A sinking ship of a drama that managed to be neither monstrous nor deep"Thar she blows!" said one of the crew as a whale came to the surface. The cetacean wasn't the only thing blowing heavily in The Whale (BBC1), a 90-minute dramatisation of the sinking of the Essex, a Nantucket whaler, by a sperm whale in the Pacific. This was the shipwreck that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick; the BBC film was so laboured it only served to unintentionally remind me of Melville's genius.The Whale felt like a big-screen movie epic trapped inside a relatively small-budget TV programme; the vastness of the ocean, skies and the whales got hopelessly lost. Worse still, it was structurally flawed, unable to make up its mind whether it was a rite-of-passage story for the young Tom Nickerson on his first voyage, a clash of wills between the two leads – the smouldering First Mate Chase and the even more smouldering Captain Pollard – talking in pirate-speak or Orca Strikes Back. Inevitably, it fell between every stool.The biggest disappointment was the whale itself. The whale scenes had been filmed by the BBC's natural history unit and they looked like it. They were beautiful, precise and graceful and wouldn't have been out of place in a David Attenborough film. What there wasn't was any sense of the menace or personality that had captured Melville's imagination and was supposed to be present here.When the whale attacked the boat, it came from out of the blue rather than from the... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Our April 2015 selection of reviews from BlueInk Review, a service which reviews self-published books. The post April 2015: Top Reviews of Self-Published Books from BlueInk Review appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Our March 2015 selection of reviews from BlueInk Review, a review of self-published books, includes a memoir from Romanian tennis pro Peter Marmureanu. The post March 2015: Top Reviews of Self-Published Books from BlueInk Review appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-03-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Our January 2015 selection of reviews from BlueInk Review, a service which reviews self-published books. The post February 2015: Top Reviews of Self-Published Books from BlueInk Review appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-02-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Our monthly selection from BlueInk Review, a service which reviews self-published books, uncovers a superb memoir of a WWII concentration camp in Indonesia. The post January 2015: Top Reviews of Self-Published Books from BlueInk Review appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Our monthly selection of reviews from BlueInk Review, a service which reviews self-published books, includes several nonfiction titles in history, science and more. The post December 2014 Top Reviews of Self-published Books from BlueInk Review appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-12-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The November 2014 selection of self-published book reviews from BlueInk Review includes paranormal fiction, young adult fiction, self-help and health. The post November 2014 Top Self-published Book Reviews from BlueInk Review appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-11-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Our monthly selection of reviews from BlueInk Review, a service which reviews self-published books. The post Recent Top Reviews of Self-published Books from BlueInk Review appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month's starred reviews of self-published books from BlueInk Review honor two works of fiction: a dystopian saga and a thriller set in Australia. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-03-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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February's notable reviews of self-published titles include stars for a 'startling' memoir about the Vietnam War and a 'fascinating' exploration of human rights. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-02-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month’s starred reviews of self-published books includes a pair of notable new novels, one about dysfunctional childhood in Western and another about a busy single mother. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-01-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month's starred reviews of self-published books includes a "stellar" historical novel and a "touching" memoir of life as a teacher of disadvantaged students. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-12-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month's starred self-published books of note include a fictional tragedy in pre-colonial Nigeria and a memoir where beer pong meets sado-masochism. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-11-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month's recipients of starred reviews from BlueInk include a novel about a schizophrenic New Yorker who believes he is Beethoven and a timely look at profiteering in American medicine. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month's “starred” reviews of self-published books include a collection of spiritualist lectures, an examination of the Andean Q’ero faith and a pair of compelling novels. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-09-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Among this month's starred reviews: a novel in which the discovery of a sexy 19th-century manuscript leads to erotic adventures, and a comprehensive guide for psychotherapists. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-08-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month's starred reviews from BlueInk Review of self-published books includes several "stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-bleed" thrillers, as well as a memoir from the ringmaster of The Big Apple Circus. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-07-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Self-published books receiving starred reviews from BlueInk this month include a novel about a wisecracking cat that investigates the death of its owner and a memoir of escaping Romania under Soviet rule. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-06-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month's starred self-published titles include a novel about lesbian nuns in pre-WWII Germany and a memoir from the daughter of 1960s cult leaders, among others. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Yang Shuang-zi’s “Taiwan Travelogue,” a National Book Award finalist, is a nesting-doll narrative about colonial power in its many forms. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-11-15 13:18:52 UTC ]
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The “One Tree Hill” actor has written a memoir of the decade she spent beholden to the Big House Family — and her escape. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-10-22 09:02:48 UTC ]
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