Blogcritics Author: Friend Mouse

Book Review: Secrets of the Sea - A Novel by Nicholas Shakespeare

Friend Mouse — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:49:14 EDT

This fantastic new novel is both a perceptive and pragmatic love story and a tribute to the pristine island of Tasmania and her denizens.
Secrets of the Sea is a gorgeous new novel, set at the edge of the world in a small town in Tasmania, and focusing on the love- and life-story of two tormented people, Merridy and Alex Dove. Alex is an orphan, both of his parents killed by a logging truck accident when he was only eleven. After being brought back to England by relatives for his...

DVD Review: Silent Wings - The American Glider Pilots of WWII

Friend Mouse — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:55:30 EDT

Their planes may have been silent but their voices no longer are. This is the incredible story of the American WWII glider pilots.
According to the documentary Silent Wings: The American Glider Pilots of WWII, World War II is the most chronicled event in our human history – except for the mostly untold story of the American glider pilots. Just over 6,000 volunteer pilots flew infantry and supplies behind enemy lines in fragile, defenseless, and engineless airplanes. ...

Book Review: The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon

Friend Mouse — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:52:43 EDT

A compelling novel of displacement, poverty, war, and the quest for personal peace.
The Lazarus Project is the beautifully written story of Lazarus Averbuch, a young Jewish immigrant shot to death in 1908 by Chicago's chief of police, and of Vladimir Brik, the modern day Bosnian immigrant who is compelled to explore Averbuch's tale in order to come to grips with his own existence. The narrator Brik (standing in for author...

Book Review: Dizzying Heights - The Aspen Novel by Bruce Ducker

Friend Mouse — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:02:33 EDT

A satirical look at Aspen reaches for the upper elevations but falls slightly short under its own unwieldiness.
Dizzying Heights is, in fact, a dizzying book, chocked full of twisty turns and scheming characters. A satirical look at Aspen, Colorado, and her colorful denizens, this novel attempts giddy heights only to fall slightly short under its own unwieldiness.There is a lot of plot in Dizzying Heights. First, Wadsworth Brush, the erstwhile hero of the...

Book Review: The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing

Friend Mouse — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:15:06 EDT

A look inside the revolution, tea-cosies and all. As relevant and compelling as when it was first published.
Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist is a remarkable character study, exploring the experiences and influences that transform revolutionary dilettantes into actual terrorists. Set in London in the early- or mid-1980s (I believe, although the timeframe is never explicitly mentioned: Margaret Thatcher is running the country; millions are...

DVD Review: Wide Sargasso Sea

Friend Mouse — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 22:40:20 EDT

An adaptation of the eponymous novel, this passionate production offers a glimpse into madness and love turned to ruin.
Wide Sargasso Sea -- based on the 1966 novel by Jean Rhys, originally aired by the BBC in 2006 and finally releasing to U.S. audiences on DVD later this month -- is a sensuous look at a descent into madness. Ostensibly presented as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, the story is about Mr. Rochester’s first wife, Antoinette...

Book Review: The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber

Friend Mouse — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:13:19 EDT

Are the greatest artists visionaries or lunatics? The answer, according to this fine novel, is an emphatic �yes!�
The Forgery of Venus is New York Times best-selling author Michael Gruber’s latest opus and it is a humdinger. Intelligent, exciting and scholarly without being pedantic, this novel examines the fine and often blurry line between true genius and true madness.This is the story of Charles “Chaz” Wilmot, a modern painter of...

DVD Review: One Missed Call

Friend Mouse — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:08:23 EDT

Rife with missed opportunities, this movie misses the mark.
Hollywood has done it again, remaking an R-rated Japanese horror flick, Chakushin ari, into a watered-down PG-13 boo-movie. I’ve not seen the 2003 original but I’ll venture to say that One Missed Call pretty much misses the mark.The story is this: young and pretty people – purportedly college students but none of them live in...

Book Review: Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow

Friend Mouse — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:40:25 EDT

This is no frilly urban fantasy: this is a 300-page poem about bloodthirsty noir werewolves.
In his debut novel, Sharp Teeth, Toby Barlow revisits an ages-old mythology, lycanthropy, and places it smack dab in the center of present day Los Angeles. This is no frilly urban fantasy, however: these werewolves are hip and modern, involved in gang warfare, organized crime, card playing for money, meth labs and no-kill animal shelters. What...

Book Review: Dark Summit - The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season by Nick Heil

Friend Mouse — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:56:44 EDT

A fascinating investigation into one of the most deadly and talked about seasons on the world's highest mountain.
Mount Everest is Earth's highest point: 29,028 feet at the summit. It is a brutal place where temperatures at -50F are common; where fingers, toes and noses can quickly freeze solid, and where there is only one-third of breathable oxygen available as there is at sea level; where the cold and hypoxia can lead to madness, coma and death. It takes...