Dark Knight Returns (Batman) (Paperback)

Batman: Dark Knight Returns (Batman) (Paperback) by Frank Miller is There's an interesting, seemingly neofascist strain in Frank Miller's graphic novels. 300 comes to mind as the most disturbing example of this, but The Dark Knight Returns isn't far behind. The story picks up around 15-20 years after Batman's heyday and he is in retirement. The world has gone amok and through a series of events, Bruce Wayne comes out of retirement. I won't go into the details, but by the end, Batman unites a group of street thugs into a coherent vigilante force who will "bring order" to the world.

This isn't a pretty vision of the world. It reminds me of a sort of Charles Bronson Deathwish universe where a solitary and borderline psychopathic hero will bring peace to the world through violence. I can't quite figure out Frank Miller's politics. He parodies Reagan and blatant militarism pretty harshly in The Dark Knight Returns, but also looks to extralegal solutions to crime and basks in ultraviolence. Miller's Gotham is hopelessly corrupt and he seems to think that only a fiery holocaust can cleanse it. He portrays liberals in a stereotypically Bronson-esque fashion -- always ready to coddle wrongdoers and let them off the hook. There are always horrific consequences to such actions. The hard-line, and only the hard-line, is the only real solution according to Miller. He recognizes the harvest of blood and terror that will ensue, but Miller feels this is necessary and justified.

Having said all this, The Dark Knight Returns warrants the praise it has received. It's storytelling is powerful and its vision of a corrupt world is appealing in a "Blade Runner" sort of way. The retelling of Batman is effective as a graphic narrative and there is a real sense of moral ambiguity. I disagree with pretty much everything Miller seems to believe in, but I felt engaged as a reader. I was willing to suspend my disbelief and horror and go along for the ride. In the end, I'm not sure that's such a good thing. I feel sort of corrupted and a bit more cynical about the world.

Batman: Dark Knight Returns (Batman) (Paperback) by Frank Miller

The Killing Joke

Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore There are two parallel stories going on here, both intricately connected. First, we see the Joker's origin. It's pretty tragic: he's an unemployed stand-up comic with a wife and new baby on the way. Financially down-on-his-luck, he becomes embroiled in a criminal robbery scheme. He then finds out that his wife and her unborn baby were killed the day of the heist. His accomplices force him to continue with the plan anyway. He runs afoul of the Batman and ends up taking a chemical bath, which, of course, hideously scars him. That's a really bad day and his life as he knows it is over.

The second story is set in the present day. The Joker decides to create another "really bad day" for Commissioner Gordon to drive him insane in order to prove that anyone, not just the Joker (or Batman, for that matter) would be driven insane when their world is brought to a sudden end. To do this, the Joker shows up at the Gordons' door and immediately shoots Barbara in the spine. The implication is that she was raped or at least sexually exploited as well. Jim Gordon is and taken to an abandoned carnival, stripped naked, and forced to look at photos of Barbara in her broken state. Despite all this, Gordon doesn't break. Despite all that he has suffered, he still wants to bring the Joker to justice by the book. That's a really pivotal moment. Batman rescues Gordon and has a showdown with the Joker when they both realize how inextricably linked they are. Great dialogue between them.

Oh and f you've ever wonder where Todd McFarlane got the idea for the evil munchkins in his Twisted Land of Oz series of figures, I'm pretty sure he took it directly from this book.

Just saw the new Batman: The Dark Knight movie and it's no exaggeration to say that they cribbed a significant portion of the dialogue between Batman and Joker from The Killing Joke, so the book is stil very relevant.

Great comic. Truly a classic if you're a Batman fan. Highly recommended.

Batman: Killing Joke (Paperback)by Alan Moore

Skinny Bitch in the Kitch: Kick-ass Solutions for Hungry Girls Who Want to Stop Cooking Crap (and Start Looking Hot!) (Paperback)

Skinny Bitch in the Kitch: Kick-ass Solutions for Hungry Girls Who Want to Stop Cooking Crap (and Start Looking Hot!) (Paperback) by Rory Freedman
"(s)equel to the fabulously successful diet book with attitude, this will inspire anyone to don their apron to see what they can whip up. Whether it's an easy after-work meal or a dinner party, the book contains 75 easy-to-make recipes from around the globe." --Look Magazine

