Just Finished Reading: Four Seasons in Japan by Nick Bradley (FP: 2023) [325pp]
Her friend Makoto was right; it's always a bad idea to achieve your dream. Flo Dunthorpe was living in Tokyo, had mastered the language and had just had her first translation of a collection of obscure Japanese science fiction stories published. But now what? Her indecision was driving everyone around her crazy. Her fellow workers at the publishing house couldn’t understand her, her girlfriend couldn’t understand why she wasn’t willing to move back to the US with her. What to do? Travelling home on the subway on the verge of a nervous breakdown Flo noticed a book left behind by careless passenger. Picking it up she began reading and automatically translating the text into English. Struck by the power of the narrative she began to wonder if she had found her next project completely by accident. But who was the author? She had never heard of him and the book itself gave very little detail of who had even published it. Before she made any move to translate further, she needed to know more. Maybe the text itself would help? As she delved deeper, she lost herself in the story of the struggle between a grandmother with a tragic past and a grandson living with the shame of failed examinations, a talent for art and the desire to know more about a father he never knew and no one ever talked about.
As usual with these things, I picked up this novel because it ‘looked different’. Being published by Penguin and having a cat on the cover certainly helped though! Going in I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I certainly had no idea that I would LOVE the story (actually stories) so much. It was, I must say, a bit of a weird one. Although the (arguably) main character is the American translator Flo most of the narrative – around two-thirds I would think – is her translation of the mysterious found book. That story revolves around 19-year-old Kyo who had been sent to stay with his grandmother far from Tokyo in order to attend a local crammer so that he could pass his university entrance exams on the second try. I honestly didn’t like Kyo very much to begin with but, after a while, I began to understand why he was SO unsure of himself and overthought EVERYTHING. His grandmother Ayako was fantastic. Hard as nails (with VERY good reason) and very demanding she was the core of the story and I really liked how we, the reader once removed, slowly found out more about her life and the life (and death) of Kyo’s father – her son. Every time I opened the book I FELL into the story and lost all sense of time and place. You could almost smell the cherry blossom...
To say that I loved this book would be an understatement. Although definitely not my usual read – by a long way – I found myself totally absorbed by both Flo’s and Kyo’s journey, both figuratively and literally. Even the rather annoying Kyo grew on me (eventually) especially when he delivered one of the best put-downs I’ve heard in many a year! This was definitely another highlight of the year and is, of course, very highly recommended. Be warned however, the more sensitive amongst you will need a tissue or two handy at times.
Saturday, December 13, 2025
The Last 10 Movies – December 2025 edition.
A slow round of movie watching again but I did plan to post this last week – and forgot! All re-watchers this time but I do have a few new (to me) films in my next post.
Gladiator (2000)
I’m not exactly sure just how many times I’ve seen this now, but I always enjoy it. A little slow in places but the action scenes are VERY good.
Back to the Future 3 (1990)
My 2nd favourite outing for the franchise. I did like the ‘old West’ idea and thought it worked really well. Plus, I liked the way they interweaved items from previous movies. Oh, and it had one of my favourite movie lines ever: Is this a holdup? [pause] No, it's a science experiment....
The Italian Job (1969)
Classic British movie of the ‘swinging 60’s. I know this FAR too well to fully enjoy it anymore, but it still makes me smile.
Bridge of Spies (2015)
Quite excellent Cold War spy film with Tom Hanks. LOVED every moment of it and was totally transfixed at the movies.
Jason Bourne (2016)
Definitely a movie of two halves. Actually, the opening set piece in Greece was VERY good and then went RAPIDLY downhill. I think this is the worst of the Matt Damon Bourne films.
Point Blank (1967)
A decent late film noir starring Lee Marvin. Near the end I actually had a revelation about it. Marvin is shot at the beginning and spends the rest of the movie on a revenge trip. I thought that the ‘revenge’ might well be his dying brain coming to terms with things as he bled out. Although that might have been a little too ‘advanced’ for an audience at the time!
Casino Royale (2006)
I found this surprisingly dull considering I’m quite a Bond fan. The addition of the delightful Eva Green certainly helped my enjoyment.
Alien: Resurrection (1997)
A reasonable addition to the franchise but I really didn’t like the ending. I did like the way Weaver played her role of Ripley/Queen and Winona Ryder was a FUN addition. Cool story about the basketball scene too!
The Blues Brothers (1980)
Completely over the top ‘chase’ movie (with Blues music) as two ex-cons try to get the money to save the orphanage they grew up in. ALMOST too silly but manages (just) to hold it in check. LOVED the cameo by Carrie Fisher!
