This has been a good month. The weather’s been beautiful, I read a lot, and today I got my third COVID shot so I am safer for the winter months to come.

My favourite read this month was The Street by Ann Petry, which was a staff recommendation at Stanford’s bookshop in Bristol. This is one of the many reasons why bookshops rule.

As always I’ve watched lots of films this month – including both Kate and Beckett, which are recently released thrillers on Netflix. Kate is the better film, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead as an assassin in Tokyo. We’re hoping they release a thriller called Tim soon! I also really enjoyed Sylvie’s Love (a 1960s-set romance starring Tessa Thompson) and Sound of Metal (Riz Ahmed as a drummer who loses his hearing).

And having learned from our holiday in August that Beckett is up to walking for a couple of hours now that she’s all grown up, we’ve done a few longer walks lately. It’s nice to explore a little further afield and not just go to our three local parks every day. Though with winter weather and shorter hours of daylight coming soon, we might not have that choice for long. For now we’ll enjoy the autumn colours.

Continue reading “September 2021 reading round-up”

I am currently in the middle of three different books and I’m on holiday next week so hopefully next month’s “books read” list will be much longer. We’ll see.

This month we went from heatwave to weeks of rain storms, so outings have been sporadic. We ended the month with a trip to Brean Down in Somerset, which was a fantastic afternoon out. And Beckett graduated from doggy obedience classes, so she is now officially a Good Dog.

My top films this month were Black Widow and The Dead Don’t Die, which are both very entertaining. I also watched the first season of Rita, a Danish comedy about a school teacher who initially appears to not care about anything or what anyone else thinks, but it gradually becomes clear that this is a facade. It’s wryly funny and has been left in a very interesting place for season 2.

Continue reading “July 2021 reading round-up”

Oh look, another month in which I read loads but failed to write any reviews. And I really do want to write about some of this month’s reads, especially The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie, which is packed with ideas and references.

Top films watch this month include One Night in Miami, Rocks and Liar’s Dice. We also watched Army of the Dead, which is silly action fun with lots of zombies and explosions.

A week ago I got my second COVID jab. It was a less emotional moment than the first one for me, but it’s still a big step toward moving on from all this.

Happy June!

Continue reading “May 2021 reading round-up”

The world opened up a little bit this month and the weather wasn’t terrible. Which meant I spent more time outdoors and less time reading. I’m definitely happy to start seeing friends and family again, though I do feel we still need to be cautious, as most people our age are only just starting to be vaccinated and our younger friends are still waiting.

My top film watches this month were Call Me By Your Name, Palm Springs and Easy Rider. I also started a project of watching all four versions of A Star is Born – two down, two to go. And I watched another terrible-in-a-good-way K-drama called I Am Not a Robot.

Continue reading “April 2021 reading round-up”

Well ending a month with a mini heatwave is one way to feel better about it. But I’m feeling more positive about the month ahead. Better weather plus the first steps of lockdown easing should make April a wonderful antidote to that horrible winter. Here’s hoping.

I read a decent amount this month and wrote two whole reviews! Excellent films watched include The Vast of the Night and Roma. And TV-wise I decided better-late-than-never and inhaled the first season of Line of Duty. I’m trying to give myself a week or two off before I start season two.

Better weather, lighter evenings, plus a dog who has decided she likes being carried in her doggy backpack again, mean we can start going for walks that are a bit longer/further from our house. I just have to be careful not to try to do too much too suddenly, or I’ll trigger a lupus flare. Gently does it.

Continue reading “March 2021 reading round-up”

It finally feels like spring is here. I have more energy with each week that passes. And it’s way easier keeping a dog with very long fur clean when it’s dry weather for a few days in a row.

This month’s reading was pretty good. Five books, of which I loved two. I watched some pretty trashy films but for a genuinely good watch, I highly recommend The Handmaiden.

Here’s to a March of walks, bike rides and more good books.

Continue reading “February 2021 reading round-up”

I don’t know if it’s the onset of winter weather or the prospect of a second lockdown, but I am struggling a little again with reading. I am finding it a little easier to read and reflect on non-fiction at the moment but I have only written one book review all month and even the synopses below took me a few days to put together.

Most of our film-watching this month has been of the super cheesy variety (though I will admit I had forgotten the high calibre of cameos in Blues Brothers) so I will instead recommend two TV shows that I have very much enjoyed, both on BBC iplayer: I May Destroy You – a powerful piece about friendship and sexual assault – and Ghosts, which is silly and funny and I am grateful to the multiple friends who recommended it.

Walking Beckett has been really lovely as autumn deepens into winter. She’s the best.

Continue reading “October 2020 reading round-up”

June sped by, didn’t it? And it’s been eventful. I made a good start on my anti-racism reading list, but I’m determined for this not to be a temporary detour from my usual reads. I’ve bought a fair few titles and added a lot more to my future reads list, so you should see them dotted into my reviews here. And more fool me that I haven’t previously covered these books.

I also watched the documentary I Am Not Your Negro, based on James Baldwin’s proposal for a book looking at his own life through the lens of the deaths of three of his friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Samuel L Jackson reads Baldwin’s unpublished words, cut together with footage of Baldwin speaking at universities, events and on TV. It’s a really impressive – though of course upsetting – piece that draws a clear line to today’s Black Lives Matter movement.

The last weekend of June would have been Glastonbury. This year rather than listening to new live sets from Worthy Farm on the radio, I watched many hours of old Glastonbury footage that the BBC made available on iPlayer. Inevitably, my favourites so far are Janelle Monáe’s 2011 set and the 2019 performance of Christine and the Queens. But I was also surprised to find myself spellbound by Dolly Parton. Who knew?

Continue reading “June 2020 reading round-up”