"(t)he first Skinny Bitch book hit the headlines when Victoria Beckham was seen clutching a copy. With 75 easy, low-cal recipes this follow-up proves healthy eaters can have fun in the kitchen, too." --Glamour Magazine

"Victoria Beckham's a fan of the Skinny Bitch diet, so she'll love these low-cal recipes for girls on the go.
When this book first came out, Victoria Beckham was seen flicking through its pages with a bony thumb. What better endorsement can there be than that of the skinniest woman in celebville? Skinny Bitch in the Kitch should be endorsed if only for its ludicrous title. The sequel to the successful Skinny Bitch, in which authors Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin suggest giving up artificial sweeteners, caffeine and other foods that taste really good, this new book contains recipes from across the world that will apparently make you skinny.

Have Your Vegan Vake and Eat it!

I love this little book and its small enough to carry around (why do cookbooks have to be so big). An ideal book for a vegan beginner or those of love western style comfort foods (which I do!).
"In the Kitch" shows that you can have your vegan cake and eat it with recipes such as Cheezy Cream of Broccoli Soup, Potato and Pumpkin Curry, Stuffed Shells with Red or White Sauce, Dream Bars, Fresh Fruit Crumble, and Hot Fudge Brownie Sundaes
There are more international recipes too such as Pad Thai and Japanese Soba Noodles with Steamed Vegetables and Tofu. No pictures but some funny ass girl talk between sections which I loved.

The Shack

The Shack

Time to Rain on this Parade
I am certain that there is no other book I've been asked to review more times than William P. Young's The Shack, a book that is currently well within the top-100 best-selling titles at Amazon. The book, it seems, is becoming a hit and especially so among students and among those who are part of the Emergent Church. In the past few weeks many concerned readers have written to ask if I would be willing to read it and to provide a review. Because I am always interested in books that are popular among Christians, I was glad to comply.

First, a word about the book as it is written. William Young shows himself to be a capable writer, though I would not have believed it through the first couple of chapters. The book began with far too many awkward sentences and awkward sentence constructs (e.g. "One can almost hear a unified sigh rise from the nearby city and surrounding countryside where Nature has intervened to give respite to the weary humans slogging it out within her purview"). But as it went on and as the story took over the book became easier to read. The story itself is interesting enough, though certainly it lacks originality. The last chapter should have been left on the editing room floor and the final paragraph (before the "After Words") was a ridiculously terse attempt to provide closure to remaining plot lines. But on the whole the book is readable and enjoyable. Never does it become boring, even after long pages of nothing but dialog.

But Young did not write this book for the story. This book is all about the content and about the teaching it contains. The book's reviews focus not on the quality of the story but on its spiritual or emotional impact. Eugene Peterson grasps this, saying in his glowing endorsement, "When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of "The Shack." This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" did for his. It's that good!" Could it really be that good? Is it good enough to warrant positive comparison to the English-language book that has been read more widely than any other save the Bible? Let's turn to the book's content and find out.

The Shack revolves around Mack (Mackenzie) Philips. Four years before this story begins, Mack's young daughter, Missy, was abducted during a family vacation. Though her body was never found, the police did find evidence in an abandoned shack to prove that she had been brutally murdered by a notorious serial killer who preyed on young girls. As the story begins, Mack, who has been living in the shadow of his Great Sadness, receives a strange note that is apparently from God. God invites Mack to return to this shack for a get together. Though uncertain, Mack visits the scene of the crime and there has a weekend-long encounter with God, or, more properly, with the godhead.

Young covers a wide variety of theological topics in this book, each of which is relevant to the theme of Mack's suffering and his inability to trust in a God who could let his daughter be treated in such a horrifying way. The author is unafraid to tackle subjects of deep theological import--a courageous thing to do in so difficult a genre as fiction. The reader will find himself diving into deep waters as he reads this book. Unfortunately much of this theology is simply inconsistent with the Bible. Young shares strange ideas on the Trinity, the way God reveals Himself to us, forgiveness and a variety of other topics.

Despite the great amount of poor theology, my greatest concern is probably this one: the book has a quietly subversive quality to it. Young seems set on undermining orthodoxy Christianity. For example, at one point Mack states that, despite years of seminary and years of being a Christian, most of the things taught to him at the shack have never occurred to him before. Later he says, "I understand what you're saying. I did that for years after seminary. I had the right answers, sometimes, but I didn't know you. This weekend, sharing life with you has been far more illuminating than any of those answers."

