Five Decadent Cookbooks for the 2011 Holiday Season
Before you dive right into planning your big soiree or family gathering, take a bite out of this year’s most popular holiday cookbooks, all of which can be found on Amazon.com.
Debbie Macomber’s Christmas Cookbook: Favorite Recipes and Holiday Traditions from My Home to Yours, by Debbie Macomber
$19.38 (hardcover) $9.99 (Kindle)
Debbie Macomber loves the holidays, and it’s quite evident in this book. In it, the “Official Storyteller of Christmas” shares more than 100 of her famous recipes as well as easy-to-follow instructions for crafts, decorations and gift wrapping. Recipes include dishes like Five-Minute Cranberry Walnut Cobbler, Zucchini Ribbon Frittata with Cheese, Cider Glazed Roast Turkey, Warm German Potato Salad and Triple Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookies. The recipes are scrumptious, but what really warms the heart of this book are Debbie’s personal memories and observations about traditions past and present that are peppered throughout.
Gooseberry Patch Christmas Book 13: Recipes, Projects and Gift Ideas, by Gooseberry Patch
$13.01 (paperback) $19.77 (hardcover)
The 13th installment in the much-anticipated annual series, Gooseberry Patch features over 65 mouth-watering recipes and 100-plus all new ideas for handcrafted decorations, projects and gifts. In the inspiring world of the Gooseberry Patch, you can impress friends and family with giftable goodies like Cranberry Scones and Marshmallow Popcorn; Autumn Pork Chops, Chocolate Egg Nog and other five-ingredient wonders; and Christmas dinner classics like Roast Turkey with Sage Butter and Maple Pecan Pie. Plenty of beautiful photos and step-by-step instructions make this a great, holiday go-to for all your entertaining needs.
Christmas with Southern Living 2011: Savor, Entertain, Decorate, Share, by the editors of Southern Living Magazine
$18.21 (hardcover)
Perfect for those domestic divas who love to plan ahead and keep everything ultra organized, this 2011 installment is touted as the largest, most up-to-date and complete guide to the holidays available. Over 100 all new recipes and dozens of decorating and entertainment ideas are just the start. There’s also a 16-page holiday planner with calendars and charts that you can write on. Filled with quick entertaining and cooking tips and spaces to make holiday card and gift lists, organize menu plans and more, it’s certainly one of the most all-inclusive party planning tools out there. You’ll also find photos of homes for creative, yet inexpensive decorating ideas, holiday table setting and centerpiece ideas, and a source list for where to find props and accessories pictured throughout the book.
Vegan Holiday Kitchen: More than 200 Delicious, Festive Recipes for Special Occasions, by Nava Atlas and Susan Voisin
$15.40 (hardcover)
From one of the most respected names in vegetarian and vegan cooking, Nava Atlas, along with Fat Free Vegan extraordinaire Susan Voisin comes this vegetarian delight for all occasions. In it, they address all the celebratory events that surround Thanksgiving, Hannukah and Christmas, including brunches, lunches, dinners, potlucks and buffets. With recipes that include Coconut Butternut Squash Soup, Hearty Vegetable Pot Pie, Ravioli with Sweet Potatoes and Sage and Cashew Chocolate Mousse Pie, this dynamic duo proves that vegan eating can be just as tasteful and amazing as the stuff of carnivores…if not better!
Martha’s Entertaining: A Year of Celebrations, by Martha Stewart
$43.42 (hardcover)
Martha Stewart whisks curious readers into her world of divine entertainment in this, one of her most intimate books to date. Featured in its pages are stories from some of Martha’s most memorable affairs with family and friends, from a simple blueberry breakfast to a lavish holiday dinner. Of course, approachable recipes abound, including Tomato and Guyere Toasts, Mini Crab Cakes, Tiny Tuna Burgers, Wild Mushroom Lasagna, Braised Short Ribs and more, as well as some of Martha’s favorite drinks. Can you say Pomegranate Cosmopolitan or Honeydew Mojitos? We’ll drink to that!
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
By Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
As reviewed by Macy Walsh
What exactly is a “rogue economist”? One who has stopped taking calls from his CIA handler or wears a disguise when he sneaks into the library to crunch numbers? The rogue, in this case, is Steven D. Levitt, whose chosen field is behavioral economics, which attempts to combine the pure-logic tools of classical economics with an understanding of the emotional impulses of human behavior. He is also a chaired professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the most recent winner of the American Economics Association’s John Bates Clark Medal, awarded biennially to the top economist under the age of 40. He is regarded by his peers as one of the most creative thinkers in his field, gifted at drawing connections between seemingly unrelated forces. Doesn’t sound very “rogue” to me.
