Mystery Manor Adventure Forum

I wasn't going to do a big thread this year.

This is my top ten though if you are interested.

10. Iron Man - Huge amounts of fun due to Robert Downey Jnr.
9. King of Kong - World greatest Donkey Kong players in the world. Brilliant documentary if kinda pathetic.
8. Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Brad Pitt and some superb SFX in a modern "Forrest Gump"
7. Wall-E - For 40 minutes this was a superb film and then it pandered to the kids. Still excellent though.
6. The Wrestler - Mickey Rourke is excellent in this movie about a washed up pro-wrestler.
5. Juno - Superb soundtrack and hilarious dialogue
4. Waltz with Bashir - Superb documentary with stunning animation.
3. Slumdog Millionaire - Danny Boyles best film since Trainspotting.
2. The Dark Knight - Mostly due to Heath Ledgers mesmorising performance.
1. Let the Right one in. Young bullied boy meets vampire in the cold Swedish snow. Best Vampire movie in years.

Great list Lucien! Seems again that releases are slower over here than in the UK. Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler are all planned for the coming weeks. Expecting a lot of all three of those! Hadn't even heard of your number one, thanks for bringing it up! Looked it up on the imdb, sounds great! So far no release date for Belgium yet. I also should finally get round to catching Juno on dvd. Missed it in cinemas unfortunately, and same goes for Waltz with Bashir. This would be my 2008 top ten (I bet half of these were released in 2007 in the UK ):

10. Etz Limon: A Palestinian woman has to defend herself against the Israeli government which has ordered to cut down her lemon tree field after the new Israeli defense minister moves next door to her. Its greatest strength is not taking sides in this conflict, instead choosing to tell a more personal story of people who happen to be caught on different sides of this conflict.
9. Into the Wild: Moving tale about a guy who decides to abandon his life and goes to live on his own in nature, far from society and other people.
8. Burn After Reading: This movie can best be described as a smart movie about dumb people. Great cast, excellent script and yet another fantastic Coen Brothers movie.
7. Hellboy 2: forget Batman or Iron Man, this was the most entertaining comic book movie of the year!
6. Le Silence de Lorna: Stunning, low budget social drama on immigrants out of their depths, trying to get a green card, but instead getting stuck in a spiral of crime. Easily the Dardennes most accessible movie to date.
5. No Country for Old Men: The Coen brothers started the year in style and gave Javier Bardem the chance to create one of the most memorable screen characters of all time.
4. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: This horror musical is not for everyone's taste, but I had a blast with Burton's bloody take on the famous stage musical.
3. Wall-E: Same as you said: the first 40 minutes are pure poetry in motion, what follows is on par with what to expect of Pixar entertainment.
2. There Will Be Blood: Daniel Day Lewis is just outstanding in PT Anderson's unrelenting story about greed.
1. The Darjeeling Limited: Wonderfully atmospheric tale of three brothers in search of there mother in India.

Finished my first two books of 2009:

Elizabeth Kostova: The Historian

The Historian is a chilling historical mystery that reaches from the present day into the medieval past of Vlad the Impaler, Wallachia's barbarous 15th century ruler whose gruesome deeds gave rise to the legend of Dracula.

What an excellent novel! Not only does it bring plenty of suspense, the combination of history, myth and fiction made it impossibly to put it down for long. It also made me want to hit the books again, doing research on subjects I'm interested in and spend long evenings in libraries again. Of course, after finishing this book, I won't feel so safe there these days.

Abdellah Taïa: Arabische Melancholie (translated from French: Une Melancolie Arabe)

This novella is an autobiographical novella about a gay Moroccan writer looking for his identity. All he wants is to find a place where he feels at home, but so far he has had no success. In his homeland he is an outcast because he is gay, while in his adopted country France he stands out because of his race. While the story is too episodic (built up from short diary fragments), the story really hit me because of its frank honesty and the writer's poetic style.

Neil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book ****

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts. There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard. But it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks for it is there that the man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod's family.

