Prisoners Of War: Season One
Starring: Yoram Toledano, Ishai Golan, Assi Cohen, Mili Avital. Yael Abecassis, Adi Ezroni, Hadar Ratzon-Rotem, Salim Dau
Studio: Shout! Factory
Release Date: July 8, 2014
Retail: $29.93
ASIN: B00JJOY44G
Running Time: 500 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Buy Link: Amazon

Review:

While the political thriller Homeland airing on Showtime has become a ratings hit and has won many awards, probably very few of you are aware that it is based on the Israeli television drama, Prisoners of War. The series premiered in 2010 and the series' creator Gideon Raff plans on making a third season. The first two seasons has been available on Hulu, but it will be arriving on DVD for the first time in United States on Tuesday, July 8, 2014, from Shout! Factory. Bonus features include An Open Wound: Making Prisoners of War and episode commentaries with creator Gideon Raff and director of photography Itai Neeman.

Prisoners of War: Season One centers on three Israeli soldiers returning home after spending the last 17 years in captivity. Nimrod Klein and Uri Zach return to their families alive, while Amiel Ben-Horin returns in a coffin. Much of the first season shows Nimrod and Uri trying to adjust to society, which the nation considers them heroes, and renters their wives' and children's lives, which isn't easy as their families have moved on. To make matters worse, the military suspects that they are hiding something.

Episodes on the three-disc set are:

Summer is definitely here, but if the hot weather is too much for you to handle, then you should stay inside and watch some great toons with your family. Nickelodeon Home Entertainment is releasing two DVD collections featuring some of the most popular Nickelodeon characters from their hit series, including SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sanjay and Craig.

Heroes In Action (ASIN: B00J5G1NA6; Retail: $9.98) features five action-packed adventures. First up, SpongeBob's best friend, Patrick, becomes a superhero in Patrick-Man! and battles the Dirty Bubble, but wrecks havoc on Bikini Bottom! SpongeBob must come to rescue in Gary's New Toy when Gary becomes obsessed with a new red ball.

After Michelangelo was caught skateboarding in the lair, the Turtles get grounded in I Think His Name Is Baxter Stockman, but they sneak out to encounter Baxter Stockman in a mechanical battle armor. The Turtles must out-think the scientist, if they plan on saving the city from total destruction.

After Sanjay and his snake pal, Craig, grow huge muscles, they join the police force, Muscle C.O.P.S. In Cold Hard Cash, Craig and Sanjay teamup to locate a frozen treasure that is worth $100 before Baby Richard Dickson gets his hands on it.

Feel free to Right Click and Save As to Share the Button on your Blog!

For the last three years in October, I have been celebrating my love for Halloween with either a 13 or 31 day celebration featuring book reviews, movie reviews and guest posts. Last year, I teamed up with Literary R&R, which we both featured one or more Halloween themed posts for 31 days. I found 31 days to be a little difficult, due to interfered with a few book tours I couldn't get out of.

I would like to do things a little different this year than last year's 31 Days of Halloween. Instead of each blog posting a Halloween themed post for 31 days, this year each blog will post on specific days. This way each blogger will have to participate in book tours and can publish other non-Halloween posts in October.

Bloggers can pick as many days (well, at least one day) as they want to participate in. The posts can be anything with a Halloween theme, including book reviews, movie reviews, interview with horror authors, giveaways, etc.

Bloggers Can Sign Up Below:

Orders Is Orders
Stories form the Golden Age
by L. Ron Hubbard
Directed by Jim Meskimen
Voice Cast: Brooke Bloom, Corey Burton, R.F. Daley, Jim Meskimen, Josh R. Thompson and Michael Yurchak
Studio/Publisher: Galaxy Press
Release Date: March 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-1592122332
Running Time: 2 hours 33 minutes
Buy Link: Amazon

Review:

Long before Kindles, Nooks and the Tablets, people relied on paperbacks, newspapers and magazines for their reading entertainment. In the 1930s and 1940s, cheap-made magazines, dubbed Pulp Magazines, flew off the newsstands, featuring adventure stores of every genre by well-established writers, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Elmore Leonard and Ray Bradbury. The great science-fiction author, L. Ron Hubbard, published over one-hundred-fifty short stories during this era, known to most as the Golden Age. Galaxy Press has been releasing Hubbard's titles on audiobooks, with a talented voice-cast and amazing sound effects.

Each and every month, I participate in the Earlier Reviewers program on LibraryThing, in which a reader gets a chance to win a copy of a book in exchange for a review. Over the last four years, I have won a handful of titles, several eBooks, a few paperbacks and a couple of audiobooks. Back in November 2013, I won a copy of Orders Is Orders, which I received a few weeks later in December. I was busy around the holidays, so I kept pushing the audiobook aside, well that is until last month when I finally got around to listening to it.

Orders Is Orders first appeared in the December 1937 issue of Argosy and is set in the worn-torn Chinese city of Shunkien, The US has a small consulate that is filled with frightened and starving refugees in the city. To make matters worse, some are suffering from the Asiatic cholera. Their only hope is the USS Miami, which is located two hundred miles away, but the US can't take any sort of military action, including bringing supplies to the consulate, without causing an 'act of war' with the Japanese.