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
STRANGE but effective ‘documentary’ about the US in the late 70’s/early 80’s. The word means ‘Life out of Balance’ and you can certainly see why from the video.
Happy Birthday: Amy Lynn Lee (born December 13, 1981) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She is the co-founder, lead vocalist, lead songwriter, and keyboardist of rock band Evanescence. A classically trained pianist, Lee began writing music at age 11 and co-founded Evanescence at 13, inspired by various musical genres and film scores from an early age. Lee has participated in other musical projects, including Nightmare Revisited and Muppets: The Green Album, and composed music for several films, including War Story (2014), Indigo Grey: The Passage (2015), and the song "Speak to Me" for Voice from the Stone (2017). She has also released the covers EP Recover, Vol. 1 (2016), the soundtrack album to War Story, the children's album Dream Too Much (2016), and collaborated with various artists including Korn, Seether, Bring Me the Horizon, Lindsey Stirling, Body Count, Wagakki Band, Halsey (singer), Poppy, and Courtney LaPlante.
Alongside her awards and nominations with Evanescence, Lee's other accolades include: the Songwriter Icon Award from the National Music Publishers Association (2008); Best Vocalist at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards (2012); Rock Goddess of the Year at Loudwire Music Awards (2012); Best Film Score by the Moondance International Film Festival for Indigo Grey: The Passage (2015); and the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Song in Independent Film for "Speak to Me" (2017). In 2012, VH1 named Lee one of the top 100 greatest women in music. Lee is the American chairperson for the international epilepsy awareness foundation Out of the Shadows, and in 2012 was honored with United Cerebral Palsy's Luella Bennack Award for her work.
"Political myths don't exist in a vacuum, they compete with other myths to define the identity and political belief systems of national populations. This is why political leaders, whether they represent or wish to challenge the power of the state, place so much emphasis on their development."
Mark Jones: 1923 - The Crisis that Led to Hitler's Coup.
Just Finished Reading: 1914 – Fight the Good Fight: Britain, the Army & the Coming of the First World War by Allan Mallinson (FP: 2014) [551pp]
Britain was unprepared for war in 1914. Despite rising tensions on the Continent since the assassination of the Austrian Archduke (and actually long before that) Britain was, as always, focused on the Empire. Despite the Entente Cordiale signed with the French in 1904, Britain had no intention of getting entangled in another European conflict. For more than a hundred years the British policy in regard to Europe was simply to prevent one power becoming all dominant and, therefore, becoming a threat to British and Imperial interests. Also, being primarily a maritime power, the British army was tiny in comparison to its European counterparts. Indeed, the German Kaiser himself called it contemptible and quipped that if it entered German territory, he would have the local police arrest them.
Just how unprepared the British were was made clear in this excellent book. The Germans had a very detailed plan (flawed but VERY detailed) as to how precisely they were to remove the French threat prior to engaging the large, but slow, Russian one. With France and Russia being allies the LAST thing the Germans wanted was the dreaded “war on two fronts”. So, knock out the French with the majority of their army and then entrain everyone for a swift redeployment in the East. Simple. Except that they should have remembered that NO plan survives contact with the enemy. Unfortunately for Germany (and to be honest the whole of Europe) the Schlieffen Plan had no flexibility built in. NONE. The French plans were almost as detailed. They even had several plans to work from. Unfortunately for France their plan(s) was based on two assumptions – never of which were true – that the Germans would hold back their reserves and leave more divisions in the East than was actually the case and that they would behave exactly as the French expected them to. Meanwhile the British... well, THEIR plan (such as it was) was to deploy their entire available force – minus some divisions kept back for home defence until the possibility of invasion had passed – on the left of the French line... and that was IT. At least it had the advantage of simplicity.
Despite aerial reconnaissance by both sides (although still VERY much in its infancy at this point) the British managed to blunder into the main German thrust where they found themselves outnumbered by roughly 8 to 1. Despite everything the British actually managed their ‘first contact’ surprisingly well being both highly trained and highly professional with the painful experience of the Boer War still very much present. Struggling to disengage during their subsequent retreat (strategic withdrawal?) they finally managed to do so and continued the retreat until finally they managed to reform and reinforce. In coordination with the French, they launched a significant counterattack and knocked the Germans on their heels. The Schlieffen Plan had failed, and a long war of attrition was about to begin.
