Month: August 2023

not a book, tv

Book Adjacent: Wolf Hall

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As I wrote about Crazy for You the other Sunday, rather than Dr Semmelweiss, I thought I’d redress the balance this week and add a bit of Mark Rylance to the blog. As I said last week, I think he’s the best actor I’ve ever seen in person and I count Wolf Hall as the start of when he started to cross the path of non-theatre people.

Wolf Hall is the adaptation of the first two books of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. Thomas Cromwell rose from obscurity to be Henry VIII’s chief minister and then fell from grace after the failure of Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves. The mini series opens as Cardinal Wolsey is about to fall from power because of his failure to get the King’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled and follows Cromwell’s rise to power up until the death of Anne Boleyn. You see his origins in flashback and how he exploits the rivalries and networks of the Tudor Court.

I studied this period at A-Level and I can tell you it is some acheivement to make Thomas Cromwell a sympathetic figure, and yet the combination of Mantel’s writing and Rylance’s acting does it. I still haven’t read the final book in the trilogy because I’m not sure I want to see it all fall apart – and I’m struggling so much with reading things that are not cheerful or that I don’t know end well at the moment (by which I basically mean the last three years). When Hilary Mantel died almost a year ago, Peter Kominsky who directed this said that the script for the final book was underway, but there’s still no news on whether it is happening, and given that it was meant to film this year and Rylance has been in the West End all summer you can’t help but feel that it may not year have happened. But after the way they did Anne Boleyn’s beheading, I’m not sure I can bear to to see how they would do Cromwell’s execution anyway. We rewatched the series recently and I had to look away for that section.

Anyway, that aside, it’s well worth watching if you like historical dramas – and probably easier to watch it than read the books – which are very long and although beautifully written (two Booker wins and nominated for the third too) are not light reading. And you can play spot the locations too – I’ve been to Montacute House, Lacock Abbey and Barrington Court which are among the National Trust Houses that feature in the progamme, and the photo below is the steps leading up to the Chapter House at Wells Cathedral which we visited in January.

If you’re in the UK you can watch Wolf Hall on the BBC iPlayer, if you’re elsewhere, it’ll likely be on whichever streaming service gets BBC or PBS programmes where you are.

books

Recommendsday: Romances with weddings

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On Sunday I wrote about The Wedding Singer on one of the biggest wedding weekends of the year, so for Recommendsday today, I thought I would recommend some romance novels set in or around weddings, because there are a lot of them – including a few that have come out recently.

I’m going to start with a new release – Jackie Lau’s Four Weddings to Fall in Love, which came out at the end of July and I read in early August. Max and Kim have a one night stand at a wedding – it doesn’t go brilliantly, but both of them think they’ll never have to see the other again. The universe is against them though and they then proceed to run into each other at more weddings. But it gives Ma a chance to redeem himself and over the course of the book it turns out that they may be a better fit for each other than that first encounter suggested. This is the steamiest Jackie Lau yet, but it still feels like her if that makes sense. I didn’t love the lack of resolution of Kim’s problems with her mum, but this is the first in a series, so I’m hoping that maybe her mum’s comeuppance is going to come later. I mentioned A Piece of Cake in the June quick reviews, but Mary Hollis Huddleston and Asher Fogle Paul’s previous book Without a Hitch is also set in the wedding industry – so if you liked the new one, go back and read the previous one to see why I struggled with the redemption of Claire so much!

A few years old now is Mia Sosa’s The Worst Best Man, where a wedding planner who was left at the altar has to work with her ex-fiancé’s brother for Romance Novel Reasons. I think you can see where that is going. This was on a bunch of the best romances of the year lists when it came out in 2020, and although I didn’t find it as funny as some of the write ups suggested I did like it, and made a note to read Sosa’s next book when it came my way (which it hasn’t yet). I really liked the Washington DC setting though – as I recognised a lot of the places that were mentioned from my time there!

