My Sister’s Keeper, portrays the love of a mother for her children, and the struggle to help them survive. A love of a mother never seems too strong; however, when one of the girls is dying from leukemia she insists that her sister keeps Kate alive by undergoing another surgery.

This is a typical process for Anna because she has consistently gone through one surgery after another her whole life; due to the fact that her parents conceived her by preimplantation genetic diagnosis in order to be a match for Kate.

Since Kate now needs another surgery Anna is the only option; however, she shocks the family with her decision not to help Kate any longer. She goes to the extreme of hiring a lawyer to fight her mother on behalf of her decision.

She desires the right to make her own decisions on what she chooses to do with her body, although her parents argue that she is not old enough to make her own decisions.

Although it was recently turned into a film; the novel is completely different. The ending is twisted and tear-jerking, and the debates leading to the final outcome keep the reader eager to turn the page.

Anticipate, and be Ready for Change

Who Moved My Cheese , written by Dr. Spencer Johnson portrays the idea of change and how to deal with change when it occurs in your own life. The book is said to be ‘One of the most successful business books’; and I would agree that it has its practical meaning.

By discussing the life of the mice (Sniff and Scurry) and the littlepeople (Hem and Haw) Spencer portrays the images of life through a maze filled with cheese stations, which represent our hopes and dreams. When the cheese station runs out of cheese Sniff and Scurry head off to find new cheese, while Hem and Haw sit and wait for the old cheese to return.

Haw finally decides to leave Hem behind to face his fears in order to find new cheese within the maze. Surprisingly after some time of fear and traveling alone Haw finds what he has been so fearful to find; however, it wasn’t as scary as he had imagined.

I enjoyed the book because it was easy to read but I do find it to be slightly elementary. Everyone faces changes in their life and that is strictly common sense; however, sometimes a good book can remind us to look around and make changes when things are not going the way we had anticipated.

Michael Oher was one of these kids that was brought in off the streets into a well Christian based home and given a chance to work hard to make himself great in school and also on the football field.

An American drama comes to life in this movie and really makes you think of how good some of us already have it. Written by John Lee Hancock,and based on the 2006 book ” The Blind Side: Evolution of the Game ” by Michael Lewis. The storyline features Michael Oher, an offensive lineman who now plays for the Baltimore Ravens of the NFL.

The film follows Oher from his impoverished upbringing, through his years at Wingate Christian School (a fictional representation of Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, Tennessee), his adoption by Sean and Leigh Ann Tuohy, and on to his position as one of the most highly coveted prospects in college football.

This movie is not just about football but the hard facts of life that a player has to face in such a way. Oher has to work hard in a school where things are much harder than his last school. He is look down own in many ways by all sorts of people. The teachers look down on him at first and then come to see the more they help him the more he learns.

Oher has also been given help by a private in home tutor to help him make the rite grades he needs to play and stay on the grid iron. He has no place on a football field until Leigh Ann ( Sandra Bullock ) says to him ” protect your men on the field as you protect me off the field. Sean ( Tim McGraw ) doesn’t know what to think to start with until he sees that his wife is serious about the education and lifestyle she tries to give Oher.

I will leave you with this little information. When a movie like this comes out it is always a never miss situation. The movie is so good and so down to earth that it places a country slang voice in my words of writing.But this movie will touch your heart and may even make you cry.But the one thing is greatness that it shows us in more ways than none.

Check out the movie trailer for “The Blind Side” on our movie database collection.Hope you enjoy!

Mitch Albom has done it again by writing one of the best books that i have read in a very long time. His book “Tuesday’s With Morry” was great and I have come to see that there are other books out there like “For One More Day” that will bring forth the same emotion that the first one did. In this book you find out about a young boy who grows older and has to make grown choices as to whom he should take sides with between his two parents who are divorced. Being divorced can cause great strain on a child as he grows. I see some of the things that me and my ex wife fuss about and i also see that it only hurts our son and not us.

Even though she and i love our son very much we try our hardest to keep him happy in any way that we can. I just hope that my son does not grow up to be like Charley whom is a character in the book “For One More Day”. This is the story of Charley, a child of divorce who is always forced to choose between his mother and his father. He grows into a man and starts a family of his own. He also gives up a lot of things such as his life’s dream as a pro baseball player who has gotten hurt while playing.