If there is a theme to Freakonomics, it’s the re-thinking of conventional wisdom, which, it turns out, may not be as wise as we think. Among the many questions the book explores are such things as: What do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real-estate agents? What do online daters lie about? What makes a perfect parent? What were your parents telling the world when they gave you your name? And the one for which he is best known: Where have all the criminals gone?
Levitt’s conclusion, which managed to offend nearly everyone, is that abortion curbs crime. What he claims, specifically, is that the sharp drop in the United States’ crime rate during the 1990s–commonly attributed to factors like better policing, stiffer gun laws and an aging population–was in fact largely due to the Roe v. Wade decision two decades earlier. The logic was simple: unwanted children are more likely to grow up to become criminals; legalized abortion leads to less unwantedness; therefore, abortion leads to less crime. Conservatives were outraged that abortion was seemingly being promoted as a solution to crime. Liberals detected a whiff of racist eugenics. Besides, what business did this callow economist have trespassing on the territory of the criminologist? Economics is supposed to be about price elasticities and interest rates and diminishing marginal utilities, not abortion and crime. That’s what makes it so useful to undergraduates fighting insomnia.
Levitt has strayed far from the musty halls of the dismal science in search of interesting problems. How do parents of different races and classes choose names for their children? What sort of contestants on the TV show “The Weakest Link” are most likely to be discriminated against by their fellow contestants? If crack dealers make so much money, why do they live with their mothers? Such everyday riddles are fair game for the economist, he contends, because their solution involves understanding how people react to incentives. The trivia alone is worth the cover price. Did you know that Ku Klux Klan members affixed a “kl” to many words, and thus, two Klansmen would hold a “klonversation” in a local “klavern”, or that their secret handshake was “a left-handed, limp-wristed fish wiggle”? Levitt uses the rise and fall of the K.K.K. to illustrate the power of hoarded information. He finds a parallel in the world of real estate where brokers employ code words in advertisements to let potential buyers know that a property can be bought for less than its asking price.
What if Levitt is all wrong in Freakonomics? What if he analyzed the data incorrectly or the data was incomplete or corrupted in any way? Why should any reader trust his theories or analyses? If there is a unifying theme to this book, it’s to not take everything you read or are told at face value. Question the conventional wisdom. Ask whether someone has an incentive to lie or cheat about something. Examine any data and draw your own conclusions. What Levitt and Dubner have done is give us a new way to look at our world. As each story gleaned from the data unfolds, you’ll find yourself surprised, laughing and reading passages aloud to someone else. It’s like a treasure hunt, with little secrets unearthed that were there in plain sight most of the time. The authors have created a book that is both entertaining and educational. But the last thing you should do is take my word for it. Get a copy and find out for yourself. I’m off to get the sequel, Super Freakonomics.
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
By Siddhartha Mukherjee
As Reviewed by Chad Felix
Yes, The Emperor of All Maladies is an extensive biography of cancer. No, it’s not boring. As audacious and potentially long-winded as the book could be, author and cancer physician Siddhartha Mukherjee has handled his subject’s density with great success. In this book he writes with the precision of a surgeon, the scope of an epic poet, the unabated intrigue of a detective, and the earnest enthusiasm of a person who works every day within the field. The result is an astute adventure story that presents not only the cold hard facts, but also the warm, beating pulse of unaffected passion–a sentiment that will seduce even the most precarious of readers.
The book is wisely divided into six parts, with each further subdivided into digestible chapters. Each section is then introduced with a pertinent quotation from a wide variety of personalities–from Lewis Carroll to Sun Tzu–selected and placed to provide real life perspectives on the disease. The effect is felt and readers will be grateful for it. Not once did I dread another page of text or feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the matters at hand, and thanks to concise descriptions and a glossary of terms, one need not understand medical terminology or procedures to enjoy this book from cover to cover.
Where the book truly shines is in its people and the history they’ve been a part of. The wide cast of characters–afflicted patients, recovered patients, politicians, activists, researchers, doctors, etc.–is in constant interaction with the uncompromising disease. Their reaction? To be equally uncompromising. Take the late-19th century surgeon William Stewart Halsted, for example, whose extreme procedures left patients physically debilitated for the remainder of their lives. Convinced that even more radical surgeries were needed, Halsted trekked on, spending many years of his professional life addicted to drugs that allowed him to work longer days and later nights.
Marching on through a barrage of colorful characters, Mukherjee gives us detailed insight into just how turbulent the search for a cure has been and will likely continue to be. In addition to being in conflict with cancer, the search party of patients and professionals has frequently been fraught with conflict in itself. When researchers were conducting the required trials of new and potentially groundbreaking drugs, activists demanded that those afflicted weren’t getting their treatments fast enough. When smoking was found as a link to lung cancer, a long, semantic standoff took place between the scientific community and the powerful tobacco industry. And when professionals in radical surgery got wind of more effective treatments, they often put their heads down and continued work as usual, despite evidence that their procedures were growing obsolete.
