New book, "Pirates’ Island", from Page Publishing author, John Chaparro, is a classic story of a young man testing his mettle through the dangers, and the glories, of a once in a lifetime journey.

(PRWEB) December 27, 2013

John Chaparro, a Puerto Rican-American author and playwright, has completed his new novel, "Pirates’ Island"; a gripping and potent tale of danger, bravery, and glorious victories, all with the thrills of the sea as its backdrop.

“As a long time writer and fan of pirate stories, I felt it was finally time to fuse my two interests,” the author, John Chaparro, described his reason for writing. “This book was an adventure for me to write and I hope that readers will feel the same excitement for the story, as I did while crafting it.”

Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, John Chaparro’s poignant tale is the intellectual offspring of years of intense research. After gaining an initial interest in British history, Chaparro studied the nautical and societal aspects of British culture and applied his findings to his fiction. Coming to the United States by way of Puerto Rico, Chaparro’s fiction is the impressive result of years of study.

"Pirates’ Island" tells a timeless tale of the sea and one boy’s allure to the treachery, buried treasure, desert islands, and the ruthless buccaneers that sail upon it. Along with the double-crossing pirates, the book is filled with quaint characters that are sure to linger in the reader’s imagination long after the reader finishes the book. Following the young, but brave, Daniel Dinkins, "Pirates’ Island" introduces the reader to the witty, but deceitful, Captain Henry Brown. Daniel’s raw courage is put to the test no sooner than the moment he sets sail alongside Captain Brown.

Told with an antiquarian flavor, "Pirates’ Island" is written for readers of adventure stories of all ages.

Readers who wish to experience this thrilling work can purchase "Pirates’ Island" at bookstores everywhere, or online from the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes & Noble.

For additional information, review copies, or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.

About Page Publishing:

Page Publishing is a traditional New York based full-service publishing house that handles all of the intricacies involved in publishing its authors’ books, including distribution in the world’s largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create – not bogged down with complicated business issues like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and the like. Its roster of authors can leave behind those tedious, complex, and time consuming issues to focus on their passion: writing and creating.
Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com. Reported by PRWeb 9 hours ago.

From Sebastian Faulks's Jeeves and the Wedding Bells to Patrick Ness's More Than This to Alan Johnson's This Boy, Guardian readers pick their favourite reads of 2013

**Chris Allen, Buckingham *
*

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (Picador) was my favourite of the 11 books recently shortlisted for the Guardian first book award. It is based on the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last person to be executed in Iceland – for murdering her lover in 1828. Agnes is a well-developed character who you really feel for: you end up wanting her to escape her inevitable end. The book transmits a sense of the sparse difficult conditions in Iceland at the time, and the unfairness of a society that discriminated against both women and the servant class. It is an impressive first novel.

**Kate Anderson, Sheffield *
*

Grace McCleen's The Professor of Poetry (Sceptre) is a book about writing and love. What could be a rather hackneyed situation when a successful academic meets her old tutor and the flame is rekindled, is transformed into a moving story about ageing, alongside sensible advice about writing and prose to die for. Claire Messud's The Woman Upstairs (Virago) is a very cross book but the reader is enthralled by constantly wondering whether this most unreliable of narrators is unhinged. In a year full of Jane Austen revisited Jo Baker's Longbourn (Doubleday) offers a different take on Pride and Prejudice. Modern in its sensibilities I doubt if I will ever be able to read Austen again in quite the same way.

**Jane Ayres, Chelmsford, Essex*
*

As a keen swimmer I enjoyed Pondlife by Al Alvarez (Bloomsbury). This meditation on the pleasures of year-round outdoor swimming, combined with reflections on the increasing limitations of age was inspirational. I also enjoyed The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris (Sandstone Press). This book is a story of relationships defined by the ultra-orthodox Jewish faith and set in north-west London. Finally, I would recommend HHhH by Laurent Binet (Vintage). This gripping story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in 1942 has a highly original narrative, in which the author seems to share with the reader his cogitations on what to include in the story.

**Sam Banik, London*
*

Booker-shortlisted The Lowland (Bloomsbury) by Jhumpa Lahiri is an elegantly written novel about two brothers growing up in a lowland suburb of south Calcutta in the 1950s and 60s; the younger becomes involved in the Naxalite movement and is killed by the police. The story shifts to the US and centres on the surviving brother, who has married his brother's wife, each living fractured lives within impermeable carapaces. Jesse Norman's Edmund Burke: Philosopher, Politician, Prophet (William Collins) is an excellent political biography of a towering Whig parliamentarian who conferred an ideological definition on the creed of conservatism. Burke appeared inconsistent in his support for the Indians, Irish Catholics and American colonists, although he denounced the French revolution. He was an apostle of liberty and a champion of authority, but abhorred any abuse of power.

**Patricia Bentley*
*

Anthony Marra's debut novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (Hogarth) is set in war-torn Chechnya. A dystopian hinterland where terror reigns, and everyone is a potential suspect and afraid of ending up in the "Landfill"– a place of unspeakable horror. After eight-year-old Havaa sees her father abducted by the Russians, their neighbour Akhmed is determined to save her from the same fate. This is a beautifully crafted novel. The intricate narrative manifests how the fates of the characters are bound together and how Havaa comes to symbolise all that is good in a chaotic world.

**Chris Birch, London*
*

As the father of two children and a grandfather of four, I can imagine nothing more heartbreaking than having a child with severe cerebral palsy. But that is what happened to my friend Saira Shah, and her experience is the basis of an amazing novel, The Mouseproof Kitchen (Harvill Secker). The early part of the book, describing the birth and the following few days, in which she and her partner talk about abandoning the child, flying to Brazil and not leaving a forwarding address, is clearly autobiographical.However, the subsequent chapters describing the family's adventures in a mouse-infested farmhouse in the south of France are fictional, amusing and deeply moving. What shines forth from the book is that the author and her partner have learned a profound lesson in love from their disabled daughter, now five years old. When Jon Snow read the novel, he cried. So did I.

**Tim Blackburn, London*
*

Two books that have gripped me this year share the same translator: the excellent Philip Boehm. In Chasing the King of Hearts by Hanna Krall (Peirene Press) Izolda escapes from the Warsaw ghetto and sets off to search for her missing husband. Her adventures read like a novel but are based on a real-life Izolda. A miracle of compression, the pared-down, matter-of-fact sentences are set against the horrors she meets along the way. Herta Müller drew on her mother's experiences as an ethnic German in a Romania overrun by the Red Army in 1945. In The Hunger Angel (Portobello Books) the teenaged Leo is sent to a labour camp where if the cold and disease doesn't kill you, the angel that personifies hunger just might. We know Leo will survive, but what will be his place in the new world he returns to?

**Charles Boardman, Nottingham*
*

Sebastian Faulks has passed the test. His homage to Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells (Hutchinson Books) had me laughing aloud. I was also charmed by Antoine Laurain's The President's Hat (Gallic Books) in the final six pages of which the author has his own little joke. But my book of the year is Jonathan Buckley's breathtakingly clever novel, Nostalgia (Sort of Books). Set in a small Tuscan town it puts before us not only the expatriate protagonists but also the town itself, its history, its local residents and their life histories, all interspersed with scholarly digressions. Wonderful. Finally, Disraeli: or the Two Lives by Douglas Hurd and Edward Young (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) is half the length of the usual political biography, and twice as entertaining.

**Stephen Booth, Sheffield*
*

I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Johnson's This Boy (Bantam Press), which vividly conveys the grinding poverty he endured growing up in London. Maggie O'Farrell's Instructions for a Heatwave (Tinder Press) is as good as any of her previous books and evokes the mood created by the heatwave of 1976.

