Tales From The Beach - Incognito

Advantages: That old magic's still there...
Disadvantages: ...but not often enough

...The appearance of a sequel (of sorts) to Watership Down, almost a quarter of a century after the original book's appearance, should have been a cause for wild celebration amongst the many fans of Hazel, Fiver, Hyzenthlay and the rest of Richard Adams' lapine creations. As indeed it was - until we came to read it. Rather unfairly perhaps, given that it is in no way a disastrous effort, many readers will come away from Tales from Watership Down feeling disappointed and let down. Tales from Watership Down (TFWD) is a much thinner volume than Watership Down itself, running to under 250 pages as opposed to the 470-plus of the original. No matter, one thinks, as surely that's still enough space for an interesting novel. Would that this were so; in fact, TFWD is split into three parts, only one of which can justly be regarded as sequelious... Read review

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Advantages: new studio ghibli movie nice music and animation
Disadvantages: a bit short and the plot is a little jumpy, new and different

...The most recent studio ghibli movie released in the west, however this title is different from previous works as it was directed by hayao Miyazakis son goro miyazaki ( Hayao Miyazaki created spirited away and princess mononoke for studio ghibli to name some of the better known titles released in the UK). This dvd comes with both an English subtitle and dubbed track. The English dubbing is quite true to the original script but I prefer the subtitles. The plot is based on Ursala K LeGuin's Earthsea books in particular the third volume entitled the farthest shore. The movie begins with a group of men out at sea in a vicious storm witnessing a gargantuan battle between two titanic dragons, one of which is killed in the process, when this information gets back to the king of the land he is greatly disturbed. This was an extremely... Read review

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Advantages: Describes the era well, entertaining, very 70s
Disadvantages: Sketchy plot, shallow characters, lack of depth and direction

...Published: 1976 Introduction I first heard about this American author when my boyfriend bought and read Maupin's then latest book 'The Night Listener'. He had told me Mauprin was the same who wrote the 'Tales of the City' series I'd vagely heard of. Always excited by finding a new 'favourite' writer, I serendipidously came across 'Tales of the City' on the 'Book Swap' shelves at my workplace. About the author Armistead Maupin was born in 1944 into a conservative family embracing those values and becoming a lawyer. He later changed his views and moved to Califormia where he started working as a journalist for papers such as The Pacific Sun and The San Francisco Chronicle. It was the latter where his column 'Tales of the City' was published from 1976. The book - his first - bearing the same title came out in... Read review

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