Natasha Richardson Books

These are two of the best.I love these movies.They are both movies that make you feel good.I will watch them again and again.Nothing is better than watching a great romantic movie.

Great Price on these two Love Story classics. Jennifer Lopez is superb !!!

I thoroughly enjoyed both movies, I had seen Fools Rush in many years ago, but had never seen Maid in America. I would highly recommend this combo to anyone, both movies are very good in my opinion.

MAID IN MANHATTAN ***

This is a relatively pleasant, though eminently forgettable, once-upon- a-time romantic comedy. Not even its excellent supporting cast can make this tepid movie better than it should be. Ralph Fiennes, with his sometimes British, sometimes American accent, and Jennifer Lopez, with her beauty marred the minute she opens her mouth, are the would be mis-matched lovers.

Fiennes plays Chris Marshall, a wealthy, to the manor born, silver spoon, political candidate. Lopez plays Marissa Ventura, a working class woman and single parent with an adorable, precocious, ten year old son named Ty (Tyler Garcia Posey). Marissa works as a maid in the posh hotel in which Marshall is a guest. When her son accompanies her to work one day, he runs into Chris Marshall and recognizes him. They start up a conversation and before you know it they are going to go off for a walk together, only Ty has to ask his mom. They go to the suite in which she is cleaning, only thing is that she has tried one of the haute couture outfits belonging to a wealthy businesswoman named Caroline who is staying in the suite.

Naturally, Marissa looks gorgeous in this outfit and is wearing it when Ty and Chris enter the suite. Chris is smitten, and all three go for a walk in the park. Chris does not know, and Marissa does not disclose, that she is one of the maids in the hotel. Don't ask. Don't tell.

When Chris, thinking that his dream woman's name is Caroline, forwards an invitation for lunch to her ostensible suite, the real Caroline (Natasha Richardson) responds. Let the games begin! Marissa spends quite a bit if time avoiding running into Chris in her work clothes. When she finally runs into him in the street, Chris instructs his aide to find her and invite her to a glittering soiree. She gets the invitation via the hotel butler (Bob Hoskins), along with some advice, and decides to go for the gold. With her fellow employees at the hotel acting as collective fairy godmothers, she gets the proverbial ball gown, diamonds, makeover, and emerges a princess, making a dramatic entrance at the ball, further entrancing Chris. When she runs off before the ball is over, he pursues her, and what then follows is a night to remember.

Of course, Natasha, who is also at the ball, sees Marissa and Chris together and realizes that she looks familiar. Consumed by the green eyed monster, she contacts the hotel authorities when the morning after the ball she sees Marissa, exiting the suite occupied by Chris and still wearing the diamond necklace she wore at the ball. A review of security tapes leads to her identification of Marissa and a host of other things. Chris is now faced with a choice, as is Marissa.

The film is pretty formulaic in that it is filmed as a fairy tale. Of course it has the proverbial happy ending. The film is saved by the very funny performance of Natasha Richardson and her pre-menopausal, obnoxious friend played with relish and delicious abandon by Amy Sedaris. Stanley Tucci is excellent as Jerry, Chris Marshall's campaign manager. Bob Hoskins is very good as the prim and proper hotel butler, though the film strikes a false note towards the end when he gives Marissa a final speech that is ridiculous. Tyler Garcia Posey is a totally adorable child actor who gives a very natural and engaging performance.

Ralph Fiennes gives a decent performance but has difficulty maintaining an American accent. Jennifer Lopez gives a better performance than she usually does but that is not saying a lot. It is unfortunate that to date she has been unable to replicate the level of performance that she gave in "Selena", the film that propelled her into stardom. She is, however, totally drop dead gorgeous when she is all gussied up, looking every inch the princess.

Still, if one's expectations are not too high, one should find this to be a mildly entertaining, romantic comedy. Rent it rather than buy it.


FOOLS RUSH IN ****

This is a delightful romantic comedy. Matthew Perry is a charming, self-effacing leading man. Salma Hayek is a most fetching and winsome leading lady. Strong performances by the supporting cast help make this a most enjoyable movie.

Alex Whitman (Matthew Perry) lives in New York and has a high powered job as a field agent for a builder that specializes in the construction of night clubs. He is sent to Las Vegas to supervise new construction. While there, he meets a fiery, latin beaty, Isabel Fuentes (Salma Hayek), with whom he has a very memorable one night stand. This is totally out of character for both of them. In fact, she is so embarrassed by what happened, that she sneaks out of his house first thing in the morning. Before he even knows it, she is gone, never to be heard from again, until she shows up on his door step three months later to announce that she is pregnant with his baby.

Alex tells her that he supports her right to choose. Isabel chooses to have the baby. She asks nothing from him other than he meet her family, so that it is not such a shock when she announces that she is pregnant. He agrees to do so. He meets her traditional, Mexican-American family and is taken by their warmth, a quality that is sorely lacking in his family. He rarely sees his own family, except for the obligatory holidays, while Isabel meets hers once a week for dinner.

Alex and Isabel fall in love and have a quickie marriage ceremony performed in Las Vegas. Naturally, as they are now husband and wife. they move in together. Then reality sets in. They contend with cultural difference, with pain in the you know what in-laws, and with the every day adjustments necessary, when living with someone one does not, as yet, know. Then, the trust that had developed is violated, and they each go their own separate ways.

What happens with the baby? Does the marriage survive? Watch the movie and find out. The experience will be an enjoyable one.

These are two of the best.I love these movies.They are both movies that make you feel good.I will watch them again and again.Nothing is better than watching a great romantic movie.

Great Price on these two Love Story classics. Jennifer Lopez is superb !!!

