Verity Reads Books (lots of them)

After breaking my own rules last week on Friday, this week I’m doing it on Saturday – no bookshops to show you this week, and I’m anticipating a Christmas Books incoming next week but I wanted to do this musical recommendation this week because it’s in cinemas this month and there are still some screenings out there. The National Theatre has NT Live, but it’s pretty rare that we get filmed versions of Broadway musicals and so when you get one it’s important to support it so that we get more!

This is the filmed version of last year’s Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along, a musical that was a legendary flop in its first incarnation, but which in this new incarnation won a clutch of Tony Awards and now hits the big screen for those of us who couldn’t make it to New York (or face the steep ticket prices). Merrily tells the story – in reverse – of the friendship between Franklin Shepherd, Charley Kringas and Mary Flynn. It opens on a party in LA in 1977 and ends with the first time the three meet on a rooftop in New York in 1957. Jonathan Groff is Frank, Daniel Radcliffe is Charley and Lindsay Mendez (about seven months pregnant at the point this was filmed!) is Mary.

This is actually based on the Maria Friedman production that I saw back in the West End in 2013 and which was also filmed, which may explain why Maria Friedman in directing this version has chosen to go for mostly close up shots of the actors. I know this has been divisive for some, but for me it was one of the most successful filmed theatre performances that I’ve seen. Often in recordings like this, performances can seem to theatrical for the camera, but the three leads in this were amazing. Being able to see actual tears in Jonathan Groff’s eyes at various points and Daniel Rafcliffe’s hands shaking with rage at the end of Franklin Shepherd, Inc. I had the trumpet fanfare stuck in my head for days, alternating with Our Time. It’s heartbreaking by the end to watch them all so full of promise and hope, knowing how it finishes.

I know Sondheim can be an acquired taste – I hated my first encounter with him (touring Sweeney Todd with Jason Donovan as Sweeney, Harriet Thorpe as Mrs Lovett and the actors playing their own instruments) and nearly swore off him completely but started to change my mind when I saw Sunday in the Park with George about a year later. Since then I’ve seen about half of his musicals live – most recently Frogs and Here We Are – and I think this is one of the easier sells of the catalogue – everyone has had a friendship that has had ups and downs, the performances are great, there are some classic songs in there and it’s not too abstract. It’s been days and I’m still humming Not a Day Goes By, Old Friend and Our Time.

This is in cinemas at the moment, but rumours are that it’s going to end up on a streaming service, possibly the one with a red letter logo. And if it does turn up on a streaming service, it’s included with your subscription so the barrier to entry is low. Go on, give it a go.

I said the other week that December was short on new releases, so for the second time this month I’m mentioning a series I haven’t read by an author that I’ve read other books by and this time it’s Kathi Daley whose T J Jensen series I’ve writen about before and who also writes the Zoe Donovan series that I’ve read a couple of it the last few weeks. This is a new entry in her Cottage on Gooseberry Bay series. This is a mystery series set around holidays in a small town by the seaside. Christmas Bells is the twentieth in the series, so I have a lot of catching up to do. It’s promising a mystery set around a Christmas tree lot that’s ten years in the making. These are in Kindle Unlimited, and I’m trying not to hold the covers against them!

Happy Reading

Last year I did a post of Christmas-themed new releases in series, this year I thought I would do a follow up to a 2022 post and look at some of the not-new Christmas-themed entries in series. Does that make sense? They’re Christmas books, they’re in series, they’re not new releases and I didn’t mention them in that post year years ago. Boom.

Forbidden Fruit by Kerry Greenwood

I’m starting with Kerry Greenwood because she was one of the female authors we have lost this year that I really enjoyed reading. I reread the entire Corinna Chapman series after she died and Forbidden Fruit (which I read in June!) is the fifth (of seven) and the Christmas-set instalment.  Corinna is fairly agnostic about the season and portrays the exasperations and annoyances of it well – the shoppers drive her mad and the heat is oppressive. Instead of being able to relax she finds herself dealing with a reapeat offender runaway donkey and a host of minor inconveniences. On top of all this, her partner Daniel is investigating two teenage runaways, one of whom is very pregnant. Brigid and Manny are determined not to be found, and Daniel and Corinna find themselves dealing with a religious cult (and others) on the quest to help them.

The Dead of Winter by Nicola Upson

The Dead of Winter is the ninth in the Josephine Tey series, and another book I read in June this year (clearly a month for Christmas reading!) when I was filling in gaps in the series after they were all on offer. It’s 1938 and Josephine and Archie have been invited to spend Christmas on St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. In case you’re not familiar, this is a tidal island, and so when a murder happens it’s a closed group and Archie needs to solve the murder and keep the island’s residents safe from the killer. As always with this series, it’s darker than you expect and it’s a bit unusual for reasons that are spoilery, but it’s very much in the tradition of Golden Age mysteries as well as mixing real people and events with the fictional. I’m not gonig to say that this is the best place to start the series, but it is possible to read as a standalone and would give you a good sense of what the series is about.

Shakespeare’s Christmas by Charlaine Harris

This is the third in the Lily Bard series sees her heading away from Shakespeare for her sister’s Christmas wedding. As I said in my post about the series, Lily isn’t a cozy crime heroine – there’s too much darkness and trauma for that. And the mysteries can be pretty dark too – and this one is because it is the one where you learn the full scope of Lily’s backstory. And this is why I think it works quite well as a standalone – because Lily has a reason to snoop around in this but also because often the criticism of the series is that it’s dark and Lily isn’t likeable, but when you read this you understand why she always takes a pessimistic view on the world.

And I realise that the recommendations in this have got progressively darker, but sometimes you’ve already had enough saccharine and sugar at Christmas and you want a palate cleanser right? And if you do want something lighter, I have plenty of other Christmas posts for you including my recent Meg Langslow at Christmas, but also Classic Christmas mysteries and Christmas is All Around as well as the ones I linked at the top.

Happy Humpday!