries to recreate the rules of society in which they lived before becoming isolated. Gradually, the children with rational sense (Ralph and Piggy) will be consumed by instincts, senses the primary force and gross. All try to kill 'the beast' that lives in the heart of jungle, not knowing that the only beast around is the beast inside each other.

The novel is essentially an allegory on the sad human tendency to return back to the violent instincts, when one is put in front of certain conditions: isolation, lack of spatial or temporal landmark.

Read more about it on Wikipedia
Buy Lord Of Flies from Amazon:

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (preview)

2009-08-16T01:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, I will admint I'm not Dan Brown's biggest fan. But I have to give the man credits for marketing his books nicely.

The most acclaimed "The Da Vinci Code" scratched the surface of some very interesting ideas that have been floating around for thousands of years. Unfortunately, he just scratched the surface and was content to take a great premise and wedge it into a contrived and boring plot.

The Lost Symbolis Brown's third Robert Langdon thriller, after Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code. In his new book Langdon uncovered conspiracies within the Catholic church that involved art and science.

The Lost Symbol is due to be released on the 15th September 2009.

Overview:

Dan Brown's new novel, the eagerly awaited follow-up to his #1 international phenomenon, The Da Vinci Code, which was the bestselling hardcover adult novel of all time with 81 million copies in print worldwide, will be published in the U.S. and Canada by Doubleday on September 15, 2009.

THE LOST SYMBOL will have a first printing of 5 million copies, and it will once again feature Dan Brown's unforgettable protagonist, Robert Langdon. Brown's longtime editor, Jason Kaufman, Vice President and Executive Editor at Doubleday said, "Nothing ever is as it first appears in a Dan Brown novel. This book's narrative takes place in a twelve-hour period, and from the first page, Dan's readers will feel the thrill of discovery as they follow Robert Langdon through a masterful and unexpected new landscape. THE LOST SYMBOL is full of surprises."

Dan Brown's popularity continues to grow. The film of The Da Vinci Code was a #1 box office smash when it was released by Columbia Pictures in May 2006 with Ron Howard directing and Tom Hanks starring as Robert Langdon. Box office receipts were $758 million. The same team released Angels and Demons theatrically worldwide on May 15, 2009.

links:
The lost symbol website
Pre-Order The Lost Symbol from Amazon

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto

2009-06-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

I was inspired to read this book by one of the reviewers from Amazon: "The louder someone complains, the closer you are to the truth. I anticipate a lot of ad hominem complaints from statists here. Do not let them talk you out of reading this book. "

They say any generation has few special authors and thinkers. After reading this book I know Mark Levin is one of those peoples. This masterpiece is one of those books that can survive the ravages of time and the shifting sands of societal evolution.

While Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto is absolutist and escapist in nature, it addresses relevant issues in American society. Numerous programs and institutions need reform, and Levin’s work can be a springboard for debate. At a time when the Republican Party is searching for its identity, Levin provides a platform.

It is rarer still when a key book is written, recognized, and celebrated contemporarily. In my humble opinion, this is one such book. It's a must read!

Top Autobiography and Memoir books

2009-01-15T04:18:00.000-08:00

Traditionally, memoirs usually dealt with public matters, rather than personal, and many older memoirs contain little or no information about the writer, and are almost entirely concerned with other people. Modern expectations have changed this, even for heads of government. Like most autobiographies, memoirs are generally written from the first person point of view.

1. The Confessions (Augustine) - Free Download
2. The Complete Essays (Michel de Montaigne) - Free Download
3. Meditations on First Philosophy (Rene Descartes)
4. Walden (Henry David Thoreau) - Free Download

My review on Ender's Game

2008-12-08T00:27:00.000-08:00

Finally, I finished reading "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. I will start by saying Ender's Game is one of the best science fiction books I have ever read. I cannot say enough good things about it. Great depth and characters.

I'm not sure if the book was specifically written for a youth audience, or if it got coloured as a book for teens because of the age of the protagonist. The title can be considered as a "young adult" title.