If you want schedule next week's post, click here to find the next prompt question. To submit a question, fill out this form.

What to do:

1. Post on your blog answering this question:

  This week's question is submitted by RAnn!

Do you cull your list often or do people stay on once they get on?

2. Enter the link to your post in the linky list below (enter your Blog Name and the direct link to your post answering this week’s question. Failure to do so will result in removal of your link).


3. Visit other blogs in the list and comment on their posts. Try to spend some time on the blogs reading other posts and possible become a new follower.  The purpose of the hop is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.

  

My Answer: 

No, I don't ever cull my blog followers.

American Quilter's Society 2015 Wall Calendar
by AQS Editors
Publisher: American Quilter's Society
Pub. Date: June 25, 2014
Retail: $12.95
ISBN: 978-1604601589
Pages: 26

Buy Links: Amazon, AQS

Review:

You know that 2014 is going by fast when 2015 calenders are coming out in stores. While you can easily wait until the end of the year to grab a free calender at a bank, many of us like unique calenders, like of our favorite television series, favorite sports team or favorite hobby. Whatever your likes are, there are plenty of calenders to choose from.


The calender features thirteen beautiful quilts that were selected from the winners of the 2014 AQA QuiltWeek at Paducah, Kentucky.

The quilt titles and creators are:

A few my readers may remember my review for the Pimsleur Approach Spanish 1 that I posted in. The only foreign language class that I took in high school back in the late 90s, was French. Lets just say that my gradse weren't that impressive and beside for pronouncing a few numbers, I don't remember a bit of what I learned.

It is difficult to learn a new language out of a text book and that is one of the reasons why I was interested in reviewing the Pimsleur Approach programs in the first place.

Unlike other programs, you don't have to download a program to your computer to use the Pimsleur Approach French I. The program is an audio only program, featuring 30 units on 16 CDs with each course being 30-minutes in length, meaning anyone can find time during the day to learn a new language. It is recommend that you play each course in order with no more than one course a day. If you don't think you have grasped a course, just repeat it the next day.

Bewitched: Seasons 3 & 4
Starring: Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, Agnes Moorehead
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
Release Date: June 24, 2014
Retail: $14.98
ASIN: B00JPQ1HXO
Running Time: 27 hours 52 minutes
Rating: Not Rated
Buy Link: Amazon

Review:

Arriving on DVD last week is the Bewitched: Seasons 3 & 4 Combo Pack from Mill Creek Entertainment, featuring 66 hilarious episodes on 6 discs. That's nearly 28 hours our magical entertainment for less than $15!

I believe almost every adult has heard or has seen Bewitched, the longest-running supernatural sitcom, airing from 1964-1972 on ABC and later entering into syndication heaven (currently airing on Antenna TV). The basic plot was simple, Darrin Stephens (played by Dick York) bumps into Samantha (played by Elizabeth Montgomery), they fall in love and quickly tie-the-knot. It is on the wedding night that he learns that she is in fact a witch!

Season 3 starts with a bang (plus, the fact that it is the first episode of the series to be aired in color), as Samantha learns that her daughter, Tabitha, (despite being half-human) has magic abilities; something she would like to keep from Darrin, who later finds out by the second episode of the season. With frequent visits from her mother, Endora (played by Sandra Gould), Aunt Clara and Uncle Arthur, Samantha has more to worry about than just Tabitha's magic activities.

The series added a twist during the 4th season when Samantha takes over the duties of the Queen of the Witches. Meanwhile, Endora tries to babysit, but Tabitha's magic runs amok.

The 66 episodes on the six-disc set are:

The Legend of Korra: Book Two: Spirits
Voice Cast: Janet Varney, J. K. Simmons, David Faustino, P. J. Byrne, Mindy Sterling, Seychelle Gabriel, Steven Blum, Dee Bradley Baker, Jeff Bennett, Adrian LaTourelle, John Michael Higgins, Aaron Himelstein, Aubrey Plaza, James Remar, Richard Riehle, Lisa Edelstein
Studio: Nickelodeon
Release Date: July 1, 2014
Retail: $19.99
ASIN: B00F8PTBLQ
Running Time: 330 minutes
Rating: Not Rated
Buy Links: DVD, Blu-ray

Review:

Arriving on DVD and Blu-ray tomorrow is Nickelodeon's The Legend of Korra - Book Two: Spirits, featuring all fourteen-episodes of the second season on a two-disc set. Bonus Features includes Feuding Spirits: Korra's Family, 4 audio commentaries by the creators and crew and 2 scene bendings.

Set seventy-years after Avatar: The Last Airbender, the spinoff series focuses on the seventeen-year-old Avatar Korra, the successor of Aang, who is living in a world that is separated into four nations, the Northern & Southern Water Tribes, the Air Nomads, the Earth Kingdom, and the Fire Nation.

Book Two: Spirits picks up six-months after the first season concluded with Korra searching for a way to defeat the Dark Spirits. Meanwhile, a civil war breaks out between the Northern and Southern tribes, resulting in Korra's parents being arrested.

In order to save the world from total chaos, Korra must learn the true origins of the first Avatar and how to restore order between the physical and spiritual worlds.

Episodes on the 2-disc set are: