Featured Reviews

The Goblin Emperor (2014) - Katherine Addison  (Grade:A)

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Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million (2002) - Martin Amis  (Grade:C+)

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The Pedestrian (1951) - Ray Bradbury  (Grade:B+)

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The Cloudspotter's Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds (2006) - Gavin Pretor-Pinney  (Grade:A+)

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The Road (2006) - Cormac McCarthy  (Grade:A+)

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World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (2006) - Max Michael Brooks  (Grade:A)

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The Children of Men (1992) - P.D. James  (Grade:A+)

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Solaris (1961) - Stanislaw Herman Lem  (Grade:B+)

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I Am Legend (1954) - Richard Matheson  (Grade:B)

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Planet of the Apes (1963) - Pierre Boulle  (Grade:A-)

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MOVIE REVIEWS:

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It Happens Every Spring (1949) - Lloyd Bacon  (Grade:B)

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Brothers Judd Daily

Brothers Judd QuasiDaily Bookmarks:
04/04/20:

James Earl Ray assassinated the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, TN. Gerald Posner disproves all of the ridiculous conspiracy theories surrounding the killing in his excellent book Killing the Dream(Read Orrin's review, Grade: B)

Maya Angelou (1928-) was born in St. Louis, MO on April 4, 1928. Read Orrin's review of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)(Grade: B)

Muddy Waters [McKinley Morganfield](1915-) was born in Rolling Fork, MS on April 4, 1915.

Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was born in Boston, MA on April 3, 1822. Read Orrin's review of The Man Without a Country (1863) (Edward Everett Hale 1822-1909) (Grade: A+)

Ma Rainey [Gertrude Pridgett](1886-1939), "The Mother of the Blues", was born in Columbus, GA on April 3, 1888.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was born in New York, NY on April 3, 1783. Read Orrin's review of Tales of the Alhambra (Grade: A)

The great folklorist Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born in Odense, Denmark on April 2, 1805

Emile Zola (1840-) was born in Paris, FR on April 2, 1840. Brothers Judd recommends his novel Germinal (1885)

Whittaker Chambers (1901-61) was born Jay Vivian Chambers in Philadelphia, PA on April 1, 1901. His long strange journey [brilliantly told in Sam Tanenhaus' prize winning Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (Read Orrin's review, Grade: A)] stands as an allegory of 20th Century man and his own memoir, Witness (1952) (read Orrin's review, Grade : A+), is one of the great books of this or any century. See also Orrin's review of Ghosts on the Roof: Selected Journalism of Whittaker Chambers 1931-1959 (1989) (Whittaker Chambers 1901-61)(edited by Terry Teachout) (Grade: A)

Edmond Rostand (1868-1918) was born in Marseille, FR on April 1, 1868. Read Orrin's review of Cyrano de Bergerac (1897)(Edmond Rostand 1868-1918) (Grade: A+)

Milan Kundera (1929-) was born in Brno, CZ on April 1, 1929. Brothers Judd recommends The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984).

Toshiro Mifune (1920-97) was born in Tsingtao, China on April 1, 1920. As John Wayne was to John Ford, so was Mifune to Akira Kurosawa. Brothers Judd recommends their collaborations: Rashomon (1950), The Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), The Hidden Fortress (1958) and Yojimbo (1961). Mifune also starred in an excellent series of films based on the life of Musashi Miyamoto [see Orrin's review of A Book of Five Rings (1645)(Miyamoto Musashi 1584-1645) (Grade: C+)]

Ted Post (1918-) was born in Brooklyn, NY on March 31, 1918. Brothers Judd recommends Hang 'em High (1967) (directed by Ted Post 1918-)

Edward FitzGerald (1809-83) was born on March 31, 1809. Read Orrin's review of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1859)(Grade: C)

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809-52) was born on March 31, 1809. Read Orrin's review of Taras Bulba (1839)(Grade: A+)

John Fowles (1926-) was born on March 31, 1926. Read Orrin's review of The Magus (1965)(Grade: C)(#93 on the Modern Library Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century)

Al Gore (1948-) was born on March 31, 1948. Read Orrin's review of Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (1992)(Grade: F)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was forced, by popular demand, to bring Sherlock Holmes back to life on March 31, 1905. Read Orrin's review of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901)(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 1859-1930) (Grade: A+) Holmes has been revived again in Laurie R. King's acclaimed series of novels; read Orrin's review of The Beekeeper's Apprentice (1994) (Grade: C)

Vincent Van Gogh was born in the Netherlands on March 30, 1853.

Anna Sewell (1820-78) was born in Yarmouth, ENG on March 30, 1820. Read Orrin's review of Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse (1877)(Grade: B-)