Lovely Books and Things - 9.25.22

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update

Linking up with:
Mailbox Monday (details)
Stacking the Shelves (details)
Sunday Post (details)
Sunday Salon (details)

~*~

HAPPY THINGS:

1. Celebrating the first day of Autumn with a Pumpkin Spice Latte
2. Live stream theatre of Man of God by Shotgun Players (here) runs through Oct 2
3. Happy Everything cross stitch piece at Goodwill

~*~
Bought:

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

Library: audiobook

Terminal Boredom
by Izumi Suzuki
translated by Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, Helen O'Horan
SciFi, Short Stories | Published: 2021 | Goodreads
Library:

The Greengage Summer
by Rumer Godden
Classics, British, YA, France | Published: 1958 | Goodreads

Freebies: from Free Little Library

Three
by Valérie Perrin
translated by Hildegarde Serle
Mystery, France | Published: 2021 | Goodreads

For Review:

Confidence
by Rafael Frumkin
Contemporary, LGBTQ | Published: February 2023 | Goodreads
courtesy of publisher -Thanks!
fyi: Goodreads has a giveaway for this that ends Oct 10

~*~
AND watched: theatre

Confess, Fletch (2022)
Director/Writer: Greg Mottola
Writer: Zev Borow
Based on book by: Gregory McDonald
Stars: Jon Hamm, Lorenza Izzo
Comedy, Crime | imdb | my rating: 4

After becoming the prime suspect in multiple murders, Fletch strives to prove his innocence while simultaneously searching for his fiancé's stolen art collection.

Don't Worry Darling (2022)
Director: Olivia Wilde
Writers: Katie Silberman, Carey Van Dyke, Shane Van Dyke
Stars: Florence Pugh, Harry Styles
Drama, Mystery, Thriller | imdb | my rating: 4

A 1950s housewife living with her husband in a utopian experimental community begins to worry that his glamorous company could be hiding disturbing secrets.

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

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Books and Bag: Crocodiles

Books and Bag
doing some dreaming
a designer bag and books to fill it
~*~

~*~

and add a Pumpkin Spice Latte to this mix...

The Crocodile Bride
by Ashleigh Bell Pedersen
Historical, Magical Realism | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

Set during the swampy summer in 1982, this stunning debut novel follows eleven-year-old Sunshine Turner and her troubled father Billy as the secrets of their family’s past swirl around them in the one-road town of Fingertip, Louisiana. During a hot summer of June moods, grubworms, and dark storms, Sunshine discovers stones in her chest – and learns the dangers her coming-of-age will bring about in the yellow house she shares with her father. Without the vocabulary to comprehend Billy’s actions or her own changing body, Sunshine turns to an apocryphal story passed down from her grandmother: in the dark waters of the Black Bayou lives a crocodile with an insatiable appetite and a woman with a mysterious healing gift. As Sunshine’s summer unspools, she turns to the one person who will need no explanation of the family secrets she carries—the crocodile bride.

~*~

* image source: bag -Birkin, Hermès Shiny Porosus Crocodile Birkin

Lovely Books and Things - 9.18.22

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update

Linking up with:
Mailbox Monday (details)
Stacking the Shelves (details)
Sunday Post (details)
Sunday Salon (details)

~*~

HAPPY THINGS:

1. Squid Game Emmy 2022 wins - gotta/gonna rewatch it
2. Autumn Moon festival on Clement Street (here) - mmm, mooncake time
3. My first cross stitch reproduction sampler for #samplerseptember and #septembersamplersoiree

Ellen Barber 1895
Home Sweet Home
from Hands Across the Sea Samplers
~*~
Library:

Manhunt
by Gretchen Felker-Martin
Horror, LGBTQ | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

Library: audiobook

The Unexpected Guest: A Play In Two Acts
by Agatha Christie
Mystery, Play | Published: 1958 | Goodreads

My Name Is Lucy Barton
by Elizabeth Strout
Literary | Published: 2016 | Goodreads

~*~
AND watched: theatre

See How They Run (2022)
Director: Tom George
Writer: Mark Chappell
Stars: Adrien Brody, Saoirse Ronan, Sam Rockwell
Comedy, Mystery, Agatha Christie theme | imdb | my rating: 4
loved the cast
In the West End of 1950s London, plans for a movie version of a smash-hit play come to an abrupt halt after a pivotal member of the crew is murdered.


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

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Explore: New Zealand

Explore The World 2022
through books, films, etc.
September: New Zealand

READ:

The Luminaries
by Eleanor Catton
Literary | Published: 2013 | Goodreads
It is 1866, and young Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky.

WATCH:

The Stolen (2017)
Director/Writer: Niall Johnson
Writers: Emily Corcoran
Stars: Alice Eve, Graham McTavish
Action, Adventure, Drama, Western, New Zealand | imdb | my rating: 4
The story of a woman who must find her kidnapped son, navigating a world she doesn't know, on the edge of danger with every heartbeat.

VISIT: someday...

The Women's Bookshop
105 Ponsonby Rd
Ponsonby, Auckland, New Zealand
(details)

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

Lovely Books and Things - 9.11.22

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update

Linking up with:
Mailbox Monday (details)
Stacking the Shelves (details)
Sunday Post (details)
Sunday Salon (details)

~*~

HAPPY THINGS:

1. Bumping into friends at the Chuseok Festival (Korean Thanksgiving) in the Presidio (here)
2. Palace of Legion Honor (here) outing with friend to see Guo Pei Couture Fantasy exhibit (my second viewing)
3. Going to a special event...

High Tea

Peacock Court Room at the Mark Hopkins Hotel ~*~
Library: audiobook

Reckless Girls
by Rachel Hawkins
Thriller, Mystery | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

Freebies: from Free Little Library

Park Avenue Summer
by Renee Rosen
Historical, 1960s, New York | Goodreads

~*~
Virtual Author event: hosted by bookreporter
See archive of this (here)

Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus
1960s, Feminism, Romance | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
~*~

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

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Wrangling Westerns again

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In a Western mood...

The Thicket
by Joe R. Lansdale
Western, Coming of Age | Published: 2013 | Goodreads
Jack Parker thought he'd already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic sweeping turn-of-the-century East Texas -- orphaning him and his younger sister, Lula.

Then catastrophe strikes on the way to their uncle's farm, when a traveling group of bank-robbing bandits murder Jack's grandfather and kidnap his sister. With no elders left for miles, Jack must grow up fast and enlist a band of heroes the likes of which has never been seen if his sister stands any chance at survival. But the best he can come up with is a charismatic, bounty-hunting dwarf named Shorty, a grave-digging son of an ex-slave named Eustace, and a street-smart woman-for-hire named Jimmie Sue who's come into some very intimate knowledge about the bandits (and a few members of Jack's extended family to boot).

In the throes of being civilized, East Texas is still a wild, feral place. Oil wells spurt liquid money from the ground. But as Jack's about to find out, blood and redemption rule supreme.

Stay tuned: movie pre-production is in the works directed by Elliott Lester and starring Peter Dinklage as Reginald - perfect! He is the one I imagined in that role when I read the book.

