Asian and US Movie Reviews Blog » Books

The Last Star of the East: Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia and Her Films by Akiko Testuya (2005)

jonahlee — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 05:34:25 +0000

I don’t know what took me so long to read this book, I bought it a while back and had meant to read it, but somehow it moved back in my bookshelf, but on my trip back to Cleveland for XMAS I took it and read most of it on the flight back. It is an excellent book, not only for all fans of the Hong Kong film star Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia or even fans of Hong Kong film in general. It is written in Interview format with the first part being a medley of 4 Interviews Akiko had with the usually quite and seemingly retired Lin Ching Hsia, and the rest is interviews with her friends and people she has worked with throughout her career. It paints a vibrant picture of the actress and gives insight into the Hong Kong and Taiwanese film industry.

The book is well edited, a quick read and very enjoyable. Well worth the price.

In fact I know Akiko, though I have not seen her in some time, as I met her through my good friend Jeff Briggs. She is a reporter on Hollywood for Japanese Entertainment News, but she decided to write this book in English and I am quite glad that I did.

The Unknown Story Mao by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

jonahlee — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:50:14 +0000

I am already a fan of Jun Chang, having loved her book WILD SWANS which I read years back. I am also an amateur Sinologist, and for years have been interested in all Chinese History, but certainly also reading a lot on the communist years and Chairman Mao. I have read many books on the communist period in China, and all the deaths that Mao caused, including the book by his personal physician, and I have to say none have been so brutal as this book. It is an engaging and interesting read, though completely brutal in it’s details of Mao’s life from his humble beginnings to his running of China and the brutal deaths of hundreds of millions of his own people in his quest for ultimate power.

If you are interested in the history of China, and especially of China since the Communist takeover then this history of Mao, the last Emperor in China who caused more horror and mayhem to his own people then this is a must read.

Honestly I can bet that this book is banned in China, and won’t be very popular among Chinese born in China in recent years (I honestly don’t think my ex girlfriend from China did not know much if anything about this period, and would probably not believe it). Well honestly if even half of this book is accurate then Mao in fact had more deaths in his own country from his authoritarian regime than either Stalin or even Hitler, and yet he is still revered by a huge population in the world.

As I said this book covers Mao from his Youth, and through his 2 marriages, and his struggles to take control of the Chinese communist party and to defeat not the Japanese but instead focusing on Chiang Kai Shek and not worrying about the Chinese. And then in his efforts to become a super power allowing untold Chinese to perish while Mao pushed to become world leader and to run his nuclear program to give China the bomb and make it a world power. It goes through all of his movements, each starving more people and putting him higher in control while destroying more and more of ancient China. And the book goes all the way through his meetings with Nixon, and his finally years when he started losing his control and those closest to him started to rebel.

•••••

This is really a must read for anyone interested in China. This is a chilling picture of Chairman Mao that will blow away anyone who reads it.

The History of Martha’s Vineyard by Arthur Railton (2006)

jonahlee — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 15:16:02 +0000

Amazing to me that growing up on Marthas Vineyard I never learned the history of the place. They should really have a local history class, and this book should be the textbook. My mom bought me this when I was on Marthas Vineyard this year and we were at the Historical Society. Honestly I was expecting a dry book, but this book was actually very well written and enjoyable. It is a thorough and enjoyable book that has the entire history of Marthas Vineyard from the time that White men arrived up until World War II.

In fact I powered through this book, reading it very quickly (especially considering the fact that I have been working 7 days a week for 3 weeks now). The book is well written and interesting, with first hand accounts and some great early photos (not a lot, but enough).

The books includes the history of the Wampanoag indians who were always badly treated, and who didn’t get power in Gay Head until the 1950′s! And Edgartown the first big town which made it’s money from Whaling, but went into decline after that. And of course Tisbury which eventually spilt into West Tisbury and Tisbury (which everyone knows as Vineyard Haven). And of course the history of the Methodist Camp which became Cottage city and later Oak Bluffs, which became the first summer town, and which brought tourism to the Vineyard. I love hearing about the old days, when bands used to play, there were huge hotels and a giant roller skating rink.

The book also has the history of the vineyard through the revolutionary war, world war 1 and world war 2, and the introduction of cars to Marthas Vineyard. It talks about whaling, fishing and especially swordfish which kept many fishermen alive even in the toughest times.

This is such a great book, and a must read for anyone interesting in the Vineyard.

Conservatives Without Conscience by John W. Dean (2006)

jonahlee — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 22:55:33 +0000

Before talking about this book, I have to preface by saying I am heavily progressive in my politics, and like other progressives I support the advancement of worker’s rights and social justice and heavily support the welfare system and anti-trust laws, which seam to be going away with this administration. Now as for this book, this is a must read in today’s day and age for anyone who is interested in politics and jut what is going on with our country and it’s leadership. That being very authoritarian and while labeled Conservative in fact shares no real belief’s with the conservative movement except being radically against anything liberal. This book would be easy to dismiss if it was by some crackpot heavily liberal writer, but is isn’t. This is a well researched and documented study of the changes in the conservative movement since he joined it in the 1960′s as an admirer of the late great Senator Barry Goldwater. And the writer John W. Dean is a staunch conservative who served as White House Counsel under Richard Nixon, and who helped break Watergate with his truthful testimony to the Senate, for which many in the new Republican party tried to destroy him and his reputation. He goes up against Social Conservatives, Neoconservatives and Authoritarians who have taken over the Republican party. This is really book that everyone on both sides of the fence should read because it really gives insight into just what is going on now and why they do what they do.

