Category: Blog

Sunday Salon: 10 years in Bristol

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The Sunday SalonThis past week I celebrated 10 years in my current job, which means that last month Tim and I completely missed celebrating 10 years of living in Bristol. 10 years! For Tim that’s the longest he’s spent living in one place (though not quite yet the longest in one house as we have moved around Bristol a little); I still have a ways to go on that front as I lived in the same house from age 0 to 20. But I’m happy enough in Bristol that I can well believe I’ll still be here in another 10 years.

I love Bristol. And not least because the music scene here is fantastic. This week I’d made a note that Amy Rigby was playing at a pub near our house, but then realised we wouldn’t be able to see her because we already had tickets to see Kate Tempest that night. Which I can’t complain about at all because the Kate Tempest gig was one of the best of my life. Absolutely incredible.

She performed her new album Let Them Eat Chaos in its entirety, which is the only way to do it as it’s a single story told in poetry, rap and song over the course of 50 minutes or so. It is smart, politically and socially motivated, beautiful, funny, angry and hopeful. As when we saw her perform this without musical backing at the Downs Concert, Kate put so much of herself into it that she was in tears at the end, and not just one or two stray tears either. I love Kate and truly think she is a force for good and positivity in this world that seems to be sorely lacking in those things far too often.

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My Lorelai moment

talking-as-fast-as-i-canThis blog post is part of a blog tour organised by Virago for the release of Lauren Graham’s new book Talking As Fast As I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls and Everything In Between. Obviously I am very excited about this book, and the new Netflix series Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, and the excuse to talk about Gilmore Girls.

Gilmore Girls used to be a guilty pleasure for me, until I realised how very much love there is for it, allowing me to stop hiding my love and full-on geek over it! It’s basically a really high quality soap opera. I’ve always related to both the main characters, Rory and Lorelai. Rory is a bookish nerd, as I was as a teen, but Lorelai is cool, capable and almost always cheerful, as I aspire to be now. I can never hope to be as beautiful as Lauren Graham or Alexis Bledel, but I can definitely learn a lot from how Lorelai is such a great friend and all-around person.

Which brings me to my favourite Lorelai moment. I suppose this includes some minor spoilers if you’ve not watched any Gilmore Girls, but most of these details aren’t intrinsic to the longer plotlines through the series.

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New Gilmore Girls reading list

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gilmore-girls-year-in-the-life

When the new Netflix series Gilmore Girls: a Year in the Life was announced I was so excited I marked the date in my diary. But it turned out that last weekend was the only date I would be able to see my best friend before the end of the year, which is basically the only thing that could possibly have delayed me shotgunning those new episodes the second they became available. (The three-day delay was totally worth it. We had a fab weekend together at the seaside.)

Once I did get back home to our own sofa and TV, it didn’t take me long to watch the new mini series. And because it’s what I do every time I watch Gilmore Girls, I kept note of every book, author and play mentioned. I don’t think these should count towards the original Gilmore Girls Reading Challenge, so I haven’t followed my usual rule of limiting the list to only Rory and Lorelai’s reads. And I know I’m not the first to do this. But I figure it’s still interesting, and probably not just to me, so here goes.

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November reading round-up

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(Corrado Ricci 1858-1934)
(Corrado Ricci 1858-1934)

Well we had three weeks of autumn before winter arrived. I quite like winter – Christmas and my birthday! – but I’ve realised in the last few years that at the start of both summer and winter, my lupus flares. In summer it’s the UV, that’s easy to figure out. In winter, well I guess cold isn’t good for arthritis, which is closely related to lupus, plus I have low vitamin D all year round anyway.

Which is a long-winded way of saying I’m not feeling all that healthy but I know it will pass soon. In the meantime I have been watching Gilmore Girls: a Year in the Life, which is both perfect and really not perfect at the same time. I’ve kept a log of books, authors and films mentioned, of course, which I’ll blog about soon.

I have one month left to complete my Books on the Nightstand Book Bingo card, and it’ll be tight but I think I can do it. If you want to help me pick my book for the “500 pages or longer” category, you can vote in my Twitter poll!

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Sunday Salon: #LoveToRead

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The Sunday SalonI love the BBC. It’s not perfect, but it produces a lot of great stuff, especially for lovers of music and books. This weekend has been the BBC’s #LoveToRead weekend, with a deluge of book-related programmes, articles and partnerships with schools and libraries, to promote the importance of reading for pleasure. It’s a campaign I can get behind.

I first knew this was coming thanks to (best radio station in the world) 6 Music‘s new series of Paperback Writers, in which bestselling writers talk about the music that inspires them. Today’s writer was Zadie Smith, who I think is even more awesome now I know that her music of choice includes Lauryn Hill and Bob Dylan.

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October reading round-up

Two Friends by Oliver Ingraham Lay (1877)
Two Friends by Oliver Ingraham Lay (1877)

Happy Halloween! Tim and I have been celebrating the eeriest day by watching Stranger Things, but most years I try to read something a bit on the spooky side. October has been so mild it has barely felt autumnal (though the colours are amazing) so it’s only now that the clocks have changed and the evenings are long and dark that I am starting to yearn for ghost stories.

What I have read this month has been fairly eclectic, not least because I have working on filling out my Books on the Nightstand Book Bingo card. I’m currently three-quarters of the way through two books for that – a popular-science title and a random book picked off the shelf. I even shut my eyes!

How was your October? Did you pick out a special Halloween read?

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Sunday Salon: Black History Month

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The Sunday SalonHere in the UK, October is Black History Month. For more than 35 years, October has seen a “nationwide celebration of Black History, Arts and Culture throughout Britain”. Locally to me, here in Bristol, events include music, theatre, film, workshops and exhibitions, many of which sound fantastic. The month will end with Bristol Somali Festival, a week-long celebration of Somali identity and heritage.

While I am excited about all the arts and culture events, to me the heart of Black History Month is the history part, and for that I am inclined to turn to books. There are many to choose between, from important people in Black history, to the multitude of stories of Africa, to slave narratives, to the experiences of Black people and communities outside of Africa.

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Book bingo six-week update

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bingo-card-2016-update1

It’s about six weeks since I first posted about the Books on the Nightstand Book Bingo and it’s going surprisingly well. I’m currently reading The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna, which could tick off either of two categories: “With a main character over 60” or “Set in Africa”. I have a couple of options lined up for “Popular science” and a few others should be easy enough (“Mentioned on The Gilmore Girls”, for example).

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Luke Cage reading list

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marvel-luke-cage-posterIn case you haven’t noticed, Netflix released its latest Marvel TV series, Luke Cage, on 30 September. Like its predecessors Daredevil and Jessica Jones, it is excellent. But what caught my eye in the early episodes is that Luke Cage is not just a big-hearted bulletproof superhero, he’s also an avid reader.

The first clue was early in episode one, when between finishing a shift at one job as a hair sweeper at a barbershop and starting a shift at his other job as a washer-up, he stops by a news stand to buy a copy of the New Yorker. Scenes of Luke’s apartment show stacks of books on every surface and when he’s not fighting baddies he likes to discuss detective novels.

What really made me pay attention was that first clear shot of a book cover. The book in question? Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. This seemed like exceptional timing. While on holiday, Tim and I went to the art gallery C/O Berlin where the main exhibition was the work of photographer (and film director) Gordon Parks, including his partnerships with Ralph Ellison, such as Invisible Man. I’ve been meaning to read the book for years, but now I’ve seen the powerful accompanying photographs, I want to more than ever.

So I did what I do. I made a reading list of all the books and authors mentioned or shown in the whole series. Enjoy.

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