So this week is a weird mix of audiobooks, cozy crime and checking which states I’m missing on Read across the USA 2023… And of course we continue to gear up for Christmas and all that that entails. Can I get everything done in time? Will I prioritise reading over present buying? Who can tell…
Happy Sunday everyone, I’m back again with my latest binge watch, this time brought to you thanks to three months free Disney+ from my mobile phone provider!
So in case you’ve missed it, the set up here is that three strangers living in the same New York apartment building discover a shared interest in true crime after another resident of the building is found murdered. And as they investigate the murder together, the launch their own true crime podcast about it called… Only Murders in the Building. Oh and it’s a comedy. Steve Martin is Charles-Hayden Savage, star of a 90s crime drama but currently struggling for work, Martin’s long time friend and sometime collaborator Martin Short plays Oliver Putnam, a washed up theatre director and Selena Gomez is Mabel Mora, an artist living in her aunt’s unit in the Arconia.
At the end of each season, someone new gets murdered – and that case will be the subject of the next season – with Charles, Oliver and Mabel implicated in some sort of way in the crime. And I’m really trying not to say too much about the rest of the plot, because all the season build on each other and I don’t want to spoil anything. The episodes are all sitcom length (aka about 26-28 minutes, an American TV half hour) and it’s incredibly easy to binge. I think we did all of season one and two across about 4 (weekend) nights, and then waited a few weeks for all the season three episodes to be released before we binged that one – again across only a couple of nights. I know it sounds a bit weird to have a comedy series about murders, but it really works – and if you’ve listened to any true crime podcasts there are plenty of jokes here about them too – especially in season two.
Despite my caution above about spoilers, I’ve put the trailers for all three series in here (and I don’t think they’re going to ruin anything), because I think it’s fun to see how the show has developed – and how the guest stars have got bigger and bigger. At the start, aside from the main trio it’s faces you might recognise from TV but who have been bigger stars on stage (or at least they have if you know your Broadway) but by series three we have Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd (and not just as cameos) as well as Matthew Broderick (to complete original The Producers Broadway duo as Nathan Lane was in series one) and Jesse Williams – who did twelve years on Greys Anatomy and did a Tony nominated turn on Broadway in 2022 too, just to complete all the theatre links. And there are a lot of theatre links here. I started looking at how many people in the cast had won or been nominated for Tony Awards and it’s insane. Along with Short, Lane and Broderick who all have at least one, I counted at least 8 other Tony nominees or winners in the cast across the three seasons.
It’s been renewed for season four, but given that we’ve just had an actor and writers strike, who knows whether it will actually appear in autumn 2024 or whether we’ll have to wait a bit longer. It’s getting its US TV debut (on ABC) in the new years, so I guess it may come to UK TV at some point too – although it hasn’t so far. But if you happen to have a Disney+ subscription (or someone gives you one for Christmas) this is a really fun way to spend about 15 hours…
Christmas is coming and you know what that means – I go back over my wish list of books from the year and pick the ones I haven’t been able to justify buying but really want to read and ask for them for Christmas gifts. My family have already had the key books from the list sent to them, so I’m hoping some of them might already be wrapped up with a tag with my name on somewhere!
As usual, most of this list is hardback non-fiction. Because when you have as big a to-read pile as I do, you can’t justify £20 and up on a book. But these do also tend to be the sort of books that never go on kindle deal and will still be relatively expensive in paper back. So actually maybe it’s sensible to buy them in hardback. So let’s start withAstor by Anderson Cooper – his book on the Vanderbilts was a gift request a few years ago in one of those hazy Covid years when I didn’t do a Christmas request post and just sent the list directly to my family (thanks mum and dad for buying it) and now the CNN anchor and his collaborator have switched focus away from Cooper’s own family to another of the Gilded Age big names.