Christina Lauren’s Unhoneymooners was a BotW back in 2019, so it’s out of the statute of limitations – although Christina Lauren as an author isn’t – you can read a full review if you click the link, but it’s a forced proximity, enemies to lovers romance, where the hero and heroine are the only two people from a bridal party not to go down with food poisoning after the reception and go on the honeymoon instead of the bride and groom.

Older Again is Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Date. This was her debut romance back in 2018 and features a meet cute when a lift breaks down and a fake date to a wedding type scenario. I enjoyed it back when I read it – although her subsequent books haven’t always worked for me – but it should also be fairly easy to get hold of, I think I’ve even seen it in paperback relatively recently!

And that’s your lot! I’ve found a bunch more wedding-y books on my tbr while writing this, so you never know – there may yet be a follow up…

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Chef’s Kiss

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And it’s a rare graphic novel pick for this week’s BotW because it was what I needed last week and the art is great.

Ben is freshly graduated from college with his English degree. He and his friends have got a flat share and are starting out on their working lives. The trouble is Ben can’t get a job in the areas he’s looking at because he doesn’t have any experience. Running out of money and downhearted, he sees an advert for jobs – no experience necessary – at a restaurant. He goes in and gets a chance to land a full time job in the kitchen. He’s always like cooking, but can he take it to the next level and impress the owner – and his pet pig? And what about his crush on Liam, one of the other chefs at the restaurant…

This was exactly the sort of low stakes story I needed last week. The drawing is lovely with a great aesthetic, and it’s quirky and charming and has the best looking food I’ve seen in a graphic novel in ages. I think it needed a little bit more resolution about Ben’s parents at the end, but in the main it was a very satisfying read.

Chef’s Kiss is in Comixology at the moment – which is bundled with Kindle Unlimited. I’ve tried to find it in comic stores previously but without much luck. However, I may just have been looking in the wrong places.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: August 21 – August 27

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Well. I feel like August has been so busy that I don’t know where I am any more, except for the fact that it’s nearly over, so the school holidays are coming to an end and we’ve had more rain and miserable weather than I would hope for in a summer – even a British one. Still a pretty good week in reading all in, despite not finishing any of the long runners. I spotted the Shades of Magic graphic novel was in Kindle Unlimited and read that to remind myself of the world ahead of potentially reading the new book when that comes out. And I re-entered the world of Mrs Pargeter, which was a lot of fun.

Read:

Arabella by Georgette Heyer

Death at Crookham Hall by Michelle Salter

Suddenly at His Residence by Christianna Brand

Mrs Pargeter’s Patio by Simon Brett*

Mrs Pargeter’s Plot by Simon Brett

The Wedding Piper by Isabel Rogers

Shades of Magic Vol 1: The Steel Prince by V E Schwab et al

Chef’s Kiss by Jarrett Melendez et al

The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters

Started:

JFK is Missing by Liz Evans

Still reading:

The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin*

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker*

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

One book acquired on an evening walk to Waterstones Gower Street. I just can’t keep away…

Bonus photo: Friday night at the polo club (!) pop up restaurant. Possibly even more Happy Valley-esque than it felt last year!

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

film

Not a Book: The Wedding Singer

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It’s the August bank holiday weekend here in the UK, which is one of the most popular times to have your wedding – in fact one of my co-workers got married yesterday. So today’s not a book is one of my favourite films set around weddings – the late 90s Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore classic: The Wedding Singer.

It’s 1985 and Robbie Hart (Sandler) is the singer with a covers band in Ridgefield, New Jersey. Their main gig is weddings, and as the film opens he’s performing at one the week before his own wedding. Newly employed at the venue is waitress Julia Sullivan (Barrymore), who Robbie meets during his break and promises to sing at her wedding which she is just beginning to organise. But it seems that they may both have chosen the wrong people to get engaged to…

I have watched this film more times than I care to mention – and it’s one of those films where if I come across it on the TV I can’t help but stop to watch it. It was in Amazon Prime a month or so back and I watched it again then. In fact, while I was writing this paragraph I went back to see if it was still on Prime so I could watch it again (it’s not, it’s back to being a rental, gnash). I can recite along with large parts of it because it was one of about half a dozen films that my sister and I had on heavy rotation on Saturday nights when we were teenagers – it’s in a group of films* where even now if I send a line from them to her and she’ll message be back the next. It’s one of a couple of Drew Barrymore movies that I love but it’s also maybe the only Adam Sandler film I’ve watched more than once.

