The story of Rooke’s journey is set in the 18th century but, is one that all can relate to in modern times. His passions, his doubts when making decisions, his indecisions about following command when required by his superiors and the joys he receives from simple, daily occurrences. The book has plots based on colonial and naval expeditions, which, although fascinating yet slightly disturbing, come secondary to his story. The author really captivates the reader’s mind through the emotional evolvement of Rooke’s personality and it is something I find most endearing about his character. As a history graduate, I found the context of the book very intriguing. Naval history is a subject I know little about, but I do know expeditions to new colonies in the 18th century were not exactly similar to the adventure movies filmed in Hollywood. I think this context adds to the empathy the reader feels for the character and the decisions he makes throughout the book. The Lieutenant is an intelligent, thought provoking read that makes my mind wonder to a hut on a rock in New South Wales, stars glistening in the sky and a young man wondering what destiny awaits him.

Available from Amazon.com in the USA and Amazon.co.uk in the UK.

Check out a new song from Mary J. Blige -- “I am” from her 9th studio album “Stronger”!

Toni Braxton returns with her first single “Yesterday,” a big ballad from one of the biggest voices of the past couple decades. Look for the “Dancing with the Stars” alum’s new album in February 2010 on Atlantic Records.

After months of being charmed by English banker Patrick in a whirl-wind romance, Catherine takes the plunge and agrees to move in with him: Not only agrees to move in with him, but, leave her life in New York and move over 3000 miles across the Atlantic to London to be with the man she loves. She had finally found her Prince Charming and was looking forward to the happily ever after that all girls long for. However, 2 days before her move to London, Catherine received the dreaded “I never want to see you again” email from Patrick, who insisted they meet up on her arrival to discuss the break-up. Ironically, choosing the Bleeding Heart restaurant to tell her the reason she has been dumped is her lack of focus in life, making her an “unreliable” partner. Now she has to start a new life in a new city, with no boyfriend, no apartment, no job. Luckily things soon start look to up when she moves in with the bold and brash Victoria, starts writing for a column for a top, national newspaper and her search to find Mr Right turns into finding Mr Right now.

Sleeping Around by Catherine Townsend is a non fictitious book published a couple of years ago. The author is an American, freelance journalist and until recently wrote a weekly sex column for the Independent. The title may lead the reader to have some preconceptions about the book, but Catherine goes beyond writing about just her sexual experiences and discusses the ideas of falling in and out of love to the age old taboo that men can sleep around, but women can’t to men’s fear of the post feminist woman who says and does as she pleases. Having stated that, this book is definitely not for the prudish. I read this book in a day, sitting in Le Jardin de Luxemburg in Paris. I think the Parisians thought I had a mental condition as I lost count at the number of times I laughed out loud while reading this book. From getting over a break up to threesomes, from friendships to marriage of necessity, from an addiction to kinky lingerie to a fantasy about a certain British politician and more. A very funny, modern approach to finding love and having fun for the young, forward thinking woman. I can surely say that all women can relate to at least one of Catherine’s experiences. I certainly did, which made it a more intriguing and enticing read.

 Absolutely Sex and the City meets cool and trendy London. The main character of the book has Samantha’s sexual prowess and adventures, Charlotte’s search for love and that one man who takes her breath away, Miranda’s sternness towards the opposite sex and Carrie’s ideas of love and life as a sex columnist. Not forgetting the love of shopping. Although, Carrie’s love for Monolo’s is substituted for Catherine’s love for Agent Provocateur and Coco de Mer. One of Catherine’s favourite mantras is one I think all women should do. No matter what life throws at you, look in the mirror, wipe the mascara from your cheeks and repeat “you are a rock star, you ARE a rock star and he’s an idiot”. I do believe that the modern, ambitious, career driven woman truly is a rock star.

I am definitely looking forward to reading the second instalment of Catherine’s work which came out earlier this year. I must admit, I do take pleasure in having a sneak peek into another person’s life. Even if it is sitting in a café getting lost in a book for an afternoon.

You can purhase the book from Amazon.com here or Amazon.co.uk here. Please let us know what you thought of the book in the comments below!

This year the fair, held at Regents Park, showed off the usual array of big names such as Tracey Emin, Jim Lambie, Cindy Sherman and Jeremy Deller, but it was the lesser known artists and galleries that really impressed. As always there was a distinct lack of new media work because this format is less commercial but there were, however, a few galleries willing to stick their neck out to put on a good show.

Timothy Taylor’s gallery in London had an entertaining and cleverly selected series of works, and despite the arbitrary inclusion of a Bridget Riley painting (an artist represented by no less than four galleries) they managed to include works by Diane Arbus and Richard Patterson, whose ‘Portrait of the Artist as an Older Man‘ (2009) was a compelling piece of mixed media work.