More than anything else, The Emperor of All Maladies’ greatness is propelled by the exhilarating triumphs of discovery. Sure, in 1600 B.C. Egyptian scribe Imhotep wrote of cancer’s cure: “there is none,” but today we can be much more optimistic. Whether by surgery, chemotherapy or otherwise, there are treatments capable of curing certain types of cancer.
With this exploration into cancer’s mysteries, Mukherjee does everything in his power to pin it down for a large audience. The result is a thrilling chase through time after an ever-changing portrait of an adapting chameleon and complex villain. Thankfully–due to years of hard work–we now have an increasing number of heroes. The Emperor of All Maladies is a tribute to both heroes and villains, and Mukherjee has done a brilliant job of making such an emotionally and intellectually charged battle such a pleasure to read.
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
By Mary Roach
As Reviewed by Macy Walsh
Mary Roach has an uncanny penchant for tracking down the answers to the questions you never knew you had about the human body. In the past, her sideways curiosity has led her to write about the fate of cadavers (Stiff) and the science of sex (Bonk). Now, with Packing for Mars she investigates what happens to our normally earthbound selves when we’re blasted off into zero gravity. It is an utterly fascinating account which is made all the more entertaining by the author’s ever-amused tone.
Astronauts sweat. They also eat, pass gas, defecate, get on each other’s nerves and, at least sometimes, get motion sickness. Their bodies react to weightlessness in all sorts of unpleasant ways, from losing bone mass and muscle density to having fluids pool inside of their heads. In short, despite their larger-than-life auras, astronauts are still human, thus spectacularly unsuited for traveling in zero gravity. Yet, we still insist on sending them up there, and even more, we expect them to survive. It is these undeniable human notions that led Roach to write Packing for Mars, an assignment that exercised her laudable human curiosities. Who better than Mary Roach to tell us how NASA and the world’s other space agencies prepare their astro-, cosmo-, and whatever-nauts to stay alive in a scenario in which even changing their underwear proves to be nearly impossible.
Roach takes enormous delight in what she does. This is not surprising, for her research leads her to chat about things like “fecal popcorn,” in-helmet upchucking, and the fact that only half the human population is capable of igniting their own farts. Who wouldn’t have fun asking the straight-laced scientists at NASA to explain how one gets a “good seal” on a space toilet? Clearly, this is not your typical sober examination of the mission to conquer space. While Roach is interested in heroics and technological awesomeness, she is even more compelled by what those things do to humble our limited human bodies. With Packing For Mars, she hones in on the most bizarre and surprising details in the history of space travel.
Certainly Roach shows how space programs reflect the character of their respective nations: on the Russian Mir space station, cosmonauts are alleged to settle disputes with a friendly fistfight; Japanese astronauts in training are required to construct one thousand origami cranes (the results of which are examined for their psychological revelations); and American astronaut John Young displayed his fun-loving patriotism by smuggling a corned beef sandwich onto Gemini III.
Similarly, the cultural differences extend to animals. The remains of Belka and Strelka, the first dogs to return alive from space, have been stuffed and are now on display at Moscow’s Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. When it was announced that America’s first chimp in space was facing a similar fate for the Smithsonian, however, the public outcry necessitated a change of plan. An objector wrote, “Gentlemen: Ham is a national hero, not a thing. Do you propose to stuff John Glenn as well?” Ham is now buried in a grave at the New Mexico Museum of Space History beneath a plaque that reads “World’s First Astrochimp Ham,” a phrase that Roach thinks needs a comma and “is perilously suggestive of a cut of meat made from a dead research animal.” This is the kind of smart, quirky stuff that the writer does so well.
Turning her attention to astronaut food, she really lets it rip. She writes, “I have reason to believe that a cabal of extreme nutritionists was influencing thought at NASA. These were men who referred to coffee as a ‘two-carbon compound’ and who wrote entire books on ‘topping strategies.’” The problems inherent in feeding astronauts on long journeys are obvious enough, and various foods in cubes, liquids, and pellets have all failed to be palatable solutions. Certain out-of-the-box thinkers have theorized that astronauts may be able to eat their own clothes.
I’m also grateful to Roach for the information that beer in space is a nonstarter; without gravity, the bubbles just turn to foam. Coke spent about half a million dollars learning as much when they tried to make a zero gravity Coke dispenser. Sherry in plastic pouches would be viable and was undoubtedly tried, but if the current crop of astronauts is swigging Paul Masson in orbit, they are keeping quiet about it.
Of course it’s not all about the gags. Roach has a larger theme underlying her frequently goofy presentation. “One of the things I love about manned space exploration,” she writes, “is that it forces people to unlace certain notions of what is and isn’t acceptable.” The difficulties of space travel, she argues, are worthwhile because they teach us what is possible. They remind us that wacky, silly, fun things can also be profoundly important. Laugh and learn!