Ender's Game is a quick read. The style Orson Scott Card wrothe the book is it's straightforward, not the kind of book in which you need to spend time savouring the language or pondering character motivations. But I am not saying it's an insubstantial book. Far from that! There are some very chewy ethical issues that present themselves, but even if they don't interest you the story moves forward in a compelling way.

Ender's Game makes you think a lot about what "winning" means. Worth reading, good for both kids and adults.

Ender's Game

2008-12-04T03:15:00.000-08:00

This week I'm going for SF. I choose Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. This is the first book in Card's superb Ender sequence, although it easily holds its own as a stand-alone. Humanity is attacked by aliens and almost wiped out. Child genius Ender Wiggin is top of the heap in the government's military genius breeding program. A race against time springs some surprises for both Ender and the invading forces.

Project Gutenberg - Free E-Books Library

2008-12-04T02:43:00.000-08:00

I know... You will say it's not the same as having the real thing in your hand. But some people just can't afford to buy a book every week. Today website I would like to recommend is named Gutenberg Project.

About the site: Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.

Christmas Music

2008-12-02T06:08:00.001-08:00

December is here. Every 1st of December I start to feel Christmas pre-emotions. I will recommend you some good books to read this year, but until then, you must have a good CD for this Christmas.Reprise and the Sinatra Family bring together a rare find "The Christmas Collection", featuring the head of the clan Mr. Frank Sinatra in fine voice for this special time of the year. You can buy it here: Frank Sinatra Christmas Collection

You can also buy The Ultimate Christmas Music Collection.This book contains 89 of the most famous Christmas songs ever written. Providing the lyrics along with piano and chord arrangements for all the songs, this book is perfect for the holidays, both for your own collection or as a gift.

Get some ideas for Christmas 2010 top gifts for your child

Top 10 Movies Based On Books

2008-11-24T23:39:00.000-08:00

10 - THE NOTEBOOK

Synopsis: This movie focuses on an old man reading a story to an old woman in a nursing home. The story he reads follows two young lovers named Allie Hamilton and Noah Calhoun, who meet one evening at a carnival. But they are separated by Allie’s parents who dissaprove of Noah’s unwealthy family, and move Allie away. After waiting for Noah to write her for several years, Allie meets and gets engaged to a handsome young soldier named Lon. Allie, then, with her love for Noah still alive, stops by Noah’s 200-year-old home that he restored for her, “to see if he’s okay”. It is evident that they still have feelings for each other, and Allie has to choose between her fiancé and her first love.

I can honestly say that I have watched it over 10 times and I have cried every single time .

The movie was based on "The Notebook" by Nicholas Sparks - a short novel, so you could read it in one day if you had time.

9 - SCARFACE

Synopsis: The movie is a remake of the 1932 classic. The 1983 version follows cuban refugee, Tony Montana and his close friend Manny Ray, and together they build a strong drug empire in Miami. Of course Montana must deal with the hardships of this type of buisness. And as Montana’s power begins to grow so does his ego and his paranoia.
John’s Thought: Which line was better? “Say hello to my little friend” or “first, you get the money…”? You can buy the book on Amazon

8 - DIE HARD

Synopsis: Tough New York cop John McClane finds himself in a tight situation when an office building in Los Angeles is taken over by terrorists. Apart from himself, everyone else in the building - including his wife - is held at gunpoint while their captors spell out their demands. The F.B.I. are called in to survey the situation, but John McClane has other plans for the terrorists…

I am sure you didn't know Die Hard is ia based on "Nothing Lasts Forever" by Roderick Thorp.

7 - THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

Synopsis: Clarice Starling, a young intelligent FBI trainee, has been sent to the Batlimore state hospital for the Criminally insane to interview an inmate Dr. Hannibal-the cannibal- Lecter. A Brilliant renowned psychiatrist turned infamous Psychopathic Serial killer. She must match wits with Lecter -who has the darkest of all minds- and trust him to give her clues in the search for “Buffalo Bill”. a nick name for a loose,unknown, unstoppable Pyschopathic Serial killer.

