Reading Wrap Up: April 2022

READING WRAP UP
books from the tbr that may not be listed on book club posts

Take My Hand
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Historical, African American | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 5
eye-opening and a must share kind of story
Montgomery, Alabama 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a worn down one-room cabin, she’s shocked to learn that her new patients are children—just 11 and 13 years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black and for those handling the family’s welfare benefits that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica and their family into her heart. Until one day, she arrives at the door to learn the unthinkable has happened and nothing will ever be the same for any of them.

Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten.That must not be forgotten.

Because history repeats what we don’t remember.

Perdita Book Club

Perdita
Romance Book Club (details)
~*~ Found this super cute shop in the lower Haight that has a book club with some lovely picks. Gonna join in.

~*~ APRIL:

Mr. Wrong Number
by Lynn Painter
Romance, Contemporary | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 4
MAY:

Dating Dr. Dil
(If Shakespeare was an Auntie #1)
by Nisha Sharma
Romance, Contemporary, India | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 4

Portrait of a Thief
by Grace D. Li
Mystery, Art | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 4
JUNE:

Book Lovers
by Emily Henry
Contemporary, Romance | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 4

Disorientation
by Elaine Hsieh Chou
Literary, Asian American, Taiwan | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
JULY:

A Lady for a Duke
by Alexis Hall
Romance, Historical, LGBTQ | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
AUGUST:

The Cartographers
by Peng Shepherd
Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

SEPTEMBER:

Love on the Brain
by Ali Hazelwood
Romance | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

OCTOBER:

The Make-Up Test
by Jenny L. Howe
Romance, Academia | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 3
NOVEMBER:

The Cloisters
by Katy Hays
Mystery, Gothic | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 3
DECEMBER:

Just Like Magic
by Sarah Hogle
Romance, Holiday | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

Being Nicolas Cage

Age of Cage
by Keith Phipps
Biography | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

Icon. Celebrity. Artist. Madman. Genius.

Nicolas Cage is many things, but love him, or laugh at him, there's no denying two things: you’ve seen one of his many films, and you certainly know his name. But who is he, really, and why has his career endured for over forty years, with more than a hundred films, and birthed a million memes?

Age of Cage is a smart, beguiling book about the films of Nicolas Cage and the actor himself, as well as a sharp-eyed examination of the changes that have taken place in Hollywood over the course of his career. Critic and journalist Keith Phipps draws a portrait of the enigmatic icon by looking at―what else?―Cage’s expansive filmography.

As Phipps delights in charting Cage’s films, Age of Cage also chronicles the transformation of film, as Cage’s journey takes him through the world of 1980s comedies (Valley Girl, Peggy Sue Got Married, Moonstruck), to the indie films and blockbuster juggernauts of the 1990s (Wild at Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, Face/Off, Con Air), through the wild and unpredictable video-on-demand world of today.

Sweeping in scope and intimate in its profile of a fiercely passionate artist, Age of Cage is, like the man himself, surprising, insightful, funny, and one of a kind. So, snap out of it, and enjoy this appreciation of Nicolas Cage, national treasure.

~*~

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Director/Writer: Tom Gormican
Writer: Kevin Etten
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish
Action, Comedy, Crime | imdb
A cash-strapped Nicolas Cage agrees to make a paid appearance at a billionaire super fan's birthday party, but is really an informant for the CIA since the billionaire fan is a drug kingpin and gets cast in a Tarantino movie.

Happy release: An Honest Lie by Tarryn Fisher

An Honest Lie
by Tarryn Fisher
Thriller, Mystery | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
release date: April 26, 2022
“I’m going to kill her. You’d better come if you want to save her.” Lorraine—“Rainy”—lives at the top of Tiger Mountain. Remote, moody, cloistered in pine trees and fog, it’s a sanctuary, a new life. She can hide from the disturbing past she wants to forget.

If she’s allowed to.

When Rainy reluctantly agrees to a girls’ weekend in Vegas, she’s prepared for an exhausting parade of shots and slot machines. But after a wild night, her friend Braithe doesn’t come back to the hotel room.

And then Rainy gets the text message, sent from Braithe’s phone: someone has her. But Rainy is who they really want, and Rainy knows why.

What follows is a twisted, shocking journey on the knife-edge of life and death. If she wants to save Braithe—and herself—the only way is to step back into the past.

Armchair travel by train

Compartment No. 6 (2021)
Director/Writer: Juho Kuosmanen
Writer: Andris Feldmanis
Based on book by: Rosa Liksom
Stars: Yuriy Borisov, Seidi Haarla, Yuliya Aug
Drama, Romance, Russia | imdb
A young Finnish woman escapes an enigmatic love affair in Moscow by boarding a train to the arctic port of Murmansk. Forced to share the long ride and a tiny sleeping car with a Russian miner, the unexpected encounter leads the occupants of Compartment no. 6 to face the truth about their own yearning for human connection.