Sneak Peek: The 2010-2011 Winter Movie Preview
By Heather Turk
Although the holiday movie season may have officially kicked off Nov. 19 with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, there’s still plenty for moviegoers to unwrap this December and even into the new year. In fact, one of the most talked about films of 2010 will finally open in Las Vegas on Christmas Day: I Love You Phillip Morris.
Based on real-life events, I Love You Phillip Morris tells the story of Steven Jay Russell (Jim Carrey), a flamboyant white-collar criminal who falls in love with fellow inmate Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor) while incarcerated at the state penitentiary. Despite generating some positive buzz at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, no major studio would distribute the film due to its explicit gay content. After being re-edited, the movie was released earlier this year in select markets overseas before Consolidated Pictures Group announced that it would finally distribute the comedy-drama in limited release in the U.S. Sadly, Phillip Morris’ planned April release never happened, nor did its rescheduled July 30 release due to legal battles. Roadside Attractions eventually acquired the distribution rights, and now Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor fans can at long last rejoice.
Whether or not I Love You Phillip Morris will earn Carrey his long overdue Oscar nomination remains to be seen, but one thing is for certain: fans will definitely see a side of the rubber-faced comic they’ve never seen before. Expect curiosity to get the best of moviegoers this holiday season and audiences to “come out” rain, sleet or snow to see what all the fuss was about.
More Coming Attractions
Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor fans aren’t the only ones getting what they want at the box office this holiday season. From a saved movie franchise to Hollywood’s hottest actors finally steaming up the screen together, here’s a look at four other flicks hoping to heat up the box office this winter.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Dec. 10): After Walt Disney Pictures dropped the Narnia series following Prince Caspian’s disappointing take at the box office, fans of the fantasy franchise thought they may never get to return to Narnia. Luckily, Twentieth Century Fox stepped in to save the day. The third installment of C.S. Lewis’ timeless masterpiece follows Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes) as they return to Narnia and meet up with King Caspian (Ben Barnes) for an epic adventure across the sea aboard the royal ship The Dawn Treader. Given that the book captures the spirit of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe much better than Prince Caspian, expectations are high that audiences will be aboard for this return to Narnia–especially in 3-D. If not, Narnia’s big screen journey could finally end here.
The Tourist (Dec. 10): Audiences looking for some sizzle this season needn’t look any further than this action-packed thriller, which stars not only the hottest actress in Hollywood (Angelina Jolie) but also Hollywood’s hottest leading man (Johnny Depp). Depp plays an American tourist mending a broken heart in Europe whose playful flirtation with a stranger (Jolie) leads to a deadly game of cat and mouse. Considering Depp and Jolie are two of Hollywood’s most bankable stars, there’s little doubt viewers will be lining up to see them star in a movie together. Jolie and Depp’s presence aside, The Tourist’s breathtaking shots of Paris and Venice are sure to make it one of the most visually captivating films of 2010, not to mention one of the most heart-pounding.
Yogi Bear (Dec. 17): It’s hard to take Justin Timberlake seriously as an actor when his next film after The Social Network is this live-action/CGI piece of fluff, although having another potential blockbuster on his resume might not be so bad. Of course, there’s always the chance Yogi Bear could end up being the next Marmaduke and not the next Alvin and the Chipmunks. Warner Bros.’ big screen adaptation of Hanna-Barbera’s classic cartoon character focuses on a documentary filmmaker (Anna Faris) who travels to Jellystone Park and meets Yogi Bear (voiced by Dan Aykroyd), Boo-Boo (Timberlake) and Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh). In an attempt to distract longtime Yogi Bear fans from the film’s simplistic plot, Warner Bros. is projecting the movie in 3-D. Whether or not that’s enough to make Yogi Bear’s life at the box office a pic-a-nic, only time will tell. Let’s just hope that Hollywood hasn’t made a serious boo-boo.
The Green Hornet (Jan. 14): One of those projects that’s been in developmental limbo for almost two decades, The Green Hornet may finally be hitting theaters (in 3-D, no less), but it still doesn’t seem like Columbia Pictures has faith in the classic superhero. A slimmed-down Seth Rogen (who also co-wrote the film) plays the titular newspaper publisher-turned-vigilante, although you might not realize it simply by looking at the film’s early posters. And unless you’ve been following the making of the movie online, you probably wouldn’t even know of the other big names attached to it: Cameron Diaz, Tom Wilkinson, Christoph Waltz…even acclaimed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry. Still, with little competition at the box office, The Green Hornet might just become the first hit of 2011–that is, if it doesn’t end up becoming the year’s biggest bomb.
