M. Gelle Abdullahi

The photo cover of the book feels as if someone else sneaked up on Vivian Maier and took it.

It appears as though some of the pictures were staged because they looked like they were ads for some products or screenshots from a movie scene.

Some of the pictures made me feel nostalgic, but others were melancholic.

This is a history book.

It's about travelers from different backgrounds and fields using a common tool, a camera, to bring back what they saw, discovered, and wanted us to see. To tell their stories as they struggled to capture some of these wonderful images.

I am usually more interested in other subjects than underwater photography, but what Bill Curtsinger and David Doubilet captured made it my favorite part of the book. Magic.

This is the last volume with the last chapter that Miura inked—Tears of Morning Dew—and it ended on a high note.

The book is still relevant and influential. It reads like a magazine, which makes it a very entertaining read.

It's been more than a year since I read the previous volume, so I went to YouTube to do a recap of the last two arcs: the Dark Continent and the Succession War. That made me read Vol. 36 again instead of skimming it as I intended to do because the amount of information we got in one chapter was equivalent to an entire volume of other mangas I used to read.

The number of characters that appeared and had a lot of screen time was astonishing. It bothered me a bit in the previous volume, but this time it served its purpose. It helped that the plot was thickening, and because of that, my attention to what they were saying was more interesting.

This time I decided to read solo chapters until the release of vol. 38.

This book is about the rise and fall of the New Hollywood and, at the same time, is about lessons on how to survive when changes occur in the film industry.

The first lesson is: don't destroy the good relationships you have with your family, especially if they support and work with you on your projects. Peter Bogdanovich can be the best example in this case, because one of the reasons for his success was his wife, Polly Platt. When Bogdanovic's producer asked him if he had an idea for a film, she suggested to them Larry McMurtry's novel The Last Picture Show, and the rest is history. Then he started to have an affair with the star of his film, Cybil Shepherd, during film production. Peter and Polly separated but still worked with each other. He had a good run during that period, until Polly finally decided to break up with him creatively. Since then, he hasn't made a movie that was a hit.

The second most important thing is to focus on your field first, strengthen it, and then move to other categories. Francis Ford Coppola can be a good example. The man knew he was good at adapting others works to the screen but hated that and tried to write original scripts that didn't succeed as he hoped. I don't blame him on that one, but I blame him for trying to be a producer on top of writing and directing his movies; it was a bit too early to do so. I know that he wanted total control over his movies, but he still chose to do it the wrong way. I hope his upcoming film Megalopolis is not a repetition of what happened last time, but the writing is on the wall. I wish he'd do something different this time, so we could experience a wonderful movie.

The last one I can think of is to avoid drugs; don't ruin yourself. For this one, you can fix it by quitting the drugs or the addiction that you are suffering from as soon as possible. Scorsese is a good example in this case. He suffered from drug abuse for many years, until he was on the verge of death. He survived and then managed to turn his career around. It took him a decade, but at least he continued to work on what he enjoyed doing.

It took me almost a year to finish it. The first part of the book was very good and exciting; it told us how the filmmakers were struggling to make their movies. After that, it got filled up with a lot of details that were only good when it came to a movie like Bonnie and Clyde or when it concerned a specific individual like Sidney Poitier, Dustin Hoffman, Hal Ashby, or Rex Harrison's wife.

I read it one day over the summer and almost forgot to add it. The first half was excellent, but after the incident, it was okay.

The stories here are all dealing with criminals and the best of them is, of course, The Thief Inoue Akikazu.

I liked it when the story was set in the 17th century.

This was excellent. I was smiling the whole time I was reading it.

The whole saga took a dive, but this volume was a bit better than the last volume of 20th Century Boys, as it tried to tie the loose ends.

As if I am reading a spinoff..

First half of the series was good. After volume 7 the series started to decline and became something else. The shift from a mystery/thriller story to an adventure one was a miss. Nothing was happening. It was filled with unnecessary information. It could've helped If the most of pages were wordless, then the story would've moved faster and maybe become more mysterious.

