Books
I finished 2019 with 84, Charing Cross Road and some Edgar Allan Poe. According to Goodreads, if I reread 84, Charing Cross Road, it’s in December. It’s another thing (like jazz music) that I associate with winter and with relaxing (in the midst of finals (when in college) or general holiday nuttiness).
My Poe story of the week was “Thou Art the Man,” one of his many stories that I wasn’t familiar with. Ninety-five percent of the story is a rather good mystery with a pretty bone-rattling climax. But I’ve noticed in a few cases, Poe isn’t very good at ending stories. In this case, there was a pretty exposition-heavy explanation of what had occurred.
I started 2020 with The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher, but I put it aside at about the 20% mark. Nothing much was really going on.
I’ll be participating in Bout of Books this week! Bout of Books is a relaxed week-long readathon. There are activities* and a couple of Twitter chats, but mostly it’s just about communal reading. I’m counting this as my post-holiday holiday.
* I’d say challenges, but in the land of readathons, “challenge” has come to mean reading to fulfill prompts. Bout of Books is old-school in its celebration of “read anything, just read.”
You know that tidy TBR I had a couple weeks ago? Totally blown up by library holds coming available. (Is that always the way?) My BoB TBR:
- Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher – “Katherine, didn’t you just DNF a book by T. Kingfisher?” Yes, but that’s an aberration for me where this author concerned. Plus, this one is light fantasy, instead of horror, which I’m totally in the mood for.
- Mesmerists, Monsters, and Machines: Science Fiction and the Cultures of Science in the Nineteenth Century by Martin Willis – Science—the actually philosophies behind science—underwent a huge change in the 19th century. How did the speculative fiction writers of that time (ETA Hoffmann, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, HG Wells, etc.) reflect that?
- Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse – This is the January selection for the Occult Detectives Goodreads group that I don’t contribute to enough.
Movies
I watched three movies this past week:
Ghost Stories (2017), directed by Andy Nyman, Jeremy Dyson – There were some nice tense moments, but Ghost Stories ended up being schlockier than I expected.
Force Majeure (2014), directed by Ruben Östlund – A Swedish film. On the too-over-dramatic side for me, but I really enjoyed the long, static takes. Actually the reserved and removed style of film-making made it bearable.
Creed (2015), directed by Ryan Coogler – On the good side of unexpected, I really enjoyed Creed. To recuse myself, I grew up watching the Rocky films. I do have a certain amount of nostalgia for them. But there are so many ways this could have been a bad film. The seventh Rocky film? About Apollo Creed’s son? Being trained by Rocky? But it works. Even the maudlin subplot works.
Other Stuff
A couple of things I’d like to get done this coming week:
- Take down the Christmas decorations. I’ve hit the point of, “Please, no more Christmas…”
- Finish Take Off Your Pants outline for Wicked Witch Retired. I’m continually looking for better ways to plan my books. And by plan, I mean finish.
- Eric has news article epigraphs in his books and occasionally I provide some different phrasings; so provide an alternate version of one of those.
Simple Tricks & Nonsense 
What a coincidence that we both closed out 2019 with 84, Charing Cross Road! I just love that book, but this was my first time listening… didn’t even know before last week that there was an audio version. Now if I can remember to make time for the film! Hope you have a good week!
Don’t you think that’s a strength of reading a lot of stories by one person? You begin to see that everything they write isn’t excellent? That’s my thought, anyway.
Look at all those library holds that came in for you. That’s always the way it works for me, too. I’m on hold now for a bunch of books that won’t be published until sometime later this year. I bet they will all come in at the same time, too.
Yes, sadly, we must take down the holiday decorations. It’s always a bit of a letdown but at a certain point I feel like I can’t stand to look at them anymore!
Have a great week!
I agree. You get to know what an author does well and what might be reaching too far for them. In this case, I knew I was going to enjoy Minor Mage much more.
The decorations are put away and the tree is back outside. My weekly update
I took all mine down with the Golden Globes in the background. The show was just long enough…
Can anyone join Bout of Books, or is it by invite only?
P.S. I loved Creed! Creed II not so much. Michael B. Jordan always delivers, though. When/if you’re in the mood for something serious, I recommend you check out Fruitvale Station (2013), if you haven’t already. It’s also directed by Coogler, starring Michael B. Jordan, and it’s based on true events with actual footage weaved in near the end. A real gut punch of a movie with stellar performances by Jordan AND Octavia Spencer.
Bout of Books: Anyone can join but they close signups on Tues/Weds of the week-long readathon. Next one is coming up in May, I believe.
Fruitvale Station is already on my wanna-watch list. Over the holidays, Screen Junkies YouTube channel had their best of the decade, year by year. Both Creed and Fruitvale Station were on it. I figured, “Alright, I guess I’ll just watch all Ryan Coogler’s movies…”