Fidelity to text: 2 poison bottles. Miss Marple was added to a Tommy and Tuppence novel. The overall arc of the original novel remains. There are numerous changes to time period, the main plot, subplots, minor characters, names, locations, …. It’s a long list. Quality of movie on its own: 4 poison bottles. I didn’t […]
The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization by Roland Ennos Three stars: nonfiction, history, wood, things you never considered about the infrastructure of the world around you. This was a nice little book that was less interesting (to me) than it should have been. It’s very readable. I finished […]
After a long delay, we return to “The Adventures of Shylock Homes,” written in 10 parts by John Kendrick Bangs during 1903. Episodes one through five were published a few years ago. Number 6 — “Mr. Homes Solves a Question of Authorship” — was published in the first volume of Edwardian-era pastiches. Number 7 was […]
Teresa reviews “The Moving Finger” (2006) and thought it an improvement over the 1985 episode starring Joan Hickson. Fidelity to text: 3 poison bottles. The overall story arc remains the same. The changes range from condensing and removing characters (minor) to adding Miss Marple at the very start (major) and everything in between. The time […]
The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel Four and 1/2 Stars: nonfiction, aspects of life you never considered before I loved this book. Virginia Postrel covers a piece of civilization that affects us every day yet we rarely think about: textiles. Or fabric, to use a more common term. It’s […]
After a long delay, we return to “The Adventures of Shylock Homes,” written in 10 parts by John Kendrick Bangs during 1903. Episodes one through five were published a few years ago. Number 6 — “Mr. Homes Solves a Question of Authorship” — was published in the first volume of Edwardian-era pastiches. These episodes recount […]
(This review is part of Teresa Peschel’s Agatha Christie movie project. Read more about it at the above link.) Fidelity to text: 2 garrotes. The producers made dozens of changes from irritating but minor (main character names) to wholesale rewrites. The Funnybones theatrical troupe is completely new. So are the dramatic changes to Gwenda’s mother […]
Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book by Courtney Maum Two Sparkers; nonfiction, help for writers but not in terms of craft. As part of my continuing education as an indie writer, I read books about the business of writing. After all, anyone can […]
Fidelity to text: 3 1/2 knives For an 80-minute-long film, they crammed most of the story in. Regrettably, they omitted two major plot points. Even more regrettably, Austin Trevor must be the worst Poirot ever. He’s tall, lean, and doesn’t have a mustache. I thought he was supposed to be Hastings as the actor playing […]
The Lost City: Discovering the Forgotten Virtues of Community in the Chicago of the 1950s by Alan Ehrenhalt Four sparklers; nonfiction, contemporary social history, American culture I’ve always been interested in why we do what we do as a culture. What is community? What is acceptable behavior? What has changed in the last seventy years? […]