I thoroughly enjoyed both movies, I had seen Fools Rush in many years ago, but had never seen Maid in America. I would highly recommend this combo to anyone, both movies are very good in my opinion.

MAID IN MANHATTAN ***

This is a relatively pleasant, though eminently forgettable, once-upon- a-time romantic comedy. Not even its excellent supporting cast can make this tepid movie better than it should be. Ralph Fiennes, with his sometimes British, sometimes American accent, and Jennifer Lopez, with her beauty marred the minute she opens her mouth, are the would be mis-matched lovers.

Fiennes plays Chris Marshall, a wealthy, to the manor born, silver spoon, political candidate. Lopez plays Marissa Ventura, a working class woman and single parent with an adorable, precocious, ten year old son named Ty (Tyler Garcia Posey). Marissa works as a maid in the posh hotel in which Marshall is a guest. When her son accompanies her to work one day, he runs into Chris Marshall and recognizes him. They start up a conversation and before you know it they are going to go off for a walk together, only Ty has to ask his mom. They go to the suite in which she is cleaning, only thing is that she has tried one of the haute couture outfits belonging to a wealthy businesswoman named Caroline who is staying in the suite.

Naturally, Marissa looks gorgeous in this outfit and is wearing it when Ty and Chris enter the suite. Chris is smitten, and all three go for a walk in the park. Chris does not know, and Marissa does not disclose, that she is one of the maids in the hotel. Don't ask. Don't tell.

When Chris, thinking that his dream woman's name is Caroline, forwards an invitation for lunch to her ostensible suite, the real Caroline (Natasha Richardson) responds. Let the games begin! Marissa spends quite a bit if time avoiding running into Chris in her work clothes. When she finally runs into him in the street, Chris instructs his aide to find her and invite her to a glittering soiree. She gets the invitation via the hotel butler (Bob Hoskins), along with some advice, and decides to go for the gold. With her fellow employees at the hotel acting as collective fairy godmothers, she gets the proverbial ball gown, diamonds, makeover, and emerges a princess, making a dramatic entrance at the ball, further entrancing Chris. When she runs off before the ball is over, he pursues her, and what then follows is a night to remember.

Of course, Natasha, who is also at the ball, sees Marissa and Chris together and realizes that she looks familiar. Consumed by the green eyed monster, she contacts the hotel authorities when the morning after the ball she sees Marissa, exiting the suite occupied by Chris and still wearing the diamond necklace she wore at the ball. A review of security tapes leads to her identification of Marissa and a host of other things. Chris is now faced with a choice, as is Marissa.

The film is pretty formulaic in that it is filmed as a fairy tale. Of course it has the proverbial happy ending. The film is saved by the very funny performance of Natasha Richardson and her pre-menopausal, obnoxious friend played with relish and delicious abandon by Amy Sedaris. Stanley Tucci is excellent as Jerry, Chris Marshall's campaign manager. Bob Hoskins is very good as the prim and proper hotel butler, though the film strikes a false note towards the end when he gives Marissa a final speech that is ridiculous. Tyler Garcia Posey is a totally adorable child actor who gives a very natural and engaging performance.

Ralph Fiennes gives a decent performance but has difficulty maintaining an American accent. Jennifer Lopez gives a better performance than she usually does but that is not saying a lot. It is unfortunate that to date she has been unable to replicate the level of performance that she gave in "Selena", the film that propelled her into stardom. She is, however, totally drop dead gorgeous when she is all gussied up, looking every inch the princess.

Still, if one's expectations are not too high, one should find this to be a mildly entertaining, romantic comedy. Rent it rather than buy it.


FOOLS RUSH IN ****

This is a delightful romantic comedy. Matthew Perry is a charming, self-effacing leading man. Salma Hayek is a most fetching and winsome leading lady. Strong performances by the supporting cast help make this a most enjoyable movie.

Alex Whitman (Matthew Perry) lives in New York and has a high powered job as a field agent for a builder that specializes in the construction of night clubs. He is sent to Las Vegas to supervise new construction. While there, he meets a fiery, latin beaty, Isabel Fuentes (Salma Hayek), with whom he has a very memorable one night stand. This is totally out of character for both of them. In fact, she is so embarrassed by what happened, that she sneaks out of his house first thing in the morning. Before he even knows it, she is gone, never to be heard from again, until she shows up on his door step three months later to announce that she is pregnant with his baby.

Alex tells her that he supports her right to choose. Isabel chooses to have the baby. She asks nothing from him other than he meet her family, so that it is not such a shock when she announces that she is pregnant. He agrees to do so. He meets her traditional, Mexican-American family and is taken by their warmth, a quality that is sorely lacking in his family. He rarely sees his own family, except for the obligatory holidays, while Isabel meets hers once a week for dinner.

Alex and Isabel fall in love and have a quickie marriage ceremony performed in Las Vegas. Naturally, as they are now husband and wife. they move in together. Then reality sets in. They contend with cultural difference, with pain in the you know what in-laws, and with the every day adjustments necessary, when living with someone one does not, as yet, know. Then, the trust that had developed is violated, and they each go their own separate ways.

What happens with the baby? Does the marriage survive? Watch the movie and find out. The experience will be an enjoyable one.

I gave this to my 7 year old grandson so he could listen to it before we went to a children's theater to see The Big Friendly Giant. He loved listening to the 4 hours of story, and because he knew the story and all the characters, the play really came alive for him. The actual book is above his reading level, so the tape was a good way for him to hear the story.

This CD is great! The reader does an awesome job with the voices of different characters. The book is wonderful. The two are combined, here, for great entertainment.

The book was a bit shocking in that Pullman used the word "demons" to describe a cute and loyal friend. Once I got past that, though, I was able to enjoy a well written story. Well, it was well written until about chapter 20, when he tried to make parallels to our actual universe. It was a bit sad to see how he sees the church, man, and God. His world view is weak when compared with those stemming from Jesus.