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
By Mary Roach
As Reviewed by Macy Walsh
Mary Roach has an uncanny penchant for tracking down the answers to the questions you never knew you had about the human body. In the past, her sideways curiosity has led her to write about the fate of cadavers (Stiff) and the science of sex (Bonk). Now, with Packing for Mars she investigates what happens to our normally earthbound selves when we’re blasted off into zero gravity. It is an utterly fascinating account which is made all the more entertaining by the author’s ever-amused tone.
Astronauts sweat. They also eat, pass gas, defecate, get on each other’s nerves and, at least sometimes, get motion sickness. Their bodies react to weightlessness in all sorts of unpleasant ways, from losing bone mass and muscle density to having fluids pool inside of their heads. In short, despite their larger-than-life auras, astronauts are still human, thus spectacularly unsuited for traveling in zero gravity. Yet, we still insist on sending them up there, and even more, we expect them to survive. It is these undeniable human notions that led Roach to write Packing for Mars, an assignment that exercised her laudable human curiosities. Who better than Mary Roach to tell us how NASA and the world’s other space agencies prepare their astro-, cosmo-, and whatever-nauts to stay alive in a scenario in which even changing their underwear proves to be nearly impossible.
Roach takes enormous delight in what she does. This is not surprising, for her research leads her to chat about things like “fecal popcorn,” in-helmet upchucking, and the fact that only half the human population is capable of igniting their own farts. Who wouldn’t have fun asking the straight-laced scientists at NASA to explain how one gets a “good seal” on a space toilet? Clearly, this is not your typical sober examination of the mission to conquer space. While Roach is interested in heroics and technological awesomeness, she is even more compelled by what those things do to humble our limited human bodies. With Packing For Mars, she hones in on the most bizarre and surprising details in the history of space travel.
Certainly Roach shows how space programs reflect the character of their respective nations: on the Russian Mir space station, cosmonauts are alleged to settle disputes with a friendly fistfight; Japanese astronauts in training are required to construct one thousand origami cranes (the results of which are examined for their psychological revelations); and American astronaut John Young displayed his fun-loving patriotism by smuggling a corned beef sandwich onto Gemini III.
Similarly, the cultural differences extend to animals. The remains of Belka and Strelka, the first dogs to return alive from space, have been stuffed and are now on display at Moscow’s Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. When it was announced that America’s first chimp in space was facing a similar fate for the Smithsonian, however, the public outcry necessitated a change of plan. An objector wrote, “Gentlemen: Ham is a national hero, not a thing. Do you propose to stuff John Glenn as well?” Ham is now buried in a grave at the New Mexico Museum of Space History beneath a plaque that reads “World’s First Astrochimp Ham,” a phrase that Roach thinks needs a comma and “is perilously suggestive of a cut of meat made from a dead research animal.” This is the kind of smart, quirky stuff that the writer does so well.
Turning her attention to astronaut food, she really lets it rip. She writes, “I have reason to believe that a cabal of extreme nutritionists was influencing thought at NASA. These were men who referred to coffee as a ‘two-carbon compound’ and who wrote entire books on ‘topping strategies.’” The problems inherent in feeding astronauts on long journeys are obvious enough, and various foods in cubes, liquids, and pellets have all failed to be palatable solutions. Certain out-of-the-box thinkers have theorized that astronauts may be able to eat their own clothes.
I’m also grateful to Roach for the information that beer in space is a nonstarter; without gravity, the bubbles just turn to foam. Coke spent about half a million dollars learning as much when they tried to make a zero gravity Coke dispenser. Sherry in plastic pouches would be viable and was undoubtedly tried, but if the current crop of astronauts is swigging Paul Masson in orbit, they are keeping quiet about it.
Of course it’s not all about the gags. Roach has a larger theme underlying her frequently goofy presentation. “One of the things I love about manned space exploration,” she writes, “is that it forces people to unlace certain notions of what is and isn’t acceptable.” The difficulties of space travel, she argues, are worthwhile because they teach us what is possible. They remind us that wacky, silly, fun things can also be profoundly important. Laugh and learn!
In Review – The Passage
By Justin Cronin, as Reviewed by Macy Walsh
There are summer books, and then there are summer bricks; those tantalizing, toaster oven size tomes that strain beach totes with their sheer physical (if not always intellectual) heft. At 766 pages, Justin Cronin’s ambitious doorstop The Passage is heavyweight in more ways than one. Volume I of a promised trilogy, this apocalyptic story by a hitherto mainstream writer (a Pen/Hemingway Award winner) is not just another vampire story, but deserves a spot among the best of the genre alongside McCammon’s Swan Song and Steven King’s The Stand. Mr. King, in fact, was moved to rave like a proud uncle on the book’s back cover.
This is a creation story for this millennium, a heroic tale filled with battles between good and evil and struggles with the supernatural. It is bursting with myths and monsters and populated with men and women forging civilization after “the world has lost its memory.” The book is that memory.