But on one fateful weekend, he leaves his mother to secretly be with his father and she dies while he is gone. This haunts him for years. It unravels his own young family. It leads him to depression and drunkenness. One night, he decides to take his life. But somewhere between this world and the next, he encounters his mother again, in their hometown, and gets to spend one last day with her, the day he missed and always wished he’d had. He asks the questions many of us yearn to ask, the questions we never ask while our parents are alive. By the end of this magical day, Charley discovers how little he really knew about his mother, the secret of how her love saved their family, and how deeply he wants the second chance to save his own.

He also finds out that he was not invited to walk his own daughter down the isle for her wedding. He blames his ex wife for it until he finds out she was not there either. So I leave you with this and say no matter how hard you try to please your kids and parents always take that extra step and try a little harder. You may never know when your last day will be here on earth. This is a must read book that will really get you thinking twice at the things you do now in life. Don’t take life with a grain of salt because you never know what will happen until it is over.

Have you ever picked up a book to read that you just could not put down. Tuesdays with Morrie is that type of book. Even though it is short but its one that when you start you just can’t stop. A book that has touched many lives in many ways. This is a book that you could read in one sitting and be able to finish.

The author Mitch Albom has brought tears to peoples eyes in this book.

an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson

A book you can place in your pocket and take with and read more than once. When Justin bought me this book he told me that I would not regret reading it and I would like to thank him for buying it for me to read.
I started reading this in what I like to call my man’s office if you know what I mean. Then it was a book that I threw into my camo back pack to take on hunting trips to the woods. This book has changed my life in many ways. With its tolliet paper book mark to mark its pages I carried it with me until I finished it.

Mitch Albom was a student of Morrie Schwartz at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Mitch would attend his favorite college professors class every Tuesday. Morrie would eventually end up with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. A disease that is brutal, and unforgiving illness of the neurological system.

Mitch would spend the last few months and days visiting Morrie at his home. There they would have class for to say like they did many years ago. The things that is written in this book will capture your mind, heart, and soul. It will make you think about the ones that you might have lost in the past rather it be a loved one or even a very close friend. I enjoyed the book so much that I have now gone and purchased another book by Mitch called “For one more day”.

As I have said in the past I do not read a lot of books like this. I’m more on the scale of Tom Kelly books but this one book touches me in more ways than one. I would say that as much as I love to read Tom Kelly that this book bypasses any other. I can never say that I ever had a teacher or professor like Morrie. It almost makes me wish that I could have been there to take one of his classes like Mitch. I will carry no further than I have cause there are no other words than pure love to describe this book. No it’s not a love story but of a story of a young and old man who became more than just teacher and student. It will change your life-like it has done mine. Hope you enjoy-Shannon L. Wood

Praise for Tuesdays with Morrie from the book.

“A beautifully written book of great clarity and wisdom that lovingly captures the simplicity beyond life’s complexities.” M.Scott Peck, MD., author of The Road Less Traveled and Denial of the Soul

“Every page of this beautiful, moving little book shines with the warmth of unembarrassed love.” Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People

The Pillars of the Earth

Ken Folletts 1,000 page book The Pillars of the Earth sell around 100,000 copies a year in the US alone. It’s translated to several languages (among one Danish my mother tongue), and it’s simply a fantastic book.

The short description from Ken Folletts homepage reads:

In a time of civil war, famine and religious strife, there rises a magnificent Cathedral in Kingsbridge. Against this backdrop, lives entwine: Tom, the master builder, Aliena, the noblewoman, Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge, Jack, the artist in stone and Ellen, the woman from the forest who casts a curse. At once, this is a sensuous and enduring love story and an epic that shines with the fierce spirit of a passionate age.

One wouldn’t think that this book is pulp fiction at its finest, but just you try reading the first couple of page. You’ll get hooked. And you better make sure that you don’t need sleep, because you will not be able to put the book away.

What makes the middle ages good reading

I think there are several things that fascinate the readers. Among other things, it is brutality, ideology and romanticism.