Spaghetti Western by Carol Ostberg
Piecework (1,000 pcs)
~*~

Alice's Trading Post: A Novel of the West
by Kerry Dean Feldman
Historical, Western | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
Alice's Trading Post is the story of an untamable, unforgettable woman with a wry wit who lives 103 adventurous years. She survives all the west could throw at a woman, fights to be herself, live free, and find love. Treat her with respect, you walk away safe. If not, there will be consequences. Alice never met her young Army of the West officer father stationed in Oregon Territory, 1860s. She's raised like a boy by her Canadian trapper stepfather and lovely, feisty, Indian mother alongside the Columbia River. She can shoot a beaver eye at a hundred paces, doesn't know how to cook or sew, can fight blade up with knives, hunt bear on her own, never wears a dress. This idyllic life in the Willamette Valley ends when she begins her woman moons, and her family travels across the Mullan Road to wild Fort Benton on the Upper Missouri, Montana Territory. Circumstances force her mother to trade her to an old fur trader. Young Alice must learn how to become a woman on her own, wonders if she's Indian like her mother or white like her father. She longs for family, love, and knowing where she fits in a violent Plains era. Alice's stories are found, as recorded by her grandson, under her burnt-out trading post in South Dakota, then transcribed by the Buffalo Gap Historical Society.

~*~

Vengeance (2022)
Director/Writer: B.J. Novak
Stars: B.J. Novak, Boyd Holbrook, Issa Rae
Mystery, Thriller, Comedy | imdb | my rating: 5
Western-ish, with thoughts on modern day connections
A writer from New York City attempts to solve the murder of a girl he hooked up with and travels down south to investigate the circumstances of her death and discover what happened to her.

~*~

* image source: The Onlooker by Gray Malin (here)

Lovely Books and Things - 9.5.22

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update

Linking up with:
Mailbox Monday (details)
Stacking the Shelves (details)
Sunday Post (details)
Sunday Salon (details)

~*~

HAPPY THINGS:

1. The start of September Summer in San Francisco - warm and sunny days - best time to visit the city if you're thinking of venturing out.
2. Pasta swirled in a wheel of Parmesan cheese and topped with mushroom truffle sauce at Acquolina (here)
3. Reading on a train trip - Confessions on the 7:45 by Lisa Unger

~*~
Library: audiobook

Murder in Old Bombay
by Nev March
Mystery, Historical, India | Published: 2020 | Goodreads
Library:

Without Merit
by Colleen Hoover
YA, Romance, Mental Health | Published: 2017 | Goodreads
fallen into the read-all-the-Colleen Hoover trap

A Place in the World:
Finding the Meaning of Home
by Frances Mayes
Memoir, Travel | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

Freebies: from Free Little Library

Jane Austen's Guide to Dating
by Lauren Henderson
Chicklit, Non-fiction, Humor | Published: 2005 | Goodreads

~*~
AND watched: theatre

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)
Director/Writer: George Miller
Writer: August Gore
Based on short story: The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye by A.S. Byatt
Stars: Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba
Drama, Fantasy, Romance | imdb | my rating: 4
ahhh... wishes... what would you...
A lonely scholar, on a trip to Istanbul, discovers a Djinn who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom.


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

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Rabbit rabbit: Beware the Little White Rabbit

Beware the Little White Rabbit
edited by Shannon Delany and Judith Graves
Short stories, Fantasy, Retelling, YA, Alice in Wonderland | Published: 2015 | Goodreads
stories by Charlotte Bennardo
C. Lee McKenzie
David Turnbull
Christine Norris
Jacqueline Horsfall
Medeia Sharif
Laura Lascarso
Tom Luke
Jessica Bayliss
Crystal Schubert
Holly Odell
Jennifer Moore
Liam Hogan

Curiosity often leads to trouble...

Thirteen powerful voices in young adult fiction invite you to journey into startling new Wonderlands in this nod to the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s timeless character, ALICE.

Mystery. Madness. Mayhem. Each story in this collection will intrigue, bewitch, and enchant. Through rich historicals, castles and keeps, wild wormholes, secret workshops, deadly plagues, and gritty urban explorations, we present new tales of Alice and her white rabbit.

Whether an intrepid reporter, a would-be car thief, or the last human in a world ruled by machines, at the heart of each story Alice is a girl discovering who she really is in worlds that never fail to surprise.

What wonders await, oh curious reader? Leap down the rabbit hole and discover the truth...

~*~
* stay tuned for Alice in Wonderland event later this month ;-)