Quarantine Watch List

We're not only big readers - we all enjoy narratives through television and movie as well! Here are some of the things we've been watching recently.

Rebecca T: I just finished a grand rewatch of all 4 of the Hunger Games movies. I reread the book and then rewatched the movie and I was really blown away by how faithful the movies are to the books - there are whole sections of dialogue lifted straight from the books! Obviously, there are a lot of things missing. That's just what happens with movie adaptations. But these are some of my favorite and, in my opinion, some of the best done book to screen adaptations. Now I'm ready to read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes!

rachelyons: I discovered Chopped was on Hulu so I’ve been watching approximately 20 hours of it per day.

Jenn N: I have been watching a DVD box set of Cagney & Lacey gifted to me by my boyfriend. When I was a kid my mom was on a bowling league on Monday nights. For some reason I always wanted to stay up and watch Cagney & Lacey which came on at 10pm. My dad only allowed me to watch the opening credits before going to bed. The show holds a special fondness in my heart of a simpler time. I caught a rerun on an obscure cable channel a few weeks ago. It was awesome. Extremely well written, engaging and still relevant and relatable despite the passage of time. My boyfriend then surprised me by sending me the box set of the complete series to subdue the quarantine blues.
 
Melanie:
I'm watching Ugly Betty for the first time.
 
Alan:
In the last week, I've completely caught up on
Better Call Saul
The Good Place
Forged in Fire
Brockmire
I'm halfway through book 5 of 5 in Chris Fox's Void Wraith series. That's about 40 hours on Audible.

Now I'm sifting through Naked and Afraid, looking for unwatched episodes, while my wife and I are waiting for the new season of Dead to Me.

Albert:
Upload on Amazon, Also, I am catching up on Ru Paul's Drag Race.

NaomiRuth:
I just finished watching Bryan Fuller's Wonderfalls. I am planning on re-watching the first season of American Gods next.

Social Distance Reads

Hello! We hope everyone is safe and well. Since we're all in the north east, we've had to spend a lot more time at home, as many people have had to across the country. What better thing to get you through all the social distancing than a good book! We can get as close to fictional characters as we want, after all. Check out what we're reading now and feel free to share your current reads in the comments!

Jenn N. - I just read an Elin Hilderbrand book - What Happens in Paradise. Most of her books are set in Nantucket and I thought a virtual vacation was just what I needed. This book was set in the US Virgin Islands and provided a great escape to a beautiful beach destination that I needed.

Alan - I just started Out of the Dark, by David Weber, on Audible.

Eileen - I'm a little over halfway thru Brothers, by Yu Hua. It's a sad book but I'm learning a lot about a place and time period I didn't know before.

Rachelyons - I’m almost done with Legendary by Stephanie Garber! Then onto Finale!

Rebecca T - I'm listening to Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi - working my way through the series again in preparation for Imagine Me coming out next week! Even though it's a dystopia, it's such a fascinating world to return to, and it's the first time I've read all the way through the series since the 3rd book came out.

NaomiRuth - I am reading The Broken Kingdoms by NK Jemisin, the second in The Inheritance Trilogy. I am over halfway through and cannot wait to see what happens next. I love her world-building!

Group Post E-Reader or Physical Book

We’re working our way through the alphabet with the A to Z Bookish Survey as created by “The Perpetual Pageturner.”  This week’s question is: E for E-Reader or Physical Book. 

Rebecca: Both! Ereader is fantastic for travel or on the go (or at night to read without a light on), but I still want physical copies of many books (and they're easier to get signed by authors :D)

Alan: Still prefer flipping pages, but I drive so much for work that I'm hooked on Audible now.

Jess P: Book, I still like flipping pages.

Rachel: Also both! I love reading graphic novels on an e-reader.

Eileen:  Both 🙂 I read a lot on my kindle app at work. And home is mostly paper or audio.

Jenn: I prefer a physical book. Like Jess, I enjoy flipping pages but I love the concevience my e-reader provides me by letting me access library books and NetGalley ARCs without leaving my house. 

NaomiRuth:  I definitely prefer the physical book. I am a kinesthetic learner so being able to touch the pages makes a big difference. Especially with non-fiction, as I tend to highlight/under-line/notate as I go. Usually the only ebooks I can get through are short or easy fiction reads.

What about you? What’s your preference? Share with us in the comments below. 

Group Post: Drink of Choice When Reading

Awhile back, we were working on completing "The A to Z Bookish Survey" that was originally created by Blogger "The Perpetual Pageturner."  For some reason, we didn't follow through after letter “C.” Now, we're back and continuing on with "D" for Drink of Choice When Reading.

Melanie and Jess P. chose coffee.

Naomi loves tea as does Rachel who takes hers with a little cream and sugar.  Eileen also favors tea or flavored seltzers if it's hot out.

Alan:  Okay, coffee's great. Tea's great. Whiskey's great. But those are all limited to one planet. If you're going to talk about drinks of choice, then there is no reason to go any further, anywhere in the galaxy, whether you're reading, writing, queueing up, or stealing a spaceship, than a GIN AND TONIC. It is a phonetic anomaly that transcends both space and time. As Douglas Adams explains in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe;"

"It is a curious fact, and one to which no-one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85 percent of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand variations on this phonetic theme.
The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian ‘chinanto/mnigs’ which is ordinary water served just above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan 'tzjin-anthony-ks’ which kills cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the only one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that their names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named BEFORE THE WORLDS CONCERNED MADE CONTACT WITH ANY OTHER WORLDS."