~*~

Compartment K
by Helen Reilly
Mystery, Canada | Published: 1964 (first 1955) | Goodreads | my rating: 4
It had been planned, everybody thought, as a family weekend. The Canadian Rockies, a lodge--it was something to look forward to. Until an uninvited guest became part of the group. A man of mystery. A stranger. But there was no mystery about this: as the miles faded, a killer stalked the night and the stranger became a corpse. And he was, it turned out, not such a stranger after all...

Lovely Books and Things - 4.24.22

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update

Linking up with:
Sunday Post (details)
Mailbox Monday (details)

~*~

HAPPY THINGS:

1. Yerba Buena Gardens Festival show: A Song of Triumph: The History of Black Music by Maestro Curtis featuring The Curtis Famly C-Notes and The Song of Triumph Ensembles (here)
2. Strawberry Rhubarb pie with a dollop of The Greek Gods honey vanilla greek yogurt
3. Reading Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida at Shakespeare Garden on Shakespeare's birthday

~*~
Library: audiobook

The Paper Palace
by Miranda Cowley Heller
Literary | Published: 2021 | Goodreads
Borrow: from friend -Thanks D!

The Golden Mare, the Firebird, and the Magic Ring
by Ruth Sanderson
Children's, Fairy Tale, Russia | Published: 2021 | Goodreads

Freebies: from Free Little Library

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk
by David Sedaris
illustrated by Ian Falconer
Short Stories, Humor, Fables | Published: 2010 | Goodreads

For Review:

Ordinary Monsters
by J.M. Miro
Fantasy, Victorian, London | Published: June 2022 | Goodreads
courtesy of publisher -Thanks!
~*~
AND watched: virtual theatre for 65th SFFILM Festival (details)

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)
Director/Screenplay: Dean Fleischer-Camp
Screenplay: Elisabeth Holm, Nick Paley, Jenny Slate
Stars: Jenny Slate, Dean Fleischer-Camp, Isabella Rossellini
Animation, Comedy | imdb | my rating: 5
adorable; life gems and observations
Feature adaptation of the animated short film interviewing a mollusk named Marcel.


~*~
* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Shakespeare Boogie

Celebrating Shakespeare
April 23 birthday

Troilus and Cressida
by William Shakespeare
Classics, Drama, Play | Published: 2008 (first 1601) | Goodreads
AND WATCH:

Ophelia (2018)
Director: Claire McCarthy
Adaptation by: Semi Chellas
Based on book by: Lisa Klein
Based on characters by: William Shakespeare
Stars: Daisy Ridley, Nathaniel Parker, Naomi Watts
Drama, Romance, Thriller | imdb
As a rebellious and motherless child, Ophelia is taken into Elsinore Castle by Queen Gertrude as one of her most trusted ladies-in-waiting. Soon enough, Ophelia captures the affections of the young Prince Hamlet. A passionate romance kindles between the 2 in secret as the kingdom is on the brink of war amidst its own political intrigue and betrayal. When Hamlet's father is murdered and the prince's wits begin to unravel into an insatiable quest for vengeance, Ophelia sharply navigates the rules of power in Denmark all while struggling to choose between her true love and her own life.

~*~
* image source: Shakespeare

Happy Earth Day

~*~

Scattered All Over the Earth
by Yōko Tawada
translated by Margaret Mitsutani
SciFi, Climate, Japan | Published: 2022 | Goodreads my rating: 4
Welcome to the not-too-distant future: Japan, having vanished from the face of the earth, is now remembered as “the land of sushi.” Hiruko, its former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): “homemade language. no country to stay in. three countries I experienced. insufficient space in brain. so made new language. homemade language.” As she searches for anyone who can still speak her mother tongue, Hiruko soon makes new friends. Her troupe travels to France, encountering an umami cooking competition; a dead whale; an ultra-nationalist named Breivik; unrequited love; Kakuzo robots; red herrings; uranium; an Andalusian matador. Episodic and mesmerizing scenes flash vividly along, and soon they’re all next off to Stockholm.

Jeepney (2013)
Director: Esy Casey
Documentary, History, Philippines | imdb

JEEPNEY visualizes the richly diverse cultural and social climate of the Philippines through its most popular form of mass transportation: vividly decorated ex-WWII military jeeps. The film follows jeepney artists, drivers, and passengers, whose stories take place amidst nationwide protest against oil price hikes that pressure drivers to work overseas to earn a living, far from their homes for years at a time. Lavishly shot and cut to the rhythm of the streets, JEEPNEY provides an enticing vehicle through which the rippling effects of globalization can be felt.

Explore: Kyoto

Explore The World 2022
through books, films, etc. April: Kyoto

READ:

The Lady and the Monk:
Four Seasons in Kyoto
by Pico Iyer
Memoir, Travel, Japan | Published: 1991 | Goodreads
When Pico Iyer decided to go to Kyoto and live in a monastery, he did so to learn about Zen Buddhism from the inside, to get to know Kyoto, one of the loveliest old cities in the world, and to find out something about Japanese culture today -- not the world of businessmen and production lines, but the traditional world of changing seasons and the silence of temples, of the images woven through literature, of the lunar Japan that still lives on behind the rising sun of geopolitical power.

All this he did. And then he met Sachiko.