Throughout the book there is this kind of subversive strain teaching that new and fresh revelation is much more relevant and important than the kind of knowledge we gain in sermons or seminaries or Scripture. Young's readers seem to be picking up on this. Read this brief Amazon review as an example: "Wish I could take back all the years in seminary! The years the locusts ate???? Systematic theology was never this good. Shack will be read again and again. With relish. Shared with friends, family, and strangers. I can fly! It's a gift. `Discipleship' will never be lessons again." Another reviewer warns that many Christians will find the book difficult to read because of their "modern" mindsets. "If one is coming from a strong, propositional and, perhaps, fundamentalist perspective to the Bible, this book certainly will be threatening." Still another says "This book was so shocking to my "staid" Christianity but it was eye opening to my own thoughts about who I think God is." At several points I felt as if the author was encouraging the reader to doubt what they know of Christianity--to deconstruct what they know of Christian theology--and to embrace something new. But the faith Young reconstructs is simply not the faith of the Bible.

Because of the sheer volume of error and because of the importance of the doctrines reinvented by the author, I would encourage Christians, and especially young Christians, to decline this invitation to meet with God in The Shack. It is not worth reading for the story and certainly not worth reading for the theology.

The One Minute Manager

The One Minute Manager (Paperback)

by Kenneth H. Blanchard

An essential read
OK, so this book is not the definitive guide to management, but reading it is guaranteed to change the way you think. I have no hesitation recommending this to anyone who wants to re-examine the way they manage people.

It may not suit everyone and it may not have all the answers, but I learned more from the hour-or-so it took me to read this book than on a seven day management course I attended recently.

It debunks the myth that management has to be hard, or that you can only be a nice guy or a 'company' guy. You can be both.

The main reason people criticise this book is not because the book is bad, but trying to force everyone to use this (or any single) method can never work. And do you really believe a book that bad would sell millions of copies?

And the £5 or so I spent on this book has already helped me get my £10k+ pay rise and promotion this year. That's value for money. Read this. You owe it to yourself.

Italian: Essential Language

Italian: Essential Language for Short Trips (Lonely Planet Fast Talk) (Paperback) by Lonely Planet

Best for curious and independent-minded travelers'
When time is short, Fast Talk Italian gives you the essential language to:

 do the sights & shop till you drop
 book a room & order a meal
 get from A to B fast
 clinch that crucial deal
 get your message across

Includes easy pronunciation of all words & phrases plus a mini dictionary of key words. Lonely Planets Fast Talk series provides you with all the basics for a short trip or weekend away in a practical pocket-sized format, making sure your stay is fun, easy and hassle free.

CHINESE FOOD MADE EASY

CHINESE FOOD MADE EASY: 100 simple, healthy recipes from easy-to-find ingredients (Hardcover)
by Ching-He Huang

Ching-He Huang is one of the brightest stars in modern Chinese cooking in the UK. Each week in her new BBC2 series she re-invents the nation's favourite Chinese dishes, modernising them with fresh, easy to buy ingredients, and offering simple practical tips and techniques. These are brought together in this beautiful book to accompany the series. Drawing on the experiences of top chefs, her family and friends, growers and producers and celebrity enthusiasts Ching sets out to discover the best Chinese cooking in the UK today, introducing easy-to-make Chinese food to sometimes resistant Brits, and painting a picture of modern Anglo-Chinese life in the UK as she goes. Chinese Food Made Easy begins with some of the most familiar dishes from a Chinese takeaway menu - Sweet & Sour Prawns, Chicken with Cashew Nuts, Chop Suey and Cantonese Vegetable Stir Fry, each with Ching's special and imaginative twist. Later we explore spicy Szechuan food: Noodles, Dumplings and Dim sum; Seafood; Fast Food; Desserts and finally Celebratory Food, where Ching presents a complete banquet of dishes to celebrate the Chinese New Year.Ching's knowledge, charm and enthusiasm shine through as she shares the 'basic principles' of Chinese cooking including some of the simple techniques and tips taught by her Grandparents for tasty results.

Using ingredients from high-street supermarkets and some imaginative suggestions for alternative ingredients, these classic Chinese dishes are updated, fresh and healthily prepared so that anyone can make and enjoy them.