Rebecca doesn't like tea or coffee and joked that she fails as a librarian as a result.  She prefers a flavored seltzer.

As for me (Jenn) I don't have on particular drink I gravitate towards when I'm reading.  It depends on my mood if I'll choose coffee or a glass of wine. I do love to try every beer mentioned by Harry Bosch of Michael Connelly's best-selling series.  The Anchor Steam he mentioned is terrific.

What about you?  What do you like to drink when reading?  Share with us in the comments below!

Group Post: Blizzard Blitz

We're getting hammered right now in Orange County, NY with a blizzard that is expected to bring anywhere from one to two feet a snow.  It's the perfect day to stay indoors with a good book.  I asked the group for their favorite story featuring snow.

Every time, we get a major snowstorm, I think of The Baby Sitters Club: Super Special #7: Snowbound by Ann M. Martin in which a massive snowstorm hits Stoneybrook, CT causing all kinds of mayhem for the gang.  Stacey and her mom are stranded in their car on the way home from the mall; Jessi gets stuck at her dance school and Kristy acts hysterically awkward when the guy she is crushing on gets snowed in with her and her family.

I was going to pick The Baby-Sitters Club: Super Special #7 also but then I thought of Super Special #3: Winter Vacation by Ann M. Martin.  While on a class trip to a ski lodge, the girls become baby-sitters for a group of elementary school kids when their school bus has an accident in the snowy weather despite this, everyone ends up having a great time.

The Shining by Stephen King, a family with a psychic kid go to live in a hotel during the off season. Dad goes insane, tries to kill the family, hotel burns down, lots of snow.

Or, Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman,  There's a freak snowstorm that kills a woman trapped in her car. (Fortunately Stacey and her mom didn't meet the same fate).

To Build a Fire, a short story, by Jack London  It's the story of a man traveling on foot through a blizzard and it's aftermath desperately trying to keep himself from freezing to death.

As Red as Blood by Salla Simukka  This book reminded me of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for a YA audience,  Set in the harsh Finnish winter, this book features Lumikki who just wants to finish school and stay out of trouble but that's difficult to do when she stumbles into a plot involving thousands of blood soaked euros.   There are some plot holes and I think something is lost in translation but it is an entertaining and enjoyable mystery with slight fairy tale overtones.

Now what about you? What are some of your favorite snow/winter themed books?  Share with us!!

via GIPHY

Group Post: Currently Reading

We continue working through the "A to Z Bookish Survey," as created by Jamie at The Perpetual Page Turner with C for Currently Reading.  I also asked everyone to include the first two sentences of Chapter 3 of their current read.

 As The Crow Flies by Craig Johnson  " 'You could've told me that you knew him.' She banked the turns at ninety, and I was beginning to think this was just the way Lolo Long drove, kind of like A.J. Foyt."

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells  "I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine, and showed you the actual thing itself, incomplete in the workshop.  There it is now, a little travelworn, truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent, but the rest of it is sound enough."

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney "You see yourself as the kind of guy who appreciates a a quiet night at home with a good book.  A little Mozart on the speakers, a cup of cocoa on the arm of the chair, slippers on the feet."

Hamilton the Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy Mc Carter  "What did Hamilton do with his hands?  Did he smoke a pipe?"

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snickett "Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can also tell you what kind of day you're going to have.  For instance, if you wake up to twittering birds, and find yourself in an enormous canopy bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of freshly made muffins and hand-squeezed orange juice, you know that your day will be a splendid one."

Morning Star by Pierce Brown  "Blood beads where buzzing metal pinches my scalp.  Dirty blonde hair puddles onto the concrete as the Gray finishes scalping me with an electric razor."


So what about you?  What are you currently reading?  Share with us!

Group Post: Best Sequel Ever

We continue working through the "A-Z Bookish Survey," as created by Jamie at The Perpetual Page Turner with B for Best Sequel Ever.

Savage Sam by Fred Gipson, the story of the son of Old Yeller is one of my favorite stories ever but sadly, it's next to impossible to find in bookstores.  

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, or Doctor Sleep by Stephen King.  

Fever by Lauren DeStefano, it got me really hooked into the series.  Her writing was very good and the story although odd was capturing.  

The Penderwicks in the Spring by Jeanne Birdsall.  While I loved every book in the series, this closer to it, hit all the perfect notes. It was funny, sweet, sad, moving, and just perfect!

A Darkness More Than Night by Michael Connelly.  While it's the 7th book in the Harry Bosch series, it's also the 2nd novel featuring Terry McCaleb and a terrific follow-up to Blood Work that centered on McCaleb.  I loved spending more time in McCaleb's world on Catalina Island and finding out what happened to him after the events in Blood Work, which is one of my favorite Connelly novels.  

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What about you?  What do you think is the Best Sequel Ever? Share with us!