Vivacious, attractive, thoroughly educated, speaking English enthusiastically if eccentrically, the wife of a Japanese "salaryman" who seldom left the office before 10 P.M., Sachiko was as conversant with tea ceremony and classical Japanese literature as with rock music, Goethe, and Vivaldi. With the lightness of touch that made Video Night in Kathmandu so captivating, Pico Iyer fashions from their relationship a marvelously ironic yet heartfelt book that is at once a portrait of cross-cultural infatuation -- and misunderstanding -- and a delightfully fresh way of seeing both the old Japan and the very new.

AUDIOBOOK:

Cutting Back
My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto
by Leslie Buck
Memoir, Japan | Published: 2017 | Goodreads | my rating: 5
At thirty-five, Leslie Buck made an impulsive decision to put her personal life on hold to pursue her passion. Leaving behind a full life of friends, love, and professional security, she became the first American woman to learn pruning from one of the most storied landscaping companies in Kyoto. Cutting Back recounts Buck’s bold journey and the revelations she has along the way. During her apprenticeship in Japan, she learns that the best Kyoto gardens look so natural they appear untouched by human hands, even though her crew spends hours meticulously cleaning every pebble in the streams. She is taught how to bring nature’s essence into a garden scene, how to design with native plants, and how to subtly direct a visitor through a landscape. But she learns the most important lessons from her fellow gardeners: how to balance strength with grace, seriousness with humor, and technique with heart.

WATCH:

The Makioka Sisters (1983)
Original title: Sasameyuki
Director/Writer: Kon Ichikawa
Writer: Shin'ya Hidaka
Based on book by: Jun'ichirô Tanizaki
Stars: Yoshiko Sakuma, Sayuri Yoshinaga, Yûko Kotegawa, Keiko Kishi
Drama, Romance, Japan | imdb | my rating: 5
This sensuously beautiful film chronicles the activities of four sisters who gather in Kyoto every year to view the cherry blossoms. It paints a vivid portrait of the pre-war lifestyle of the wealthy Makioka family from Osaka, and draws a parallel between their activities and the seasonal variations in Japan.

FLIP THROUGH:

Soul of Kyoto:
A Guide to 30 Exceptional Experiences
by Thierry Teyssier
Travel, Guide, Japan | Published: 2021 | Goodreads

VISIT: someday...

Kyoto Okazaki TSUTAYA BOOKS
(details)
Kyoto, a city that breathes culture and history,
KYOTO OKAZAKI TSUTAYA BOOKS is a bookstore
dedicated to inspire and bring to you,
'things that move the soul'.

While we call ourselves a bookstore, our store is more than just books.
Our store features locally-made handcrafted goods and accessories,
a Starbucks Book&Café,
a Rent-a-Bike service for visitors to enjoy sightseeing in Kyoto,
a Café & Restaurant inspired by locally produced seasonal ingredients,
plus many more. The store is filled with many gems
to provide each and everyone a chance encounter with
'things that move the soul'.

~*~
* part of Explore the World (here)

It's a clone, my dude

Dual (2022)
Director/Writer: Riley Stearns
Stars: Karen Gillan, Aaron Paul
SciFi, Thriller | imdb | my rating: 4

A woman opts for a cloning procedure after she receives a terminal diagnosis but when she recovers her attempts to have her clone decommissioned fail, leading to a court-mandated duel to the death.

The Echo Wife
by Sarah Gailey
SciFi, Thriller | Published: 2021 | Goodreads | my rating: 4
I’m embarrassed, still, by how long it took me to notice. Everything was right there in the open, right there in front of me, but it still took me so long to see the person I had married.

It took me so long to hate him.

Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award-winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she’d never be.

And she’s having an affair with Evelyn’s husband.

Now, the cheating bastard is dead, and both Caldwell wives have a mess to clean up.

Good thing Evelyn Caldwell is used to getting her hands dirty.

Lovely Books and Things - 4.17.22

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update

Linking up with:
Sunday Post (details)
Mailbox Monday (details)

~*~

HAPPY THINGS:

1. The return of the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan town
2. Searching for Louise Penny books at used book stores
3. Funny signs

~*~
Library: audiobook

The Book of Mother
by Violaine Huisman
translated by Leslie Camhi
Contemporary, Mental Health, France | Published: 2021 | Goodreads

The Verifiers
by Jane Pek
Mystery, Thriller | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
Library:

Along for the Ride
by Sarah Dessen
YA, Romance | Published: 2009 | Goodreads
for Netflix book club

Freebies: from Free Little Library

Orly Farm
by Anthony Trollope
Classics, Victorian | Published: 1861 | Goodreads

Lucky
by Marissa Stapley
Thriller, Canada | Published: 2021 | Goodreads
~*~
AND watched: virtual theatre

Turning Red (2022)
Director/Writer: Domee Shi
Writers: Julia Cho, Sarah Streicher
Stars: Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh
Animation, Adventure, Comedy | imdb | my rating: 5

A 13-year-old girl named Meilin turns into a giant red panda whenever she gets too excited.

~*~

~*~
* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently

Thanks for stopping by :-)