**Vidya Borooah, Belfast*
*

Hermione Lee's Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life (Chatto & Windus) is the biography Fitzgerald's small but devoted band of admirers have been waiting for since the novelist's death. Penelope Fitzgerald gained little recognition while she lived, was often overlooked, even regarded condescendingly, in her life and in her writing. In these times of relentless self-promotion, she had, as Rochefoucauld puts it, "a great ability to conceal her ability"– both her intelligence as a person and her talent as a writer. The biography sensitively uncovers the facts of an unusual life that Fitzgerald was reticent about and reveals the voluminous research she undertook, then used economically in novels that appear simple on the surface but are complex masterpieces.

**Phelim Brady, Normandy, Surrey*
*

With the dark humour of Nemirovsky and the humanity of a Camus, Constance Miles (Mrs Miles's Diary - Simon & Schuster) records the familiar stoicism of civilians in WWII but also the panic, financial ruin and the "Blitz Shock". Dazed, bombed-out Londoners arrive on foot in her Surrey village not knowing where they are. Miles gives a new perspective on how the war changed women: "This war is …particularly hard on women, who loathe it all." Instead of the liberation of women into men's work she records the press-ganging of women into seven day factory shifts and the toll that is taking on their health."

**Jerard Bretts, Milton Keynes*
*

The book I most enjoyed reading this year was The New York Stories by John O'Hara (Penguin Classics), a selection of the many superb short stories by this neglected American master. O'Hara's command of dialogue is incredible, as is his understanding of American social class. The best poetry collection I read was Poetry of the First World War (OUP Oxford), brilliantly edited, with illuminating notes, by Tim Kendall. As well as more well-known poets such as Owen and Sassoon it includes moving works by civilian and women poets, plus music hall and trench songs.

**Peter Brown, London*
*

Peter Hughes's Allotment Architecture (Reality Street) is deft and wryly observed, it abounds in "Ha!" moments. Try "Site Guide" written "for Heine, and the Caravan Club" with a tunnel to hell plunging through each pitch. Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge's Hello, the Roses (New Directions) forms a synergy with her husband Richard Tuttle's postminimalist art. Her long lines teem with shapes and colour in an eastern/karmic approach to our place in nature and the universe. Simon Jarvis's Night Office (Enitharmon) is the first of five volumes, each containing 7,000 lines in eight-line stanzas. Although profound and sometimes difficult, reading, discussion and definition are available online.

**Cornelius Browne, Dungloe, County Donegal, Ireland*
*

Three novels grew wings this year, ascending to the upper skies. The first begins with smoke rising, though it's the earthliness of Harvest (Picador) that renders Jim Crace's swan song unearthly. At 1,000-odd pages, Richard House's The Kills (Picador) seems an unlikely bird to fly, yet the pages flap so quickly that it's gone before you realise. Finest, however, is Evie Wyld's All the Birds, Singing (Jonathan Cape), a book so beautifully written, so alive, so nail-bitingly suspenseful, that at points this reader felt as if the oxygen might be thinning.

**Sue Brooks, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire*
*

You don't have to be a fisherman to get caught by Charles Rangeley-Wilson's river in Silt Road (Chatto and Windus). I was enthralled by this ghost story, which is, ultimately, a lament so heart-wrenching I had to delay the ending. Tim Dee's Four Fields (Jonathan Cape) is a highly charged and provocative lesson in how to look at the world we have created. But the greatest joy of it lies in the language: playful, resonant and surprising on every page.

**Daniel Burbidge, London*
*

Homecoming by Susie Steiner (Faber) is a quiet compelling novel that focuses on the ordinary losses of life and takes the reader on a realistic journey into the emotional lives of the key characters. It will make you laugh and cry.

**Rosemary Burnett,Minehead, Somerset*
*

The title of Diana Souhami's book, Murder at Wrotham Hill (Quercus) is underwhelming until one discovers it is not on the crime shelves, but is classified as history. It charts the violent death, in 1946 rural Kent, of a middle-aged reclusive woman, at a time when Britain's celebratory mood is muted by privation and rationing. The author delves into patronising government propaganda, domestic minutiae and statistics, including shocking figures of illegitimate wartime births. A profile of the official hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, who not only carried out death penalties on home ground, but was also responsible for the double-figure "drops" after the Nuremberg trials, makes for an appropriate conclusion.

**Michael Callanan, Birmingham*
*

My reading year has been full of false starts and stalling so I was thankful to Patrick Ness for More Than This (Walker). It's moving, exciting, inventive and intelligent. Pitched as a novel for young adults, it not only proves positive for the future of writing but also for the future of reading. For pure sentence-by-sentence writing, both All That Is by James Salter (Picador) and The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (Penguin) constantly hit the mark with every sparing word and have a style all of their own.

**Keith Carabine, Canterbury*
*

Michael Irwin's The Skull and the Nightingale (HarperCollins) is a bold and witty appropriation of the conventions, style, and idiom of the 18th-century epistolary novel that brilliantly recreates the manners, modes of thought and conduct of the teeming world of London. The novel explores the "comical see-saw" of the flesh and the spirit through the sinister Gilbert who is a controlling rationalist, prudently afraid of "the Passions", and Fenwick who pursues his desires while struggling to avert the threats to his identity occasioned by his strange pact with his godfather.

**Pier Angelo Cavallina, Edinburgh*
*

Road to Valour by Aili and Andres McConnon (Anchor Canada) is the best read of the year. Its subject is the cycling legend Gino Bartali who risked everything to save the life of strangers in Nazi-occupied Italy, using his popularity as cover. It also shows a remarkable contrast with what cycling (and most sports) has become today in the light of doping scandals and other excesses. It is not about the bike, it is about what is just.

**Morag Charlwood, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex*
*

Magda by Meike Ziervogel (Salt Publishing), tells a tale of abusive mother-daughter relationships down three generations, culminating in Magda's murderous act in Hitler's bunker in the final days of Nazi Germany. The Puppet Boy of Warsaw by Eva Weaver (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), has two people caught up in the tide of events, whose inter-relationship over time unravels the position forced on them by historic circumstance. Tinder by Sally Gardner (Indigo), looks at the folly of war through a reworking of Hans Christian Andersen's fable of the Tinderbox.

**Dawn Churchill, Belper, Derbyshire*
*

I loved two new fiction books; The Man Who Rained by Ali Shaw (Atlantic Books), a surreal, yet real, love story set in rural America about an unusual girl who falls in love with a man who is half thunderstorm, and Various Pets Alive and Dead (Penguin) by Marina Lewycka, which concerns a 1980s leftwing commune in Yorkshire and what has happened to the characters since. My favourite non-fiction book was Strands by Jean Sprackland (Vintage), a lovely natural history book about the author's discoveries along one section of seashore and my favourite poetry book was Ovid's Heroines by Clare Pollard, a fascinating translation of Ovid's less-known work from the point of view of the women abandoned by Greek heroes.

**John Irving Clarke, Wakefield*
*

A Family Behind Glass by Matthew Hedley Stoppard (Central Books), uses inventive language and striking imagery, and is one of the most arresting poetry collections of the year. Time and time again the reader is halted and forced to ask the question, what did he just say? "Afternoons cartwheel, flashing midnight's knickers at me." Stoppard charts the perilous path that lies between childhood and the responsibilities of parenthood and some tragic narratives that lie along the way. Of Kimberley who placed her licked finger on a lightbulb socket with the result that "bingo balls halted and the whole hall gasped/ in silence." Of the unnamed toddler in the park who watched her grandfather clatter to the grass "like a tired ironing board".

**Marge Clouts, Longborough, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire*
*

Leaving Alexandria (Canongate) implies Cavafy, but the title mainly refers to Richard Holloway's Alexandria, near Glasgow, where this former bishop of Edinburgh grew up. His lucid memoir moves from his youthful Christian dedication to a fearlessly honest reappraisal. Bad Machine (Bloodaxe) is George Szirtes' latest poetry collection, containing several canzones, that intimate lyrical form with only five end-of-the-line words throughout, of which the title poem is one of the most striking. Paekakariki Press has found a deeply sensitive poet, Ann Allen, whose first collection, Michelangelo Can Paint an Angel brings original reflections on significant lines of poetry, as well as finely tuned personal observations.

