Book Review – The Humbling The humbling is a book written by Philip Roth in 2009. It is a short story about an elder actor, who suffers of depression and cannot work anymore because of his sickness. Axler used to be a great actor, accustomed with the benefits of fame, but his life turned upside down when he lost his talent. After some fail trials in new plays, he decided to look for professional help. While he was admitted to the hospital, his marriage came to an end. Everything was horrible in his life and he could see just one possible solution. I will not tell how the novel ends, but all what I can say is that is a story full of twists and turns and has a sad final.

Book Review – The Great Gatsby The great Gatsby is a classic of the American literature, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 20’s. It shows New York and the fancy way of living there in that decade. The novel was written in a way that we just see the version of the narrator, a man called Nick Carraway, who is neighbor of Mr. Gatsby and directly involved with the story. Gatsby is a multi-millionaire who lives in a fancy house, has the best cars of the epoch, and receives all important people of the city in huge parties. Without any reason, Gatsby invited Nick to one of those parties beginning a friendship. During the story, Nick tells us that Gatsby was in love with his cousin and that was the reason of the sudden approximation. The book is a classic novel of the last century, so it was expected that some love story would happen, but the plot is not so simple, because it involves a lot of money, betrayal, and even death. I really recommend this book for those who like novels and for those who want to improve English. I learned many words and improved my capacity of reading in English.

Series Review – Dexter I started watching Dexter just to improve my English, because it is a long series and I thought that would be nice to get used with the accent of each character. I decided to watch the episodes with English subtitles, so I would be able to perceive each word. The series shows the life of the character Dexter, a psychopath who works for Miami Metro Homicide as a forensic analyst. Dexter knows how to not be caught because his experience as a forensic and because his father was a police officer, then he was familiar with the methods used by the police to catch assassins. During the episodes, the authors try to humanize Dexter, bringing the fact that he had a dark background and did not know how to live a normal life. Even if he try to get a normal life, it seems to be an impossible task, because every time he meet someone he brings sadness or even death to the person’s life. Many people criticized the final season of the series, but I do not agree with them. In general, I liked the series. I did not use to like these “CSI” stuff, but Dexter surprised me in a good way.

Movie Review - American Made “American Made” is a movie produced by Doug Liman in 2017. It shows the life of the American pilot Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), a man who used to work for the Medellin Cartel and for CIA at the same time during the 80’s. As we all know, Pablo Escobar, Uchoa and others Colombian drug dealers, formed the Medellin’s Cartel. By a former job, Barry Seal was a commercial pilot of the company TWA, but he received the offer to quit the job and start a new career, with the task of take pictures of Central America armies, using a small airplane. During the clandestine missions Barry met drug dealers and started fly drugs on his return flights to the USA, so he was working for United States and for drug dealers at the same time. The movie is awesome; if you have liked the series Narcos then you will enjoy it, because it shows contemporary facts. To avoid spoilers I will stop telling the story.

Verb Tenses Hi, I would like to know the difference between these phrases: "How much have you had to drink?" "How much did you have to drink?" Thank you very much in advance. :)

Book Review - 1356 “1356” is a book written by the British author Bernard Cornwell, published in England 2012. It mixes fiction and reality, bringing some real battles of the Hundred Years War and adding some fiction characters to the scene. The Hundred Years War was fought during the Medieval Age, so it was full of church influence and mystical beliefs, like magic weapons. The book was written in a very dynamic way, always showing both sides of war. In general, Bernard shows the search for “La Malice”, the sword of Saint Peter, by French and England armies. They believed that who found the sword would be invincible and then the battle winner. The main character of the story is Thomas (The Bastard), a man who was considered a heretic by the church, so he was hunted by it. During his journey, he makes new friends, fights many people and does many questions about the magic sword. The story goes through the war until the battle of Potiers, where the Prince of England fight against the king of France.

How to learn anything? Hi, please correct my text :) It is common to build some barriers when we are learning something, I think we all have done it, at least once. These barriers can be excuses like “I can’t do it because I’m too old”, “I can’t do it because I’m too weak”, or even “I can’t do it because I don’t have enough time”. The thing is… When we want to learn something we must try, and to try we must stop procrastinating and really figure out how to start the process. Some specialists say that to learn something we need to practice for 20 hours, whatever it is. So if you want to play the guitar… just let your excuses aside and find out how to play. If you want to learn a new language, go find a way to learn it, search about it, talk with people who already speak your target language and ask how they have learned. The World is full of excuses, just try to be different and you will be surprised with the good stuff that comes to you when you decide to make the difference.

A Book Review Hi, please correct my text :) “Yes Man” is a book written by Danny Wallace and published in 2005. The story of Yes Man starts when Danny Wallace (main character) was living a very difficult period of his life, he was a guy who used to say “no” to everything, like parties invitations, having a beer with friend and stuff like that. One day coming back of the work, a strange person started talking with him, and said the words “Say Yes More”. These words touched Danny, so he decided to be the “Yes Man”, with the idea of say yes for every question for one year long. Saying yes is not an easy thing to do, but it brings a great change in Danny’s life. He started to accept many invitations of his friends and even of strangers. The book shows many funny situations, like Danny saying yes when questioned if he would like a punch in his face. In addition, when he bought an old car, just because he was asked to it. In general, the book is good, such as it inspired the movie with the same name.