Also firmly in the Rich People Problems area of my wheel house, Jonathan Miles’s Once Upon a Time World looks at the growth and development of the French Riviera. I’ve already read Anne De Courcy’s book about Chanel and the Riviera (again thanks mum) and Mary S Lovell’s book The Riviera Set, but I had a nosy at this in Daunt this week and it looks very readable and like it might have some new and different stuff to those other two. Or at least not huge amounts of crossover.
Moving on to another of my areas of special interest – Hollywood. Michael Schulman’s Oscar Wars came out at the start of the year and I’m always interested in machinations – and this promises behind the scenes details from Oscar history and new dramas we haven’t heard about before. While we were on holiday in September, I readNick de Semlyen’s Wild and Crazy Guys which is about the comedians who came out of sketch shows in the early 80s, so to even it out i would also like to read Shawn Levy’s In On the Joke about female stand ups in the 50s and 60s. I liked Levy’s The Castle on Sunset, and he seemed in that to have all the right connections to get some interesting stuff for this.
Laurence Leamer’s Hitchcock’s Blondes as the title suggests is about the blonde actresses who starred in Hitchcock movies. I’ve already read a bit about a few of them and Hitchcock has popped up in a bunch of my other reading and I’ve come to the conclusion that he was pretty toxic but I’d like to read the details! I’d also like to read Deliberate Cruelty by Roseanne Montillo which is about one of Truman Capote’s Swans who he accused of murder in the thinly disguised short story that brought about his social downfall.
And then the fiction. I loved Stephen Rowley’s The Guncleback when I read it, and the editor was also great. For some reason his books are really hard to get over here so his latest,The Celebrantsis on this list because I can’t justify the imported paperback (and it took years for imported copies The Guncle to hit Foyles Charing Cross Road’s shelves) and it doesn’t come in kindle in the UK.
And as if I hadn’t already put enough Rich People books on this list already, I’m going there in the fiction too with Social Engagement by Avery Carpenter Forrey. The blurb for this has a heroine whose wedding had imploded just hours after the vows and promises to show you how she got there. The reviews veer between “this is brilliant and funny” and “I hate the heroine, she causes her own problems” so I’m optimistic it could be right up my street. In a similar vein, I’d love to find Becky Chalsen’s Kismetunder the tree – this has a pair of twins and their childhood friend turned husband to one twin on holiday on Fire Ireland and trouble brewing around the other twin’s wedding and their thirtieth birthdays…
I mentioned Beatriz Williams’ latest back when it came out, but I still don’t own The Beach at Summerly and given all the spy stories in the news at the moment, the appeal of a novel about Cold War era-espionage has not decreased at all! I also still haven’t read the latest Veronica Speedwell, although as the next one comes out in the new year there’s a chance it will go on offer on kindle in the run up to that. And I don’t own any of them in actual physical copies yet, so getting one poses a risk that I will want them all!
I think thats probably enough, isn’t it? I should say i had to revise this a few times as I realised that some of the books that I was putting on the list were books that were on last year’s list – which you can find here if you want it. And mum, if you’re reading I know there is more here than I sent to you guys but I picked the ones I thought you would mostly likely like to borrow to suggest to you all!
I’m messing with the schedule a bit this month to get all the Christmas recommendations in in good time along with the regular features, so today in a friday twist, it’s the December Kindle offers!
One of this years big book adaptations was Daisy Jones and the Six and the book is on offer again this month – reminding me that I still need to watch the streaming series. Maybe a dose of California sunshine is what I need for Christmas viewing? Also adapted this year, and also one I haven’t watched yet, is Red, White and Royal Blue which seems to be basically 99p all the time at the moment, which makes a change from when it was new and it was really, really expensive on Kindle! Also now a movie is the Judy Blume classic Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, which I first read when I was about 10 years old.