**Felicity Cobley, Swansea*
*

Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon (Simon and Schuster) is an astonishing, moving, sometimes harrowing account of many different kinds of families and many different kinds of love. Donna Tartt may only write a book once every 10 years or so but The Goldfinch (Little, Brown) has been well worth waiting for.

**Julian Conway, Cambridge*
*

I enjoyed The Explorer by James Smythe (HarperCollins), a science-fiction nightmare that is short on physics, but strong on tension and metaphysics. The Dune's Twisted Edge, Journeys in the Levant (The University of Chicago Press) is by Gabriel Levin, better known as a poet. In these journeys to obscure corners of the Middle East in search of poetics ancient and modern, he cites sources in Hebrew, Arabic, Greek and French that make you realise you are not as well read as you thought. For poetry I choose The Mining Road by Leanne O'Sullivan (Bloodaxe Books). This third collection by the Irish poet is full of luminous imagery and sometimes a gentle, almost wistful, touch, as in "Brigie": "When you smile in your sleep / I think of the seal's tail / whispering above the waves, / slipping back again into the deep." A joy.

**Michael Copp, Sudbury, Suffolk *
*

The Ancient Amber Routes: Travels from Riga to Byzantium* *by Mara Kalnins (Petergailis) charts the quest of an intrepid traveller, a dedicated and scholarly researcher into numerous fields, as she traces the origins and development of the trade in the much sought after treasure of amber. It is also travel writing of a high order. She not only succeeds in making us see and share her experiences of the places she visits, but also achieves the more elusive goal of conveying the spirit of these places. Underpinning the book is a subtext: a love-letter to Latvia, its people, culture and traditions.

**Jane Crozier, Queen Camel, Somerset*
*

Jacquetta Hawkes's A Land (HarperCollins) tells the story of Britain from four billion years ago to present times. The narrative spirals outwards and backwards to evoke, first, a world without seasons or colour, then the emergence of plant and animal life, then the time of human habitation, ending with a series of "prospects" of Britain which I think are among the best 20th-century nature writing.

**Chris Culpin, Castle Cary, Somerset*
*

As a history teacher, I have taught the Holocaust many times, but it is literature that deepens and convinces in a way that textbooks don't. Chasing the King of Hearts, by Hanna Krall, translated from the Polish by Philip Boehm (Peirene), is a quest story. Izolda and her new husband Shayek are Jews in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. When he is suddenly arrested by the Gestapo and disappears, Izolda sets out to find him. She dyes her hair, tries to lose her "Jewish" mannerisms and changes her name. Although she is often brought near to the edge of survival and is deported to Auschwitz, occasional acts of kindness and her own quick wits support her on her journey. The power of the writing, in short, present tense bursts gives a surprising lightness to this compelling narrative.

**Adam Czerniawski, Monmouth*
*

Friedrich Reck's Diary of a Man in Despair (New York Review Books), begins in 1937 when this German novelist and scholar foresees the catastrophe to be inflicted by Hitler, that nonentity who "wears his cap like a Berlin tram-driver". Reck concentrates his fury on German industrialists for supporting Hitler and, tantalisingly, gives special attention to IG Farben, that complex that drew its workforce from the neighbouring Auschwitz,. Many pages are devoted to grim and humorous accounts of the deteriorating physical and moral situation, brought about by the vulgar Prussians invading Reck's beloved Bavaria. Reck captures antisemitism in a story of a Jewish woman forced out of her apartment by an SS officer; savagery in the east is recorded mercilessly and ecstatically by a Wehrmacht observer of air-raids in Poland. Uncompromising to the end, Reck died in Dachau for refusing to join the Volkssturm militia.

**Catherine Davies, Belfast*
*

Glenn Patterson's Mill for Grinding Old People Young (Faber) comes as an antidote to 2012 when Belfast was Titanicked out. It is a powerful novel about a city in the mid-19th century caught up in the excitement of prosperity. The story might have been set in Glasgow or Liverpool, other Victorian centres of industrialisation, but Patterson captures the deadpan rhythms and acerbity of Belfast dialogue. The novel explores the dilemmas facing locals consorting with migrants. In essence, it considers what made those great Victorian cities great.

**Alison Doig, Burwash Weald, East Sussex *
*

Far from the Tree (Chatto & Windus), Andrew Solomon's exceptional study of what it is like to have a child who is "different", illuminates the essence of parenthood, and is profound and moving. I also loved Kate Atkinson's Life After Life (Doubleday), an exploration of the sheer randomness of how we are who we are. Finally, Jo Walton's Among Others (Corsair) is for anyone who has ever wanted to "climb into a book and pull it up over your head". A wonderful tribute to the value of reading – and libraries.

**Paul Eastwood, Stamford, Lincolnshire*
*

I rarely feel comfortable reading a book after seeing the film, but on three occasions this year my fears were confounded; perhaps because the books' first person narratives get inside the characters in a way film never can. Broken by Daniel Clay (Fourth Estate), has a most indignant narrator, an 11-year-old girl called Skunk, trying to come to terms with violence and cruelty in her suburban neighbourhood. The Secret in Their Eyes by Eduardo Sacheri (Other Press), with a fine translation by John Cullen, takes us to Argentina at the time of state terror. The voice is of a retired deputy clerk in the judiciary. Paperboy by Pete Dexter (Delta) is set in 1960s Moat County, Florida, a time and place when civil rights were hard to find. A college drop-out, Jack James, is our narrator in this harrowing story of a search for justice.

**Gareth Evans, London*
*

The emergence of new small presses committed to the book as artefact has generated an excitement this year. The activities of Corbel Stone Press and Test Centre across all forms (journal, book, chapbook, pamphlet, vinyl, cd, cassette … ) have provided a particular pleasure; the former passionate about the arts and ethics of place, the latter re-energising the countercultural nexus around Iain Sinclair, Chris Petit and Stewart Home (it has put out many of the 18 publications Sinclair has released this year). A delight also to find Ken Worpole and Jason Orton's important text and image essay The New English Landscape (Field Station); Vagabond Witness (Zero Books), Paul Gordon's beautifully written advocacy of the great Victor Serge; and the wondrous book-length concertina poem/portrait collaboration Correspondences by Anne Michaels and painter Bernice Eisenstein (Bloomsbury).

**David Finch**

Lukas Erne's Shakespeare and the Book Trade (Cambridge University Press) is a welcome follow-up to his admirable Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist (2003). Meticulously researched it offers perceptive insights into the reception of printed Shakespeare, his publishers and the early owners of Shakespeare's quarto playbooks.

**Caroline Ford, Worcester*
*

By chance I read back-to-back two of the saddest stories imaginable: both about losing children and forbidden love. At times they were so moving that it physically hurt to read and I cried. Julie Myerson's Then (Vintage) tells post-apocalyptic breakdown where nothing is safe and no one to be trusted. I think I have always underrated Myerson – this novel seems to me a great achievement. She takes the ordinary and translates it into something stark and dangerous. Cormac McCarthy's Outer Dark (Picador) explores a landscape of such darkness it takes your breath away. Acts of random violence and kindness co-exist in both novels as the characters criss-cross each other's lives and the bleak landscapes.

**Chris Ford, Manchester*
*

The Letters of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr edited by Andrew Schlesinger and Stephen Schlesinger (Random House) are a great complement to his Journals: 1952-2000 (Penguin Press). They also offer an insight into how traumatising the Kennedy assassinations were at the time – something we can almost obscure with hindsight, revisionism, and conspiracy theories. For further eloquent and moving testimony read the entry for 25 November 1963 in The Leonard Bernstein Letters edited by Nigel Simeone (Yale University Press), the contents of which give another overview of a liberal American century. For another revealing epistolary American journey from the Great Plains and beyond The Selected Letters of Willa Cather edited by Andrew Jewell and Janis Stout (Knopf) will take you there.

**David Fothergill, Pocklington, East Riding of Yorkshire*
*

It's been a privilege to have read consecutively two exceptionally well crafted novels – Jim Crace's Harvest (Picador) and Colum McCann's Transatlantic (Bloomsbury). Crace's unidentified medieval village in Harvest is the setting for a timeless story of fear, cruelty and compassion. In Transatlantic McCann cunningly conceals from readers the true intent behind various factually based incidents linking North America and Ireland over three centuries.

**Andy Freeman, Grimsby*
*

Helen Mort's first poetry collection, Division Street (Chatto & Windus) was youthful, surprising, sustaining and quietly haunted me. The restlessness of youth, the landscape of the north, parents, class, the 1984 miners' strike (over long before she was born), and peripheral glimpses of the animal world are some of the poetic concerns of a collection that never becomes parochial or narrowly autobiographical.

**Barbara Fry, Street, Somerset*
*

May We Be Forgiven by AM Homes (Granta), is a sharply observant, if slightly fantastical, satire on modern family life that made me laugh out loud. Canada by Richard Ford (Bloomsbury) makes us reflect on how we react to life-changing events and whether we can influence the outcomes. Irma Voth by Miriam Toews (Faber) depicts life in a Mexican Mennonite community and tells of 19-year-old Irma who sews words such as "lust" and "agony" into her dress. Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser (Allen and Unwin) deals with travel as tourism against travel to escape persecution but ultimately asks the question about what belonging means, increasingly relevant in a world where large numbers of people are being displaced. Reported by guardian.co.uk 8 hours ago.

The Chiefs are paying Chase Daniel more than $4 million in salary and bonuses this season, yet the backup quarterback has not taking a meaningful snap in a game. Reported by Miami Herald 8 hours ago.

This is Tamworth --

TAMWORTH father and son Peter and Daniel Seedhouse and Daniel's partner Laura Bailey all have their own reasons to be proud after completing the gruelling 26-mile Berlin marathon in aid of St Giles Hospice.

For Daniel and Laura, this was their first marathon, while Peter completed the race around the German capital as part of his 60th birthday celebrations.

The trio have also raised more than £3,000 for St Giles.

Non-runners Daniel and Laura both trained hard ahead of their first race and were delighted that their dedication paid off on the day.

Daniel (33), from Bolehall, said: "The atmosphere at the marathon was amazing – there were crowds cheering and music playing everywhere.

"It was worth running the first 25 miles just to experience the atmosphere in the last mile."

The marathon was the third and final leg of a series of challenges set for Amington man Peter by his family to mark his milestone birthday earlier this year.

The first saw him cycle 184 miles around Sweden in under 11 hours and the second challenge was a tandem skydive. And Peter says he was determined not to let his age hold him back in Berlin.

He said: "The three of us ran together and crossed the line together – the whole thing was very much a team effort."

He added: "As a family, we've been fortunate not to need the support of St Giles, but we know the team there is amazing and the work they do is so valuable that we had to do something to show our support."

Peter is a long-standing supporter of St Giles, having organised the Tamworth Gate Gallop fund-raising event in aid of the hospice for several years.

To support St Giles by signing up to one of their forthcoming fund-raisers – details of which are online at www.stgileshospice.com/join anevent – call the fund-raising team on 01543 432538 or email fundraising@st-giles-hospice. org.uk Reported by This is 5 hours ago.

This is Leicestershire -- A fugitive who went on the run three months ago was arrested this morning, days after police offered a £1,000 reward for his capture. Daniel Perry was arrested in Loughborough shortly after 9am. Earlier this week, the force revealed it was offering a £1,000 reward for information which led them to Mr Perry. The appeal - including a photograph of Mr Perry - featured on the front page of Tuesday's Leicester Mercury. Officers are today questioning him in connection with an incident on Monday, September 9, when a stolen car was rammed into a police vehicle, injuring the officer inside. Officers had been tailing the car from Whitwick and attempted to stop it when it reached Shepshed. A female passenger in the car was arrested, while the driver, believed to be Perry, fled the scene. Police found stolen goods in the car. Mr Perry has previous convictions for car crime and burglary. Officers said this week they believed he was still in the Loughborough or Shepshed areas. A number of homes he has been linked to have been visited since he went missing. Officers also produced a 'wanted' poster which has appeared throughout the two towns. Reported by This is 6 hours ago.

I didn’t get around to listening to nearly as much crud as I normally do, because all I do these days is work. I do two shows a day and write books at night. I have no leisure time. Nothing. I eat takeout and sleep in gym clothes. My vacation time is spent with relatives, convincing them I’m still alive. Yes, this is a cry for help. 

*SONGS*

*“Neon Junkyard”: Deerhunter, Monomania*

I’ve said it before: Bradford Cox is the songwriter of this generation. I may not have said it to you, but I’ve said it to someone (probably my masseuse, Harold -- although he doesn’t understand English). Cox is my only musical hero I can’t have on Redeye because I wouldn’t know how to act around him. And I have one rule: if you can’t be yourself around someone, don’t be around them (it’s why I dumped Kate Upton).

Cox is brilliant, and not in a British sort of way, where everything is brilliant. He’s John Lennon, the Pixies, the Ramones, Kurt Cobain, Buddy Holly, the Clash, Elvis Costello, and Elvis Presley and the Cramps all rolled into a gaunt beautiful creature.

You know, when I hang out with people in nature, they’ll say, “Hey, is this beautiful canyon proof of God or what?” Not for me. Nature doesn’t do it. Waterfalls, volcanoes, canyons -- they don’t make me think, “Wow, only a God could do this.” I just see nature. However, when I hear a song, I think, GOD. Music is the only chink in my nonreligious armor. I just don’t get how something created by someone else can mess with my system. That happens with this song in particular. Neon Junkyard kicks off Cox’s latest record, and at 40 seconds in, Cox finds that special gear no one else can locate. He finds this gear maybe ten times a year.

*“Palace Posy”: Boards of Canada, Tomorrow’s Harvest*

An anagram for apocalypse, it’s the most mind-blowing song from BOC’s stellar record Tomorrow’s Harvest. This song leaps out from somewhere dark in the recent past -- perhaps a soundtrack to a John Carpenter film never made, taking place on a shiny planet where you’re fleeing slow, methodical robots with a hunger for human flesh. I listen to "Palace Posy," and at 2:32, everything changes. When the distorted vocals kick in at 2:59, I am disturbed by the experience. This song captures the essential BOC experience -- misleadingly benign but ultimately threatening. Why is Daft Punk adored, and not these mystical creatures? 

*“What’s in My Head”: Fuzz &“Sleigh Ride”: Fuzz, Fuzz*

This one-two punch is off the supergroup Fuzz’s debut record, called, appropriately, Fuzz. It’s all just deceptively simple garage rock with vicious riffs and mind-melting melodies. I love Ty Segall (I believe he’s playing drums and singing here); he produces more music in a month than most bands do in a career. But this might be his best work. Fuzz should be everywhere, but it isn’t. I blame Obama.

I could talk forever about "Sleigh Ride" -- it’s the best metal groove since Melvin’s “Honey Bucket” -- meandering riffage at the start, then settles into a relentless pile drive of chords underneath the most sinister vocals since Linda Blair’s head rotated in the mid-70’s. And “What’s in My Head” is the anthem of the year; It makes you violently nod your head, even without medication. It’s my favorite song of the year. 

*“Air Bud”: Kurt Vile, Wakin On A Pretty Daze*

This is such an awesome, pretty song. Vile sings like he’s stoned, but I don’t think a stoned singer could come up with such perfect melodies and clever phrases. He has the timing of a comedian and the observational talent of a seasoned writer. I imagine he gets laid a lot. This is my fourth-favorite song of the year. The whole album is pretty great. He’s pretty great. We’re all pretty great. That’s how I feel when I listen to this song. The world is pretty great. 

*“When A Fire Starts To Burn”: Disclosure, Settle*

You know a song is great when it’s pretty much one sentence repeated over and over and it’s still monumentally awesome. This song says precious little beyond its title, but that’s all you need, over and over. I have no idea what it’s about, but why bother. Some things do not bear scrutiny to be great, and this song reflects such. I hope it’s not about arson. I do not condone arson. In any shape or form. Just want to make that clear, for the children reading this.

*“Jump and Shout” and “Sugar on Top”: The Dirtbombs, Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey!*

This Detroit band delights in putting on different musical costumes, and this one seems to be that of the Archies. The record's called "Ooey gooey Chewy Ka-blooey," so you know it ain't doom metal polka. My prediction: these songs will end up on soundtracks within the next five years (probably Pixar productions), and the Dirtbombs will never have to work again. Which would be a shame. I can’t wait to hear what they’ll do next. Doom metal polka? I’d like doom metal polka.

*“My First White Girl”: The White Mandingos, The Ghetto Is Tryna Kill Me*

The best song about race relations I’ve heard this year, because it’s flat out funny and sweet. I play this song to diffuse troubling situations at my place. The guitar on this song proves shoe-gaze mixes nicely with hip hop.

*“I Don’t Understand”: The White Mandingos, *The Ghetto Is Tryna Kill Me**

The second-best song off their debut, it’s a vicious Stooges style punk mess that cements this band as the Bad Brains with a sense of humor. Or maybe, the Jim Carroll Band with an MC. The entire record itself is like a rock opera in the spirit, I guess, of The Who’s Tommy. I never liked Tommy. I like this.

*“Earth Rocker”: Clutch, Earth Rocker*

Biker rock seems easy, but it isn’t. First of all, you need a monstrous riff, and you need an attitude. And talent. This has all three. I would not mess with these chaps in a bar. Unless it was that kind of bar.

*“Veaquis”: Nitemoves, Themes*

From the record Themes, a more amenable Boards of Canada. I bonded with this song at midnight while being bitten by a disease-ridden sandfly in the Caribbean. The song, along with the rum, made the 21 days of antibiotics worth it.

I love the artwork to their album. It makes me want to smoke.

*“City Dump”: The Melvins, Tres Cabrones*

Yet another classic monster riff, from a vat of riffs that only King Buzzo knows the whereabouts. A pretty great album overall, with a delightful version of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall." Go and listen to "City Dump" now, preferably at the city dump. 

*“The Red Wing”: F**k Buttons, Slow Focus*

Calm and brutal at the same time, like throwing Death in Vegas and ZZ Top in a blender. At one moment, it seems entirely appropriate for a spa on a cruise ship, then it goes heavier than most death metal. Gives you a likeable headache.

*“Don’t Play with Guns": The Black Angels, Indigo Meadow*

A wonderful ditty about not playing with guns -- a perfectly written pop song with an addictive chorus that in an ideal world would be blaring from radios in station wagons on the way to the beach. Instead, we have Miley Cyrus's arid, granular tongue.

*“Female Trouble” The Melvins, Everbody Loves Sausages*

The album is a collection of odd covers by the band of note. A brooding blues cover of the song from the John Waters’ film of the same name, Female Trouble, lurches forward into your life like a wasted Toronto mayor, looking around your living room for something, anything, to snort.

*“Carpe Diem” The Melvins, Everybody Loves Sausages*

Another cover from Everybody Loves Sausages, this a reinvention of the classic song by the Fugs. It’s an amazingly dark but beautifully poppy take on death. As someone who thinks about death a lot, this is the song that tells me, “Thinking about it ain’t stopping it,” but says it with rhythm. You can’t outrun death, you can’t outtalk death. So why bother. It sounds way better than I’m explaining it, trust me.

*“Sweets Helicopter": Thee Oh Sees, Floating Coffin*

Another psychedelic gem from an excellent record. San Francisco is producing more awesome psychedelic music now than in the 1960s. Has no one noticed this? 

*"Done and Dusted II": Clinic, Free Reign II*

A creepy perfect Clinic song, given new life from Daniel Lopatin. It’s got to be hard to be Clinic, when you perfect your sound the moment you record your first record. Then...what do you do? Well, you repeat that album over and over, in subsequent records. Enter Lopatin, who grabs Free Reign and captures whatever makes Clinic so unique, and turns it up to a psychedelic version of eleven. This is my favorite song, off one of my favorite albums of the year. Decades from now, when they look at Lopatin’s career (i.e. how they look at Eno’s now), this will be his turning point, as a producer.

*ALBUMS*

*Fuzz -* *Fuzz: *Song for song, the best record of the year. Perfect from start to finish, every song has a vicious hook and an irresistible chorus. 

*Deerhunter - Monomania:* A garage rock melodic triumph. Caustic and comforting, simultaneously.

*Boards of Canada - Tomorrow’s Harvest:* Like every BOC record, I could not tell you the names of the songs if you put a gun to my head, but I know every note by heart. I own everything they’ve put out, and this record is mesmerizing.

*Clinic - Free Reign II:* I’ve never heard of this before -- a band releases a decent record (Free Reign), and then a few months later re-releases the thing with original mixes (previously shelved) by musical genius Daniel Lopatin from Oneohtrix Point Never. It’s like a do-over, but a do-before. And what the dedicated Clinic fan ends up with is a fantastic, groovy, psychedelic record that captures the essence of Clinic that the band could not capture on its own.

*The Field - Cupid’s Head:* Another great record from a seamless trance groove electronica outfit. I get the feeling that records by the Field are pretty much interchangeable; not because they’re repetitive, but because they are uniformly great. This is what you listen to at the gym and months later wonder why you have the body of Adonis. You never left the gym.

That’s all for this year. See ya.

**

 
 
 
  Reported by Breitbart 37 minutes ago.

Daniel Sturridge has given Liverpool an injury boost after revealing that he is edging closer to full fitness ahead of a busy festive period. The 23-year-old striker hasn’t featured for the Premier League leaders since scoring a late equaliser to secure a 3-3 draw with Everton at Goodison Park on 23 November. Sturridge, who joined […] Reported by The Sport Review 4 days ago.

The Woman in Black, which starred Daniel Radcliffe, may have multiple sequels. Reported by Firstpost 1 day ago.

Patch Hudson, WI --

Daniel E. Hoffman, age 54, of Hudson, WI. Beloved husband a father. A man with a huge heart. Died on December 20, 2013 of supernatural causes. Employee of Andersen Windows for over 36 years. Proud Masonic and Shriner member of River Falls Lodge 1 Reported by Patch 23 hours ago.

(MENAFN - Arab News) Eighty illegal Nigerians out of 508 at a detention facility here have been sent home by their government. Daniel Obot, assistant director, relief and rehabilit... Reported by MENAFN.com 10 hours ago.

This is Lincolnshire --

Michael Lee Knowles, 27, of 25 Browning Drive, Lincoln, pleaded guilty at Lincoln Magistrates' Court to driving with 81 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. He was fined £110, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £20 and costs of £85. He was disqualified from holding or obtaining a licence for 20 months.

Steven James McLean, 37, of 15 Waltham Road, Lincoln, pleaded guilty at Lincoln Magistrates' Court to theft of meat and beer to the value of £16.61 belonging to Tesco. He was given a conditional discharge for six months, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £15 and costs of £25.

Suzanne Dawn Halstead, 50, of 5 Gainsborough Road, Middle Rasen, Market Rasen, pleaded guilty at Lincoln Magistrates' Court to driving with 110 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. She was fined £290, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £29 and costs of £85. She was disqualified from holding or obtaining a licence for 26 months.

Ian Cole, 52, of Ground Floor Flat, 26 St Catherine's, Lincoln, pleaded guilty at Lincoln Magistrates' Court to failing to notify the City of Lincoln Council of a change of circumstances. He was fined £70, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £20 and costs of £40.

Emma Jane Goulding, 32, of 21 Waterworks Street, Gainsborough, pleaded guilty at Lincoln Magistrates' Court to theft of an electric razor and perfume to the value of £194.49 belonging to Boots. She was committed to prison for three months and five days.

