Road trips

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ta ta for now...

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The Summer Seekers
by Sarah Morgan
Chick-lit, Travel | Published: 2021 | Goodreads
Kathleen is eighty years old. After she has a run-in with an intruder, her daughter wants her to move in to a residential home. But she’s not having any of it. What she craves—what she needs—is adventure.

Liza is drowning under the daily stress of family life. The last thing she needs is her mother jetting off on a wild holiday, making Liza long for a solo summer of her own.

Martha is having a quarter-life crisis. Unemployed, unloved and uninspired, she just can’t get her life together. But she knows something has to change.

When Martha sees Kathleen’s advertisement for a driver and companion to share an epic road trip across America, she decides this job might be the answer to her prayers. She’s not the world’s best driver, but anything has to be better than living with her parents. And traveling with a stranger? No problem. Anyway, how much trouble can one eighty-year-old woman be?

As these women embark on the journey of a lifetime, they all discover it’s never too late to start over.

The Lincoln Highway
by Amor Towles
Historical, Travel | Published: 2021 | Goodreads
In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.

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* image source header: pinterest

Lovely Books and Things - 9.22.19

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update
Linking up with:
Sunday Post (details)
Mailbox Monday (details)

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HAPPY THINGS:

1. Listening to Billie Eilish's Bad Guy --- duh

2. Eating Mid-Autumn Festival Chinese Mooncakes

3. Pre-dawn photography session at the Golden Gate Bridge Toll Plaza bus pad - shadows

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Author event:

A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles
-Historical, Russia, Moscow | Goodreads
Bookshop in West Portal won an instagram challenge which granted them a visit from Amor Towles for Q&A.

Bookshop West Portal
Winner of the #agentlemaninmoscowcontest
hosted by Penguin Books

Akin
author: by Emma Donoghue
-Historical, Mystery, France | Goodreads
Bookshop in West Portal hosted a Q&A with Emma Donoghue to celebrate her new release, Akin.


Library:

Supper Club
by Lara Williams
-Contemporary, Feminism | Goodreads
THIS blurb got me…

A sharply intelligent and intimate debut novel about a secret society of hungry young women who meet after dark and feast to reclaim their appetites--and their physical spaces--that posits the question: if you feed a starving woman, what will she grow into?

Savage Appetites
Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession
by Rachel Monroe
-True Crime | Goodreads
SOME dark matter with women.

Fox 8
by George Saunders
-Short story | Goodreads
IMPULSE pick up from library shelf.


AND watched: on DVD

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (2010)
Une bouteille à la mer (original title)
Director/Writer: Thierry Binisti
Writer: Valérie Zenatti
Stars: Agathe Bonitzer, Mahmud Shalaby, Hiam Abbass
-Drama | imdb | my rating: 5
Tal is 17 years old. Naim is 20. She's Israeli. He's Palestinian. She lives in Jerusalem. He lives in Gaza. They were born in a land of scorched earth, where fathers bury their children. They must endure an explosive situation that is not of their choosing at an age where young people are falling in love and taking their place in adult life. A bottle thrown in the sea and a correspondence by email nurture the slender hope that their relationship might give them the strength to confront this harsh reality to grapple with it, and thereby ever so slightly change it. Only 60 miles separate them but how many bombings, check-points, sleepless nights and bloodstained days stand between them?

ELEMENTS of friendship, hope, peace permeate throughout.

Rocketman (2019)
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Writer: Lee Hall
Stars: Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden
-Biography, Drama, Music | imdb | my rating: 5
A musical fantasy about the fantastical human story of Elton John's breakthrough years.

FANTASTICAL musical rendition (with favorite hit songs) of Elton John's life from childhood to present had some sad but feel good moments.

IT chapter 2 (2019)
Director: Andy Muschietti
Writers: Gary Dauberman
Based on book by: Stephen King
Stars: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader
-Drama, Fantasy, Horror | imdb | my rating: 4
Twenty-seven years after their first encounter with the terrifying Pennywise, the Losers Club have grown up and moved away, until a devastating phone call brings them back.

FACING fears and a certain clown equals scary times.

Downton Abbey (2019)
Director: Michael Engler
Writer: Julian Fellowes
Based on tv series: Downton Abbey
-Drama | imdb | my rating: 5
The continuing story of the Crawley family, wealthy owners of a large estate in the English countryside in the early 20th century.

LOTS of smiling, chuckling, snickering while watching Downton Abbey in a tizzy for preparation and hosting responsibilities for the King and Queen of England.

Ms. Purple (2019)
Director/Writer: Justin Chon
Writer: Chris Dinh
Stars: Jake Choi, Tiffany Chu, Mark Krenik
-Drama, American Korean | imdb | my rating: 5
MS. PURPLE, from award-winning filmmaker Justin Chon (Gook), is the poignant story of the family loyalties of an Asian American brother and sister, set in a dreamy vision of Los Angeles’ Koreatown, reminiscent of Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love.

Kasie (Tiffany Chu) struggles to take care of her comatose father at home, refusing to put him in hospice, because he raised her and her brother when their mother abandoned them. Kasie works as a Koreatown karaoke hostess, making good money keeping obnoxious drunken businessmen happy, and is well able to handle herself, but when her father’s in-home nurse quits, she is desperate. She calls her estranged brother Carey (Teddy Lee) to come home and help care for their father, and he agrees. As they reconnect over their dying father, Kasie and Carey confront the deep emotional wounds of their difficult shared past, attempting to mend their relationship.