There was a musical of the film made in 2006, which falls into the category of shows I’ve never seen but still know all the lyrics to – because it hit Broadway during the period where I was deeply into the BroadwayWorld message board and when YouTube was starting to get videos of clips from TV shows – which happened to include their Tony Award performance. Although the soundtrack to the musical is iconic, the musical has an original score – except for Grow Old With You which is from the movie – which I think does a great job of capturing the energy of the 80s songs of the movie. So enjoy their opening number – It’s Your Wedding Day – from the Tony’s and see what I mean.

Anyway, I love it to the point where I find it hard to believe that there can be any one out there who hasn’t watched it, but if you haven’t and you like the sort of romances that I write about on this blog and you like romantic comedy movies, then you should definitely seek it out at your earliest convenience.

Have a great Sunday and enjoy the rest of your long weekend if you have one.

*The other films in this basket include Bridget Jones’s Diary, Drive Me Crazy, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill and on the TV front large swaths of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

books, bookshelfies

Bookshelfie: My next project

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This is exactly what the title says it is – this is where I want my next bookshelf. This is the gap at the top of the stairs into the spare room. As you can see, at the moment, it’s currently the home to the Trisha Ashley books, which are in heaps because I couldn’t be bothered to put them all back shelf-style after I did the measuring up. I was hoping it was going to be a little antique bookshelf that I find somewhere in a shop or one of those vintage markets but I’ve been looking for a while and haven’t found anything yet, so maybe I’m going to have to find a carpenter to make some for me. In which case I’ll have to decide if I want it to go the whole way up (probably) which would mean relocating the Matilda poster (still can’t believe that original run at the RSC is so long ago) and probably rehanging all the theatre posters on that stairway – of which there are a few (half a dozen) and would mean doing some tidying up to hide the marks and would probably lead to redecorating the lot. So maybe I need to ask you to cross your fingers that I find a delightful little bookshelf in a shop soon that I can just slot in there. I already had a set of shelves here in mind – with some of the cozy crime series that are outgrowing their space on the downstairs shelves and because they’re mass market maybe not the best use of space on the bookcase they are in – but when my sister suggested that a bookshelf with a tempting selection for guests would be a good idea and that seemed like a good plan too. So who knows what will actually end up on there. And yes as you know, the spare room does have a bookshelf but as it’s slightly chaotic overspill and where books live is partly determined by how often I might want to use them, the travel books definitely live the furthest away from me and so any potential new bookshelf should be for books I might want more often than that. Which brings me back to cozies and romances. And I promise that the logic of all this makes sense to me, even if it might seem crazy to you!

Happy Saturday everyone!

books, series

Mystery series: Mitchell and Markby

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So as I discovered earlier this month that there is a new book in the series after a nearly 20 year gap, so this week’s I’ve taken the opportunity to write about Ann Granger’s 1990s cozy detective series.

The Mitchell and Markby of the title are Meredith Mitchell and Alan Markby. She is a civil servant for the Foreign Office who has spent several years working abroad and he is a Detective Chief Inspector. When they meet in the first book, Meredith is visiting Alan’s Cotswold patch to attend a wedding, but they become friends (ahem) and she starts visiting him and eventually she settles in the area as a base from her foreign postings. They’re both slightly older than a lot of cozy crime duos and if I remember correctly quite cautious about the possibility of a romantic relationship. The mysteries are good – police procedurals of the old school sort (ie not thrillers or psychological) and obviously contemporary to the time that they were written.

