Jezza's Blog

A really good tense thriller, with quite a lot of humour, a great soundtrack and a visual delight - with absolutely no doubt as to where i...

A rather wonderful huge novel (does Annie Proulx write any other kind?) about the timber industry in North America over four centuries. It...

A fictionalized version of the Mayerling incident (for my money Private Vices, Public Pleasures was a better film account of this), in whi...

Things we liked: Jazzanova Hanggai (Mongolian rockers) Ladama (Latin American feminist band) La Dame Blanche (Cuban singer) Leftfield ...

Really loved this - a clever, thoughtful and often funny book about climate change, poverty, education, science, community, relationships....

So I read the RSA report on cohousing - see here - and my main take-away is that it wasn't really about cohousing. There's lots abo...

Harrison Ford is a nasty, rapacious lawyer who defends corporate bad guys against little people that they have wronged, even if he knows t...

I'm going off William Boyd a bit. He used to be a reliable mid-range story-teller, not too literary but solid and worth reading. Recen...

This is a really good film about the failure of the housing market in the UK to provide housing for rent at prices compatible with the lev...

Poignant small book about an oldish bloke looking back on his life, the roads not taken, the consequences of choices made and not made, ou...

A nice, early book of essays from Barbara Kingsolver - lots about nature and ecosystems, some really sensible stuff about relationships, a...

Slightly sad comedy about a not-very-successful bloke in LA who makes a living being a paid audience member on 'infomercials', a c...

Peter Greenaway must have had a lot of fun making this, but the same can't really be said for the audience. It's visually striking...

Well, it won't be surprising if any of my vegetarian and vegan friends don't like this book much, but it's a shame if they don...

A really beautiful, poignant animated film about children in an orphanage. It's stop-motion animation, with plasticine, so most of the...

This is a really, really good book. It's meticulously researched, with lots of primary and secondary sources. It's on top of the l...

One of the more interesting books that I've read in a while, though I can't say for sure that it was one of the best. It's a s...

How much point is there in reviewing a literary phenomenon? I dunno. But I really enjoyed this, even though it's not the sort of thing...

A short, spare, beautiful book that somehow manages to feel much longer. I don't want to spoil its development for you, but I can say ...

And then, just when I couldn't face any more feel-bad films, this. I'd not rushed to see it, partly because some of the reviews we...