Oh, well. They can't all be Harry Potter and Narnia.

What would you do if you had the run of Jordan Collage, a HUGE spread of land with adventure around every corner? For Lyra Bellequa she chooses to sneak into the Retiring Room no matter what Pantalaimon, her daemon, says. But what she doesn't know is that this little trick will change her world. Forever.
Lyra is a half wild, half mature girl who seeks attention wherever she goes. She can tell lies right on the spot or make up any kind of story that fits the mood. She prides herself on her talent and "being part of Jordan".
Jordan Collage is a massive masculine series of buildings and one of the largest collages in Lyra's world. Lyra had many adventures there. Like the war in the clay beds, climbing the roof tops, and hunting for Gobblers. But she has to change when it's time to get formal. Lyra hates it, but it's a must. And when she can get away, she does.You see, this is Lyra's life. Playing and pretending to listen. And Lyra loves it.
But when she sneaks into the Retiring Room, things change.
Her Uncle Asriel comes to visit. He is a well supported, well know character in this book. And a very powerful one too. Lord Asriel happens to visit on the day Lyra plays her trick. Lyra hears about politics, Dust, and the City in the Sky. She is enchanted.
Later, Mrs. Coulter comes. The beautiful woman of Lyra's dreams, who has so many tales of the North. Lyra loves it and when Mrs. Coulter asks if she would like to stay with her, Lyra automatically says yes. But the Master knows better.
He hands Lyra an Altheiometer, a truth teller. It has three movable hands and a mysterious hand that moves by itself. Only certain people can read it, but only with the books, the years of training, and the skill. And, for some reason, Lyra can read it in two weeks, no books, and not nearly enough time (or attention span).
This is an amazing book that I just could not put down. I recommend this book to kids ten and up. People who like Harry Potter will definitely like this book. Join Lyra, as she dives feet first into the world of skillfulness, sweetness, and lies in the Golden Compass!

I write this having only read the first book of the trilogy -- I plan on starting book two, tomorrow. Perhaps it's unwise for me to review book 1 without having read 2 & 3. However, if that's the case, then perhaps it should have been published as one novel (as difficult as that is for publishers to do).

The Golden Compass is a fun, well-written adventure. It is enjoyable, and manages what nearly all great fantasies strive to do: create a believable (if bizarre) world. I found the characters to be... decently drawn, but never so compelling as to make me invest myself fully in their tales. I can say I like Lyra well-enough, and Iofur, perhaps, but most of the other characters pass by inconsequentially enough. I really wish I had found reasons, say, to love Roger. While Mrs. Coulter is chilling (and her monkey-daemon much more so), her plot is too entangled in a remote political (and metaphysical) system for me to hate it as much as I feel I should. I get Lyra's quest -- to save the people she cares for -- and I care for them by proxy, but my direct feelings for Lord Asriel, or how I feel about scientific inquires into "Dust," etc., or the internal struggles of various boards of their version of the Catholic Church, are all pretty muddled.

My biggest complaint is that I didn't find the ending satisfying. I know that this is a trilogy, written to be one from the start, and thus there couldn't be complete resolution, here. But still, I expect to be rewarded after my four-hundred page investment, and instead the book basically ends on "To Be Continued..." with most of the introduced plotlines pretty far from being resolved.

I enjoyed reading The Golden Compass, and will continue the series. I've read comparisons in some other reviews to The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series. What I've read thus far does not justify those comparisons, but I hope to be convinced in book two, as I hope that every book I begin winds up proving great. I think children will identify with Lyra (as most adults will), and be entertained by the adventure aspects. Aside from Lyra herself, I didn't really find myself engrossed in the other characters, and the wider plot was too murky for me to fully commit to, emotionally. While I understand that this is the first book in a trilogy, I still was dissatisfied by the ending, which I felt too unsubstantial for the work that came before it.

A good start to what may be a fine series. Three stars.

It is difficult to find enough superlatives to describe Philip Pullman's masterwork fantasy "The Golden Compass". Heart stopping adventure pitting good against insidious evil and weak against strong, a cast of magnificently crafted characters, compelling dialogue, a child's sense of awestruck wonder and insatiable curiosity, the heart wrenching sadness of unexpected death, a healthy serving of ultra-modern science and cosmology cleverly juxtaposed against a soupçon of old-fashioned Victorian lifestyles and a completely original "world" will all ensure that "The Golden Compass" has a place in the classics section of libraries for decades to come. It has earned that status and will hold its head high beside other ground-breaking fantasy adventures such as "Lord of the Rings" and "Duncton Wood".

Lyra Belacqua, an orphan girl raised from infancy by the masters of Oxford College, is now approaching womanhood and must soon leave her childhood haunts to be educated by the enigmatic Mrs Coulter, a scholar and explorer. On the very night before she is to leave, Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon, overhear a secret discussion about "dust", a mysterious particle or force apparently originating in the far North that seems drawn to children. She is then inexorably swept into a maelstrom of events - an assassination attempt against her uncle, the abduction of children, the invasion of Svarlbad by an overwhelming force of Tartars, a fight to the death for the right to rule an army of armor clad polar bears, inter-clan warfare among witches flying through the northern skies on their twigs of Cloud Pine. It all leads to a climactic struggle against the "magisterium", the ruling church, the religious force and the political power in Pullman's world that will do almost anything to suppress opposition. The battle rages around the search for knowledge of the source of "dust".