Cronin gets everything right: suspenseful pacing using third-person view points that alternate throughout; interesting characters with all-too-human flaws (from pedophile laborers to nuns and FBI agents); and just enough verisimilitude in his science fiction-cum-horror plot to have readers believing his fictional apocalypse might be plausible. The narrative is presented through multiple points of view and across grand sweeps of time, making it an historical testament to the “Time Before” and all that came after, “as if a blade had fallen onto time itself, cleaving it into halves.” What makes the novel such a riveting read is that Cronin packs as much breathless action and as many compelling characters into the before as he does the after.
The Passage begins with the introduction of the story’s enigmatic central figure, 6-year-old Amy Harper Bellafonte, the product of a brief liaison between a traveling salesman and a waitress in an Iowa diner. The story of Amy’s first few years is a piercingly naturalistic tale of downward mobility amid truck stops and cheap motels. Cronin then sends his narrative into overdrive as the next two chapters let the reader in on all the basics–a virus discovered in a South American jungle is being genetically engineered by the military in an effort to create a breed of vampiric super-soldiers using death-row inmates as subjects. Little Amy, meanwhile, during a recent trip to the zoo, has displayed an apparent ability to communicate with the animals and, as a result, becomes another candidate for the program. Naturally, this being a government project and all, things don’t quite go as planned. The virus creates not one Frankenstein monster but many and these “virals” (vampires) are the beginning of the end. They escape from the “secure” facility in Colorado where the project was based and soon an end-of-the-world scenario is playing out as those who are infected hunt down those who are not. Two years later, much of the world is dead; or undead as the case may be.
In the future that makes up the middle of the novel, we see what one community has become generations later, a fortified medieval village of sorts where the lights are left on at night so the darkness won’t bring death, and where “courage is easy; it’s hope that’s hard.” Amy, abandoned at a convent early in the book, soon hooks up with Wolgast, an aging FBI agent. Like the original test subjects, Amy has psychic abilities and she appears in the dreams of many people, leading to the belief that she might be the one person who can save what’s left of the human race. She and a band of followers, including one named Peter, must journey north to where Project Noah began, and where Amy, like many characters in creation myths, becomes creator, destroyer and savior of the world.
Reportedly The Passage was inspired by the author’s daughter, who asked that he “write a story about a girl who saves the world.” There is an explosive quality to this book that destroys conventional thought, leaving your mind operating on a plane of simple survival. The impact of the reader’s connection with the characters is incredible; heroes and victims are all people audiences feel they know as they move forward or live out their final moments. Experiences are expectedly grim and there are one or two characters in whose minds you may not want to be trapped.
A riveting page turner, The Passage is never dull. What’s more, Cronin nails the ending, leaving you with just the right sort of tease that will have you waiting on the edge of your seat for the promised sequel.
Sneak Peek – The 2010 Late Summer Movie Preview
By Heather Turk
Aside from being the day our nation celebrates its independence, July 4 is considered by most to be the unofficial halfway point of summer, sandwiched between Memorial Day and Labor Day. At the movie theater, however, Fourth of July weekend generally marks the end of the summer movie season.
Not this year, though. While it’s true that two of the season’s most highly anticipated films will be released over the holiday weekend (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse on June 30 and The Last Airbender on July 2), and the majority of this summer’s surefire blockbusters will have hit theaters long before that, some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including America’s sweetheart, Julia Roberts, are hoping to keep things hot at the box office through August with buzz-worthy releases of their own.
After a brief but memorable part in Garry Marshall’s Valentine’s Day this past February, Roberts returns to the big screen in a leading role August 13 as Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love. Based on the best-selling memoir about the American author’s spiritual trip across the globe to discover what’s missing in her life, expectations are high that Eat Pray Love will become this year’s Julie & Julia or, better yet, Marley & Me. Gilbert has already written a follow-up memoir, Committed, and it’s been reported that the cast of Eat Pray Love (which also includes Oscar winner Javier Bardem) would love to reprise their roles for a sequel. Expect fans of the beloved book to pack theaters for the chance to vicariously go on Gilbert’s life-changing journey.
More Coming Attractions
Julia Roberts isn’t the only big name coming to cineplexes late this summer. From action stars to classic literary characters, here’s a look at some of the other notable names appearing on the big screen this July and August.
Ramona and Beezus (July 23) – Considering every other classic childhood novel is on its umpteenth remake, it’s a wonder that Beverly Cleary’s beloved 1955 novel has never been adapted for the big screen. The book launched seven sequels, including 1999’s Ramona’s World, which begs the question, just who is this movie for, anyway? Most readers who grew up on Ramona are now parents or grandparents themselves. Does today’s youth even know who Ramona Quimby is? Not that 20th Century Fox is worried. The geniuses in the film’s casting department wisely cast Disney star Selena Gomez as Ramona’s older sister Beezus, almost guaranteeing that the tween market will flock to theaters for the Ramona renaissance. And considering teens and their parents will be curious to see Joey King (in her first leading role) bring their beloved Ramona to life, Ramona and Beezus might just be that rare live-action kids’ flick that appeals to family members of all ages.