This quite outstanding book is focused very much on the beginning of things and only really covered the first few months of the conflict. Much of the book was focused on background – primarily from the British point of view obviously – and to give you an idea of just how much background we’re talking about here the first shots exchanged between British and German forces happened around page 380. Although, inevitably, some of the reasons behind the outbreak of the war were discussed that wasn’t the focus of the book. This was about how the British responded to the emergency and exactly why they behaved as they did. It was more than a little shocking to realise that the Cabinet only began discussing options AFTER the German army crossed the Belgian border! There was even debate over whether Britain should intervene AT ALL despite its undertaking to guarantee Belgium integrity. The reluctance to get involved and the political smokescreen deployed to cover this confused everyone. The French, for example, were convinced that Britain would be at their side every step of the way – regardless of the Belgian issue – and planned accordingly. The Germans, however, convinced themselves that Britain was staying out... and planned accordingly.
One of the things I really liked about the author, who isn’t a professional historian but clearly knows his ‘stuff’ being an ex-cavalry brigadier, was his reluctance to speculate about what the main players were thinking (or not) beyond the evidence available. Equally I enjoyed a whole chapter of speculation of ‘what might have been’ if the British had thought things through more carefully. An earlier report on Belgian fighting capabilities fully expected that they would either put up a token face-saving fight and quickly capitulate with honour intact or be swept away by German might. What was completely unexpected was both how well and how aggressively the Belgians DID fight which, incidentally, completely threw off the German timetable. IF the British had been more aware of this fact before they deployed to France, they could have had an agreement with the Belgian king to quickly come to their aid in case of invasion (the Belgians were adamant that NO army would be crossing their border without permission). They could have been based at nearby railheads and, once the Germans crossed the border, been shoulder to shoulder with the Belgian forces in a matter of hours and could (possibly) have stopped the German advance DEAD in its tracks. When Russia invaded East Prussia on 7th August 1914 the Germans would’ve been faced with a nightmare scenario. It's entirely possible that they could have quickly sued for peace. So, no Great War, possibly no Russian Revolution, certainly no Second World War... Oh, the possibilities.
As you can tell I was DEEPLY impressed by this book. I’ll definitely be looking out for more of his military history works as well as diving into his novel series in the New Year. So, MUCH more to come! Very Highly recommended to anyone interested in the start of the Great War and a definitely highlight of the year.
[This is the first of a bunch of 20th Century history books I've been meaning to schedule for a while now. It'll run from 1914-1983. So, stay tuned!]
Just Finished Reading: Traffic by John Ruskin (FP: 1862/1866) [56pp]
This is going to be somewhat difficult to review because it made so little impact on me. Firstly, although I had heard of the author, I didn’t have very much idea of what this short booklet was going to be about. The VERY short blurb on the back gave little away merely saying that it was a defence of dignity and creativity in a world obsessed by money.
The booklet itself was in two parts. Firstly, we had ‘Traffic’ itself which was a lecture given during the opening of an Exchange Hall in Bradford and later published in 1866. I’m guessing that his audience were either surprised or disappointed by his talk. They (rightly?) suspected that a highly respected art critic such as the author would talk mainly about the Exchange itself. Not so. He actually talked mostly about how money and the pursuit of money was ruining architecture, art and just about everything else it touched. I think the thing that jumped out at me most was the fact that these views were being put forward almost 160 years ago. Truely nothing is new under the sun! He also had nothing good to say about ‘Political Science’ - what we call today, Economics! Rightly he said that it fails to understand the real world because it fails to account for the human factor.
The second piece was ‘The Roots of Honour’ (1862) extracted from the larger work Until This Last and Other Writings. Here the author critiques ‘political economy’ more closely looking into the ideas that supposedly explain how the economy ‘works’ that only hold together IF significant elements of humanity are removed from the supposed ‘self-seeking’ agents that make up the population.
Although moderately interesting overall, I can’t say that I either enjoyed this or learnt much from it. As I noted earlier, the primary thing that really struck me was how very modern the economic critique felt although I suppose Economics at that time was both far more blatant and brutal than today. The other thing that really struck (and rather annoyed) me, was the overabundance of comma use in Victorian text. I think that's one thing that makes reading it rather more difficult that modern text. All those commas REALLY break up the flow of things! Reasonable in its historical context.
Sunday, December 07, 2025
Happy Birthday: Nicholas Wulstan Park CBE RDI (born 6 December 1958) is an English filmmaker and animator who created Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Early Man. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award seven times and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
He has also received seven BAFTA Awards, including the BAFTA for Best Short Animation for A Matter of Loaf and Death, which was believed to be the most-watched television programme in the United Kingdom in 2008. His 2000 film Chicken Run is the highest-grossing stop motion animated film.