Seems like Neil Gaiman has a few big fans on these boards. While I liked this novel slightly less than some of his other books (a bit too episodic, some characters seemed to just disappear), there is still so much to love here! Gaiman created another intriguing world, filled with wonderful characters and his dialog is still as snappy as ever. Would love to read more adventures of Bod, and get some more background on the baddies and the bigger conflict of which Bod's story was only a part of. Wouldn't it be great to get a similar book where Silas is the main character?

Ben Okri: Starbook ***1/2

"Starbook" tells the tale of a prince and a maiden in a mythical land where a golden age is ending. Their fragile story considers the important questions we all face, exploring creativity, wisdom, suffering and transcendence in a time when imagination still ruled the world.

Okri uses the classic fairy tale format to discuss all the mayor themes of love, life, death and everything in between, and does this in beautiful prose that often feels like profound poetry. It's definitely not a book to page-turn through, but one to savour for a long time. Not only because of the language unfortunately, but also because there is actually very little plot to speak of. While Okri's musings are always interesting, and sometimes leads to fascinating insights, he does tend to get repetitive from time to time. All in all, a powerful novel that unfortunately is not without one or two flaws.

The Graveyard Book is definitely open for a sequel. It might even make a good movie or tv series. I'm thoroughly engrossed in Gaiman's American Gods now.

I have American Gods here as well. How is it? It's high on my reading pile as well, but I first want to get round to some other books I've been looking forward to get into.

A movie version would be great! I'm looking forward to the movie version of Coraline. The claymation style seems very suitable for it, and I think it would too for The Graveyard Book. Now if only someone can convince director Tim Burton to get involved!

Excellent! It's keeping me guessing about where it's going next, but I'm really enjoying the trip. Although the story is very different, it has more of a Neverwhere darkness to it. There are also some very erotic scenes that nearly set the pages on fire.

I liked American Gods a lot. The plot doesn't really go anywhere, but it's fun to read the book for all the strange things that happen.

I think this book might make a good mini-series, so that all the little episodes can be included.

I especially like figuring out who is who. Mr. Nancy was easy, but Wednesday didn't click until I realized the origin of that particular day of the week.

American Gods might just be Gaiman's best written novel to date. A trip across America and lots of forgotten gods. It's a great story and would have made a great adventure game.

Anansi Boys is a semi sequel in that it shares some of the characters. It's not as successful, but still ace.

Neverwhere is my favourite book of him so far, so definitely bumping this one up on the to read pile! Of course that has nothing to do with those erotic scenes you understand.

Funnily enough Wimli I enjoyed (and so did other colleagues using the school library) "A Thousand Splendid Suns" more than "The Kite Runner" ... we wonder whether it was because it concentrated on the female side of things! Both brilliant however!

That could very well be true Val! The Kite Runner is one of those rare books that really made the tears well up in my eyes, and while I similarly couldn't put down A Thousand Splendid Suns, it didn't have that same effect on me. Could very well have something to do with the order in which I read them of course. In any case, I look forward to any new books by this author!

Tirza by Arnon Grünberg ****1/2

Jörgen Hofmeester's life has not been a happy one: his wife has left him, his oldest daughter hates him, the publishing firm he works for has put him on leave and he never had any close friends. There's only one beacon of light in his miserable existence: his youngest daughter Tirza. Having focussed his entire life around her, things begin to fall apart when Tirza graduates high school and is ready to start her own life. Obsessed with remaining a central figure in Tirza's life, Jörgen's life unravels and rapidly begins to spin out of control.

Grünberg has written a powerful novel about obsession, family relations and growing older in which he doesn't shy away from grand themes like the meaning of life, loneliness and the various aspects of being human. Tirza is a meticulous study of human behaviour. His prose is hard, his dialogs unrelenting. This novel is dark and the ending left me floored for weeks.

A Dutch critic wrote a perfect descripion: "Tirza hurts, Tirza is unputdownable, Tirza is a-ma-zing", and I couldn't agree more with that. If you can get your hands on an English translation, I highly recommend it!

I do hope this one gets translated into English, Wimli. It's definitely one I'd like to read.