Chess, Comics, Crosswords, Books, Music, Cinema

20 books to read before you…  There's nothing like a list of books to read or movies to watch. The internet is filled with such trivia. My own favourite list for reading books or watching films is the one before you die. Nothing beats it. In fact, Goodreads has a list of 20 books “you must definitely read” before you die. What a shame if you don’t! But why must you read a particular book or watch a specific movie before you kick the bucket? What's the occasion? I can see we're back to square one. For the heck of it, I compiled my own list of 20 books that I am going to read before I…no, not that…let’s just say in the next two years. I know I'm being overly optimistic. These are titles of books handed down over the past three decades. Actually, my to-be-read list of some of the great books is much longer and so I have put down only those b ooks I have been wanting to read for a while now. Books that come with high recommendations from all kinds of sources. Books ...

VINTAGE PICTURES Murder on the Orient Express was born here This is Room 411 in Hotel Pera Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, where Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express in which Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of Samuel Ratchett, a passenger on the train.

BOOK REVIEW The Mighty Marvel Superheroes’ Cookbook (1977)  Can comic-books be considered as books? Strictly no, unless they're like Stan Lee's The Mighty Marvel Superheroes’ Cookbook. A perfect recipe for Friday's Forgotten Books over at Patti Abbott's blog Pattinase  which is being hosted by Todd Mason at his blog Sweet Freedom this week. Check out the two blogs for plenty of FFB action. Now your kids can cook with the comics!  As a kid I used to wonder how Superman could drink water, sip wine or eat food when he was made of steel. I don’t think Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster ever explained these life-sustaining aspects of their superhero’s life. As a teenager I wondered how the Man of Steel could make love to Lois Lane. Imagine the bionically-challenged Terminator taking a woman to bed…something like that. And as a grown-up I’m still wondering how he’s doing all of the above. Come to think of it, in the comics Superman is rarely shown drinking or eat...

FILM REVIEW Wild Hogs (2007) A Walt Becker comedy for this Tuesday's edition of Overlooked/Forgotten Films and Television at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom . Don't forget to check out the other fascinating reviews over there. Dudley Frank (Tim Allen): What'd you do, Woody? Woody Stevens (John Travolta): I cut the gas lines of their bikes, and then I maybe blew up their bar.  I am not a particular fan of John Travolta. I enjoyed Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Staying Alive —musical hits that launched his film career and cast the young, lanky, muscular testosterone-driven actor into public limelight. But those were early days and you can't judge Travolta by the way he danced, swore and grinned widely. A lot of people judge Travolta as an actor from his performances in Pulp Fiction and Face/Off, which left me confused by the end. I couldn't figure out who was Travolta and who was Cage. Over the years John Travolta, who hails from New Jersey, act...

Sundays without TCM The days of Turner Classic Movies in India seem to be over. If rumours of the channel’s exit from the country are true then my regular Sunday dose of old Hollywood classics has come to an end. I have been a loyal TCM fan since Turner Entertainment started broadcasting as TNT in India several years ago. The largely non-commercial movie channel from the Time-Warner stable discontinued its service a few days ago but so far there has been no official word from TCM. On September 12, Tata Sky, the direct-to-home television service I subscribe to, flashed this terse message: “TCM channel is no longer available on Tata Sky as the telecast of the channel has been discontinued by the broadcaster.” If TCM has, indeed, pulled out of India then I can only think of two reasons: financial non-viability and lack of popularity. I’m inclined to think it’s the former more than the latter. I’m sure there is no dearth of TCM fans in the subcontinent. Nearly a fortnight h...

Opening lines “My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel is the best and simplest way.” — Ernest Hemingway The opening lines of a book, a mystery, thriller, humour, sf or horror in particular, often tells you whether you are going to like it or not. Now I don’t judge the merit of a novel based on how it begins. It does, however, give me a feel for the book, that, maybe, I can sit back and look forward to a pleasurable read. I have paid scarce attention to the opening lines in the books I read in the past few years but a casual glance through a pile of secondhand mystery paperbacks I bought recently got me thinking about this challenging aspect of a writer’s narrative. Flipping through You Live Once by John D. MacDonald, I came across this plain opening: “I have never awakened easily. I have always had a sneaking envy for those people who seem to be able to bound out of bed, functioning perfectly. I have to use two alarm clocks on work mornings.”   ...

FILM REVIEW Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and The Birdcage (1996) A couple of comedies for this Tuesday's edition of Overlooked/Forgotten Films and Television at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom . Don't forget to check out the other fascinating reviews over there. Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams): Could you make me a woman? Frank (Harvey Fierstein): Honey, I'm so happy! Daniel: I knew you'd understand. What is it about some films that make you want to see them again and again (assuming you do watch a film more than once)?  What usually inspires me to watch a film twice, maybe more than twice, is the entertainment value, the family quotient, good humour, great music, familiar cast, sound performance, a terrific script…you can toss and turn the order if you like. Mrs. Doubtfire scores on all seven fronts. Now Robin Williams is a damned good actor and yet I don’t like him in some of his films because he clearly overdoes the acting bit. He’s loud and all over th...