In 1985 Park joined Aardman Animations, based in Bristol, and for his work in animation he was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Peter Blake to appear in a 2012 version of Blake's most famous artwork - the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover - to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life.
Park was appointed a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1997 Birthday Honours for "services to the animated film industry".
Just Finished Reading: The Veiled Woman by Anais Nin [56pp]
Erotica, modern classic or not, isn’t really my ‘thing’ but I had promised myself that I would read everything – in order – (including POETRY!) from both of my recent Penguin Classics boxsets regardless. Afterall, I did buy them specifically to expand my reading horizons!
So, this booklet contained four short stories extracted from the authors collections Delta of Venus (1977) and Little Birds (1979). Although I remember them being quite controversial at the time I suspect that they’d seem quite tame these days. In my general reading I tend to skim-read any sex scenes as I regard them as, largely, pointless and often lazy. Likewise, if I’m watching a movie at home, I’ll FW through any sex scene which rarely progresses the story and is, all too often, the product of lazy writing and (to be honest) a BAD film.
Anyway – to the reading itself! The first story, the titled ‘Veiled Woman’ revolved around a husband essentially ‘pimping’ for his supposedly ‘frigid’ wife whilst also charging for other men to watch the result through a false mirror. Then we had ‘Linda’ a tale of a free spirit who discovered the price of that freedom. Then ‘Mandra’ a tale of a woman looking for love in New York. Finally, we had ‘Marianne’ about a female artists relationship with her male model.
Overall, the stories were certainly readable if not exactly works of art. They were definitely erotic at times and are not recommended for those of more sensitive tastes. Needless to say, that I have no intention of reading this author further. I have FAR too much else to read that’s (no doubt) a lot more fun!
Just Finished Reading: The Measure of Malice – Scientific Detective Stories edited by Martin Edwards (FP: 2020) [321pp]
As always with any collection of stories from various authors – even Classic ones – books like these tend to be a bit of a roller-coaster in quality. Styles change over a century or more and such changes don’t always translate too well for a more modern reader. That said this was in no way a bad collection of stories. It wasn’t.
Things started out strong with (inevitably) a Sherlock Holmes tale The Boscombe Valley Mystery (1891) where a young man is accused of murder based on circumstantial evidence. As Holmes investigates a number of pieces of physical evidence acquired at the scene points towards his innocence. The next story, The Horror of Studley Grange (1894) by L T Meade and Clifford Halifax, whilst interesting (or weird depending on your PoV) rested too much on two of my particular bugbears where ‘thrillers’ are concerned: the unreliable narrator or liar as I prefer to call them and the fact that strange things/occurrences are taken at face value – even when they’re clearly irrational/unreasonable - until the detective (in this case a doctor) decides that things don’t make sense and starts to actually INVESTIGATE things! I can only imagine that in that age the author didn’t expect his readership to think scientifically or forensically about the case being presented to them.
Doctors seemed to be a regular stand-in for detectives for a considerable time and appeared at least as subject matter experts (SMEs) in a number of tales in this collection including a fun little one called The Cyprian Bees (1924) by Anthony Wynne. As you might expect the murder ‘weapon’ was a rather unusual one. I’m not 100% sure that the science would work as advertised in the story, but it was definitely an interesting way to do the deed! Along with the medical profession a classic detective substitute is the insurance company investigator. A very good example of this was The Contents of a Mare’s Nest (1927) by R Austin Freeman where a claim is questioned despite (or rather because of) the body of the deceased being rather hastily cremated to avoid forensic examination. Or so the perpetrator thought!
I’ll just mention two more. The Broken Toad (1934) by H C Bailey had a convoluted plot and a very nice piece of misdirection which kept me guessing right to the end and In the Teeth of the Evidence (1939) by Dorothy L Sayers which revolved around the expert evidence of a local dentist after an apparent suicide turns out to be something far more sinister.
Overall, despite a few wobbles and niggles, this was a solid collection of detective shorts with a definite science bias – although the ‘science’ involved was at least once on very dodgy ground! As always with such things this is an excellent way to get into classic crime or to find new authors to try out in future novels. Recommended.
Welcome to December. We made it! As its now *officially* Winter - according to the Met Office at least - there will be a noticeable uptick of Winter, Christmas & (next month) New Years related posts. So, wrap up warm and hopefully enjoy.... Oh, and there's even going to be a few Winter related book posts.....