Soundtrack of my Life #7: American Pie (Don Maclean)

As I teenager I would spend 10 days each summer on The Robbertson II. “The Robbie” was a sail training ship run by S.A.L.T.S: the Sail and Life Training Society. It was my favourite time of the year. Our crew of 30 “trainees” would be lead by 8 or so crew as we sailed up [...]

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Top 130 Movie List: #48 All the President’s Men (1976, Dir: Alan Pakula, Scr: William Goldman)

When I read Carl Bertstein and Bob Woodward’s account of their investigate reporting around the Watergate scandal, I was not only riveted by the story, but was also amazed at the quality and depth of their journalism.
The film adaptation of their story is an example of talented storytellers working at the top of [...]

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Top 130 Movie List: #65 The Passion of the Christ (2004, Dir: Mel Gibson, Scr: Mel Gibson, Benedict Fitzgerald)

Whatever you think of Gibson, this film, or even Jesus, you can’t deny how visually stunning this movie is.
Here’s my favourite moment from the film. The character featured is Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she encounters Jesus on the way to his death.

JESUS: “See, Mother, I make all things new.”

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Patrick O’Brian: Master and Commander (1970) – Quotes

The first in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey Maturin series.
This is a most unlikely beginning to the life-long friendship between Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin:
The music-room in the Governor’s House at Port Mahon, a tall handsome, pillared octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli’s C major quartet. The players, Italians pinned against the far [...]

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Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series

It would be hard to over emphasize my love of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels about a fighting sea captain, Jack Aubrey, and his naval surgeon and ‘particular friend’ Stephen Maturin. Their friendship and adventures spread over twenty novels and not a few years during the Napoleonic wars and beyond. O’Brian’s novels were certainly lauded when [...]

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Walking on Water – by Madeleine L’Engle

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (1980 Harold Shaw Publishers)
“…when we are at a play, or looking at a painting or a statue, or reading a story, the imaginary work must have such an effect on us that it enlarges our own sense of reality.” (79)
“How to stay open? How to make sure [...]

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On Reading Old Books – C.S. Lewis

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook – even [...]

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Remnants of Winter

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Breakfast at Abigail’s

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