Dear friends. I'm back with this month's reviews, which include 2 five star reads. Dive in to discover some memorable storylines and characters who will stay with you.
I've indicated with an asterisk when I bought a book myself. The rest were provided in advance of their publication by NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Dear friends. I'm back with some more reading delights, including two five star books.
Those with an asterisk were books I bought myself; the rest were given to me as advance copies by NetGalley and the publishers, in return for an honest review.
Do share your thoughts and recommendations in the comments.
Dear friends. It's been a while since I shared my latest reads with you. I'm glad to say today's crop is a stellar selection! New books from Elizabeth Strout, Clare Chambers and Sally Rooney for starters.
Let's dive in.
Dear friends. Another month has whizzed by and it's time for my round-up of TV watched, books read, and podcasts listened to.
This is the last post in the current format. There will soon be a standalone book reviews post, with the first one on November 18 to join the What's On Your Bookshelf link-up. Fear not, TV and podcasts will still be covered but in my review of the month, on the last Friday of the month.
All clear? Great - let's launch into Books.
Greetings dear friends and welcome to another selection of podcast, TV and book reviews. Quite a few this time because my last post was a books special.
Dear friends. Another month, another selection of TV, books and podcasts. Let's start with books.
Dear friends - welcome to another edition of my monthly reviews of TV shows, podcasts and books.
Without further ado let's start with what the Muttons have been watching. And there have been a few duds this month, although some of you may think I'm mistaken (do let me know in the comments).
Dear friends. I don't normally post my Friday Favourites until the last Friday of the month, but had a disaster with some photos so substituted this post instead. I hope you enjoy my round-up of TV, books and podcasts, and look forward to seeing your recommendations in the comments.
Greetings all and welcome to the July edition of book, TV and podcast reviews. Hardly any TV again, but not for want of trying. There's just nothing new that's floating my particular boat. But I know most of you like the book reviews best, so let's launch into them.
It's the monthly round-up of TV, book and podcast reviews. I didn't necessarily like all of them - but you can always count on me for being honest and objective! Without further ado....
Without further ado, let's look at my latest TV recommendations.
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| Image by Andrea Piacquadio for Pexels |
My message on this one is: it's not Proust. Yes, there are stereotypes. But stereotypes wouldn't exist without a soupcon of truth. I love the French and their quirky ways . The fact they hung onto Minitel for so many years (Google it). Their weird breakfasts - croissants dunked in bowls of hot chocolate. Johnny Halliday! Need I go on. But I love their commitment to French cinema and I'd much rather watch an angst-ridden French film than an American rom-com with the inevitably happy ending.
Although there was criticism of how the French came out of the programme, the Americans didn't fare much better. The deep pan pizza is Chicago's crowning culinary glory? And although Emily was wearing designer threads, she didn't look as stylish as her French boss Sylvie.
We enjoyed Emily in Paris as a frothy confection. The perfect antidote to 2020. Paris looked beautiful. I'm sure there will be a second series. A bit more bite would be nice. Camille catching her "friend" Emily in bed with the chef, for example? More discussion around topics like sexist v sexy, which was a brief flash of intelligence. More please.
If you want feel good TV with a bit of bite, then try Rita, a Danish series about the life of an unconventional and charismatic woman. In series 1, school teacher Rita is conducting a busy life love with three men: the head teacher, the mild mannered Rasmus; the father of one of her pupils, and her childhood sweetheart Tom, who's now the father-in-law of her eldest son Ricco. It's all very complicated. Every episode has pathos, sadness and humour. The characters are wonderfully drawn, including the young teacher Hjordis who has her own follow-up series. Oh - and it's a rich seam - six seasons. Binge now.
If you loved The Last Kingdom and The Vikings, you'll find this worth a look, although it's nowhere in their league. It's a big budget drama from Germany with quite a few parallels to The Last Kingdom, including a similar story conceit where the hero starts off with a different family and is stolen or given away to the "other side." In this case, we have a Roman centurion who started life as one of the Barbarians. He was given to the Romans in return for peace. Fast forward and the same Centurion is forced to wreak havoc on his family and friends from a few years ago. But is that his plan?
I defy anyone to watch this gentle and bewitching documentary without shedding a tear. A film maker, Craig Foster, is struggling to make sense of his life. He spends a year documenting the life of a wild common octopus. They may look like alien life forms but the octopus is amazingly clever and adaptable. We see the little octopus literally building a wall around herself to protect from predators. After accepting Foster into her grotto, she shows affection towards this strange being. The ending is heart breaking.
I've long been fascinated by Amiel and her fourth husband, Conrad Black, the former proprietor of the Daily Telegraph and other publications owned by the Hollinger Group.
Black was imprisoned for fraud, plunging him and Amiel into millions of pounds of debt and ignominy.
