Anne with a Book

As I am a huge fan of Korean movies, I couldn't help but take a look at the film that dethroned "Bohemian Rhapsody" from the top of the Korean box office.

"Default" is a movie inspired by events that took place in 1997, when the South Korean economy was on the verge of a global crisis. As a result of the growth of public and corporate debt, overheating of the economy, and other depressing factors, the country suddenly finds itself just one step from complete bankruptcy. Read More...

I first mentioned Something Wicked This Way Comes in my 1960s favorite-books list because it was the first Ray Bradbury novel I read and because its child-centered story has an unusual maturity. A reread gives me a different reason to keep thinking about it. The carnival matters less as a collection of creepy attractions than as a machine for offering people exactly the change they already want. Read More...

I listed The Prince and the Pauper as my favorite book from 1881 with a very short description: a prince and a poor boy look alike and change places. That is the hook, but the swap is really a test. Mark Twain places Edward Tudor and Tom Canty on opposite sides of Tudor society, then asks what happens when appearance stops matching the social label everyone expects. Read More...

When I put Love Me If You Dare on my favorite Chinese dramas list, I described it as *Sherlock* meeting *Criminal Minds*. That shortcut still gets the tone across. The 2015 series follows criminal psychologist Bo Jinyan, played by Wallace Huo, and his assistant Jian Yao, played by Ma Sichun. What keeps the show moving for me is the way their relationship develops inside a sequence of cases rather than replacing them. Read More...

Halloween is just a little over a week away and it is freezing right now in Minnesota (44 °F, 7 °C as I write this) and most of the leaves have fallen. Fall is almost over and I have a horrible feeling that winter will follow closely on its heels. But I thought I would do one final Halloween tag before the month is over and November is back with NaNoWriMo, Thanksgiving (if you live in America), and probably snow (if you live up north).

If you've been following my blog for any significant length of time, you've probably heard me mention Rhys Bowen or one of her books. I'm a great fan of hers and have read and loved both her Molly Murphy Series and Her Royal Spyness Series. In the last couple of years, she's started coming out with a few stand-alone books. First came In Farleigh's Field in 2017, which I absolutely loved. Second came this book, The Tuscan Child, which was released in February of this year but I didn't get around to reading it until now. I'm also planning to read The Victory Garden, which is scheduled to be released in February of 2019.

Romance novels in the U.S. make more money than any other genre, despite often being some of the most stereotypical and repetitive books. Why is this? Some people say it's because we in America prefer to live in fantasy relationships over real relationships. I personally think this is not a true. Instead, people (mostly women) are obsessed with buying the same romance plot over and over again because it is easier to read about a perfect romance then finding and working on your own (in a world were romance is pretty much dead outside of Hollywood). Perhaps I am taking a more cynical view on romance.

I don't usually anticipate books coming out anymore, because usually I end up getting my hopes up for nothing. But this book looked particularly good, both by the synopsis and the cover, so I decided to read it. And several months after it came out (because I never do anything quickly), I finally read it.

I know it's late, but I just finished reading The Total Money Makeover, and I had to share.

Happy Fourth of July, for everyone in America!