Showing 291 - 300 of 311
A tasty morsel
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 28/05/2012
» Tales about wolves give off mixed signals. Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were reared by wolves. Wolf packs chase and devour people. Werewolves _ half-wolf, half-man _ can only be put down with a silver bullet. Jack London had good things to say of wolves. Their howl on movies signifies evil.
Universal cheating
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 14/05/2012
» Many of us profess to know it all, but do we? Not all of us, surely. And though there are among us who know a good deal, knowing it all is a bit much. Not even Aristotle or Da Vinci, Newton or Einstein were that brilliant.
The Dragon Lady?
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 07/05/2012
» First ladies _ wives of presidents and prime ministers _ have generally been innocuous. On display during election time, they then faded into the background. Few made a name for themselves afterwards, most notably Hillary Rodham Clinton, appointed secretary of state when her husband was no longer in the White House.
Nature is cruel
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 25/06/2012
» The theme of shrinking people and having them prey on naturally little predators has been done in novels and films as thrillers and comedies. After chapters and scenes of suspense, they've survived their perils and returned to their true size. It's up to the authors and directors to keep us uncertain of the outcome until the end.
Flying machine thrills
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 18/06/2012
» 1911 was an in-between year in aviation. Eight years after the Wright brothers had invented the airplane in the US and three years before the Great War in Europe, improvements in design and performance made preceding models obsolete. Curiously, the US lagged behind the Continent in developing new models. A number of Yankee stalwarts took this to heart, determined to play catch-up.
SAS or Navy Seals?
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 30/04/2012
» Every country has elite troops, but which are the best in the world? I used to think it was the Gurkhas, but they appear to have faded from the scene. The Russian Spatznaz get good marks, but in this day and time it comes down to Britain's SAS and America's Navy Seals.
In days of yore
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 09/04/2012
» What characterised ancient Rome's conquests was that they had to keep conquering the same lands, which kept rebelling. As overlords they were arrogant and brutal, venal and intolerant. Ruling with an iron hand inside an iron fist, the captive populace rose while realising that the struggle was hopeless.
Tourists beware
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 26/03/2012
» When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tried to put Sherlock Holmes to rest a century ago, more than one literary critic noted that he was running out of the plots. The last involved a killer on stilts, which raised yawns as well as eyebrows. Yet in the hundred years since, other crime-thriller authors and scriveners of TV detective series demonstrated that there are no end of plots.
A'Silk King' scenario
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 05/03/2012
» While zombies never existed, in Haiti or anywhere else, vampires have, if not quite as Bram Stoker and Anne Rice described them. They do kill and suck blood from their victims, and some even sleep in caskets. But the sun doesn't bother them, they don't turn into bats and a wooden stake through the heart isn't necessary to kill them.
A mixed brew
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 12/03/2012
» While it is conventional for a novel to have both a main plot and a subplot, this reviewer notes that one generally distracts from the other, successfully.