She was always a writer first and foremost. She kept a diary from a very early age. One of Pearl’s favourite pastimes was to sit down and write about her experiences and feelings. Some of her journal entries are contained in the book.
A review of The Consummate Traitor by Bonnie Toews
The knowledge that this author has firsthand experience of wartime journalism comes as no surprise when reading this engrossing book. With her thorough research and attention to historical detail, I felt as if I was taking a peep into hitherto hidden war files, rather than reading a work of fiction.
A Tragedy of Passion and Power: Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, starring Keira Knightley, Jude Law, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, directed by Joe Wright
It is amazing how much content there is in this glittering work. The love of Anna and Vronsky is not the only love in the film. Levin, a great friend of Anna’s brother, a man with a country estate, is in love with Kitty who was infatuated with Vronsky, until Vronsky met Anna; and Levin has a drunken, rebellious brother, a radical watched by security forces, who married a woman who worked in a brothel.
Life is Good, but Good Life is Better: Julia Loktev’s The Loneliest Planet, featuring Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg
The natural beauty of a regal wilderness and the charm of an old culture are captivating, but the film, inspired by a Tom Bissell story, “Expensive Trips Nowhere,” turns on the kind of tale of challenged love that anyone could see himself or herself in.
Everything Costs Somebody Something: Arbitrage, starring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Nate Parker, and Brit Marling
Miller is a useful fiction in Arbitrage, a film that shows what happens when a man’s sense of his own power begins to lose touch with reality: a great business deal fails, the contradictions in his private life become obvious, and his social position is threatened.
Open Government versus Imperial Presidency versus Terrorism: Twilight’s Last Gleaming
The film was inspired by Walter Wager’s novel Viper Three, a book that did not have an explicit political theme; and it was adapted by Ed Huebach and Ronald M. Cohen, giving the director Robert Aldrich the kind of material with social resonance that he wanted to deal with. That political vision attracted other participants.
Follow Me into the House, Dude: End of Watch, a police film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena
Brian and Janet do get married; and their wedding dance is a howl of fun—and the comments that Mike makes as a toast confirm the ceremony as a communal ritual, and Gabby’s ribald comments are amusing, sisterly, useful. It is all a sweet interlude.
In Prison for Stealing a Loaf of Bread: Valjean (Hugh Jackman) in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables as illustrated in a film by Tom Hooper
It can be hard to feel intimate with characters that are always in song supported by an orchestra, but the actors give compelling performances that draw the viewer closer even as some of the music pushes one away.
Which story do you prefer?: Ang Lee’s interpretation of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi
Life of Pi is, after Sense & Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain, more proof of cinema artist Ang Lee’s curiosity, humanity, and versatility: the film, full of expressive faces, and the strange wonders of nature, imagination, and life, recounts the story an Indian professor in Canada tells to a Canadian writer who has lived in India, an encounter of survivor and writer recommended by the professor’s uncle; and the tale hardly could be more unique and yet it is difficult to think of who would not find it entertaining.
A review of The Greatest Ever Chess Strategies by Sam Collins
In the principal chapters (entitled respectively ‘Pawns’, ‘Bishops’, ‘Material’ and ‘Dynamic Factors’) Collins focuses on a select few interrelated topics, rather than aiming for an all-embracing but possibly superficial comprehensiveness. And he writes about a topic only when he has something new or interesting to say about it, or when the strategic idea is little known or (in his view) underappreciated.