He was pardoned by Trump after spending three years in prison, following the publication of his positive book about the President. (Yes the Blacks are Republicans, but as a well adjusted Boomer I've able to read about conflicting views without throwing a tantrum).
Before disaster struck, this gilded couple had mixed with the world's richest dynasties, royalty and politicians. Barbara, a journalist and newspaper columnist, was a latter day Marie Antoinette with a couture habit. Now in her 80s, Amiel doesn't come across as particularly likeable. There are hundreds of pages of bile when it comes to Conrad's trial and the lawyers and judge they had to deal with. I never got over the fact the she freely admitted to punching and kicking a small dog that adored her, for no reason, even though she caused it internal bleeding and pain.
Most intriguing was her account of how, in her early 50s, her life was turned upside down when she married Black. Suddenly a woman who'd lived in a fairly modest apartment and dined on Lean Cuisine was expected to host prestigious banquets for the great and good.
Living among the mega rich, the Blacks tried to keep up but it kept going wrong, as shown by the jewellery that Amiel bought.
A guest at one of dinner parties peered at her emerald necklace and declared the jewels had been treated with oil and were the wrong colour. Cringe city. But very revealing, in exposing that that a lot of the "great and good", these supposed philanthropists, were in reality shallow snobs with petty rivalries and bad manners. If I'd been Amiel, I might have made a virtue out of wearing costume jewellery from an up and coming designer, rather than trying to compete with old school "patio jewellery".
We Brits come out of it quite well. Canada turned its back on its citizen Black because he had the audacity to accept a peerage. Most of their US and Canadian friends completely blanked them from the start. Elton John was the only friend who took Amiel out after the initial disgrace and gave her a trinket from Theo Fennell. A lot of the people listed by name as enemies by Amiel are still alive. I wonder what they're thinking now.
Barbara Amiel praises Elton John in her memoir but she doesn't get a mention in his. I am a big fan of Elton's but I resisted the book for several months, thinking it had all been revealed in various newspaper serialisations. But I succumbed, and I did enjoy it. Elton is open, honest and down-to-earth. His memoir is rich in anecdotes and amusing tales involving celebrities and the royal family. "I'm perfectly aware of how ridiculous my life is, and perfectly aware of what an arsehole I look like when I lose my temper over nothing," he writes. "I go from nought to nuclear in seconds and then calm down just as quickly."
He famously fell out with Princess Diana, Tina Turner and his mother, who comes across as overbearing, peevish and unpredictable.
We'll be seeing Elton for the second time - Covid permitting - in Liverpool next November, his farewell tour having been curtailed this year.
Here he's pictured with Taron Egerton, who played him in the Elton biopic.
This novel is about a young girl who goes for her first sleepover but doesn't return the next day. The story turned out to be very convoluted, and quite clever. It kept me feverishly turning pages to find out what actually happened.
A drama in nine fairly short episodes, I stuck with it after finding the first two episodes a bit irksome with whiney children's voices dominating. I was glad I stuck with it because things improved after episode three. The world has suddenly been turned into water; houses crumbled and fell into the sea. There's no explanation of why this happened. A family have found a haven in a deserted hotel near a spooky wood.Fortuitously they have food in the cellar (fast running out) but no toilet paper, which sounds familiar. Then they see another boat, with a young boy and his mother on board. The kids' squeals and all the talk about seeing angels is tedious, but the ending makes sense. I particularly enjoyed Grandad's laugh, but as usual, the father, Gil, formerly an English teacher, came across as fairly useless, which is the way men are often portrayed now by our PC BBC.
This is the true story of an American woman, Pam Hupp, who brazened it out after a crime and nearly got away with it. Russell Faria came home one evening two days after Christmas 2011 and found his wife of 12 years dead on the floor. Not long before her death, it transpires, his wife had made her friend Pam Hupp the recipient of her life insurance. You'd think this alone would interest the police, but no, they seemed to like Pam and were convinced Russ had killed his wife. Even after Pam closed down the trust, shortly before Faria's trial, that was supposed to give 50% of the life insurance policy to Russ's daughters.
There are lots of flabbergasting twists and turns before Pam Hupp is finally convicted of the 2016 murdere of Louis Gumpenberger, the man she hired to implicate Russ Faria for the murder of his wife. Who killed Betsy Faria is still an unsolved mystery.
If you love old books, Backlisted is for you. Each episode features a guest (usually a writer) who has chosen a book they love and which they think deserves a wider audience. Though sponsored by the crowd-funding publisher Unbound, it isn’t about selling new product: it’s about how and why some books stand the test of time.
For Halloween the latest book is Beowulf. Some of my favourite books, Frost in May by Antonia White, Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (which I featured here), and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens have been featured.
Hope you enjoyed this month's Friday Favourites. It's a monthly post published on the last Friday of the month. Do share your latest recommendations in the comments. I have a feeling we're going to be needing as many recommendations as we can get.
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