Month: December 2016

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Cookbooks: Healing the Vegan Way  and
The Meals to Heal Cookbook

December 29, 2016 admin 0

Eating to heal rather than just satisfy is an idea that is both brand-new and older than time. Two recent books take a delicious and practical approach to cooking for optimal wellness. Healing the Vegan Way is chef Mark Reinfeld’s delicious attack on a culture gone wrong. From the very beginning of Chapter 1: “Research continues to mount that many of the major health challenges facing society can be prevented and reversed through adopting a […]

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Richard Adams Dead at 96

December 28, 2016 admin 0

On his web site, Richard Adams’ family gently eulogizes the 96-year-old who passed away on Christmas Eve with a brief passage from Watership Down, his best known work. It fits beautifully. And it resonates: It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body any more, so he left it lying on the edge of the ditch, but stopped for a moment to watch his rabbits and to try to get used to […]

Death of a Princess: Carrie Fisher

December 27, 2016 admin 0

Ending what has been, for many, a terrible year on a truly awful note, this morning we lost a princess. Not only was actor and writer Carrie Fisher perhaps best known and loved for her role as the Star Wars saga’s Princess Leia, she was herself a Hollywood princess, daughter of 50s screen star sweetheart Debbie Reynolds and entertainer Eddie Fisher. The author of several novels, works of non-fiction and memoirs, including 1987’s Postcards from […]

Crime Fiction Standouts from 2016

December 22, 2016 J. Kingston Pierce 1

Today brings the seventh and final installment in The Rap Sheet’s “Favorite Crime Fiction of 2016” series—just in time for any last-minute shoppers desperate to purchase books for their mystery-loving loved ones. This year, the blog’s well-read critics chose a total of 33 books, including three non-fiction works of particular interest to crime-fiction enthusiasts. The seven posts can be found here: • Part I, by Jim Napier • Part II, by Steven Nester • Part […]

Blade Runner  Redux Sneak Peak

December 20, 2016 admin 0

Thirty-four years after the original film got off to its sleeper start, Ridley Scott’s darkly epic Blade Runner will get a sequel next year. From Deadline Hollywood: That DNA is sill there: Scott is executive producing the new pic, set 30 years after the end of the original, and Ford is back too, glimpsed in the just-released tease emerging from a doorway, Han Solo-Force Awakens-style, to come face to face with Ryan Gosling, the new […]

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This Just In… Dawn of Legaia  by A.C. Hachem

December 20, 2016 admin 0

Los Angeles, 2083: Twenty-two-year-old prodigy of science Monte Cizek has just been tasked with discovering a new energy system that can sustainably power Legaia, the Earth’s first orbiting space colony. With the help of his mentor, Legaia’s project lead Dr. Randal Porter, and Nate, the world’s most advanced conscious android robot, Monte must overcome the obstacles that stand between him and Legaia’s success. At the core of his frustration is L.A. business mogul Richard Hurlocke, […]

Fiction: The Parcel  by Anosh Irani

December 19, 2016 admin 1

It wasn’t until I finished reading The Parcel (Knopf Canada) and then, having rolled a cigarette to recover from this harrowing yet strangely heroic journey through Bombay’s prostitution district of Kamathipura, that I realized I had reviewed Anosh Irani’s work before. That was back in 2011 when I was still learning the ropes of reviewing and the novel was Dahanu Road. What I wrote about that tragically beautiful love story applies quite well to this […]

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Lost Property Office  Heads for Big Screen

December 13, 2016 admin 0

The Lost Property Office (Simon & Schuster) by James R. Hannibal (Pirates: The Midnight Passage, Shadow Catcher) was one of the most hotly anticipated children’s novels of 2016. How hotly anticipated? Columbia Pictures has just acquired the film rights by preempt. From Deadline Hollywood: It is one part Harry Potter, with some Dr. Who thrown in. A 13-year old teen named Jack Buckles, who is uncanny at locating missing things, tests his mettle and searches […]

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This Just In… Flash Crash  by Denison Hatch

December 12, 2016 admin 0

When a rogue quantitative programmer intentionally crashes the gold index, it seems that Wall Street’s worst nightmare has come true. In truth, the crisis has just begun. Across town, an armored truck filled with $120M of gold bullion is hijacked by an ingeniously crafted electromagnetic crane and seemingly driven into thin air. Programmer David Belov discovers that his virtual “Flash Crash” was simply a required stepping stone towards the largest physical gold robbery in history, […]

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Nonfiction: Existentialism and Excess: The Life and Times of Jean-Paul Sartre  by Gary Cox

December 12, 2016 admin 0

When he finally stopped writing he was so severely over-stimulated he was unable to keep his body still. His arms flailed about and he paced so much on de Beauvoir’s carpet that he wore a hole in it. He was a speed freak. Speed renders the tongue hyperactive, even when one is not talking, and at one point he wore all the skin off the top of his. A nightly, near overdose of sleeping tablets […]