Many readers (almost certainly of the Christian faith) have soundly criticized "The Golden Compass" as being anti-Christian and pro-atheism. I disagree. Beyond an extraordinary fantasy adventure that will appeal to children of all ages, what I read was a morality tale that cautioned adherents of any faith against the slavish acceptance of dogma if those rules insist upon blind faith and prohibit any questions or exploration into the fundamentals of that doctrine or faith. Frankly, it didn't appear to me that Pullman set out to target the Christian faith but I doubt if I'm the only reader that saw the irony in the aftermath of its publication. I suspect the vehement insistence that "The Golden Compass" be banned from the shelves of children's school libraries was probably an act that placed themselves into the very category of narrow-minded religious sectarianism that Pullman was talking about.

Highly recommended. "The Golden Compass" is the finest book I've read for a long, long time.

Since I read "The Golden Compass" in a one-volume edition of "His Dark Materials," writing a review on it is like restricting my comments to merely the first third of a book.

So if you buy "The Golden Compass" in the expectation that here you will find the first book in a SERIES, you might be disappointed. "The Golden Compass" is part of a trilogy much like "The Lord of the Rings", not a series like Harry Potter, Narnia, Artemis Fowl or Lemony Snicket. In other words: It doesn't have a proper ending at all.

As for the reading experience of this 1/3 of a book, I was utterly pulled in right from the start. Inspired somewhat by Milton's "Paradise Lost," Pullman wets the metaphysical appetite of the reader by introducing several mysterious concepts (such as "Dust") without fully lifting the veil on them. This left me eager to turn to Part II and III of the trilogy.

I don't want to say too much about the actual story, in case you are still unfamiliar with it, because one of the greatest joys in reading "The Golden Compass" is the gradual discovery of Pullman's fantasy world--which is similar to our world in many respects, and yet very different, too. It is the fantasy world of an alternate reality, not a Middle Earth in the distant past or a classical fairy land.

As such, one institution from our world that you will find in the book is the Church. And of all things, it takes on the role of the villain. This has made "The Golden Compass" similarly controversial as "The DaVinci Code," which doesn't exactly rain compliments on the Church either. However, I'd say that Pullman puts forth a better grounded and more profound critique of the Church than Dan Brown--a critique that might not even have sound amiss in the mouth of Christ Himself.

For the Christian reader who is worried about the portrayal of the Church in "The Golden Compass," it might help to remember that many Christians in the past have likewise been critical of the Church as an institution (and of God as set forth by religious rulers). Read Martin Luther. Then read Pullman. The latter's critique will seem very restraint in comparison.

- Jacob Schriftman, Author of The Crack Beneath the Worlds and Other Books

I bought this for my son, and he greatly enjoyed it. His teacher had read it aloud at school, and he wanted
his own book. I'm glad it was shipped right away, since my son had kept asking me when he'd get it. The seller shipped promptly, and the book was in excellent condition.

I have been a great fan of Roald Dahl's books since I was a young child. I would go into the library quite often and read any of his books that I could get my hands on. His books are enjoyable for all age levels. I am a college student, and I still enjoy sitting down and reading them. The BFG was always one of my favorites. It has great humor, and endearing characters. I highly recommend it.

The BFG by Roald Dahl


Reviewed by
(age 9) Stockbridge central School 4th Grade (5 stars. )

Imagine that you were snatched out of your bed by a giant! Well that happened to Sophie. She was trying to sleep but she couldn't. She went out of her room and was looking out of the window because there was a very bright light on her pillow. She saw the scariest thing: it was a skinny man with a black cape. Sophie tried to scream but it didn't come out. Then she was in the giants hands being carried away!
I love this book because the BFG The Big Friendly Giant) talks really funny. He said words like "snozzcumbers" and "whizzpoppers". (I won't tell you what they are.) The book was really exciting. There are 9 other man eating giants and Sophie and the BFG have to stop them before they strike again! If you want to know if they succeed read the book!

Imagine being taken away by someone or something, which is 100 times bigger than you are. Imagine flying over continents in amazing speeds in the ear of a giant, and save the world from human-eating giants. In The BFG, by Roald Dalh, this is what happens to Sophie, an orphan living in England, who is kidnapped by a giant in the middle of the night and taken away to a far away place.

Her only fault is to be awake and be watching the giant when he is peeking into the bedrooms of others' houses. She is terrified and thinks she will be a meal to this giant. However, she finds out that his name is The BFG: The Big Friendly Giant, who does not eat human beings. He is unlike the other giants who are bigger, who travel to different countries and eat children and adults for dinner. Once Sophie makes friends with the friendly giant, she decides to stop the carnivorous giants from eating more people in the world with the help of the BFG in a very clever way - through dreams that the BFG collects!

Although the BFG is a giant, he is not like the others: he is unique. He does not eat people. He is a Big Friendly Giant. After reading this book we cannot say all giants are dangerous or bad. There is always one that is unique, and one that saves the day. This is a great book to teach about different people in the world. We cannot generalize about people, for example, "Turkish people are lazy." One is apt to find an exception to the rule. It requires courage and an open mind to discover the unique.

The BFG is a fun book to read. The author, Roald Dahl, uses made up words to show that the BFG is not properly schooled because he does not know how to speak "proper" English. So, instead of saying, "Cross your fingers," he says, "Cross your figglers." These words force the reader to figure out what he really means. The way the giant talks is also funny and grammatically wrong: "I is hungry." "Am I right or left?" "Bonecrunching Giant only gobbles human beans from Turkey."

I love The BFG. It has been nice to get lost in the world of a giant and identify with him. Not a lot of books talk about being a vegetarian. Although it is about giants, I like the idea that he is not killing people or animals to eat. It is a very lighthearted book. Reading about where the BFG and his companions live took me to an imaginary land. How he collects dreams and stores them in glass containers was a delight to read.

