(I did do things in May, but forgot to write about them.)
– writing –
Writing is actually going pretty well. I have a number of irons in the fire right now—I’ve taken the first tentative baby steps on my next historical mystery novel, Last Ride at the Lazy G, and I’m cautiously optimistic about it; and I’m working on a few short stories on the side. There isn’t really much more to say than that at the moment, except I hope to be able to share all of these projects with you at some point, some sooner than later!
– reading –
I’m a little more than halfway through my summer reading list, and so far I have to say the highlight is Unexpected Night by Elizabeth Daly. Published in 1940, set in a Maine summer vacation spot, with an unassuming handwriting and rare books expert as the amateur detective, excellently written with a really intelligent solution…if the rest of the books in the series are this good, I might have a new favorite mystery author. Happily, I’ve enjoyed almost everything I picked for summer reading—The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff, The Land of Strong Men by A.M. Chisholm, and The Dark Horse by Rumer Godden are a few other standouts. I’ve written a few very quick reviews on Goodreads, all linked in my original summer reading post.
– watching –
Having worked our way through a whole Miss Marple series, my family and I finally decided to try the Poirot series starring David Suchet, and have watched almost all of the first seven seasons over a few months. It took me a little while to warm up to the first season—actually, I think it took a little while for the series itself to get into a groove—but we ended up really enjoying it, and with only a few minor fast-forwards for content, which is nice (I believe we only bypassed about three episodes in their entirety). Personally, I think seasons 2 and 4 are the strongest overall, though there were standout episodes in each. The strong point of the series is really the wonderful portrayals of the four recurring characters, Poirot, Captain Hastings, Inspector Japp, and Miss Lemon, and their delightful interplay with each other…and of course the costumes, vintage cars, and production values in general are splendid (though one real weak point is the decision to use such ghastly modernist houses for so many of the country house settings instead of beautiful old-world English homes—it’s particularly unfortunate in season 3’s Christmas episode “The Theft of the Royal Ruby.”).
The only novel adaptation that was a real disappointment was season 7’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. The whole strength of the novel is that its ultimate twist is totally unexpected, but in this version I felt like the screenwriters wanted so much to do something clever themselves that they telegraphed the solution way too strongly through the whole thing (plus tacking on the inevitable climactic chase/shootout, which is also one thing about the series that gets old rather quickly and is really the most un-Poirot-like thing you can imagine).
I know from reviews that the series does start to go downhill both content-wise and adaptation-wise from this point, so I don’t know if we’ll watch any more, though we may try to cherry-pick a few of the better episodes at some point.
– listening –
I listened to classical music radio a lot while doing some embroidery over last weekend, and my goodness, what an embarrassment of riches. I mean, when you get Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 2, extracts from Sibelius’ 2nd symphony and Dvorak’s 9th in the same weekend, what more can you ask? Alongside old favorites, I also heard some beautiful new-to-me works: Anton Bruckner’s 6th symphony, for instance; Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 2, and the lovely “Suffolk Suite” by Doreen Carwithen—if there’s a definitive “English” sound in classical music, this suite is the epitome of it.
I’ve also been enjoying some of Orla Fallon’s Celtic music: her version of “Carrickfergus” is my favorite I’ve heard, and I also like her “Wild Mountain Thyme” and “Galway Bay.” I also rediscovered the bluegrass channel on Sirius XM radio during a recent outing, which introduced me to a couple of new songs I liked: “Blackberry Summer” by Dale Ann Bradley, and the instrumental “Memories of Baker” by Byron Berline. And some subsequent video-hopping among bluegrass artists on YouTube brought me to the best guitar version of “Wildwood Flower” I’ve ever heard, by Sierra Hull.
what have you been up to?
photo by myself