Sudden Rides Again He rode a horse as black as night. He wore two guns tied low, the butts worn as smooth as the leather they nestled in. He was a tall, capable man heading into the Arizona badlands, moving towards trouble. He was James Green: gunfighter, killer, and murderer — a man with the kind of reputation that made men flinch when his eyes met theirs, that stilled hands on their way to holstered Colts. He was an outlaw, heading for a deadly double-agent's game in an outpost of hell itself! In case you're figuring out who wrote those lines it was British writer Oliver Strange who, in my opinion, created one of the most memorable fictional characters of the Wild West—James Green alias Sudden, the Texas outlaw. I have read western fiction by numerous authors but nowhere have I come across a more romanticised western gunfighter than Strange’s quiet, brave hero.  I f I were to compare James Green to anyone, off the top of my head, it would be Flint (Louis L...

BOOK REVIEW A Prairie Infanta (1904) by Eva Wilder Brodhead This short novel by Eva Wilder Brodhead is my contribution to Friday's Forgotten Books over at Patti Abbott's blog Pattinase . You'll find plenty of good reviews of good books over there. “Life,” he wrote, was at best “a rough proposition.” It’s certainly a rough proposition for the Texas-born Keene, who, upon the death of his lovely Mexican wife Margarita, leaves his young daughter Lola in the foster care of a stranger and goes away to a mountain camp, to prospect for coal and, some day, return a wealthy mine owner. Eva Wilder Brodhead (1870-1915), the American writer and poet, has written a charming story about the love and sacrifice of Miss Jane Combs for the sake of the motherless child Lola, a precocious girl of ten or twelve. Jane, who lives alone in a shack just outside the little Colorado mining town of Aguilar, is more than happy to take Lola under her wing. She accepts the girl as he...

BOOK BUYS A Max Brand here, a Mack Bolan there I haven't done a "Book Buys" post for a while now. For the past few weeks, I have been buying secondhand paperbacks faster than I can read them. I bet I said that the last time around, too. The novels I picked up are in good condition and cost Rs.10 to 20 each [$1 = Rs.50]. I bought multiples of Don Pendleton (Mack Bolan), Ed McBain, Lawrence Block, Elmore Leonard, John D. MacDonald, Ruth Rendell, J.R. Roberts (Robert J. Randisi), Colin Dexter, Max Brand, Leo Kessler, and Nick Carter. I bought a few other books too but that would be really stretching it, or showing off, wouldn't it? Here are some of the paperbacks I couldn't resist buying. The Elmore Leornard cover is the only one that doesn't match. Mine is a Pan Books edition. Have I started reading any of these or the ones I haven't showcased here? Not yet, because I'm still reading the books I bought the year before l...

FILM REVIEW The Flying Deuces (1939) This Tuesday, I’m going to tempt you into watching a black-and-white Laurel and Hardy classic as part of Overlooked/Forgotten Films and Television at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom . Don't forget to read the other fascinating reviews over there. Oliver: Shot at sunrise! Stanley: I hope it's cloudy tomorrow!  [After Stan and Ollie hear the verdict of their execution the next morning.]  There are quite a few memorable scenes in The Flying Deuces (1939) starring the endearing pair of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. The one I liked the most takes place towards the end when Stan and Ollie, who are enlisted in the Foreign Legion in France, sing Shine On, Harvest Moon and break into an impromptu tap-dance before the band and other uniformed members of the unit.  There is nothing unusual about this scene except that Stan and Ollie do the jig while they are on the run from their commandant (Charles Middleton) and his men: t...

Robert E. Howard When Robert E. Howard got a rejection letter While Farnsworth Wright was a veteran of World War I and a music critic for the Chicago Herald and Examiner , he was best-known as the firebrand editor of the pulp magazine Weird Tales , a man who often thrust rejection slips into the hands of famous writers and showed them the door.  Wright regularly published sf, fantasy and horror stories by Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith in Weird Tales . However, he had a difficult relationship with the three authors, as this article  tells you. It says, "Wright had a strained relationship with all three writers, rejecting major works by them, such as Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Over Innsmouth , Howard's The Frost Giant's Daughter , and Smith's The Seven Geases (which Wright dismissed as just 'one geas after another')." He also published most of their stories that made them famous. ...

BOOK REVIEW Anthologies: Best Ghost Stories, The Haunted Hour, and Devil Stories by various authors These anthologies are my meagre contribution to Friday's Forgotten Books over at Patti Abbott's blog Pattinase . "Mortal, mock not at the devil, life is short and soon will fail, and the 'fire everlasting' is no idle fairy-tale." — Heine (a reference to the 19th century German poet Heinrich Heine, I think.)     © www.library.sc.edu I haven't done a serious review of a forgotten book since Friday, August 10. I have been taking the easy way out by reading and writing about vintage comic-books, in the main the economy series by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (August 23) and To The Last Man by Zane Grey (August 31) and, more recently, a historical work, The Story of the Outlaw, by western author Emerson Hough (September 3). Varied stuff, nonetheless. This Friday is going to be no different because I still haven't read a...