Every adult should read this book to escape the silliness and stress of the real world. I especially recommend it to people who love playing with languages and making up their own words. I love the made up words, such as "phizzwizard" for a great dream or "trogglehumper" for a nightmare. His everyday sayings are also changed into strange BFG-language very creatively: "Oh, save our solos!" for "Save our souls."

On the other hand, it might be a hard book to read for students who learn English as a second language because they may not have the foundation of the English vocabulary to figure out what these made-up words may mean. This would be a great book to read to children. If kids get confused, they can always ask the adult who is reading it for clarification so the fun does not get spoiled.

The BFG is a classic by Roald Dahl, who I think is one of the best authors I have read books by. It begins with a girl named Sophie being kidnapped by a giant from a home for orphans in England. Naturally, she is frightened of him at first, but as she gets to know the Big Friendly Giant (BFG), she hatches a plot to help him get rid of his nasty neighbours.

I particularly like this book, because unlike many other books with children overcoming problems, instead of adults helping the child, Sophie actually helps the queen of England get rid of a problem. This has great action, but it could also be a comedy because of the funny scenes, which is why I like it so much (I love funny books). I would recommend this book to anybody, child or adult, who likes funny books with some action.

- Y.M.P.

This book was Ok. I've read a few of Palmer's books and this was not my favorite. It wasn't terrible, just nothing too exciting.

It's about a hospital that is mixed with traditional type doctors vs. new-age doctors. And when pregnant women start dying from some unknown cause, the two clash on what is the cause.

The characters were interesting, as the scenario. The ending was pretty easy to guess. Overall it was a decent read, just nothing to write home about.

I came across this book at a used library book sale and purchased it for trading but ended up reading it because of the reviews here. The book held my interest all the way through. I found myself wanting to get back to it in between reading sessions. I found the ending to be a bit anti-climactic and was a bit disappointed with it. I thought because the rest of the book was quite good that the ending would be better.

A medical thriller, different from what I have been reading but interesting all the same. Well written.

I just discovered Michael Palmer's work, and I'm hurrying to remedy that deficiency. Dr. Palmer writes tightly plotted medical fiction that holds the reader in suspense and keeps them off-balance with new twists and turns. This book kept me reading, because there were few, if any, spots where I could say, "I'll put the book down and read some more later." It's a true page-turner, in every sense of the word.
The emphasis on alternative medicine was something of an initial turn-off for me, since I'm a physician grounded in conventional medicine. However, Dr. Palmer has definitely done his homework, and eventually I found myself quite interested by some of the material he brings out. All that aside, from the standpoint of well-done medical suspense, this book is excellent.

I realized as I read NATURAL CAUSES by Michael Palmer that I had actually read it when it first came out, and I very nearly never read another Michael Palmer book afterwards. I felt the same way while reading the book the second time-- I was unable to get past the Woo-Woo- practices of acupuncture and untested herbalistic medicines administered by the heroine of the book, Dr. Sarah Baldwin.

Yes, Dr. Baldwin saves patients lives using acupuncture and the book makes some outrageous claims regarding the efficacy of acupuncture that are not borne out by the scientific literature. In addition, instead of the standard pre-natal vitamins, Dr. Baldwin gives her patients the option of drinking a special concoction of herbal tea that she used in Thailand. When three cases of a horrible medical condition called DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulapathy) occur during the labor stage of three different women, resulting in the deaths of all of the babies and two of the women, it seems the only thing they have in common is the fact that they have taken the special pre-natal tea prescribed by Dr. Baldwin.

The father of the surviving woman is very wealthy and he files suit against Dr. Baldwin. The CDC gets involved and the CDC rep, Rosa Suarez, says repeatedly that all they need to do is find a case of DIC in a patient that has not taken the herbal tea to get Dr. Baldwin off the hook. That is a bunch of scientific hokum as finding a separate case not related to the tea does not keep the tea from being implicated. It's entirely possible that DIC could have multiple causes.

I also have a huge problem with the fact that even though Dr. Baldwin and her lawyer, Matt Daniels, know it is a conflict of interest for them to get romantically involved, they do so anyway-- Sarah deliberately, using the rationale that she's tired of putting off what she really wants in life- that's an example of the stupidity she continually exhibits in this book. For instance, even though she knows she is being framed and that someone is trying to kill her, she stupidly follows mysterious instructions to run to an isolated room and answer a ringing phone, resulting in her getting clonkled on the head and nearly killed. I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for her at all!

There are a couple of things that kept me from giving the book less than 3 stars-- 1. I actually did like the character of Rosa Suarez and her dogged pursuit of the truth. 2. If I take out the Woo-Woo factors and rate the book solely on its merits as a FICTIONAL thriller, it is a good mystery, even if the ending was rather predictable (although I nearly gave it 2 stars just because Dr. Baldwin was just so stupid as a character.)

However (and here I climb back on my soapbox again,) with the wide audience that Michael Palmer has, I hate to see him doing anything that gives credence in any way to medical practices that have not had their effectiveness proven by scientific studies involving double blind studies and scientific review. Fact: the few scientific studies that have been conducted involving acupuncture have shown no difference in the outcome for subjects receiving acupuncture and those who have not. And Fact: women, especially those who are pregnant, should not be ingesting medicines and vitamins that have not been subjected to scientific studies to ensure their efficacy and to make sure they do not harm the mother or baby. It matters not that in this book, Dr. Baldwin's tea is eventually proven to not be a factor in the cases of DIC. Dr. Baldwin's medical practices are examples of unproven alternative medical techniques and poor scientific methodology and Dr. Michael Palmer should not be advocating them.

this is my favourite book of all time. i came across it accidentally in Croydon library when I was 20 years old, i loved it then, and i love it now, 20 years later. i read other works of hers (and I think she is an amazing writer) and her biography (by Carole Angier - also utterly brilliant and very highly recommended) - but Voyage in the Dark is still my favourite.