I read the first 15 books seven years ago, having borrowed the paperbacks from a friend and gave them back to her afterwards – I was delighted to spot a couple of them in Waterstone’s Gower Street this week but it’s the first time I’ve seen any in yonks. But the good news is that they’re all available in nice shiny Kindle editions – some of them at a really reasonable price. The cheapest is the latest one – 99p! – but I really do suggest you start with some of the earlier ones to get the best sense of the series. If you like American cozy series – or like watching TV series like Midsummer Murders, these would be a good options for you. Granger has a couple of other series too – I’ve read about half of her Campbell and Carter series which she wrote after the Mitchell and Markbys, and I’ve read one of her Lizzie Carter series, which are set in the Victorian period. Gower Street actually had quite a good selection the other day – so you never know, I may go back and fill in some gaps!

Happy reading!

Book News

Book news: New Emily Henry

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So I missed this being announced about ten days ago – but we have a date and a cover for the next Emily Henry novel. The blurb is out as well and has a heroine who is starting over after her fiancé realised he was actually in love with his childhood best friend and a hero who is the ex of that childhood best friend. They end up as roommates and decide to stage photos of themselves together for revenge on their mutual exes, just for show of course, definitely no real feelings involved…

Fake relationships are totally my cup of tea as you know, so this sounds delightful – if only I didn’t have to wait until April for it! But it is already pre-orderable on Kindle and Waterstones have a signed hardback edition up for preorder too.

books

Recommendsday: Gentle Fiction

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Inspired by yesterday’s post about Small Miracles, I thought I’d write today’s recommendsday is a batch of books that are similarly gentle but uplifting, but it was harder than I expected.

So Small Miracles is blurbed by A J Pearce as in the Emmy Lake series – which have more sadness to them than these (or at least more on page sadness) but the first one Dear Mrs Bird is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, so that’s fairly risk free if you’re a KU member.

It’s actually really hard to come up with something that feels really similar – but I think maybe The Diary of a Provincial Lady would work – it’s funnier and also nearly 100 now, but it has a similar gentle, low stakes feel to it. Which also made me think of Miss Buncle – another woman trying to get some money, although in this case because her dividends have failed and Ladies don’t have jobs.

There were a few things in the people also read/bought columns that looked promising Julietta Henderson’s The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman – still haven’t read but kept coming up as a suggestion when I was writing this – so maybe I should get around it to! Also popping up is Claire Pooley’s The People on Platform Five – which I don’t have, but is 99p at the moment, so it’s entirely within the realms of possibility that I’ll end up buying it after writing this post! Again, I haven’t read them, but I know my sister and my mum really like Rachel Joyce’s novels and I think they’re doing something similar too.

Oh, and I’ve pre-ordered the Small Miracle’s sequel…

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: Small Miracles

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I could write about Codename Charming again today, but you’ve already heard enough about Lucy Parker from me in the last week or so, so instead I’m going with Anne Booth’s Small Miracles which I finally got around to reading after I spotted it when I was putting together the Kindle offers post this month.

It’s the mid 1990s and Sister Margaret, Sister Bridget and Sister Cecilia are the last three members of their order and struggling to figure out how their convent can survive in the face of the loss of some of their number and a house in need of more repairs than they can pay for. But after 90-year-old Sister Cecilia decides to play the new National Lottery things start to change for them and their community.

This is a warm and uplifting novel which moves around between the nuns and some of the people whose lives they touch. It is about a religious community but it doesn’t feel preachy or overly religious – despite the fact that poor Sister Margaret has a lot to pray about at various points. One small miracle has a ripple effect – sometimes in ways that the people involved can see, others in ways that are only known to you as the reader. Basically it is just a lovely tale of how little things can start bigger things moving and can cause good things to happen.

So if you need a nice gentle read to make you feel warm inside, this would be a great pick. And as I mentioned in that offer post, there is a sequel coming – and it’s Christmas themed!

My copy of Small Miracles was an advance proof that I’m not quite sure how I got, and which I lent to mum before I remembered I needed a photograph. But it is 99p on Kindle and Kobo at the moment so run don’t walk if this sounds like your cup of tea.

Happy Reading!