The book is fairly short at 186 pages, though going to 246 with Appendixes, Footnotes and an Index. And honestly the first part is pretty dry, but it is giving history and going into different historical studies on authoritarians and their followers. Really very much a textbook on the subject, with the second half dealing with the modern Republican Leadership and the whole Christian Conservative movement with Pat Robertson and the like and how much they are influencing modern politics.

Of particular interest to me was Gingrich’s making a majority in the House, and then Delay furthering his authoritarian ways, and making the house less and less democratic, to now it is really complete majority rule, where even dissenters in their own party are not allowed and the whole K Street Fiasco, which has never been cleared up or made better even with the whole Abramoff scandal. Interesting also to read how the democrats have really done nothing about it, not even complaining publicly, when this could be a huge issue that could really help them, as it has in the past, but they don’t want to call up “process” issues which seems idiotic if you ask me.

I highly recommend that you check this book no matter what side of the political spectrum you are on. And unlike books like those by Ann Coulter this actually has all the footnotes properly logged and he gives credit to all the scientific studies his research is based on.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowlings (2005)

Wed, 20 Jul 2005 15:23:15 +0000

And to think after the 5th Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I was considering giving up on Harry Potter because I hated the whiny new Harry from that book. I swear all he did was whine. Well I have to say this book is different. It is excellent and amazing. Good from the start to the finish, and in fact I don’t see how they will do the movie of this because the kids spend half the book snogging. I finished this and all I wanted to do was discuss theories with other people who have read it. What a great book, I can’t believe I have to wait so long for the next one!

REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS….

This book sees Harry Potter and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger in their sixth year of school, but this time while a war is on with Voldamort, or should I say the one who should not be named, and his death eaters. Harry is taken by Dumbledore to get a new teacher, or actually a returning one, who in fact only returns because he loves famous people, and wants Harry to become part of his club of students and contacts he makes. Harry is surprised to find that Snape is the new Defence Against the Dark arts teacher, and that he can take Potions to go towards being an Auror on graduation with the new teacher, but he must borrow a book from school, and he gets a book filled with notes, that quickly puts him to the top of the class in potions. The books was written by the Half Blood Prince. Ron and Hermione have a falling out, and Ron starts going out with another girl, and we see that Harry has fallen for Ginny Weasley, though she has a boyfriend already.

This is the darkest of the Harry Potter books so far, and one of the best. This is a must read!

The Aubrey Maturin Series by Patrick O’Brian

Jonah Lee Walker — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 06:22:48 +0000

Today I finished book 20 of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey / Maturin novels. I couldn’t put stop reading these books from the first one, which I read after seeing the film MASTER AND COMMANDER: FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD. The series is complete, though of course I would have loved more, but then of course O’Brian died at age 85 in January 2000, so there won’t be any more books.

I can’t recommend these books more highly. The books are easy to read and enjoyable, and while their is a huge amount of nautical terminology you can get books to explain it all in detail, and you don’t need to know it all to enjoy, you can be like Maturin and really never understand the sea.

CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS…

The books follow the story of Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his close friend and surgeon Dr. Steven Maturin, who is also a spy working to stop Napoleon, and end oppression and slavery everywhere. Aubrey is one of the best fighting captains around, working his gun crews till they are the fastest in the navy, and he his known as Lucky Jack for his ability to find enemy ships and take them for Prize money. These books follow Jack from when he is made Master and Commander of a sloop until he is given his Blue at the Mizen and made an Admiral (and not a yellow admiral with no fleet), and we follow him and many of his crew through all the books and through many many adventures.

This is certainly one of my all time favorite book series. I highly recommend to all who enjoy high adventure or ships of any kind.

These books have made me watch the film so many times, and my only complaint is that Aubrey exceeds his orders in the movie, which he would never do, not wanting to lose his post captain position. Well that and Maturin is way too good looking, but the film is so accurate. I loved all this so much I even went with my mom, my girlfriend and her mom to see the Rose, which was remade to be an exact replica of the Surprise from the books, and is the ship from the movie. And this is me at the helm.

Revolution in the Valley, The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac was Made by Andy Hertzfeld (2005)

jonahlee — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 19:30:01 +0000

Wow. This is an absolute must have for any Mac Head, or especially any self professed Mac Geek like I am. This is the inside story of the creation of the Macintosh from one of it’s original creators. I have read every book on Apple that there is, and this is by far the best I have seen. I literally could not put this book down once I started reading it. In fact it only took a few days. Now it is all short stories of different aspects, but it is really worth while with great photos and old notes and the like. This book was started with the stories on Andy’s web site on Macintosh folklore , and here others involved in the process also got involved to add their stories. I CAN’T RECOMMEND THIS BOOK ANY MORE HIGHLY!

Andy joined Apple and worked on the Apple 2 with the Lisa in development and the Macintosh just starting development. He joined the skunkworks project actually hired by Steve Jobs and actually took Jef Raskin’s desk (Raskin came up with the original concept and name for the Macintosh, but Steve Jobs took it over and forced him out). You take a trip through the whole development process, and for the first time I really learned about Burrell Smith the man who started as a service technician then ended up designing the original Macintosh, the original Laser printer and then went on to found Radius and their first 2 products the Radius Full Page Display and The Radious Accelerator. Thisbooks shows the creation of the GUI, what was taken from the Lisa team and goes up till Jobs was ousted by John Sculley who had brought in to Apple. It also shows how when the Mac team grew to 100 and then to 300 the management really fought with the young mavericks and forced most of them out of Apple all together.

This book is really essential reading for all mac heads, and probably for all computer geeks. I applaud O’Reilly for releasing this! This book is amazing!