This months’ Terry Pratchett is Small Gods, for £1.99 you can read about competitive religion on the Disc – perfect as we’re coming up for a major religious holiday… The 99p Georgette Heyer is The Tollgate, which is one of I haven’t reread in a while, so I might go back for again now! The Julia Quinn is What Happens in London, which was actually the first book of hers I bought, more than a decade ago, in Waterstones Southend!
It’s finally here – the fifth volume of Heartstopper is out today (in the UK) and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m hoping that the comic book shop will have it for me when I go in this weekend, because I only ordered it… well it feels like years ago but it might only be six months. And this is meant to be the final volume of Nick and Charlie’s story too so I’m hoping for a happy ending but with Nick due to go to university I’m not going to lie, I’m a little worried. But if this doesn’t all tie it up with a nice bow, then Alice Oseman has to come back and write us more then right? Right?
Well as you could probably see from the lists it was a bit of a re-read heavy month last month, but I’ve still got a couple of books to tell you about in the quick reviews before I go full on Christmas for the rest of December..
Luke and Billy Finally Get a Clue by Cat Sebastian
Cat Sebastian’s latest novella is a sports one and came out just as the baseball season was ending at the start of October. Luke and Billy have been team mates for years, but as the story opens Billy is worried sick about Luke who has gone awol after suffering a concussion during a game. But then Luke turns up at Billy’s cabin in the mountains and a storm rolls in trapping them there together. This is 100 pages of low peril romance as two people figure out that they’re both into each other. I wanted it to be longer, but that’s about my only complaint!
Captain Marvel, Vol 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More by Kelly Sue DeConnick et al
Making a rare foray into superhero comics, I read a Captain Marvel this month because it was in Kindle Unlimited and obviously there’s been another film featuring Captain Marvel come out recently and she’s on of the Marvel Universe that I know very little about. This is actually nearly ten years old (!) and sees Captain Marvel leave earth to try and return an alien woman to her home world and finding herself in the middle of the conflict with the Galactic Alliance. Not going to lie, I felt like I hadn’t read enough other Marvel comics to really understand all of the background to this – but the Guardians of the Galaxy showed up so that gave me enough context to be going along with. I did love the art though.
Fancy Meeting You Here by Julie Tieu
And finally, I gave this a mention in release week so I wanted to circle back around with an update now I’ve read it. And this has a people pleaser florist heroine who is basically incapable of saying no and setting boundaries with her friends and who ends up biting off way more than she can chew, and a hero who is her best friend’s brother and also a caterer. As you might be able to tell from that first sentence, I got a little annoyed that Elise was letting her friends put so much on her – and that they didn’t notice how over stretched she was – but the romance was actually pretty fun. I just wish people would have actual conversations sometimes because it would make life so much easier. But then it would also take away a lot of plot in books…
The list last week was long, but actually today’s pick is the last book I finished at the weekend – and in fact read in less than a day while snuggled up on the sofa trying to will the cold I have to go away (it’s not Covid, I did several tests…) and it’s also not a Christmas book but won’t worry there are plenty of those coming up over the next few weeks!
I mentioned Hello Stranger when it came out a few months back, hard on the heels of the UK release of Katherine Center’s previous book, The Bodyguard. And Hello Stranger is about Sadie, a portrait painter who has got a spot in the final of a prestigious competition. The only problem is that hard on the heels of this news, she discovers some less good news: she needs (minor) brain surgery. And then when she wakes up she can’t see faces any more. That is to say, the faces are there but her brain can’t make any sense of them and she doesn’t recognise anyone anymore. Which as a portrait painter is a bit of a problem but it’s also a pretty big problem for everyday life too. But she doesn’t want anyone to know about it so she heads back out into a new and different world where she meets a handsome vet and spars with the obnoxious neighbour in her building – but could either of them turn into something more?