One of the only galleries daring enough to put together a show of video works, aside from the dozens of 16mm projectors buzzing and clunking there way through the fair, was Sadie Coles gallery. A real effort was made by the curator to create an experience for the viewer and not just the buyer. The images, by Hilary Lloyd, were HD projections of mirrors, light and colour, both aesthetically interesting and surprisingly innovative for a fair that has always placed profits above innovation.

Other video work was presented by Yeondoo Jung and Sebastian Diaz Morales. Morales’ two channel video projection (thankfully in HD) entitled ‘The Way Between Two Points (Terra Incognita)‘ (2009) about the sparseness of Patagonia, was eerie but addictive viewing. One last piece of video to mention is Carlo Zanni’s ‘The Possible Ties Between Illness and Success’, a two minute short played on an ipod. Initially an interesting prospect, but the film itself and the strange plastic figure stuck to the screen left us feeling bored and slightly irritated at having taken the effort to cross the room at all.

German gallery Eigen + Art had an oddly curated space that showed off some of the more interesting photographic works. Martin Eder’s large glossy prints of odd looking women and all their flaws kept the viewers and the buyer’s interest for longer than most other photographic pieces. Having said this, Jemima Stehli’s ‘Photo Performance 31 with Larry Bell Sculpture’ was an unexpected treat. Jemima stands in a gallery next to Larry Bell’s mirror sculpture then strips naked and places the flash in her mouth to take the photo. This kind of work is why people other than those in the business come to Frieze. Jemima posits questions about authenticity, authorship, performance, and the photograph (aside from its theoretical appeal) is a comical piece of relief from a mentally and physically exhausting day.

The experience of the day was at Stephen Friedman’s gallery. Jim Hodges ‘the dark gate’ was a pitch black room with only a small shed and a wall of very sharp blades, creating a unique and terrifying environment, filling the participants with an ‘unsettling sense of intrigue, menace and intense beauty’.

In previous years the fair has been littered with obscene works, gory paintings, suspect images of children, illuminous pink vaginas and a phallus at every turn. This year, whilst symbolism was still there, I only counted a handful of explicit as opposed to implicit works. In their place are dozens of works about celebrity. Work like Phil Collins’ (unfortunately not ‘Easy Lover’ Phil Collins) altered photograph of Britney Spears with her eyes and mouth cut out and emblazoned with the words ‘I Suck’ was entertaining if nothing else. Gillian Wearing’s photograph of herself dressed as Robert Mapplethorpe represents artists as celebrity, something that in my view underpins the Frieze art fair. Turning artists into celebrities is big business with those at the top (Damien Hirst) worth in excess of £100 million. I’m not sure what all this means for the industry, perhaps the buyer’s taste is becoming more conservative or maybe artists are becoming tired of the obvious and blunt nature of profanity to labour a point.

Whatever the galleries of Frieze choose to put on, it would seem that the fair has become a fixed part of the art world’s calendar, as inevitable as the British summertime and unfortunately just as predictable.

Last week was the Christmas of the art world. ‘No one does it like the Frieze’, Frieze turned London into the hub of international glam industry, the battleground for the movers and shakers and the fairground for the art-for-pleasure goers. Sprueth Magers Berlin London produced one of the best stands in the fair, featuring John Baldessari’s Beethoven’s Trumpet (image on the left), in the meantime staging a solo (image on the right) at their Mayfair gallery site. Baldessari is one of the greatest living artists who’s had a long, prolific, progressive and highly respectable career. This is a comment we are confident that most artists/art workers collectors would agree with. It is shocking how little known John Baldessari is outside of the art world. With Tate Modern hosting a major retrospective of Baldessari (unfortunately alongside Pop Life), several parallel shows at Paris, London, Berlin and being the cover of Frieze magazine.. you will be hearing the name John Baldessari A LOT in the following months. We can’t think of anyone else more deserving.

Text by Theresa Liang and William West, Chief Editors of INTRODUCING ART.

I moved from the first room containing a select group of Kapoor’s early pigment sculptures, to Yellow in the second room, I imagined the sun radiating warmth and colour. I didn’t realise at first that this is a 3D work, receding into the wall.

As I turned to my left, I was shocked to see what I thought were dead bodies (my reaction was probably linked to the morning reading about Aztec sacrifices of human hearts to the gods). This third room contains the major exhibit Shooting into the Corner where projectiles of red wax are fired into a corner by a cannon every 20 minutes or so throughout the exhibition, providing an ever increasing build up of wax on the floor and walls. I watched while the cannon was loaded, the wax heated and the cannon fired. The suspense exploded for the expectant audience and I felt we should all revisit the exhibition to see how big the pile of wax gets. It should be a major cleaning job to get the wax off the ceiling, walls, doorframe and floor.

Next stop was a room full of beguiling mirror polished stainless steel sculptures where everyone was laughing at their changing reflections in the different shapes. Legs bent out as if made of rubber, stretched thin bodies, upside down reflections. This is one exhibit where the audience really interact with one another, laughing, speculating about the works and sharing the childish fun.

