Books and Movies

In this section we take a break from our usual programming and list out some favorite books and movies.

Books

Six views on life:

• The Lord of the Rings (J. R. R. Tolkien)

• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

• the poetry of William Blake 

• The Psalms 

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

• An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth (Col. Chris Hadfield) 

Three views on history:

• A Left-Handed History of the World (Ed Wright) 

• The Outline of History (H. G. Wells)

• The Everlasting Man (G. K. Chesterton) 

Movies

Movies about music

• Amadeus (1984)

• Tár (2022) 

• Whiplash (2014) 

• Le roi danse (2000)

• Shine (1996)

• Tous les matins du monde (1991)

• A Late Quartet (2012) 

Other movies

• Senna (2010) - the film made by Asif Kapadia about the famous Brazilian Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna; this movie is made from historical footage and contains no narration; not the Netflix show

• Apollo 11 (2019) - a movie about the Apollo space flight program; it contains only historical footage and no narration; not the Tom Hanks film

• The Age of Pioneers (2017) - a Russian movie about the Soviet space flight program

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - a movie about space exploration

• Solaris (1972) - another movie about space exploration. This is the Soviet film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, not the Hollywood one!

• Das Boot (1981)

• Master and Commander (2003)

• Stand and Deliver (1988) - like Rocky but with calculus

Absolute Cinema

• Breakin' (1984)

• The Big Lebowski (1998)

• Zoolander (2001)

TV Series

• The Wire (2002 - 2008) 

• Civilisation: A Personal View (1968)

• Quartet (カルテット, Karutetto) (2017)

• Mozart in the Jungle (2014 - 2018)