Junaid Imran, 23, of 46 Westgate, Scotton, Gainsborough, pleaded guilty to assault, damaging a door frame to a value unknown and commissioning a further offence during the operational period of a suspended sentence. He was committed to prison for 17 weeks.

Ross Ian Simpson, 25, of Lincoln Imp Pub, Blankney Crescent, Lincoln, pleaded guilty at Lincoln Magistrates' Court to assault by beating. He was fined £135, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £20 and costs of £100.

Joseph Rooney, 41, of Gypsy Site No 13, Washingborough Road, Lincoln, pleaded guilty at Lincoln Magistrates' Court to failing to surrender to custody. He was fined £110 and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £20. He was detained in the courthouse.

Daniel Alan Elding, 28, of Flat 1, The Pathways Centre, Beaumont Fee, Lincoln, pleaded guilty at Lincoln Magistrates' Court to theft of two bottles of Jack Daniels whiskey to the value of £34 belonging to Tesco and theft of aftershave to the value of £55.50 belonging to Boots. He was committed to prison for 28 days suspended for 12 months and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £80.

Memet Ali, 36, of 16 Grace Street, Lincoln, case proven in absence at Lincoln Magistrates' Court for keeping an unlicensed motor vehicle on a public road. They were fined £200, ordered to pay vehicle excise back duty of £35 and costs of £90.

Martin Baker, 43, of 36 South Park, Lincoln, case proven in absence for keeping an unlicensed motor vehicle on a public road. He was fined £600, ordered to pay vehicle excise back duty of £127.09 and costs of £90.

Jolyon A. Barfield, of 1 Canberra Crescent, Brookenby, Market Rasen, case proven in absence at Lincoln Magistrates' Court for purchasing a licence for a motor vehicle with a cheque which was subsequently dishonoured and failing to return the licence when required to do so. He was fined £200, ordered to pay vehicle excise back duty of £87.50 and costs of £90.

Michael Paul Barker, 39, of 28 Ruskin Avenue, Lincoln, case proven in absence for being the owner of a motor vehicle which did not meet the insurance requirements. He was fined £200, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £20 and costs of £110.

Stephen Bavin, 45, of 16 Almond Avenue, Heighington, Lincoln, pleaded guilty at Lincoln Magistrates' Court to failing to deliver the part of the registration document notifying the transfer of a vehicle to a person who was not a vehicle trader. He was fined £25 and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £20.

Kenneth Beaumont, of 28 Lansdowne Avenue, Lincoln, case proven in absence at Lincoln Magistrates' Court for keeping an unlicensed motor vehicle on a public road. He was fined £600, ordered to pay vehicle excise back duty of £148.34 and costs of £90.

Ian Billard, of 53 Montaigne Crescent, Lincoln, case proven in absence at Lincoln Magistrates' Court for purchasing a licence for a motor vehicle with a cheque which was subsequently dishonoured and failing to return the licence when required to do so. He was fined £200, ordered to pay vehicle excise back duty of £140 and costs of £90.

Charlotte Brand, 22, of 5 Hortonfield Drive, Washingborough, case proven in absence at Lincoln Magistrates' Court for using an unlicensed motor vehicle on a public road. She was fined £400, ordered to pay vehicle excise back duty of £51.25 and costs of £90. Reported by This is 9 hours ago.

This is Hull and East Riding --

THERE are some tasty games on TV this weekend as the Premier League looks to end 2013 on a high. Everyone will be hoping Arsenal's trip to Newcastle can live up to the 4-4 draw the sides enjoyed at St James' Park a couple of years ago.

Newcastle were blown away at the start and were 4-0 down by the 26th minute and that remained the score until the 68th minute when Joey Barton's penalty started a very unlikely comeback.

Unfortunately, for a large number of Geordies, they missed one of the biggest comebacks in the history of the Premier League as they had already left.

To be honest, I think we'll be very lucky if history repeats itself, but you never know. You can get odds of 275/1 for the 4-4 draw, which may be worth a quid!

Newcastle got a great win against Stoke on Boxing Day after going a goal behind, but Stoke's indiscipline didn't help their cause with two men sent off.

But the Geordies didn't care about that and they will be out in force for their home game against Arsene Wenger's side, which promises to be an electric game and atmosphere.

I'm sure Alan Pardew will use that 4-4 draw as motivation for his players, especially if they fall behind, but I think it's going to be tough for Arsenal to get the win in what should be a cracking game.

Liverpool's trip to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea should also be a Christmas cracker.

The Reds suffered a 2-1 defeat at Manchester City on Boxing Day so their confidence will be dented slightly, and they could still be without skipper Steven Gerrard and Daniel Sturridge.

As for Chelsea, they haven't been playing well but they are still there or thereabouts. Once they start scoring again, they'll be a force. Didier Drogba keeps getting linked with a return and he could do a job compared to what Samuel Eto'o and Demba Ba have done there.

Although Liverpool have been good this season, Chelsea are always tough at home so I'm going for a 2-0 win to the Blues. Reported by This is 9 hours ago.

SAN FRANCISCO (ABC 4 Sports) - Bishop Sankey ran for 95 yards and two scores to tie Washington's career touchdown record and the Huskies went on to beat BYU 31-16 in the Fight Hunger Bowl on Friday night.

Keith Price added a 16-yard TD pass to Austin Seferian-Jenkins, and John Ross returned a kick 100 yards for another score to help the Huskies (9-4) win their most games since going 11-1 and winning the Rose Bowl in 2000.

Taysom Hill threw for 293 yards and ran for 133 yards and a score for the Cougars (8-5), who had their four-game bowl winning streak snapped. Justin Sorensen kicked three field goals but also missed one in the third quarter after an interception by Robertson Daniel gave BYU prime field position.

The game capped a whirlwind month for the Huskies that began with coach Steve Sarkisian leaving for the same job at Southern California. Chris Petersen was hired away from Boise State to take over at Washington and quarterbacks coach Marques Tuiasosopo coached the bowl game on an interim basis. The Huskies won just their second bowl game since Tuiasosopo led them to that Rose Bowl win over Purdue 13 years ago.

The defense led the way this game, holding the Cougars to four field goal attempts and one touchdown on five drives inside the Huskies 30.

The Huskies were much more efficient on their scoring drives with Sankey scoring on a pair of 11-yard runs in the first half to give him 38 career touchdowns, tying the school record held by George Wilson (1923-25).

Price then led a touchdown drive to open the third quarter, capping it with a well-placed throw to Seferian-Jenkins on third-and-8 to make it 28-16. Price went 17 for 23 for 123 yards before leaving with an apparent rib injury in the second half.

Sankey also did not play the fourth quarter because of an injury but it did not matter. Backup quarterback Cyler Miles had a 32-yard run to set up Travis Coons' 45-yard field goal that made it 31-16 midway through the fourth.

A strong defensive effort led by Hau'oli Kikaha (three sacks) and John Timu (14 tackles, one sack and an interception) kept BYU off the scoreboard for the entire second half.

Tuiasosopo was aggressive in his first game as head coach, going for it twice in the first quarter on fourth-and-short. Sankey converted the first but was stopped for a 9-yard loss by Kyle Van Noy on the second try.

That was one of the few times the Cougars stopped Sankey, who scored on Washington's first and last possessions of the first half to give the Huskies a 21-16 lead at the break.

Ross also answered Hill's 1-yard run that tied the game early in the second quarter with his long kickoff return that gave the Huskies the lead for good.

BYU used its own fourth-down conversion to get a touchdown with Daniel Sorensen running 4 yards on fourth-and-2 from punt formation, leading to Hill's 1-yard run.

The Cougars then settled for three field goals by Justin Sorensen in the second quarter.

The game made history by being the first ever in the FBS with two female officials. Sarah Thomas was the line judge and Maia Chaka was the head linesman based on their work in Conference USA this season. Reported by abc4 10 hours ago.

This is Somerset --

I've watched more than 1,800 movies in the last three years, after pledging to try see every release at UK cinemas and review them on my blog.