Interviewed by Geoff Elliss for Radio Times

Is the Typical Chinese Takeaway menu really Chinese?
It’s certainly not Chinese home cooking. Some of these dishes do come from Canton – that’s because of the British connection with Hong Kong – but they’ve been westernised. Wherever Chinese food has gone in the world, it’s been adapted to use healthy dishes at home that are not laden with monosodium glutamate.

So what should I keep in my Chinese store cupboard?
You may already have corn flour and good-quality stocks. Add dark and light soy sauces, five-spice powder, black rice vinegar, a good chilli sauce to get you going and toasted sesame oil for dressing – for cooking I use groundnut oil. Some olive oils are too strongly flavoured and conflict with the Chinese flavours. Then the rest is fresh, including the typical flavourings: ginger, garlic, spring onion, chilli and coriander.

What about Stir-fry sauces that you can buy in jars?
I hate those. The only sauces that are OK in jars, if they are good quality, are oyster sauce and chilli bean sauce. They’re both proper preserved sauces. For sweet and sour sauce, use pineapple juice, brown sugar and ketchup for colour.

Should I be looking for Chinese Supermarkets?
I’m surprised and pleased to see authentic Asian products on some supermarket shelves. In general I’d say you have to experiment. You often find that even good brands do only one excellent product. I can recommend Kikkoman soy sauce, for example. That’s my honest opinion – they don’t pay me!

Can you give an example of the sort of thing you cook?
When I cook dinner at home, I’ll make a one-pot meal, chao mian, meaning "stir noodle" or chow main as you probably call it. Marinate some sliced chicken in five-spice powder and minced garlic for a few minutes. Cook noodles in boiling water – buy dried, long wheat-flour noodles; don’t bother with ready cooked. Drain and put to one side; you can toss in a bit of sesame oil to stop them sticking. Chop red pepper, bok choi and spring onion. Mince some ginger. Get your wok nice and hot. Cook the chicken until it’s fully opaque. Put to one side. Add the other ingredients, stir then and add a splash of water to create steam to help cook the veg. After about 40 seconds return the chicken to the wok, season with soy sauce, sesame oil, and add the noodles. And that’s it a modern, one-pot dish.

Not the same as other Chefs

These recipes really do work. My family have been cooking
Asian food for 15 years, and over that time, have accumulated
many Chinese cook books.There are no silly recipes in here.
Just quick and easy. The Chow Mein was plain sailing. I had
never seen a version of sweet n sour cooked like the
recipe, but it was so tasty. I like the way Ching
explains which sauces are essential in her cupboard
collection. There are no recipes which tell
you to marinate for 24 hours.Its all NOW,

and that is life....
If you have one Chinese cook book in your collection,
make sure it's this one, and ...impress friends with your
cooking. Ching makes it look easy, and it is!!

The Forgotten Garden (Paperback) by Kate Morton

How fairytale can have reverberations to the past

THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN is the second novel by Kate Morton; THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON being her first. Whilst I did not greatly enjoy THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON, I found THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN to be better.

The story revolves around Nell who, at the age of four, is seemingly abandoned by her mother. Found on the docks in Australia, Nell is taken under the wing of another family as they cannot bear for such a young girl to be left there on her own. Years later, Nell is told the truth that she is not their own, which of course causes her to wonder about her who her parents were and why she was left in such a way.

As Nell's story begins to unfold the reader is tossed from one age to another - Nell was abandoned in 1913, but the story goes back to 1900 and stretches to 2005 as Cassandra, Nell's granddaughter, begins to trace her grandmother's story.

That is all I shall try and convey in regards to the plot - there are a lot of twists and elements which all finally draw togteher to make a whole, and doubtless other reviewers have likely tried to include more of these in their thoughts about the novel. So I shall now describe what I enjoyed about the story, and what I felt a little let down by.

First of all, this novel did not grab my attention from the very beginning. This book, so dense and heavy in your hands, is one which slowly grew on me. In the end perseverance did pay off, so do not give up straight away if the same happens to you. As more and more of the charaters are introduced, especially the time which involves the Blackhurst estate, my attention was hooked. Morton has managed to create more complex and satisfying characters, in my opinion, compared to those within THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON.