Brutality is interesting because it gives us an insight to the development we’ve undertaken to reach our given development stage. Brutality is for instance what we find in the start of French philosopher Michel Foucault Discipline and Punish with its painting description of a man being brutally torn in 5 parts by horses pulling in arms and legs while the executioners are cutting in the joints (and bare in mind that’s not fiction, that’s punishment in the dark ages) . This is just sick, but it happened.

But we’re also fascinated by the ideology that we often see interwoven in romantic storytelling, and it’s basically this, and the appalling brutality that make us love this book. It’s good versus bad just like Star Wars

May the force be with you…

I don’t normally read a lot of books like this and I will say that this is the first one about vampires or even night creatures that I have read. I can say that if there is a movie on a book I would watch it before I read it. Most of the books I read most of you would say they are for stupid people.

There are  authors such as Tom Kelly who has written many of the books for the National Wild Turkey Federation that I would rather read. All of the books that I do have of  Tom Kelly, he signed. It has taken me five weeks or even longer to finish this L.J. Smith novel on her collection of a three book series called “Night World.”

This book was kind of  hard for me to get into for starters but I did manage to finish it. I would take my time in my office (the bathroom) reading it marking the pages with a letter I received from the Alabama Department of Public Health about my health care providers certification. I don’t spend a lot of time in there as you can see that it took me five weeks. I do give the book its entire credit though and did not judge it by its cover.

I have heard on many occasions from  people saying don’t judge a book by its cover. You may never know what you missed until you read it. I have to say L.J. Smith did a very good job on writing this book and I hope the next two are as good.

Quote from the book:

“The Night World…Love has never been so dangerous.” ” The Night World isn’t a place. It’s all around us. The creatures of Night World are beautiful and deadly and irresistible to humans. Your friend could be one-so could your crush. The laws and the rules of Night World are very clear. Humans must never learn that Night World exists. And the members of this world should never fall in love with a human no matter what. Violate the laws and rules and the consequences are terrifying. These are stories about what happens when the rules and laws get broken.”

In this novel we take a look at the way a secret of a girl comes clean to find out that the one crush she has on a close friend, who is  a vampire of the Night World. Only to find out that her best friend is the only one who can help cure her from the fight with cancer by making her immortal. But one question you may find yourself asking why would you name a girl Poppy. She is a mystery to discover throughout the first story.

There are so many books out there now on creatures of the night such as vampires but when you read this book your mind will lead you into a whole new feeling toward them. To find out about the other two stories in this book you will just have to find it and buy it. Trust me you want be upset that you did after reading it.

The New York Times Bestselling Author of  The Vampire Diaries L.J. Smith has put good thought into making Night World a whole new level of reading for the creatures of the night. So pick up a copy and read the discovery that you will find behind these mysterious pages of the Night World.

I’m hoping you all will share what you pick up from your weekly entertainment shopping sprees as well.

I’m a sucker for all things entertainment. Send me to Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or any bookstore, I’m like a kid that just landed in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory — I can’t get enough. If I see a TV series on DVD that I like, it’s almost a guarantee that I’ll buy it. I’ve never walked out of a bookstore without adding at least one new book to my collection.

My brain is in need of constant entertainment.

Heroes: Season 2

If you don’t know what Heroes is, then you either don’t have a TV or have can’t tune into NBC. I feel a great sadness for anyone that’s not watching this show.

I’m still catching up on many of the series I missed last year on television. However, I did download quite a few of these episodes while in South Korea, but there were some I missed out on.

I’m actually taking a break from watching this season to write this. I just finished episode 6. So far, the season doesn’t disappoint. As soon as I’m finished writing this, I’m watching episode 7.

The Host

I admit it. I’m now a Stephanie Meyer addict. Well, I’m pretty much addicted to anything dealing with vampires. I’m on the third book in her Twilight series and am enjoying them, even if there are a few cheesy parts here and there.

She will long be known for her Twilight series, but I’ve always been more interested in reading The Host, which is a science-fiction book about invisble, alien invaders that take humans as hosts. The story follows Melanie, a human that refuses to allow Wanderer (one of the invaders) possess her mind.