Why this is is hard to say. There is something about the prose style - concise, clear but dreamlike. The subject matter - a woman alone in the world written with a pitiless observation. The themes, loss of innocence, the struggle for survival, the loss of love - all beautifully written.

Carole Angier analyses all this far better than I ever could - if you love literature the chances are (man or woman) you will love this work. I do recommend it, and others works by Rhys, and her definitive biography by Carole Angiers.

Voyage in The Dark was the first Jean Rhys book that I read, and it got me hopelessly addicted. Her voice is honest and compassionate, and truly gives youa bond with the protagonist. It is a book that I have not stopped talking about since I read it.

This is an enjoyable, if short, early novel by the once forgotten British writer, Jean Rhys, who’s celebrated, Wide Sargasso Sea, contains the same inspiration that of her upbringing in the Caribbean.

Essentially autobiographical, she tells the story of Anna Morgan, a 19 year old girl, recently arrived in London from Dominica (Rhys was born and raised on the small Caribbean island of Dominica). Evoking a penurious existence of cold London bed sits, surrounded by bleak fog and bad food. (Unsurprising as Dominica is famed for its lush habitat, “The Nature Island of the Caribbean”).

She relates the people that Anna encounters who invariably are sexually predatory men, selfish and jealous women and cold hearted relatives. But Anna is also a callow youth, cold towards everyone she meets and so I couldn’t relate to her, but mainly as she acted impulsively and without reason.

However, this novel was ahead of its time in describing the alienation of a newly arrived emigrant and also the situation and plight of women when sick or unemployed. In the absence of a social welfare system, Rhys portrays the women who relied on finding a man to look after them, and also the men who used them for their ends.

Apart form this I personally wouldn’t buy this book on its own despite it having some insights into the world of London and a woman’s place in it at a certain time period. I don’t think it’s a fully appreciated work unless read together with those of her other earlier novels, perhaps as part of a collected works series.

It could be because I'm male, but I didn't really get into this book. The writing was good but not so incredibly poetic as to interest me on its own. And the characters were uninspiring. I know that it's more realistic to have characters that cannot overcome their problems because most people in real life are like that as well, but I have a hard time dealing with those people so I certainly have little sympathy for a fictional character that is weak and pathetic. I've been told by others that have read this book that I missed the point, and if that's the case I don't mind being educated in my misperceptions but as it stands I can't really recommend this book. However I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it either.

jean rhys is so brilliant. amazing. read it

I saw this some twenty years ago, and haven't seen it since. It is a very particular vision of the famous night when Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley spent a night in a country estate in Switzerland and decided to see who wrote the scariest story. Mary Shelley, of course, wrote Frankenstein out of that night. There are other movies on this subject - I think Roger Corman made one. Gothic is what one expects from Ken Russell - lurid, grotesque, hallucinatory, over the top. It hasn't been seen a lot since then, it hasn't become one of his classics, but it is a good film for those who like this sort of thing. And there is the addition of seeing the then young and upcoming English actors playing this - Natasha Richardson (as Mary Shelley), Gabriel Byrne (Lord Byron), Julian Sands (Percy Shelley), Timothy Spall. The scene that have stand most in my memory: Myriam Cyr's nipples turning into eyes.

I have been fascinated by this film ever since its release in the 1980s, coincidentally at the same time I began a career as a high school literature teacher. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's nightmarish tale of a modern Prometheus, "Frankenstein," is ostensibly the subject of this psychosexual romp by visionary Ken Russel. The viewer is invited along to a risque slumber party with a coven of the Romantic Era's most self-indulgent experimenters in free love, drugs, and the occult. The all-nighter takes place at Gordon Lord Byron's gothic mansion on Lake Geneva (actual location), and features his protege, the gifted and tragic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary, Percy's bride, and a few other messed up friends. According to Mary Shelley's own notes of introduction to her novel, considered by many to be the first and still the best gothic horror story ever written, her motivation to write Frankenstein came as a challenge from these very friends. This group set out during the course of one night to pen the most horrifying tale each could imagine, with the intention of outdoing one another. Mary's inspiration, she later claimed, came in the form of a nightmare, possibly drug-induced. This extended nightmare, and the long night that gave it birth, are the subject of Russel's movie. Strange, disturbing, at times revolting, but ultimately well worth viewing. If only it were less raunchy, I would recommend it to my high school students. But alas, it makes for great college dorm fare.

In its eighty-eight quicksilver-fast minutes of existence, Gothic packs in a lot of sheer frickin' sex-oozing brain bashing madness among the literati of the Regency era. Forget for a moment their contemporary Jane Austen with her hoity-toity prim and proper tales of eye-batting heiresses and manner-infused country gentlemen, no, this is Ken Russell's take on how the age's reigning rock star poet, George Gordon, Lord Byron, spent one memorable, acid trip like weekend in a rented Swiss castle along with some "unexpected visitors."

The events that followed left Byron's friend, physician, and sexual admirer Doctor John Polidori suicidal, Byron's sometimes bedmate Claire Clairmont insane and pregnant, saw the radical Romantic poet Percy Shelley scampering naked, crab-like along the castle's rooftop during a thunderstorm babbling about electricity being the germ of life, and overwhelmed Percy's teenaged wife Mary with visions of death and tragedy to the point where she saw her own demise as the only escape. And oh yeah, the weekend also inspired Mary to produce an oft-misunderstood little novel you've probably heard of: it's called Frankenstein.

When things are done in Gothic, Byron has his way with just about everybody, no one is spared a bad acid trip's worth of crazed visions, and for those of us sitting back watching it all unfold, it's pretty interesting, particularly if you come to the movie pre-loaded with the background story on the main characters and the legendary weekend about which Russell unabashedly speculates.