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (July 30) – It’s been almost a decade since audiences were witness to the top secret, high-tech espionage war going on between cats and dogs in Warner Bros.’ hilarious family flick Cats & Dogs. In this long overdue sequel, the two sworn enemies are forced to put aside their differences and team up to defeat a rogue cat spy (voiced by Bette Midler) with sinister plans for conquest. While some of Cats & Dogs’ original cast of vocal talents are M.I.A., Alec Baldwin (Butch), Joe Pantoliano (Peek) and Michael Clarke Duncan (Sam) have returned for the sequel. The movie is also being released in 3-D; here’s hoping that the cheesy special effects don’t result in having to put down this cute and cuddly franchise.
The Expendables (Aug. 13) – The tagline for this movie should read like your favorite radio station: the best of the ’80s, ’90s and today. Of course, the “best” in this scenario isn’t music but action stars…and lots of them! Everyone from Jason Statham and Jet Li to Randy Couture and Steve Austin star in this action flick about a team of mercenaries who head to South America to overthrow a dictator. The plot seems almost secondary, though, to The Expendables’ explosive cast, which also includes Dolph Lundgren and Mickey Rourke. There’s even a much talked about scene involving Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone (who also co-wrote and directed the movie). With a cast like this, you know action fans of all ages will be lining up opening weekend!
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Aug. 13) – The movie may be named after the popular Bryan Lee O’Malley comic book series about a guy who tries to defeat his love interest’s seven evil exes in order to date her, but a more appropriate title for Hollywood’s latest graphic-novel-turned-feature-film might just be Michael Cera vs. the World. After the “Arrested Development” star’s slam dunk performances in Superbad and Juno, 2007’s “It” boy began to falter at the box office, starring in flops like Year One and Youth in Revolt. While there’s no question devotees will turn out for Scott Pilgrim’s release, the question Cera needs to concern himself with is whether or not their ticket sales will be enough to keep his career afloat. With a ticket-friendly PG-13 rating, the film definitely has potential to speak to a broader audience, especially teens…maybe Cera won’t need superhuman powers to save his career after all.
Three Cups of Tea – One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
As Reveiwed by Macy Walsh
Three Cups of Tea is not just the title of an inspiring book. It’s code for a phenomenon that began with the unlikely collaboration of a lost American mountain climber and a wise elder in a small Himalayan village, and it chronicles one man’s Herculean efforts to leave the world a better place for his passing.
Greg Mortenson was born in Minnesota in 1957, but he grew up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, where his father, Dempsey, co-founded Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, and his mother, Jerene, founded the International School Moshi. In July of 1992, Mortenson’s sister, Christa, died from a massive seizure after a lifelong struggle with epilepsy. To honor her memory, in 1993 Mortenson climbed Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain in the Karakoram Himalaya.
That attempt fell 600 meters short of the summit due to weather conditions, and during the descent, Greg became separated from his companions. Lost and alone, he endured unimaginable conditions as he worked his way down to the highest base camp, where he was found by a Sherpa guide named Mouzafer. As fate would have it though, nearing the end of their descent, Mortenson again managed to take a wrong turn and wound up in Korphe, a small, impoverished village perched on a shelf 800 feet above the Braldu River.
Mortenson remained in Korphe, having found something rare in the hardy, self-reliant and devout people of the village. He formed a life-long bond with Haji Ali, the village chief, and Mouzafer, his rescuer. In living among the people of the region that gave birth to the Taliban and gave sanctuary to Al Qaeda, he realized that the only way to fight ignorance and poverty was through education. Believing that providing their sons and daughters with a balanced, non-extremist education would make them much less vulnerable to the extremist madrassas, he vowed to build a school in Korphe. From that rash promise has grown a remarkable humanitarian campaign, in which Mortenson has dedicated his life to promoting education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
With scant resources, the project began. Mortenson was reduced at the start, trying to save money out of his meager wages as a nurse in California and sending out literally hundreds of letters soliciting donations. And the work has been fraught with difficulties that would have defeated most mere mortals. He survived an eight day armed kidnapping by the Taliban in Pakistan in 1996, and escaped a 2003 firefight with feuding Afghan warlords by hiding for eight hours under putrid animal hides. He has overcome fatwehs from enraged Islamic mullahs, endured CIA investigations and received threats from fellow Americans after 9/11 for helping Muslim children with education.
Greg Mortenson is a living hero to rural communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan where he has gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders, government officials and tribal chiefs from his tireless efforts to champion education. He is one of few foreigners who has worked extensively in rural villages where few foreigners ever go.
