Skip to main content

Staff Picks 2015: Part 2

It's time for Part 2 of the second annual Staff Picks series, and this week it's my turn to share my picks from the past year.  All of my selected picks for books and one of my selected movies have been reviewed previously on the blog, so you can click those links to find full reviews of those titles!  Oh, and why don't you leave me a comment about your 'best of' picks from the last year.

Books

Stick and Stone by Beth Ferry; at the time of the review post for this book I'd already read this one a couple or three times.  I've since read it again and bought a copy for my cousin's newborn baby because that's how much I love this book.  I don't care that it's a picture book for young children.  I. Love. This. Book.

Longbourne by Jo Baker; this list wouldn't be complete without British period drama and Pride and Prejudice, okay, so deal with it.  I loved this new perspective on the events of Pride and Prejudice told from the point of view of the servants at the Bennets' home at Longbourne.

The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James; this list also wouldn't be complete without a title by St. James on it because English period drama supernatural/ghost story!  Two of St. James's titles made my picks for last year and the link for this review contains links to the previously reviewed titles.  I can't recommend St. James's novels enough.

Movies/Mini-series
Sons of Liberty (mini-series); this mini-series is a highly fictionalized telling of the years leading up to the American colonies' declaration of independence from Great Britain.  The star is the rebel, Samuel Adams, who enjoys sticking it to the British. [The link goes to the review for the first episode of the series; navigate to reviews for the last two episodes in the reviews Archive on the right side of the page!)

About Last Night; a re-make of an older movie by the same title, this comedy is the hilarious tale of two couples who meet and struggle to make their relationships work.

What I'm looking forward to in 2016:

The next Simone St. James release in the spring, and the release on DVD of Midwinter of the Spirit, a British supernatural drama (surprise, surprise!).


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In The Woods by Tana French

"What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with the truth is fundamental, but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies ... and every variation on deception. The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of her. We betray her routinely ... This is my job ... What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this--two things: I crave truth. And I lie." opening lines of In The Woods chapter 1, pages 3-4 In The Woods by Tana French, an Irish writer, is an extremely well-written and well-crafted mystery novel. The downside is that this is French's debut novel, and her website (located at http://www.tanafrench.com/ ) does not off...
24 comments
Read more

Broken by Karin Slaughter

Before I begin the formal review there are a few things I need to get off my chest in the wake of finishing this book; I'll do so without giving away too many (or any) spoilers. The OUTRAGE!: the identity of Detective Lena Adams' new beau; the low depths to which Grant County's interim chief has sunk and brought the police force down with him; agent Will Trent's wife, Angie's, sixth sense/nasty habit of reappearing in his life just when he's slipping away from her. Thank God for small miracles though because while Angie was certainly referred to during the book, the broad didn't make an appearance. One sign that I've become way too invested in these characters is that I'd like to employ John Connolly's odd pair of assassins, Louis and Angel, to contract out a hit on Angie; do you think Karin Slaughter and John Connolly could work out a special cross over? Hallelujah: Dr. Sara Linton and agent Will Trent are both back. There is no hallelujah fo...
3 comments
Read more

Generation Kill by Evan Wright and One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick

Non-fiction books aren't really my thing; generally, this is how my relationship goes with non-fiction books: I see a really interesting one, I borrow it, I start to read it, and then I ditch it a chapter or two later when the dry, boring writing and non-existent plot fail to hook me. However, this a review of two non-fiction books that I read back to back after a five year old three article series that I dug up on the internet; it was written by Evan Wright and preceded his book Generation Kill , which is basically a book version of the article series that he wrote and published in Rolling Stone Magazine . Recently HBO adapted Generation Kill into a mini-series that ran sometime last year; I got the series on DVD and in the midst of watching it, I decided I wanted to get my hands on the book to read. In the meantime, I stumbled across One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick, the lieutenant of the platoon that Wright embedded with, and I read that book while I waited for Generation K...
1 comment
Read more