Gothic stands as the perfect antidote to all those saccharine-esque Hollywood feel-good movies you've been seeing lately. It gives the soul a good old-fashioned leech-bleeding.

This is a really crazy film that may have some historical significance -- I'm not all that certain about the latter. The big thing for me is that it doesn't ever drag -- there's always something interesting going on and the filmscore keeps one a bit on edge too. It's just a crazy, mad film about the weekend that Mary Shelly was inspired to write Frankenstein. I loved it but it's not for everyone, especially the kids! I think that maybe if you liked "Slingblade" and/or "Corn Dog Man" that you'll enjoy this movie. Don't expect an epic here.

Considering he's supposed to be `obsessed with the image' Ken Russell's `Gothic' is notable for what it leaves to the imagination. Russell is no tyro-hack, he's seen `the Haunting' and `the Innocents' and knows an in-tune audience will pick up subtle terrors which may or may not be glowering in dark corners, or in the dull recess of a guilty imagination.
Is that a branch scraping the window, or something much more sinister trying to gain access? Russell's anti-thriller gives no answers, even in a rather disquieting epilogue, where the excesses of the previous night are `explained'
Briefly, Don Boyd at Virgin Vision had a literate script on his hands. The core plot had Percy and Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, his pregnant lover Claire, and a snide, repressed biographer, Dr. Polidori all spending a Saturday night at a mansion in Geneva.
Now, thought Don, let's see what happens if we give `em loads of drugs, vats of wine, throw in a thunder-storm, a haunting, some scene-stealing goats, and let `em go.
Now who do we get to direct? Hmm...
Russell doesn't disappoint, (he NEVER does, all his films, good or bad, have got something of interest in them) his imagination is at full throttle here. It's a furious and upsetting picture, deliberately so.
You can feel that creepiness as the protagonists decide to hold a séance, to call their darkest fears to exist in this world. Russell has a field day illustrating in detail what a houseful of stoned, tortured geniuses are afraid of in the depths of their debasement, with their guard temporarily down.
One grotesque tableau follows another, but Russell never makes it easy for the rattled viewer. As to what's real and what's not, that's left open, as is the interpretation at the end. Was it all suggestion and hallucination? This reviewer isn't convinced, and Russell's leaving only the vaguest of clues.
It also works on a madcap comedy level. If you sit and think about what you've just watched, you WILL laugh, as with many of Russell's movies.
There are many redolent Russell repulses to rejoice in. A gory stigmata, a make-your-own-mind-up abortion, leeches, rats, incest, slime... In fact, if you can think of it, it's probably here, dowsed in Thomas Dolby's vivid score and competing like crazy with all the other fierce imagery.
There's an attractive funeral pyre sequence as well, filmed in the lake district and involving Shelley. In his autobiography, Russell indicates this is how he would ultimately like to be `disposed' of. Good idea, better than cold earth, hope the weather's good so the 40 piece orchestra, assembled by Melvin Bragg, don't get sodden, as they play Liszt or the Who at full blast!
Performances are good, particularly Gabriel Byrne as `mad' Lord Byron and Natasha Richardson as proto-feminist Mary Shelley (and I'd love to hear the advice mum Vanessa Redgrave gave her about working with Russell. She may proclaim `the Devils' to be her best film, but she never worked with him again!) and I don't think Julian Sands performance as Shelley is as bad as reported either. It's not great by any stretch, but I've seen worse, and he IS playing a highly strung (out!?), self-suffering waif-in-a-storm, zonked out of his literary brains.
`Gothic' isn't Russell's best film, but it is a good one. Compared to the output of most modern Hollywood directors it's a masterpiece. It has wild imagery, some very tender and moving moments, but most of all it has an atmosphere of utter dread, created masterfully by a visionary who knows instinctively how to use light and dark, sound and shadow and Richard Branson's money to make a looney entertainment about some of the worlds most respected and austere literary figures, verbally and physically abusing each other, raising the dead, ripping off their clothes and writhing round in slime.
A Ken Russell film, could it be anything else?

I saw this some twenty years ago, and haven't seen it since. It is a very particular vision of the famous night when Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley spent a night in a country estate in Switzerland and decided to see who wrote the scariest story. Mary Shelley, of course, wrote Frankenstein out of that night. There are other movies on this subject - I think Roger Corman made one. Gothic is what one expects from Ken Russell - lurid, grotesque, hallucinatory, over the top. It hasn't been seen a lot since then, it hasn't become one of his classics, but it is a good film for those who like this sort of thing. And there is the addition of seeing the then young and upcoming English actors playing this - Natasha Richardson (as Mary Shelley), Gabriel Byrne (Lord Byron), Julian Sands (Percy Shelley), Timothy Spall. The scene that have stand most in my memory: Myriam Cyr's nipples turning into eyes.

I have been fascinated by this film ever since its release in the 1980s, coincidentally at the same time I began a career as a high school literature teacher. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's nightmarish tale of a modern Prometheus, "Frankenstein," is ostensibly the subject of this psychosexual romp by visionary Ken Russel. The viewer is invited along to a risque slumber party with a coven of the Romantic Era's most self-indulgent experimenters in free love, drugs, and the occult. The all-nighter takes place at Gordon Lord Byron's gothic mansion on Lake Geneva (actual location), and features his protege, the gifted and tragic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary, Percy's bride, and a few other messed up friends. According to Mary Shelley's own notes of introduction to her novel, considered by many to be the first and still the best gothic horror story ever written, her motivation to write Frankenstein came as a challenge from these very friends. This group set out during the course of one night to pen the most horrifying tale each could imagine, with the intention of outdoing one another. Mary's inspiration, she later claimed, came in the form of a nightmare, possibly drug-induced. This extended nightmare, and the long night that gave it birth, are the subject of Russel's movie. Strange, disturbing, at times revolting, but ultimately well worth viewing. If only it were less raunchy, I would recommend it to my high school students. But alas, it makes for great college dorm fare.