The description alone promises a much better read. I’ve already bumped it up to the top of my must read list.

The Road

The Road is Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece. I don’t know how many times I thought about purchasing this book. I figured that I might as well drop the $5.97 for it. Most of my book collection is still in storage anyway, and I was starting to run out of things to read.

It is a post-apocalyptic novel about a boy and his father on a journey. Civilization has died out, along with pretty much any other species. It is an image of a future with no hope but this father and son.

There is a film adaptation of this book scheduled to be released sometime this year, starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the father and son.

The Shack

This was the third novel I picked up this week. It was also the third with the word The at the beginning of the title. That’s a bit odd.

I know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but every time I pass by this novel in a store, I’m instantly drawn by the image on the front cover. I finally caved and made the purchase.

The Shack was written by William Paul Young. The story promises to awaken your soul and provide some sort of answer for one of life’s ultimate questions — “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” (back cover).

Did you purchase anything interesting this week?

I’m always looking for new fixes for my entertainment addiction. Let me know if you’ve picked up anything good to read or watch this past week.

What about the things I purchased? Any opinions? I’m stoked that I found some great buys and have something to keep my mind occupied for at least a few days.

It turns out that the last bracket for the first round of Ultimate Bad Guy is my favorite.

I present you the Slasher Bracket, with all the baddest, most psychotic, murderous evil men out there. Magneto or Agent Smith are awesome bad guys, but no one scares us more than Norman Bates, or Jack from The Shining.

This should be highly entertaining to find out just who the ultimate horror movie character will end up being.

Let the chain-sawing begin!

#1 Hannibal Lector versus #8 Leatherface

If you don’t know who Hannibal Lector is, let’s just say he might like to feast on your flesh. Leatherface is from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and together we find our two combatants in a contest that will likely end in a total bloodbath.

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#3 Jigsaw versus #6 Jack

Jigsaw is from the Saw movies, and is also one of the most cunning and evil masterminds behind the greatest and most sadistic torture devices in all the world of horror. Jack is from The Shining, a movie I first saw in my early twenties, on Halloween night with all the lights turned off.

Needless to say, I was terrified. I kinda still am.

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#2 Norman Bates versus #7 Freddy Krueger

The innkeeper from the deadly Bates Motel, squares off against the evil visitor of your worst nightmares. In fact, instead of fighting, Norman and Freddy might team up to create the scariest motel on the planet.

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#4 Jason Vorhees versus #5 Michael Myers

Two of the ultimate slasher guys: Jason from Friday the 13th tries to hold off Michael Myers from the Halloween series of horror films. Much blood will be shed here…much blood.

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This is the second group of games from Round 1 of Ultimate Bad Guy. If you haven’t voted yet on our first group, head over to the Darth Vader Bracket and then come back here to vote for these guys.

This is the Lex Luthor Bracket, and besides The Joker, this is another series of matchups that you’d never find anywhere but on Pop Critics.

#1 Lex Luthor versus #8 Mr. Blonde

Lex Luthor, the arch-nemesis to Superman takes on Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs, played by Michael Madsen, also potentially known as Vic Vega. A tough task for any Tarantino character to take on, besides possibly The Bride from Kill Bill.

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#3 Anton Chigurh versus #6 Hans Gruber

This is actually a bit more of a normal matchup in our contest. To mortal men, Hans a master criminal from Die Hard, and Anton a sadistic killer from No Country for Old Men. While the seeds are somewhat far apart, this may not be as cut and dry as it looks.

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#2 The Joker versus #7 Arvin Sloane

Yes, somehow we have The Joker from Batman pitted against the evil Arvin Sloane from the hit spy series, Alias. I’m not sure this pairing would happen in any alternative universe out there, but it is taking place here. Sloane may have met his match.

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#4 Cigarette Smoking Man versus #5 Keyzer Soze

Probably one of the more interesting matchups thus far. The Cancer Man from the X-Files, squares off against the little known evil gangster in Keyzer Soze from The Usual Suspects. The Cigarette Smoking Man was one of the best bad guys on TV for awhile, and Keyzer Soze gave fans one of the biggest twists ever in a movie.

This is a coin-toss.

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