Congratulations on your retirement!

:-)

Thank you, Paul and Craig.l I repeat, with emphasis: it feels great.

Should I try to figure out a way to block your access to this blog, for your own protection?

Tahanks! I'm not making any huge claims for the movie, but I predict you'd still enjoy it.

Thanks!

I've heard that it is. I remember it being very popular at the time, but I never saw it.

"Funny, but I would have said I watched because Maclin had been talking about it, but I guess I must have been wrong!"

Maybe I mentioned it here when I watched it! Doesn't seem like a couple years ago, but I could be wrong.

Janet, I think you've become the archivist for this site. I don't remember anything about a giant rooster. Oh wait...yes I do...

I did however remember that we had at least mentioned The Sand Pebbles, and sort of thought I might have mentioned The Great Escape, or at least its music. But I'm a little distressed to find that I wrote, back in 2011, pretty much the same brief review of it that I've just re-written here. I have no memory of doing that.

Good.

Good that I'm not the only one with a bad memory, although forgetting that you wrote something is a lot worse than forgetting that you read it.

I have no memory of yesterday.

I know I watched The Great Escape as a kid, and enjoyed it, most likely with my father, who has passed away. So it is a nice memory.

I didn't know that Maggie's Farm tolerated escapes, Mac?

I've been reading a little book titled The Year of Reading Dangerously, by Andy Miller. I bought it for an electronic reader a while back when it was cheap. The author comes up with a "list of betterment", 50 books that he will read rather than pretend he has for years. I don't know why, but it reminds me a little of you, and of me, and of people on this blog. It is amusing and fun, and he is British, so it is British too.

Maybe because he likes The Kinks? I don't know. The rest of the title reads something like "the year I read 50 great books and 2 by Dan Brown". :)

Stu, not long ago I picked up a somewhat similar book, also by a Brit, called Howard's End is On the Landing. It's by the novelist Susan Hill, and describes how she spent a year eschewing new books and reading only things she had in her home, books she owned but had basically forgotten about. The idea started when she was looking for a particular misplaced book, and in the course of her search was surprised by how many books she had that she hadn't read.

Btw, I've read little of Hill's fiction, but she did write one of the best modern ghost novels around, The Woman in Black.

Thanks Rob, that looks like a good one too, thought I don't know how much time I can spend reading about others reading.

Related to this, I'm also trying to break myself of the habit of buying a book because "I think I might read that someday." I've gotten much better at this as I've grown older, but the practice still rears its head from time to time. As I've told one of my local booksellers, it's a matter of my bibliophilic eyes being bigger than my stomach.

The worst instance of this was when I bought an old used set of the complete novels of Sir Walter Scott (45 vols.) back around 1985. Never read a one, and eventually they ended up in boxes. For the longest time I couldn't sell them, but I finally found a local bookseller who was interested. Amusingly enough, he paid me exactly what I had bought them for 20 years earlier -- $100.00

This is why that book made me think of all of you. I have similar problems to what Janet and Rob G are discussing. One time I even thought that if I have had a book for 10 years and never done anything except happily buy it and place it on a shelf it should go! Not sure I acted on that, but it was a nice thought. My latest idea is to just get rid of a bulk of the contemporary lit that I've read and will not re-read, or never read. The classics and collectors classics occupy their own shelf. Theology and most non-fiction is here in my office. My wife loves to point out our book problem and frown if she sees an Amazon package that I am trying to slip into the house...

Stu,

You make me think about the day my husband retired from his job where he had been working for 28 years and had three offices and all the contents of the three offices came home. All I can say is, your poor wife because sooner or later those books are coming home. ;-)

AMDG

the film makes the Americans the main players, while in reality most of the participants were British and Canadian. I suppose the American film-makers did this to appeal to the American

Did we see the same film? The officer in charge was played by Richard Attenborough. See here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057115/

Of the 15 actors listed, two are Germans, four are Americans, and nine are British (of whom one, Donald Pleasence, would be readily confused with an American).

Rob, re your Walter Scott purchase: on the other side of that, I still regret *not* buying the used set of Yale Shakespeare that I saw in 15 or more years ago (the Friends store, Stu). I think about it every time I pick up my 5-pound Pelican Shakespeare. People have many opinions about which edition is The Best, but those individual Yale volumes are great from the ordinary reader's point of view.

Maclin, There's a huge used bookstore in downtown Chattanooga called All Books. They had shelves in shelves of stuff like those Yale classics when I was there. Granted that was a while back but I can't imagine they've changed much. Maybe you could check it out some time when you go see your family. They were expensive though.

AMDG

Im listening to Innocent Mussion on pandora. She is singing Edelweiss and I realize it is this version that opens and closes the episodes on The Man in the High Castle

It's funny that a post about a movie has quickly turned to books!

A couple years ago I bought a complete works of Hawthorne set from the early 1900s, but when I got it home and actually looked at it closely, some of the volumes were in pretty rotten shape. I ended up returning it.

Until recently I had what I thought was an old set of Hardy's complete fiction, but it turned out I was missing a couple volumes. I ended up keeping the better known works, but selling off the minor stuff, which I'd probably never read.

The only "complete set" I have, really, is the Oxford Dickens.

I'm feeling inspired to get rid of some unwanted books.

Anyway, I think I will have to add this movie to my list of things to watch.

Well, after getting home and finding out that the one I bought was not for DSL but cable. So Bill picked up the right one on the way home from the movie with our grandson, and just before he walked in the door, the wi-fi started working.

AMDG

I went to see the new Macbeth! It was on at an art theatre near Lincoln Center. I thought it was good. I know quite a bit of Macbeth by heart, and so it's a matter of listening to things one knows but Shakespeare is still infinitely surprising in the beauty of his language

"infinitely surprising in the beauty of his language" captures it perfectly.

You guys are inspiring! Maybe I'll make a New Year's resolution to read the classics I own but haven't read. Maybe one a month?

My father, who is 82, and my daughter, who's planning to enter a convent, are both divesting themselves of books. They both feel very aware that they have limited time left to read what they have.

"That's touching about your daughter."

Yes, it is.

Yes, that, and the possibility that I want to have it available either to read again in its entirety, or just to refer to a favorite passage or refresh my memory about something.

One exception: I've been slowly acquiring the really nicely done Overlook Press editions of Wodehouse. I don't plan to get all 100 or so novels, but all the Jeeves & Wooster ones, the Blandings ones, and some of the others that are considered among his best.

I was finally able to see this film, and I really enjoyed it! Re-reading your comments about it, I am pretty much in agreement. I liked the humour of the film, and its willingness to tell the story despite its not fitting the Hollywood mould very well.

Thanks for the recommendation.