What I also loved about the book was the way that fairytales played such an integral part to the story. There is a magical sense to this book - the forgotten garden itself, the maze leading to it are just some ways Morton has achieved this. But she also includes a few 'fairytales' which are penned by one of her characters. This is an original way of adding more to the main body of the plot, giving the reader the sense that life is not always so greatly removed from such magical tales.

One of the reasons why I have not awarded the fifth star to this book is that there are times during Cassandra's hunt into the past that things feel just too convenient - as another reviewer said, the fact that an incredibly important part of Nell's story was discovered through a long forgotten letter did smack a little. But I suppose artistic licence has to be taken into account.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read - not too demanding but offering enough of what it is to be human for it to be engaging. Recommended as a summer read.

Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga) (Hardcover)
by Stephenie Meyer

Breaking Dawn is going to be a phenomenon...

I am an aspiring writer, and after reading this saga i am absolutely insipred to become as well a writer as Stephenie Meyer. She combines two people with love that cannot be seperated. these books show that love hasd no limitations. I highly recommend these books to anyone who loves romances with a twist of fear and hope for anyone who needs it. even in the darkest of times will there be a dim light that shows that there is a hope for an even briter futuree. read these books ! and the host it's even better !

The Road Home (Paperback) by Rose Tremain

Another fine book from a true original

Rose Tremain can, it seems, do just about anything. Each one of her books is utterly different from the last, each creates a detailed and authentic world for her characters and their quests.

In The Road Home, Tremain tells the story of Lev, an Eastern European migrant worker who has left his village and travelled to England so that he can finance a better life for his mother and daugther. He takes with him his grief for his dead wife. There is an almost fairytale-like quality to Lev's chance encounters and where they lead him, although, that said, they also feel natural and possible; Tremain has always been good on the essential randomness of experience.

Lev's London is awash with money, celebrity and complacency - an ugly picture of the way we live now - but there is nothing polemical about the book. The world Tremain creates feels real, and she allows her characters to negotiate it, and make their compromises with it, in a way that is both convincing and very poignant. There is also a rich vein of humour that runs through the book, much of which comes from the stories about and conversations with Lev's friend Rudi, who has stayed back in the village.

The 1983 Granta list of best young British novelists famously includes: McEwan, Rushdie, Pat Barker, Amis, Graham Swift. Tremain was among this group but in my view remains a little underrated. Both Music & Silence and Restoration have found critical acclaim and broad readerships, but The Colour - a fine, fine book - did less well, and The Way I Found Her is a book far less well known than it should be. Almost alone amongst that stellar group of 1983, she hasn't yet put a foot wrong.

No Time For Goodbye (Paperback)
by Linwood Barclay

Fantastic first half, disappointing second

I'm with the reviews that say this book was very promising, but doesn't live up to its potential. The first half of the book was excellent - the action starts immediately, sucking the reader in; as the drama unfolds the plot seems to thicken, with some moments that were truly chilling to the bone. There was never a moment where I felt bored as the story moves with breakneck speed, and I managed to finish in one sitting.

The second half of the book was, however, a letdown. The story, while it cleverly ties up all the loose ends together, starts to border on the ridiculous in its incredulity and some of the characters seem to have been created for the sole purpose of slotting into the jigsaw very conveniently. Indeed, the story may have been salvaged had more of the characters been better developed: the main 'villain' in the story in particular was so laughably one-dimensional that I was hoping it was a red herring. The main twist in the story was good, one that you would never have guessed from the onset - but the writer eases you into it too gradually so that by the time it arrives, it feels as though it was almost predictable.

At the risk of sounding rather pedantic, I also became increasingly irritated by the unnecessary amount of swearing and the slangy style, mainly within the dialogue. For example, the writer frequently omits the first verb in a question, so that it reads "You going to pick her up?" instead of "Are you going to pick her up?". While I am not against swearing or colloquialisms at all, it feels odd to read such writing in print so many times and I feel that it degrades the novel somewhat to a second-rate genre. However, this may be just hair-splitting on my part and may not be something that will annoy everyone.

All in all, I feel that the basic skeleton of the book is based on a very ingenious idea, one that could have made a great novel. However, the writer's use of clichés and stereotypic characters means that this original concept was never realised to its full advantage. While this book, with its exhilarating and breathtaking speed, would be a good read on a plane journey, it will not be one that will be listed among the greatest of thrillers.