Today Greg Mortenson is the director of the Central Asia Institute and has established or significantly supports 131 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 58,000 children, including 44,000 girls. TV newscaster Tom Brokaw calls Mortenson, “one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, who is really changing the world.” Congresswoman Mary Bono says, “I’ve learned more from Greg Mortenson about the causes of terrorism than I did during all our briefings on Capitol Hill. He is a true hero whose courage and compassion exemplify the true ideals of the American spirit.”
Sneak Peek
The 2010 Spring Movie Preview
By Heather Turk
Springtime at the cineplex is usually so quiet moviegoers can hear baby birds chirping outside. Not this year, however, as Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland hits theaters March 5th.
Capturing the wonder of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, the film follows a 19-year-old Alice (Mia Wasikowska) as she returns to the whimsical world to end the Red Queen’s (Helena Bonham Carter) reign of terror. During her journey, Alice reunites with her childhood friends, the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry) and the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp).
Presented in select theaters in Disney Digital 3D, Alice in Wonderland is easily one of the year’s most anticipated films. Burton’s unique directing style and Carroll’s beloved tales mesh perfectly, as trailers have shown, bringing the story to life in a way never before seen. Of course, Burton’s breathtaking vision aside, fans of Alice are simply mad over the casting–in a good way. Burton’s decision to cast Depp as the Mad Hatter is a matter of genius, and the Mad Hatter just might be the role Depp was born to play. Anxious to fall down the rabbit hole? Tickets will go fast during the film’s opening weekend, so don’t be late for this very important date!
More Coming Attractions
Alice in Wonderland isn’t the only spring release generating buzz this year. Here’s a look at some of the season’s other talked about films that should make the weeks leading up to May’s big summer blockbusters–Iron Man 2, Shrek Forever After and Sex and the City 2–bearable.
The Runaways (March 19): Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning (The Twilight Saga: New Moon) team up once again for this biopic based on the 1970s all-girl rock band of the same name. Stewart plays the iconic Joan Jett while Fanning plays The Runaways’ lead singer, Cherie Currie–and yes, the two do their own singing. While Fanning is one of Hollywood’s brightest young stars, audiences seem to have a love/hate relationship with Stewart. Casting her to play the “I Love Rock ’n Roll” star may seem a bit odd considering her fan base barely knows who Joan Jett is, but the move might just expose her music to a whole new demographic. Meanwhile, The Runaways might just prove once and for all that Stewart actually has a career ahead of her, as her performance has been getting rave reviews since the film premiered at Sundance. If all goes well, The Runaways might just have audiences singing, “I Love Kristen Stewart”!
How to Train Your Dragon (March 26): It seems like DreamWorks Animation can do no wrong these days. Based on the children’s book by Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon tells the story of Hiccup, a Viking teenager whose world is turned upside down when a dragon challenges him and his fellow Vikings to see the world from an entirely different point of view. With the final chapter of the Shrek franchise hitting theaters May 21, it doesn’t take a genius to see that DreamWorks is hoping this 3D adventure takes flight so they can adapt Cowell’s many sequels into blockbusters of their own. Sure to entice moviegoers of all ages with an all-star cast of vocal talents, including America Ferrera, Gerard Butler, Kristen Wiig, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, How to Train Your Dragon shouldn’t have any problem heating things up at the box office.
Babies (April 16): On paper, it sounds like a risky venture–a documentary that looks at a year in the life of four babies from around the world. However, if the final cut is half as entertaining as the trailer, Focus Features’ Babies could be one of those rare documentaries that’s a box office hit. The charming trailer shows four new babies–Bayarjargal from Mongolia, Ponijao from Namibia, Mari from Japan and Hattie from San Francisco–going about their lives as cameras follow their every move. Highlights include one of the babies sitting in a giant bowl of water while a goat sneaks up from behind to take a drink, and two babies fighting intently over something to play with. While Babies may speak more to moms than any other demographic, its irresistible trailer is sure to draw dads and many non-parents to the theater, too. Expect Babies-fever to be in full swing come Mother’s Day.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (April 30): First, Michael Myers got the reboot in 2007. Then Jason followed in 2009. Now, it’s Freddy Krueger’s turn, as arguably the most beloved ’80s horror icon gets re-imagined in Samuel Bayer’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. Watchmen’s Jackie Earle Haley dons the bladed glove this time around, and although he’s got Robert Englund’s support, the real question is, will fans be able to accept anyone but Englund as the sweatered one? It’s been reported that Haley’s Freddy Krueger won’t be cracking jokes nearly as often as Englund’s Krueger, as producer Brad Fuller wants to take the franchise back to its scary roots. It’s a bold move, considering one of the things that made Freddy a horror buff favorite was his personality! Curiosity alone should result in a Nightmare sequel or two, but only time will tell if audiences will ever acknowledge Haley as the real Freddy Krueger.