As I said this was the last book I finished last week and I basically read it across the afternoon and evening – stopping only to cook dinner, eat and pack my suitcase for the week. And it really does hook you in – and is one of those books where it’s so fun that you can ignore the slight bonkers of it all. And there’s a fair bit of bonkers here – most of which could be solved by Sadie just telling people what her issue is and I never quite understood why she didn’t, except for her pathological dislike of admitting that she needed help and the fact that if she did the plot would disappear. And as someone who works in audio, I found it hard to believe that she didn’t recognise people’s voices more than she did – but again, I went with it because it is a lot of fun.
Sadie also has a really difficult relationship with her step sister and I wanted a bit more resolution to that – or at least more comeuppance for her sister but Sadie definitely comes out on top so that’s good. And overall I liked it a lot – and more than I did The Bodyguard, where I had a few issues that boiled down to having read a lot of celebrity and normal person romances this year and others being better and not really understanding what the hero saw in the heroine. And Hello Stranger has a really quirky premise and is first person in Sadie’s eyes and she has a lot to deal with so you don’t have time to worry about what the hero sees in her!
I also went off and did a quiz about face blindness as soon as I finished the book – and I actually did much better at it than I expected to, given that I think of myself as being bad at faces and names! And I suspect a lot of readers will go off and do the same thing. So in conclusion, if you’re not on the Christmas book train yet this would make a nice read – although given that it’s set in sunny Texas it’s not exactly a cozy winter read!
You can get Hello Stranger on Kindle and Kobo. It’s not out in paperback in the UK until May next year, but if you’re in the US it’s available in hardback.
A much better week in reading I have to say – which may have been because I didn’t go to the theatre and I was commuting into work every day which gives me nearly two hours reading time (if I want it) on the train each day. And just a quick note to say that I’m messing with the usual schedule this month because Christmas is coming and I have a fair few things I want to post before it’s too close to the big day!
Bonus photo: because e-scooters aren’t lethal enough, how is this for an invention…
Actually two bonuses this week because after I mentioned the Inn at Boonsboro in recommendsday last week, – link to this popped up in one of my Facebook groups!
I was somewhat surprised that I had missed the furore about the Twin Flames Universe until a month or so ago when I started seeing articles about two documentaries coming along the track. And as you all know American Religion and Cults are one thing that will get me watching a documentary – or two – so of course I’ve watch the Amazon Prime and Netflix docs *and* I’ve listened to the Wondery Podcast series, and now I’m here to report back to you.
So lets start and in case you also haven’t encountered The Twin Flames Universe, the very basic summary is that it’s a cult run by a husband and wife, based on the idea that everyone has a “twin flame” soulmate and that they can find yours for you, if you just pay them enough money for classes and instruction…
Both the documentaries explain the early lives of Jeff and Shaleia and how they met and started making their own self help videos on YouTube and evolved into relationship coaches and then… well. It’s as lot and some of the allegations are pretty awful. And the two documentaries cover a lot of the same ground in many ways, but I would say that the Netflix doc is much, much bleaker. It gets to the grimmer end of the allegations much quicker than the Amazon one, which for two thirds of the time seems like it’s creepy rather than actively sinister. The Netflix one has more of a true crime feel from the start.
There is some crossover between the two documentaries – with some of the same former Twin Flames Universe members featuring in both, but there are different talking heads and experts. I’m glad I watched both because I think they both offer different things – the Amazon one is easier to see how people get hooked in to the content, the Netflix one goes deeper on the most serious allegations. And what makes these documentaries off from a lot of others is that the TFU operates by video conferencing and over Zoom – and they have recordings of Jeff and Shaleia’s sessions so you can see their coaching and what they’re doing rather than just being told about it over long shots of a house or blurry anonymised people recreating things. And it does make quite a difference.
Neither of them quite hit the bleakness of Keep Sweet – the documentary about Warren Jeffs and his Fundamentalist Mormon Church, but it’s still pretty grim. So maybe wait to watch until you’re in a good resilient frame of mind.
You obviously need a couple of subscriptions to be able to watch these – and for that I apologise, but they are worth a look the next time you have the appropriate subscription active.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 