Finally got my hands on THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB. Very popular. But even more astounding is my next book group book, PERSONAL LIBRARIAN, which has accumulated 28, 000 Amazon reviews in six months. Can that possibly be legit? Also trying to read MRS. DALLOWAY before the opera on December 10th.
No new movies this week. I had guests here three nights this week, which I enjoyed very much. It is much easier for folks to get in here now that the construction is finished.
I am watching THE CROWN, THE WHITE LOTUS, FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE, 1899, and probably more whose titles are escaping me.
We have a little snow and it is very cold but supposed to warm up in a few days. Did a little Christmas shopping and put my decorations up.
Be careful out there and tell me what's new.
16 comments:
Diane and I watched the refugee Buffalo Bills defeat the Cleveland Browns at Ford Field. Western NY is digging out from last week's Lake Effect snow event. Many schools are still closed today...and some have also closed tomorrow, too. When to put all the tons of snow is a Big Problem.
Diane is busy packing up for our trip to New York City on Thanksgiving Day. We have tickets to BEAUTIFUL NOISE (a Neil Diamond jukebox musical), Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard, MJ (a Michael Jackson jukebox musical), and SOME LIKE IT HOT. Katie has made reservations at some excellent restaurants so that will be fun, too.
When we return home next week, Diane plans to have us put up the Christmas Tree and start "Christmastizing" the house. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone! Stay safe!
What a great trip. Hope the weather behaves in both places for you.
Patti, no snow in the Western NY forecast (we've had enough!) and the weather in NYC looks to be benign for our visit. We're hoping to have Brunch with the Meyersons.
I hope you'll enjoy The Thursday Murder Club, Patti. It's definitely an unusual crime novel, and I do respect the innovation.
I liked THURSDAY MURDER CLUB and have enjoyed the sequels as much or more. Fun books.
It is way too cold here (after two weeks of 10 degrees above normal, it is way below), but starting tomorrow looks like a week of 50s, just in time for George's visit. (I know he prefers the cold.) We'll see them next Monday at this time.
We haven't left the house since Friday. After my cold, Jackie got it and has just pretty much recovered. Neither was Covid, thankfully, but both had an annoying cough. Lots of chicken soup. Plenty of reading over the weekend.
Plenty of television too. We started 1899 last night and liked the first episode (though why do all these shows have to be so dark>). Finished DEADWIND (Finland - Netflix) series 3. Limped through MAGPIE MURDERS. Final episode was good but overall, disappointing. And she was too stupid to live by turning her back on the murderer after confronting him alone. Only a deus ex machina saved her.
Also watching several French shows - CHERIF and TANDEM continue, plus ASTRID (PBS Masterpiece) and CANDICE RENOIR (Acorn). Both are cop shows with women protagonists. Plus just added the older SPIN (THE SHADOW MEN - MHz Choice)), originally shown 10 years ago in France, about a political assassination, Presidential election, etc. Just started that. NORDIC MURDERS (PBS Masterpiece) is series two.
We both agreed to give up on THE ENGLISH in the third episode. Slow and beautiful to look out, but hard to follow and we don't care enough to keep watching it.
Just had a 4th greatgrandchild born Saturday. That with a dozen grand kids makes for a nightmare at Christmas time.
Read Wake by Shelley Burr. Read some short fiction by Stephen Volk and Alfred Bester (a reread). Now reading My Dirty California nby Jason Mosberg.
No new movies this week. Tv watching n-The White Lotus, The English, The John Oliver.
Cold out. Haven't left my apt building since Thursday. Going for an eye injection in a couple hours.
Lions won three in a row. What's up with that. They actually looked pretty good Sunday.
I read the third (and latest) book is the Thurday Murder Club series last week. Very entertaining and perhaps the best of the three. Also highly recommended is A SNAKE FALLS TO EARTH by Darcie Little Badger, the only novel I know of in which the hero is a cottonmouth viper. It's based on Native American myths and it completely wowed me. This week I've been reading a lot of old John Creasey mysteries -- comfort food like mac and cheese but for the eyes. For some reason I've also been catching up on some of the original Tom Swift books, I think because they are quick (I did not say Swift) reads and fail to ta my brain. Alo reading THE FURIES (the latest Charlie Parker from John Connolly) and NO PLAN B (the latest Reacher from Lee and Andrew Child).
Jessie's cat Popcorn died suddenly this week, apparently from liver failure. She had Popcorn for five years; she was found wandering at a farmer's market after having gotten into some of scrape that left her with half a tail. She was a sweet cat and only begu to show signs of sickness the day before she died. Jessie had made an appointment with the vet for the next day, but alas. She and the girls are worried sick that Popcorn might have gotten into something at their house but none of the other animals are affected. Nonetheless, they are doing a major cleaning and sanitizing of every room. I'll be spending Thanksgiving with them and hope the turkey will not taste of bleach.
My radiation therapy end this Wednesday after 38 sessions. Everything looks good on their end and I don't expect any further problems. I will continue to be monitored if only because the doctors like my face. Tomorrow I pick up flowers for the radiation techs as a thank you. Then on Wednesday, after the final session, I'm off to pick up the five pies I've ordered for Thanksgiving. (There will be four of us and the Thanksgiving rule is at least one full pie per person so I ordered five.)
