More movies & TV down the hatch, including a re-watch of ’10 Dance’ which anybody could have guessed I would watch more than once. Ahem. This week’s reading:
1. ‘The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ by Stuart Turton. An extremely clever and ultimately satisfying but often exhausting and occasionally frustrating book. Opens on an English country-house guest waking up injured in the woods with no memory and immediately hearing what seems to be a murder. Time period: not defined; there is a car but most people are in carriages or on horseback, but as we later learn, this particular estate is something like purgatory. I’m giving you that spoiler because if you go in thinking ‘ooh, Agatha Christie-ish,’ you will be confused/enraged. Very well written aside from two instances of ‘lays’ for ‘lies;’ gripping; somewhat abrupt ending.
2. ‘One More Kiss: The Broadway Musical in the 1970s’ by Ethan Mordden. Another great resource replete with snark about critics.
3. [re-read] my own MM ‘Four Queens’ stories. Novelettes ‘Fishnets & Tinsel’ and ‘We Shall Be Changed,’ novellas ‘Triple X’ and ‘Come to Me.’
4. ‘Anything Goes’ by John Barrowman, first installment of his memoirs. This multi-talent sounds like a handful.
5. ‘Confessions of a Prairie Bitch’ by Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie on ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ This is an excellent book and I’ve become a fan.
6. ‘The Code of the Woosters’ by P.G. Wodehouse, a very funny farce involving 2 sets of incompetent lovers, a silver serving piece coveted by 2 ridiculous old men, a country house, a would-be fascist leader with a silly secret, and Jeeves.
7. ‘Spring Magic’ by D.E. Stevenson. A sweet and soothing WWII-set novel about a 25 yr old woman who leaves the Cinderella life with adoptive aunt & uncle, after bombs fall near their London home, on advice of family doctor and goes to Cairn, Scotland which she’s seen in a painting. There she meets locals, then officers’ wives, then Army men. A slow-growing romance gets a thrilling climax during a bombing. A strong subplot concerns one of the wives, whose Captain-rank husband is a philandering dick, but who won’t leave him, which is educational for the romantic MCs.
After re-watching ‘10 Dance’ I wrote two blog posts about it, then looked up the manga series to see if I could make sense of its storyline. A vol 8 is upcoming, by the way. But in view of the story capsules provided by the publisher, I’ve begun to think that ‘10 Dance’ the movie may be best left at one volume, inconclusive as it is. Oh well!