In its eighty-eight quicksilver-fast minutes of existence, Gothic packs in a lot of sheer frickin' sex-oozing brain bashing madness among the literati of the Regency era. Forget for a moment their contemporary Jane Austen with her hoity-toity prim and proper tales of eye-batting heiresses and manner-infused country gentlemen, no, this is Ken Russell's take on how the age's reigning rock star poet, George Gordon, Lord Byron, spent one memorable, acid trip like weekend in a rented Swiss castle along with some "unexpected visitors."

The events that followed left Byron's friend, physician, and sexual admirer Doctor John Polidori suicidal, Byron's sometimes bedmate Claire Clairmont insane and pregnant, saw the radical Romantic poet Percy Shelley scampering naked, crab-like along the castle's rooftop during a thunderstorm babbling about electricity being the germ of life, and overwhelmed Percy's teenaged wife Mary with visions of death and tragedy to the point where she saw her own demise as the only escape. And oh yeah, the weekend also inspired Mary to produce an oft-misunderstood little novel you've probably heard of: it's called Frankenstein.

When things are done in Gothic, Byron has his way with just about everybody, no one is spared a bad acid trip's worth of crazed visions, and for those of us sitting back watching it all unfold, it's pretty interesting, particularly if you come to the movie pre-loaded with the background story on the main characters and the legendary weekend about which Russell unabashedly speculates.

Gothic stands as the perfect antidote to all those saccharine-esque Hollywood feel-good movies you've been seeing lately. It gives the soul a good old-fashioned leech-bleeding.

This is a really crazy film that may have some historical significance -- I'm not all that certain about the latter. The big thing for me is that it doesn't ever drag -- there's always something interesting going on and the filmscore keeps one a bit on edge too. It's just a crazy, mad film about the weekend that Mary Shelly was inspired to write Frankenstein. I loved it but it's not for everyone, especially the kids! I think that maybe if you liked "Slingblade" and/or "Corn Dog Man" that you'll enjoy this movie. Don't expect an epic here.

Considering he's supposed to be `obsessed with the image' Ken Russell's `Gothic' is notable for what it leaves to the imagination. Russell is no tyro-hack, he's seen `the Haunting' and `the Innocents' and knows an in-tune audience will pick up subtle terrors which may or may not be glowering in dark corners, or in the dull recess of a guilty imagination.
Is that a branch scraping the window, or something much more sinister trying to gain access? Russell's anti-thriller gives no answers, even in a rather disquieting epilogue, where the excesses of the previous night are `explained'
Briefly, Don Boyd at Virgin Vision had a literate script on his hands. The core plot had Percy and Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, his pregnant lover Claire, and a snide, repressed biographer, Dr. Polidori all spending a Saturday night at a mansion in Geneva.
Now, thought Don, let's see what happens if we give `em loads of drugs, vats of wine, throw in a thunder-storm, a haunting, some scene-stealing goats, and let `em go.
Now who do we get to direct? Hmm...
Russell doesn't disappoint, (he NEVER does, all his films, good or bad, have got something of interest in them) his imagination is at full throttle here. It's a furious and upsetting picture, deliberately so.
You can feel that creepiness as the protagonists decide to hold a séance, to call their darkest fears to exist in this world. Russell has a field day illustrating in detail what a houseful of stoned, tortured geniuses are afraid of in the depths of their debasement, with their guard temporarily down.
One grotesque tableau follows another, but Russell never makes it easy for the rattled viewer. As to what's real and what's not, that's left open, as is the interpretation at the end. Was it all suggestion and hallucination? This reviewer isn't convinced, and Russell's leaving only the vaguest of clues.
It also works on a madcap comedy level. If you sit and think about what you've just watched, you WILL laugh, as with many of Russell's movies.
There are many redolent Russell repulses to rejoice in. A gory stigmata, a make-your-own-mind-up abortion, leeches, rats, incest, slime... In fact, if you can think of it, it's probably here, dowsed in Thomas Dolby's vivid score and competing like crazy with all the other fierce imagery.
There's an attractive funeral pyre sequence as well, filmed in the lake district and involving Shelley. In his autobiography, Russell indicates this is how he would ultimately like to be `disposed' of. Good idea, better than cold earth, hope the weather's good so the 40 piece orchestra, assembled by Melvin Bragg, don't get sodden, as they play Liszt or the Who at full blast!
Performances are good, particularly Gabriel Byrne as `mad' Lord Byron and Natasha Richardson as proto-feminist Mary Shelley (and I'd love to hear the advice mum Vanessa Redgrave gave her about working with Russell. She may proclaim `the Devils' to be her best film, but she never worked with him again!) and I don't think Julian Sands performance as Shelley is as bad as reported either. It's not great by any stretch, but I've seen worse, and he IS playing a highly strung (out!?), self-suffering waif-in-a-storm, zonked out of his literary brains.
`Gothic' isn't Russell's best film, but it is a good one. Compared to the output of most modern Hollywood directors it's a masterpiece. It has wild imagery, some very tender and moving moments, but most of all it has an atmosphere of utter dread, created masterfully by a visionary who knows instinctively how to use light and dark, sound and shadow and Richard Branson's money to make a looney entertainment about some of the worlds most respected and austere literary figures, verbally and physically abusing each other, raising the dead, ripping off their clothes and writhing round in slime.
A Ken Russell film, could it be anything else?