Still no television this week. Someday, maybe. christina, Walt, and Jack are already in Tennessee for the holiday. Mark will leave here tomorrow to join them and Erin will leave from Tallahassee. It's going to be very quiet here, just me and the animals.
I hope you have a wonderful and meaningful Thanksgiving, Patti. Stay safe. Stay happy.
Congrats to Jerry.
You know the snowfall is heavy is Buffalo has to shut down.
My in-laws fly in tomorrow. On Wednesday I drive to MN to pick-up Boy #1 and return that night. He and I are signed up for a Thanksgiving moring 5k so I hope we don't get back too late. I've not prepped for the 5k so I will likely be walking a lot.
I'm still watching THE OUTSIDER on HBO and enjoying it. I rewatched season 3 of MIRACLE WORKERS. A fourth season of MIRACLE is premiering on TBS in January, but I suppose there will be a months long delay before the HBO release.
Boy #2 is in the conference honors orchestra tomorrow night. My wife will miss it to pick her parents up at the airport. Some people cringe at listening to high school bands and orchestras. I enjoy the performances. I'm also very biased.
Just wonderful, Jerry. You are a trooper.
I too wonder why so many shows are so dark. Is it to hide the CGI stuff? Or do I need somehow to adjust the lighting on the TV?
Lots of activity in WI. I remember those days.
Just rewatched THE HOURS in preparation for the opera being streamed to a theater here from the Met. What an amazing movie-and so many great actors in it. I had forgotten how well Kidman hid under that fake nose.
I forgot to mention my wife and I attended the musical COME FROM AWAY on Friday night. Before the pandemic she had bought a ticket package so she and Boy #2 could attend the shows. But the steep balcony seats unnerved the height averse Boy #2. I understand his discomfort but I am not as uncomfortable as him. On their first visit they had to leave early. I will encourage doing so again but with ponying up the dough to get main floor seats.
I'm not a fan of musicals. COME was well paced and the schmaltz was not too heavy. There were teary bits from some people. When one piece of bad news was delivered on stage I heard audible gasps from the audience.
I. of course, was stoically unmoved. After the gasps I had snarky thoughts of, "Well, yeah, of course that happened."
Late again, we went to Costco this morning to buy our pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.
Not much going on. We visited a Monarch butterfly preserve that we used to go to years ago. An interesting new hike for us because the ground is very uneven, and I tried out new trekking poles, which definitely got me by a couple of spots that would have been impossible without them.
I read all three of the Thursday Club murder books and loved them all. Books 2 and 3 are the best but maybe only because the main characters were established by that point. I read THE BULLET THAT MISSED this month, shortly after finishing book 2.
We are watching the same old STAR TREK shows and still enjoying them. Plus MCDONALD & DODDS (which we have almost finished now and I will be sad), PERRY MASON (original), the old version of CSI (which is lots of fun to see the actors so young). And current television: CSI: VEGAS, NCIS, and NCIS: HAWAII. Tonight I plan to start watching NINE PERFECT STRANGERS.
Jerry, congratulations on nearing the end of radiation therapy. Five pies for Christmas! I wish I could come to your house for Thanksgiving. We never have anything but pumpkin. I love pecan pie, but no one else would eat it with me.
My husband loved pecan and no one else did so he seldom got it. He also liked mince-same deal.
I turned the Lions game on near the end but NY began to look better so I turned it off again. So you have me to thank for the win, Steve. A woman in the store today was buying 15 100 gift cards for her family. Wow.
My father loved mincemeat pie and I had a lot of that when I was a child. I am sure I would love it now, too.
My Dad's favorite was raisin pie but you only find that in Pennsylvania Dutch country.
Reading DESERT STAR and watching MYSTERY ROAD: Origin.
It will be a quiet Murder of Large Birds day for Scott and I. This time of year is always hard.
My friend Keiko had a ferociously averse reaction to THE HOURS, and I hadn't ever have anyone stick up for it too much in my ken, so her trump had helped keep me away...I'll give it a shot sometime.
Jerry, indeed further congratulations on the successful end of that therapy, and condolences on the end of your daughter's cat, and the relatively sparse population of the house post-T-day...other group holidays are coming, and you do have one of the most tight-knit families I'm aware of. Said Todd belatedly.
Congratulations, Steve, on the expansion of your family's population, despite the gift-choosing and house-crowding it might entail around Xmas!
And all sympathies, Gerard, to your son's distress at the way they array balcony seats...I was rather startled at the cheap seats for the Philadelphia Opera, given my lack of love for open heights...then when we sprang for pricy ones in the orchestra, the damned conductor audibly sang along (from third row orchestra), well out of tune, throughout the performance. My first adventure to a Phillies game with Alice (she was briefly engaged by pro baseball, and despite enjoying playing in kids' leagues, even getting an RBI award one season, had not ever been to a major league park--bit of a hike from NW Connecticut) had a similar vertiginous affect.
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