The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris, is even better than the successful movie. Like his earlier Red Dragon, the book takes us inside the world of professional criminal investigation. All the elements of a well-executed thriller are working here--driving suspense, compelling characters, inside information, publicity-hungry bureaucrats thwarting the search, and the clock ticking relentlessly down toward the death of another young woman. What enriches this well-told tale is the opportunity to live inside the minds of both the crime fighters and the criminals as each struggles in a prison of pain and seeks, sometimes violently, relief.

6 - THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

Synopsis: Bourne is once again brought out of hiding, Jason Bourne is now hunted by the people who made him what he is–legendary assassin. Having lost his memory and the one person he loved, he is undeterred by the barrage of bullets and a new generation of highly-trained killers. Bourne has only one objective: to go back to the beginning and find out who he was.
I think The Bourne Ultimatum (Bourne Trilogy, Book 3) was the best one from the series.

5 - THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

Synopsis: This film tells the story of Captain Marko Ramius, the skipper of the Soviet Union’s newest nuclear sub. Jack Ryan of the CIA gets involved in a tense, tangled hunt for this sub, when Ramius defects, taking the “Red October” with him. The story is an action packed techno-thriller.
The Hunt for Red October is a 1990 film based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Tom Clancy. The movie was directed by John McTiernan and stars Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan.

4 - SCHINDLER’S LIST

Synopsis: The true story of Oscar Schindler, a German businessman who owns a factory. He witnesses the horrifying visions of the Holocaust and the toll it takes on the Jewish people. Eventually, he creates a list of over 1100 Jews whom he saves from death. This movie won 7 oscars. It moves you and changes your thinking about life. I think Spielberg will remain an immortal filmmaker through the work he put into this film. You can buy the book from Amazon:

3 - THE LORD OF THE RINGS

Peter Jackson, with funding from New Line Cinema, produced three movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". Filmed entirely in New Zealand, and starring actors such as Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins), Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Liv Tyler (Arwen), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), and Christopher Lee (Saruman), the movies approximately follow the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings with which most Tolkien fans are familiar: "The Fellowship of the Ring" (December 19, 2001), "The Two Towers" (December 18, 2002), and "The Return of the King" (December 17, 2003)

2 - THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

Synopsis: After the murder of his wife, hotshot banker Andrew Dufresne is sent to Shawshank Prison, where the usual unpleasantness occurs. Over the years, he retains hope and eventually gains the respect of his fellow inmates, especially longtime convict “Red” Redding, a black marketeer, and becomes influential within the prison. Eventually, Andrew achieves his ends on his own terms.
I love this movie so much because the story is my favourite Stephen King short story ever. I felt they did a great job in staying true to the plot and storyline - it was almost as I had imagined it would be when reading. The movie was tremendous.

1 - THE GODFATHER

Synopsis: Vito Corleone is the aging don (head) of the Corleone Mafia Family. His youngest son Michael has returned from WWII just in time to see the wedding of Connie Corleone (Michael’s sister) to Carlo Rizzi. All of Michael’s family is involved with the Mafia, but Michael just wants to live a normal life. Drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo is looking for Mafia Families to offer him protection in exchange for a profit of the drug money. He approaches Don Corleone about it, but, much against the advice of the Don’s lawyer Tom Hagen, the Don is morally against the use of drugs, and turns down the offer. This does not please Sollozzo, who has the Don shot down by some of his hit men. The Don barely survives, which leads his son Michael to begin a violent mob war against Sollozzo and tears the Corleone family apart.

This movie is an adaptation of Mario Puzo's book - probably the single most important and influential film ever made. Starring Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Mario Puzo assisted with writing the screenplay and with other production tasks. The film grossed approximately $134 million and won various awards, including three Academy Awards, five Golden Globes and a Grammy and is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. The sequel, The Godfather Part II won six Oscars, and became the first sequel to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

Interesting...

2008-11-24T23:29:00.000-08:00

Three artists from germany are showing an installation in which a robotic arm transcribes, on scrolls of paper, the entire Bible in calligraphic text,

Entitled 'bios [bible],' the installation purpose is to "correlate two cultural systems which are fundamental for societies today -- religion and scientific rationalism," according to the artists.

I am sure this video will start a mini-storm of discussions in study groups meet and in online message boards. The Good Book itself is available online in its entirety and in every conceivable translation and language.

via Walyou.com