Sunday Post – 4/23/2023

April 23, 2023 Sunday Post 7

The Sunday Post is hosted by the wonderful Kimberly, the Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news, recap the past week, take a look ahead, and showcase our new treasures—I mean books!

Last Week

In real life: I’m still out west, staying with my parents as my stepdad recovers from surgery and a fracture. He’s doing better, and visibly gains strength and mobility every day. But of course there are some things he still can’t do on his own, because he is in several rigid braces. It’s such a blessing that I’m able to be here to help, and that my husband is so supportive. I miss my husband, but we both know I’m needed here right now, at least for another few weeks. And a bonus is that I get to see Robin, and my sister, brother-in-law, and niece. Not every day, of course, but occasionally. They come by, or I go visit them for a few hours.

Recent Posts

Looking Ahead

  • Reading Challenge: COYER Upside Down, Chapter 2 – sign-up post
  • Identity, by Nora Roberts – review
  • Sunday Post – 4/30/2023

What I’ve Been Reading/Watching

Reading: Because I’ve been so busy helping out my parents, and so tired at the end of the night, my reading has slowed down somewhat. I buddy-read Murder at Queen’s Landing, the fourth Wrexford & Sloane mystery, with Sophia Rose. And I read (or actually, reread) this month’s #ReadChristie2023 book, Sparkling Cyanide. Both books count toward the COYER Mystery readathon, which ends today. After that, I began rereading Tribute by Nora Roberts (reviewed 2017.)

I was able to borrow Unraveling (Peggy Orenstein) from the library here, using my mom’s card, so hopefully I can finish it while I am here. (I started it back in March, at home.)

Listening to: I need to get back to The Empty House by Rosamunde Pilcher, but I really haven’t had time. I also need to listen to Hammered by Kevin Hearne, for the Iron Druid readalong, but ditto. I am still listening to Season 4 of the Writing Excuses podcast now and then, but only in short intervals, when I have a few minutes.

Playing (occasionally): Wordle, the NYT Spelling Bee, and Pokemon Go.

Watching: I found a set of DVDs at the Friends of the Library sale here. It’s “The Jane Austen Collection” from the BBC, and contains Persuasion (1971), Emma (1972), Pride and Prejudice (1980; not the Colin Firth one), Sense and Sensibility (1981), Mansfield Park (1986), and Northanger Abbey (1987.) So far, we have only watched Pride and Prejudice, which stars Elizabeth Garvie as Elizabeth Bennet and David Rintoul as Mr. Darcy. It’s 5 episodes long, and I enjoyed it very much. Garvie is charming as Lizzie, and all the characters are well-cast. We tried the Sense and Sensibility, but the performances are very flat, so we gave up and started watching the 2008 BBC version instead. It’s very good.

We also watched At Bertram’s Hotel, one of the Miss Marple mysteries from the 1990s, starring Joan Hickson, and several episodes of Midsomer Murders (Season 5.) And when Robin came over on Friday evening, we watched Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast.

Added to the Hoard

Purchased or Free (Kindle, print, or audio)

Print: The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan — Can you believe I got this for a dollar? It’s the size of a hardcover dictionary, and just as heavy! And it’s an essential reference to the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. I have been a G&S fan since high school; our music director (who was also my uncle) directed one of their operettas every year, and in college I became a founding member of the rebooted Gilbert & Sullivan Players on our campus. I have performed all but four of the extant G&S operettas at one point or another, and have been in two or three different productions of some of them. I even sang a few leading parts at summer camp and in high school. There are only G&S operettas I have never sung: Princess Ida, Ruddigore, The Mikado, and Utopia Limited. (And Thespis, of course; the music was never published, and most of it has been lost, so the few and very rare modern productions are reconstructions that borrow music from other G&S shows.) To be honest, I miss theater, especially musicals and operettas.

Kindle: An Extravagant Death (reviewed 2021); A Rip Through Time; The Monsters We Defy

(Click title for Goodreads page or my review.)

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay kind… and may you find books a haven in the coming weeks.

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7 Responses to “Sunday Post – 4/23/2023”

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      It has meant the world to me to be able to be here, and with my husband’s understanding and support. (But I sure do miss him!)

  2. Katherine

    I’m so glad you’ve been able to spend this time with your family but I do know that that kind of thing can also be exhausting. It does look like you have some wonderful books to read to keep you company and give your mind a break. Now off to look up Tribute. I’m sure I’ve read that one but can’t remember anything about it. Have a wonderful week!

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      I’ve been reading Christie for almost 50 years now! I’ve read almost all of her mysteries at least once, and some of them four or five times. I love her plots and many of her characters, but I’m increasingly aware that a few of the books have not aged well at all. There are colonial and racist attitudes in some of them that are really quite cringeworthy.

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      Right after I posted this, I saw on a college friend’s LinkedIn post that a G&S group in Pittsburgh will be putting on Thespis, so apparently reconstructed productions are not as rare now as they were when she and I were in college! That’s cool that your local group put it on, too… and that you even have a local G&S group.