There's no connection between the begining and the end. The last volumes felt as if I am reading a spinoff.. a bad one.

20th Century Boys starts great, packed with mysteries that most of it is answered soon after it's been raised, which makes it a thrilling and a satisfying read.

The time traveling part messed up the story.

I never actually watched the TV show, though I had plans to check out the early seasons. Back then, AMC was on fire with a bunch of great shows at the same time. What killed my interest was hearing that AMC planned to drag it out to 20 seasons, as long as it stayed popular and profitable.

So, what about the comic series? What if it got dragged on too? To keep it simple, I quit reading and forgot about it. That was four years and four months ago. The last volume I picked up was the 28th.

I ended up thinking about the series again last year when I stumbled across another zombie story: a manga called I Am a Hero. I'd heard it was good, but with a terrible ending. Before jumping into something new, I decided to check what was up with The Walking Dead comics. To my surprise, it had actually wrapped up. I only had four volumes left, so I figured, why not? The pacing was solid, even if not much was happening. There were lots of new characters and the story was clearly building up to something—I enjoyed it. Sure, it might've been tighter if it had focused on fewer characters, but hey, it wasn't bad.

Then came the final volume. Some people think Kirkman either rushed it or didn't know how to end it. Honestly, I think it's the latter, and his afterword backs that up.

Kirkman always knew how he wanted the story to end, and it was dark and depressing. But in 2013, he decided to switch things up for a more optimistic, happy ending. Yeah, maybe we got more good stories along the way like he said, but that original ending would've packed a punch and fit The Walking Dead's world perfectly.

I get why Kirkman went with the hopeful ending—it's probably more appealing in general. But for me, what really matters is which ending tells a better story. If you start the series with either ending in mind—a bleak, horrifying one or a happy, hopeful one—the abandoned dark ending just makes for a more compelling story. Even if someone just read both endings on their own, they'd probably be more intrigued by the sad one and wonder, “What happened here?”

The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other.

“This must be sweet” is what I said to myself when I saw the title of this book. I wasn't disappointed. This is a wonderful story and a great introduction to Allen Say.

قصيدته: بيت من الشعر/ بيت الجنوبي (فى ذكرى أمل دنقل) كان شيء جميل ومؤثر

As the story went on it became less interesting. It may be a short novel but the second half was unbearable to read.

The good thing is, that it shows clearly that Nabokov is good at storytelling and it comes at no surprise. After all, it is the least what we can expect of those who inherited The Golden Age of Russian Literature.

Another good thing that made me look forward to read his early works is that he translated them, and sometimes with his son Dmitri.

Agatha Christie has been in a tight place and managed to get out of it.

لُغتي مجازٌ للمجاز ، فلا أَقولُ ولا أشيرُ إلى مكانٍ
تدفق رائع، من البداية للنهاية، درويش في قمته.

What surprised me most was not only Francois Truffaut's knowledge of the cinema, but his knowledge about Alfred Hitchcock movies. As a former critic and an acclaimed director by then, Truffaut was one of the most suitable for the task. Truffaut studied Hitchcock, memorized some of his favorite movies, and interviewed Hitchcock about his carer film by film.


The revised edition has an additional chapter, where Truffaut covers what happened after the original edition release in 1966, and up until Hitchcock's death. In this edition Truffaut added some commentary, letters from Hitchcock and some more interviews.

This is indeed a definitive study of Alfred Hitchcock, a master class.

“Several reviewers felt the novel left much to be desired following Fitzgerald's previous works and criticized him accordingly.” - Wikipedia

One of the things that makes this novel so good is Fitzgerald's brevity, no stuffing or filling it with unnecessary details.

“And if I can die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of America—then, all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.”

I recently saw some clips of the movie Malcolm X 1992 and decided it was time to pickup the book and read it. Before I wrote this review, I listened to his famous speech The Ballot or the Bullet, and I am psyched to write some words here.

Malcolm X said that his whole life had been a chronology of -changes, and that he has known unexpected drastic changes. The man wasn't afraid of falling, or tired of getting up and trying again. He was a shining Prince.