Reading Roundup – 15th November 2013

November 15, 2013

One of the books I read this week was one I was given free to review by the author, State vs. Lassiter by Paul Levine.  This is a legal mystery/thriller in which trial lawyer Jake Lassiter sees court from the other side as he is framed for murder.  This is the tenth in the Jake Lassiter series, but only the first one I have read.  Not having read the others didn’t impact my enjoyment of the book; State vs. Lassiter is quite capable of working as a stand-alone.  Legal thrillers is not a genre I read a lot of although I do enjoy it.  In this one I particularly appreciated the way Levine, a former trial lawyer himself, was able to express complex legal aspects clearly and succinctly to be easily understood by a layman like myself.  

The narrative style was fresh and engaging and each chapter ended on a cliffhanger to keep me reading more.  One aspect I didn’t appreciate so much was the way women were depicted in the novel.  For me a little too much focus was placed on their sexual allure rather than their mental acumen.  Despite that, I enjoyed the book and gave it four stars out of five.

This week a new trailer was released for the Divergent movie starring Shailene Woody and Theo James.  From what I’m seeing this looks to be a great adaptation of a fantastic book.  There have been some great casting coups – I’m particularly looking forward to Oscar winner Kate Winslet as Jeanine Matthews.  

This week, too, I’ve been sucked into the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary buildup.  Having watched some interviews with David Bradley, who plays William Hartnell, and writer Mark Gattiss, I’m particularly excited by An Adventure in Space and Time.  This is a docudrama about the origins of Doctor Who.  Both Gattis and Bradley come across as very passionate about the project and also very sensitive of the place the program occupies in British culture.  Reviews from the prescreening at the BFI have been positive.  Go and take a look at the trailer.

It’s not often in these days of the internet that show runners are able to pull off a major surprise, but it appears Steven Moffat has succeeded in keeping the secret of the prequel The Night of the Doctor.  Much fangirl squeeing and running off to check out Big Audio Finish’s selection of Doctor Who full cast audiobooks ensued.  Judging from the Twitter frenzy, most of the fandom seemed to agree with me, which was lovely to see.  What a wonderful birthday gift for PM.  

A rather interesting exercise I undertook this week was to watch the very first episode of Doctor Who first broadcast almost 50 years ago, An Unearthly Child, and follow it up with the most recent episode of the reboot, The Name of the Doctor.  It’s interesting to see how much it has changed – and what has stayed the same.  The Doctor’s personality is different, understandable, given how it changes with regeneration.  However, the focus was more on exploration than saving the planet from destruction.  The police box and signature tunes have remained though – ware the show runner who messes with those icons!

Added to my library this week

In keeping with my mania for all things Who, I’ve added a couple of audiobooks to my collection,  The Ultimate Foe and the Eighth Doctor’s Dark Eyes.  I also added a couple of the Best Of the classic Doctor collections.  Amazon and iTunes already have preorders up for The Day of the Doctor, and I chose the iTunes season pass.  As well as the forthcoming Day of the Doctor and An Adventure in Space and Time, it includes the Doctors Revisited documentaries for Doctors Eight to Eleven.  

Also this week I took advantage of the Whispersync for Voice deal to pick up Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas from Audible for $4.

Since I loved The Darkest Minds so much, I added the novella, in Time to my Kindle collection.

Are you excited about the Doctor Who anniversary?  Let me know in the comments.

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