The highlight of the exhibition is Svayambh, a giant red wax Hovis loaf (that was my interpretation) travelling on railway lines across the entire breadth of Burlington house, through doorways between rooms, taking 90 minutes to complete the journey before returning down the tracks. People gathered to watch and speculate about the giant wax block. It was fascinating to watch it squeeze through the door frames.

Hive made me think of a rusty submarine from the outside, but looking into the dark interior through the oval hole I couldn’t help but think of an anus! I would have liked to climb inside Hive to explore the dark cave interior.

Greyman Cries, Shaman Dies, Billowing Smoke, Beauty Evoked, a body of cement sculptures and the most recent of Kapoor’s works, I thought of worm casts, noodles, baskets, faeces and rock formations. It’s a room full of sculptures to move around and look inside.

Slug could be intestines connected to a vulva or it could be a triffid. I imagined swimming pool slides and full red lips. In the room next door, the giant red wax hovis loaf was just completing its journey to the end of the line and an audience had gathered to watch. I bought the exhibition book which contains a number of other Kapoor works that are not included in the exhibit.

For those new to Anish Kapoor, he was born in Bombay in 1954, moved to London in 1973 and has an artistic career that spans more than 30 years.

Le Centquatre 42 is an innovative multi-use space that encompasses studios, showrooms and workshops. The space aims to integrate artistic creative views with the surrounding community, establishing a public space that they hope will aid in the reconstruction of social relations for the 19th arrondissement, a Paris neighborhood known more for poverty and crime than art.

A large scale model of the Centquatre space dominates the lobby where, propped up at knee height, the installation takes on the appearance of a dollhouse. Next to the model is a series of cubby holes filled with miniature building materials. Paul Cox is inviting the viewer to build their own art installations inside the mini gallery to draw on people’s preconceptions regarding authorship and artistic autonomy (the idea that anyone can make art), hopefully inspiring the rest of the community to not only get involved, but to create aspirations beyond the district’s impoverished surroundings. Whilst thought provoking, the installation pokes fun at both the artistic institution and the viewer, who at this point has probably moved on to the far more compelling sight of 100 members of the public performing Tai Chi in the main hall.

Surrounded by artists working on renovations and a series of installations, sculptures and videos, these energetic morning Parisians manage to appear as artists or even art themselves. On further enquiry, one discovers that this ‘performance’ is one of a series organized by the gallery to induct members of the community into artistic expression. This is a truly impressive way of drawing the masses into what could be seen as a conceptually pretentious environment. If this doesn’t provide enough intrigue, then more can be found nestling at the back of the exhibition space in what appears to be a large garden made from crates.

La Table De Jardinage! (The Gardening Table) is an installation involving two dozen landscape gardeners collecting seeds of fruits and vegetables consumed at a picnic to create an ever evolving garden. Gardeners and enthusiasts will tend the space for up to a month before handing over to the next artist or volunteer. The blooms and fruit have already attracted birds and other local wildlife, further impressing the idea of social integration with art.

Whilst Centquatre has some way to go before competing as a major tourist gallery (greater publicity for the space and targeting a wider audience would be a start) the curators have proven that the ghettos surrounding Montmartre are still capable of producing some of Paris most innovative ideas and pieces of work. Having ventured as far out as the Stalingrad metro stop, if you simply can’t bear the thought of leaving Paris without actually entering the Louvre then by all means step in the queue, descend into the pyramid, walk into the centre of the bustle, spend a few reverent minutes staring at the immensity of the foyer and then promptly remove yourself and head for the decorative arts Museum round the corner. Here you will find an incredible range of design, art, craft and true Parisian history including the largest collection of original Toulouse Lautrec posters in the world and the work of Madeleine Vionnet ‘Inspiration for Gucci and Prada’.

Le CENTQUATRE (104) open Tues-Sat 11am-11pm, Sun & Mon 11am-10pm, 104, rue d’Aubervilliers, 75019 Paris http://www.104.fr

We’ve searched the Internet to bring you the movies you simply can’t miss!

Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde’s only novel comes to live, when a corrupt young man (Ben Barnes) sells his soul keeps his youthful beauty eternally, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.

Dorian Gray is released in cinemas on 6 September 2009 (UK).

Sherlock Holmes

Conan Doyle’s consulting detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his stalwart partner Watson (Jude Law) engage in a battle of wits and brawn with a nemesis whose plot is a threat to all of England.

Sherlock Holmes is released in cinemas on 26 December 2009 (UK).

The Wolf Man

Upon his return to his ancestral homeland, an American man (Del Toro) is bitten, and subsequently cursed by, a werewolf. What happens next?

The Wolf Man is released in cinemas on 12 February 2010 (UK).

Have we missed anything? Let us know!