Here is my exclusive run-down of the top 20 films of 2013... see if you agreE.

A Quentin Tarantino masterpiece with so many different movie genres wrapped into one astonishing package. It is a western, a comedy, a thriller and a film about the evils of racism. Hugely funny but very violent, it boasts scintillating performances from Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx and Samuel L Jackson.

As the Bourne films have proved, Paul Greengrass is a director of the very highest quality. His eye for the finest detail and his ability to build tension prove he has few peers. Here he is at his best, aided by the wonderful Tom Hanks, a crackling soundtrack by Henry Jackman and a tearjerking finale.

Danny Boyle's Trance is movie-making for adults. It is brilliantly acted by a superb cast, boasts nerve-tingling action scenes, doffs its hat towards the erotic and has a plotline which is intelligent enough to require concentration but is not so complex that it ties itself in knots.

I defy any parent not to well up during The Impossible. This is not only a disaster movie of the very highest order but it has a greater emotional pull than almost all of the 1,800 movies I have seen over the last two years and a bit.

James McAvoy is gob-smackingly brilliant as corrupt cop Bruce Robertson in Filth. Jon S Baird's adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel is shocking and will be unpalatable to many but, in my view, it is British film-making of the very highest order.

Steve Coogan, the bête noir of journalists in real life, excels as an investigative reporter who searches for a son, stolen from a young woman by heartless nuns. Meanwhile, Judi Dench's Oscar-worthy performance is full of Irish humility and wry humour.

The battle between James Hunt and Niki Lauda for the world motor racing championship of 1976 was sensational and makes for a riveting storyline. Their clash is even more thrilling in the hands of Ron Howard.

Call me soppy and sentimental but I loved the story of how Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) cajoled author Pamela Travers (Emma Thompson) into handing over the rights of Mary Poppins. Thompson is superb as the crotchety writer.

It's 2013's Searching For Sugarman! John Otway's biopic is as hilarious as it is surprising. I can't recommend it highly enough. Suffice to say that despite admitting he is rock and roll's greatest failure, he can boast some stunning achievements and an incredible fan base.

Song For Marion is a throwback to a time of family movies which relied on two simple factors – fine writing and wonderful acting. Nowadays, many critics may accuse such films of being twee. I thought it was an utter delight and Vanessa Redgrave's performance, as a terminally ill cancer patient, memorable.

The breath-taking crowd scenes, the startling harmonies among the revolutionaries and what about Anne Hathaway's I Dreamed A Dream, probably the most emotional song ever performed on the big screen? Tom Hooper's Les Miserables was epic, with the exception of the hopelessly miscast Russell Crowe.

Lincoln was terrific, thanks to some top-notch acting, particularly by the marvellous Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field, who played the president's wife. It might be a touch long but, hey, abolishing slavery wasn't an easy gig, was it – particularly as it coincided with a bloody civil war?

Gravity is one of the most spectacular and beautiful movies in years. I would love to have seen how its makers shot the floating-in-space scenes. But it is not going to challenge the top three movies of the year because its ending is predictable and its character exploration is shallow.

I watched open-mouthed as the only person ever to escape from a North Korean death camp and survive told his story. What makes Shin Dong-Huyk's life even more incredible is that he was born in Camp 14 and knew nothing about the outside world until he was 22.

Julian Assange believes this is a hatchet job but it is far from it. One of the world's best documentary-makers, Alex Gibney, allows the viewer to have their own opinion of Assange, the American government, Wikleaks and whether our society is too secret and our leaders too evasive.

Rufus Norris... remember the name. The first-time director has created a powerful, gripping and moving British drama which boasts an astonishing debut by its 13-year-old star, Eloise Laurence.

There aren't many actors in the world of cinema today who can hold a candle to Denzel Washington. Robert Zemeckis's movie shows off to full effect the talent which has won two Oscars and been nominated for four (this was the latest). He is outstanding as the pilot who, with great skill, lands a passenger jet in a field when it appears doomed.

Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary about the killer gangsters of Indonesia is mind-blowing. It would have been fascinating enough if those who had backed the 1965 military coup merely recounted stories of the mass extermination of communists but he somehow persuaded them that it would better explain the events if they played them out as if in the movies.

If the raison d'etre of a comedy is to make the audience chuckle, We're The Millers has to be in the top 20 movies of the year. I stopped counting after a dozen belly laughs. It also represents the best film by far in which Jennifer Aniston has appeared since Friends' last show in 2004.

The Patience Stone is one of the most unusual and deep films of the year. Director Atiq Rahimi's picture is set in a town which is at the frontline of a war (it would be justified to presume it is Afghanistan but that is never said).Golshifteh Farahani gives a towering performance as a young mother-of-two whose much-older husband is in a coma having being shot in the head.

Neil White's blog is at www.everyfilm.co.uk Reported by This is 8 hours ago.

Daniel-Kimmins-Wins-Black-Belt2.jpg

A 14 year-old kid paralysed from experiencing a brain tumour has left specialists shocked by making an unforeseen recuperation and getting his black belt in Taekwondo.

read more Reported by TopNews 7 hours ago.

This is Devon -- "I am happy at the way everything is, but I know that at some point I will have something done. I would not, however, go to the extreme and end up looking like the Bride of Wildenstein"– TV's Holly Willoughby, on the shape of her body. "My face is not particularly German. It is somewhere down the middle. I don't look Scandinavian, but I could be English, French or whatever"– Actor Daniel Bruhl, who regards himself as European but not belonging to any particular country. "The fictional character who most resembles me is undoubtedly James Bond, suave, lethal and ageless"– TV's Clive James. "On every trip I take a passport, a credit card and my front-door key. The first thing for the production crew to arrange is a chocolate girl with an inexhaustible bag of Fruit and Nut"– Wildlife broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. "I never wanted to be famous. Reality TV is not real. It's all fake"– Olympic swimming gold medallist Rebecca Adlington. "I do find young people in the acting profession to be awfully serious. It is all too bureaucratic"– Veteran actress Eileen Atkins. "Our big plan turned out to be 'let's meet in a wine bar and panic'"– Rowan Pelling, former co-editor of The Erotic Review, on her team's plans before appearing on University Challenge. "I can say slightly rude things about people in Dutch, confident in the knowledge – unless they are Dutch speakers – they don't know what we are saying about them"– Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on the advantages of speaking foreign languages. Reported by This is 6 hours ago.

Gohebydd Gwleidyddol BBC Cymru Daniel Davies sy'n edrych nol dros y deuddeg mis dwetha, tu fewn i furiau'r Senedd ym Mae Caerdydd. Reported by BBC News 5 hours ago.

This is Devon -- Petr Cech believes success for Chelsea in Sunday's Barclays Premier League crunch clash with Liverpool is dependent on having a miserly defence as the goalkeeper eyes another landmark. Following clean sheets against Arsenal and Swansea, the Czech goalkeeper is aiming to match Peter Bonetti's club record of 208 on his 456th appearance. Bonetti made 729 Blues appearances. It will not be easy at Stamford Bridge against a Liverpool side who have netted 43 goals in the Premier League this season, including 19 in 13 games for Luis Suarez. Cech, who recorded his 150th Premier League shutout on Monday at Arsenal, said on chelseafc.com: "It is a great milestone for a goalkeeper and I am one clean sheet away from Peter Bonetti's all-time record. "It would obviously be fantastic to get that in the Liverpool game." The Liverpool contest is Chelsea's ninth match in December in a month where Jose Mourinho's men have claimed five wins, lost twice and drawn once. The last two matches – a goalless draw at Arsenal and a 1-0 defeat of Swansea - were the first time Chelsea had kept consecutive clean sheets in the Premier League this season. Cech hopes the stubborn streak continues against a Liverpool side bidding to respond from their defeat at Mourinho's title favourites Manchester City. "Beating Swansea with the other results that day was an important three points and now we are in a good position to go face to face with Liverpool," Cech added. "You need everybody to do as much as possible to defend and not give away cheap goals because, as the fatigue accumulates in this hectic period, it becomes more difficult to find the energy to overturn games. "When you get the lead and keep a clean sheet it is more easy to win a game. "Against Swansea we had chances when we could have killed the game off but we had to fight until the last second and we did well. "Sometimes it is difficult when you have two games against main rivals and between you have a game everybody says that you should win. It is not easy to concentrate and in that respect we did very well. "I had one save to make all game and we did well at Arsenal and back-to-back cleansheets is very positive for everyone. "If we can score more goals it will become easier for us." Cech's continued good form means Mourinho's summer goalkeeping quandary could become increasingly challenging. Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois is on loan at Atletico Madrid for a third season and impressing and attracting admirers, including Barcelona. Another Belgian in a rich vein of form is Eden Hazard, who netted the winner against Swansea for his seventh Premier League goal of the season. Hazard will be hoping for another strong display against a Liverpool team expected to provide a stern test. "A big match, another big match," Hazard told Chelsea TV. "They play very well. They have the best scorer with Suarez. ''(Steven) Gerrard is injured, and (Daniel) Sturridge. Good for us. "But they're a very, very strong team and it will be difficult." Chelsea will be without midfielder Ramires, who is suspended for one game after picking up a fifth booking of the season against Swansea. Frank Lampard is likely to return to the starting line-up in place of Ramires, while Cesar Azpilicueta and Gary Cahill are in line to return in defence at the expense of Ashley Cole and David Luiz. Fernando Torres could start up front against his former club as Mourinho rotates his options. Torres has two Premier League goals all season, with Chelsea's strikers having a total of five; Samuel Eto'o has two and Demba Ba one. Former Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink believes the forward position is the Blues' Achilles heel. "If they had a Suarez or (Sergio) Aguero, they would be top of the league now and a few points clear," Hasselbaink, who scored 87 goals in 177 appearances, told BBC One's Football Focus. "They can keep clean sheets. They still need an out-and-out goalscorer. Somebody who is going to score you 25 goals." It is something Mourinho has acknowledged, but the Portuguese has insisted Chelsea will only recruit in January in exceptional circumstances and that the calibre of striker he covets is not available in the winter transfer window. Reported by This is 1 hour ago.

• Solskjaer's potential spotted early by Sir Alex Ferguson
• Norwegian has enjoyed startling success in Norway

Vincent Tan and Sir Alex Ferguson may not have much in common but it appears that both men at least rate Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as a manager. The Cardiff owner is hoping to make the 40-year-old Norwegian the next manager of his Premier League club while Ferguson always knew that the former striker would be a success in the dugout.

Last year, when asked about Solskjaer's success at Molde, the Scot said: "Ole always wanted to stay in the game, so from an early age he was preparing to stay in the game as a coach or as a manager. He was always one of the professionals who used to take down all the notes from the training sessions and games."

Perhaps even more importantly, Ferguson talked about Solskjaer's inner strength, a quality necessary to succeed in management, whether it is working for Tan or any other owner in modern football. "He has got an inner toughness, there's no doubt about that," Ferguson said. "If you go to a club in Norway that have never won the league in their history and you win the league you have to have something about you."

Solskjaer is a wanted man. He turned down Aston Villa last year and Cardiff and West Bromwich Albion are two clubs on the lookout for a new manager going into the new year while his current club, where his contract runs out in the summer, hope to hang on to him.

The Molde director Tarje Nordstrand Jacobsen said this week that they have offered Solskjaer a contract extension and that it is by no means inevitable that the young manager will move abroad.

"I am in daily contact with Ole Gunnar and it is not impossible that this all ends with something positive for the club. He has not given us a final decision yet."

The Molde players are desperate to keep Solskjaer, understandably so after two league titles and one cup win in three years. The captain, Daniel Berg Hestad, talked recently of how Solskjaer kept spirits up earlier this year during what was, at times, a difficult season for the team.

"There were a lot of mental issues [for the younger players] and Ole and the rest of the coaching staff were very keen to sort that out as soon as possible."

There is no doubt Solskjaer has learned much from Ferguson. Last month, as Ferguson visited Norway to give a speech for 500 business men and women, the former United striker said: "It will be nice to see Ferguson again although I have heard most of the things he has to say before. What can businesses learn from Ferguson? Teamwork and team spirit. Set goals that are achievable.

"And then you have the work etiquette. Alex Ferguson was always the first one in and always the last one to leave. And he was also able to develop with the times, never to stand still, never to become a dinasour that just lingered."

And in his three years at Molde, Solskjaer has already implemented some of Ferguson's ideas. Not only has he been successful, he has done so with a group of young players, just as Ferguson's United did in the early 90s.

"I have had a very, very good time at Molde and it is always great to win titles," Solskjaer said recently. "That gives me the belief that my view on football, to develop players and to build a club, works. We are working to have better players and that way the team will develop as well.

"We are proud of what we have done so far. I can choose from a team of 11 Norwegians under the age of 22 who did a good job in the league. That is a very good sign for the club. We like to give young players a chance at the same time as we have got some very experienced players to lean back on."

As a coaching philosophy, Solskjaer's is difficult to argue with. The only question remaining is which club will be able to benefit from it in 2014. Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 hour ago.

This is Devon -- Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers has no complaints as his side head to Chelsea for the second part of a double-header he claims could not be harder. The Reds, who topped the Barclays Premier League at Christmas, travel to Stamford Bridge to face another title challenger just three days after a battling loss at Manchester City. Liverpool impressed at the Etihad Stadium but were edged out 2-1 in a thrilling game of chances and controversy and the challenge is now to maintain that intensity against Jose Mourinho's men. Rodgers said: "For us it couldn't be any tougher. We're playing against the two teams who arguably have the two best squads in the league. "They can change all 11 players and still have a team that challenges at the top of the table. "We'll go into the game and do our best, that's what we have done. "Of course this period is always difficult, no matter what way you look at it. "It's not ideal but it's what happens and it's what makes it exciting to be in the country at this time. We embrace it and we'll look to get a result." Rodgers knows Mourinho well having worked under him as a youth-team coach during the Portuguese's first spell with the London club. Mourinho returned in the summer amid high expectation but his team have been criticised of late for playing without spark and lacking a cutting edge. Yet they remain firmly in title contention and Rodgers feels that could be an ominous sign for rivals. He said: "They have a lot of quality. Over the last 10 years they have been one of the most successful clubs in the country and in Europe. "How they have been building up that squad and changing it has been remarkable. "They have got a host of talented players and a world-class manager. We understand how difficult it will be. "They are getting the results and that is all that will concern Jose and the supporters. "Every team will always look to improve their performance level. "Certainly with him coming into a new group of players, it will take him time to understand the method of how they work. "But they are up there in that top four, where they would expect to be." Liverpool are short on numbers with forward Victor Moses ineligible to play against his parent club and the likes of Steven Gerrard, Daniel Sturridge, Joe Enrique and Jon Flanagan sidelined. But Rodgers is happy with the standards being set and found many positives in the Boxing Day reverse to City. The result may have left them fourth after the game but the platform is still there for a possible title challenge. Rodgers said: "The last game gives us confidence and belief, but we arrive into this game knowing it's going to be equally difficult. "Over my time here, whatever squad we are working with, we have always been able to galvanise the group. "The team has been able to go again and that's something that we'll look to do for the weekend. "We've been improving as the season has gone on. If you look at the last number of weeks, the performance level and the standard has been at a real high level. "I think we're a team that shows great confidence and belief in how we're training and how we're working. "We're taking that confidence into any stadium, home or away, and that's always difficult for an opponent. "I think you've seen the aggression, the charisma, the confidence and the consistency over these last 12 months. "I think (our position) will fluctuate between now and the end of the season - one day you're first, then you're fourth. "But as long as we're in the conversation with 10 games to go, then it will be all to play for. "That's the idea, to arrive at that point in a position where we are going to be able to challenge." Reported by This is 12 minutes ago.