Winner, Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Feature, Dallas International Film Festival.

This screening included a Q&A session with Tiffany Chu (actor), Alex Chi (producer) and moderated by Masashi Niwano, Festival & Exhibition Director at the Center for Asian American Media.

BEAUTIFULLY done with colors, soundtrack and quiet scenes.

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

Thanks for stopping by :-)

World Reads: Russia

World Reads
hosted by Stephanie Jane
details | my world posts
World Reads blog series challenge is to encourage and promote the reading of global literature. On the 5th of each month Stephanie Jane highlights five books. Everyone is welcome to join in by reading one or more books from a different country each month, write a post about them and include the World Reads banner.

For the next two months arm-chair traveling to... RUSSIA

My reading list:

Red Sparrow
by Jason Matthews
-Espionage, Mystery, Thriller
Amazon | Goodreads | my review | my rating: 4

A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles
-Historical, Russia, Mosco
Amazon | Goodreads

Stacking the Shelves - 10.8.16

Stacking the Shelves
hosted by Tynga's Reviews (details)
Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

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Bought:

Warm Bodies and The New Hunger:
A Special 5th Anniversary Edition
by Isaac Marion
-Zombies, YA
Amazon | Goodreads
=====> I really liked the movie version of Warm Bodies and saw that this book also offered The New Hunger novella. Awesome two-fer!

Jane Austen
(Adult Coloring Book): 55 Removable Coloring Plates
by Abrams Noterie (Creator), Anita Rundles (Illustrations)
Amazon | Goodreads
=====> Could not resist this one because of the variety of all the Jane novels - not just Pride and Prejudice.

Eileen
by Ottessa Moshfegh
-Historical, Mystery, Thriller
Amazon | Goodreads
=====> As a Man Booker Prize 2016 short list nominee, I was drawn to this.

=====> Book Passage, Corte Madera, hosted a visit from author, Liane Moriarty, presenting her latest, Truly Madly Guilty. She mentioned that her novel, Big Little Lies has been made into an HBO series that will run in 2017.

Truly Madly Guilty
by Liane Moriarty
-Women's Fiction, Australia
Amazon | Goodreads
For Review:

Brake Failure
by Alison Brodie
-Women's Fiction
courtesy of author - Thanks!
Amazon | Goodreads

Outward Blonde
by Trish Cook
-YA
courtesy of publisher -Thanks!
Amazon | Goodreads

UNBOXING:

BOOK OF THE MONTH (details)
If you’re an avid reader, one thing is for certain: if you only shop the “bestseller” lists, you’re going to miss many of the best stories. That’s why we work hard to bring you the gems: well-written, immersive stories that transport you, give you thrills, and tug at your heartstrings. The books that are truly worth reading.

MONTH Box includes:
- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles | Amazon | Goodreads
- Notecard from judge to selected book
- BOTM Bookmark

He can’t leave his hotel. You won’t want to.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility—a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

“Towles’s greatest narrative effect is not the moments of wonder and synchronicity but the generous transformation of these peripheral workers, over the course of decades, into confidants, equals and, finally, friends. With them around, a life sentence in these gilded halls might make Rostov the luckiest man in Russia.” –The New York Times Book Review

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.


AND watched: in theatre

The Girl on the Train (2016)
Director: Tate Taylor
Screenplay: Erin Cressida Wilson
Based on book by: Paula Hawkins
Starring: Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson, Justin Theroux
-Mystery, Thriller | imdb | my rating: 5
A divorcee becomes entangled in a missing persons investigation that promises to send shockwaves throughout her life.

=====> Captured the story well and the three actresses portrayals were spot on.

The Hollars (2016)
Director: John Krasinski
Writer: James C. Strouse
Based on book by:
Starring: Margo Martindale, John Krasinski
-Comedy, Drama, Romance | imdb | my rating: 4
A man returns to his small hometown after learning that his mother has fallen ill and is about to undergo surgery.

=====> Family drama with both happy and sad moments. Had a circle of life vibe.

Our Little Sister (2015)
Umimachi Diary (original title)
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Screenplay: Hirokazu Koreeda
Based on manga by: Akimi Yoshida
Starring: Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose
-Comedy, Drama, Japan | imdb | my rating: 5
A story that revolves around three sisters who live in their grandmother's home and the arrival of their thirteen-year-old half sister.

=====> Beautifully told story with gorgeous setting to enhance it. Sisterhood at its best.


AND watched: on DVD

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Director: Peter R. Hunt
Screenplay: Simon Raven, Richard Maibaum
Based on book by: Ian Fleming
Starring: George Lazenby, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas
-Action, Adventure, Thriller | imdb | list | my rating: 2
James Bond woos a mob boss's daughter and goes undercover to uncover the true reason for Blofeld's allergy research in the Swiss Alps that involves beautiful women from around the world.

=====> So far, the least favorite, Bond film. Mostly because the actor did not really fit the part. And not crazy about the relationship aspect. I did like the Swiss and snow setting. Also, Diana Rigg was beautiful in it.


Currently flipping through: from the library

Adulthood Is a Myth:
A "Sarah's Scribbles" Collection
by Sarah Andersen
-Graphic Novel, Humor
Amazon | Goodreads
=====> Hilarious!

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