Jesus Christ Superstar

Sat through a very disappointing version of JSC last evening.

How could Mike do this!!

The singing was good, even excellent in parts, but the acting left much to be desired.
Poor Jesus, luckily he had his long curly hair to hide behind.

Arjun Thomas...any day better!!

Untitled

 
Haruki Murakami's latest addition to bookandborrow is The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.
Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.
In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.
Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.

Blackberry

Blackberry  is causing so much of discussion and problems in our country. Read about the inside story about Blackberry

Blackberry, The Inside Story of Research in Motion by Rod Mcqueen

The BlackBerry is — quite literally — everywhere. President Barack Obama admits he can't live without it. Oprah Winfrey declared on her show that the BlackBerry is one of her "favorite things." BusinessWeek put the case for owning one bluntly in an article entitled "No BlackBerry: No Life." Launched in 1984 by Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsilliewith on a $15,000 loan, Research in Motion (RIM) has grown into one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. The reason: the BlackBerry. RIM had sold more than 50 million BlackBerrys by 2009 and sales of the handheld device generates annual profits in excess of $11 billion. BlackBerry: The Untold Story of Research in Motion is bestselling author Rod McQueen’s fascinating and absorbing biography of the device’s incredible popularity, as well as a never-before-seen glimpse into its origins and development — and the geniuses who were its inspiration.

Latest Arrival: The Case For Books - Robert Darnton

http://bit.ly/9U2pzB

The Case For Books, Past, Present and Future

Renowned historian Robert Darnton - a pioneering scholar in the history of the book, and a leading voice in the debate about the digital future of books and knowledge - distills his experience and insight. The era of the book as the unrivalled source and vehicle for knowledge is coming to an end. Digitization makes the physical properties of books disposable; e-book readers and mobile phones render them portable and accessible almost everywhere. Google and Amazon could command near monopolistic positions as sellers and dispensers of digital information relatively unfiltered by the traditional caucus of book experts: editors, proof-readers, expert retailers. This is the moment when books could both spring free of the limitations of production processes that have constrained them for 500 years and could also shatter into smithereens, shards of scattered knowledge no longer bound and made meaningful by context, cover and care. 

About the author:

Robert Darnton (born May 10, 1939) is an American cultural historian, recognized as a leading expert on eighteenth-century France.
He graduated from Harvard University in 1960, attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship, and earned a Ph.D. (D. Phil.) in history from Oxford in 1964, where he studied with Richard Cobb, among others. He worked as reporter at The New York Times from 1964 to 1965. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982, and was President of the American Historical Association in 1999.
He joined the Princeton University faculty in 1968, and was Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History. Darnton is a pioneer in the field of the history of the book. He currently is writing about electronic publishing. He is founder of the Gutenberg-e program, sponsored by Mellon Foundation.
His brother is the retired New York Times editor and author John Darnton, and his father was the war correspondent Byron Darnton.

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Tiger Hills

Recently i read Sarita Mandanna's Tiger Hills. For someone who has written her first novel, it was truly delightful. Throughout the book one could see her love for Coorg and identity with the local people.
Sarita Mandanna was born and brought up in India and worked in Hong Kong before moving to the US. She is a private equity professional with a PGDM from the Indian Institute of Management and an MBA from Wharton Business School.
But her indepth knowledge about the fauna and flore of Coorg, and the culture of the people along with three strong characters and the subtle yet powerful attraction between the two protoganists is indeed very interesting.
Definitely a must read if you like long sagas.

Book Title: Anna, The Life and Times of C.N. Annadurai

Book Title: Anna, The Life and Times of C.N. Annadurai


On 6 March 1967, fifty-eight-year-old Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai became chief minister of Madras state, when his party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), swept to power for the first time. Marking the pinnacle of his public life, it reflected his popularity among ordinary people who revered him as Anna, or elder brother. This rich biography illuminates his many lives—as a charismatic leader of modern India, as a stalwart of the Dravidian movement, as the founder of the DMK, as spokesman for the South—besides documenting his abilities as an acclaimed orator and littérateur in Tamil and English, and as a stage actor.

The book does not shy away from the controversies that surrounded the Dravidian movement and candidly examines Anna’s complex relationship with Periyar. It records Anna’s move to form the DMK in 1949, his split with Sampath in 1961 over the party’s strategy and course, and his disillusionment with the corruption and power politics he witnessed as chief minister.

Kannan draws on Anna’s considerable body of writing, the memoirs of other leaders and authors in Tamil, including critics like the poet Kannadasan, Jayakanthan and P. Ramamurti, apart from secondary sources. Featuring luminaries like Rajagopalachari and Kamaraj, Kalaignar Karunanidhi and MGR, among many others, Anna offers a warm and rounded portrait of a man who showed the way for the democratic expression of regional aspirations within a united India.

Book title : Temple

Book Title: Temple

Deep in the jungles of Peru, the race of the century is underway. A race to locate a legendary Incan idol an idol carved out of a strange kind of stone. A stone which in the late 20th century could be used as the basis for a terrifying new weapon. The US Army wants it at any cost but they are not alone....

The only clue to the idol's final resting place lies in a 400yearold manuscript. Enter Professor William Race, a brilliant young linguist, who is unwittingly recruited to translate the manuscript and lead the Army team to the idol. And so begins the mission that will lead Race and his companions to a mysterious stone temple hidden in the foothills of the Andes. A temple seething with menace and danger. But it is only when the temple is opened that Race and his team discover that they have broken a golden rule: Some doors are meant to remain unopened.

From the author of Ice Station comes a sensational new adventure that will literally leave you gasping for air.
Matthew Reilly is a New York Times best-selling author of eight novels that have been published in eighteen languages in twenty countries. He has sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide. The author in focus for bookandborrow this week is Mathew Reilly.