Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals:

• What You Wish For by Katherine Center - from St. Martin's Press for review
• The Sisters Grimm by Menna van Praag,
• The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare,
• Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam
• State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, and
• The Mercy Seat by Rilla Askew - all from my friend Sandie (Thank you!!!)
• The Yale Annotated version of Hamlet - purchased 

Ha! After moaning about getting no books at all, last week, and theorizing that I may have to start becoming creative with the photo at the top of my Monday Malarkey posts, I broke my book-buying ban for Hamlet (I love the Yale annotated Shakespeare plays — I think this is my 4th) and then bought a couple more books that won't arrive for a while (maybe this week, probably next). And, my pre-ordered copy of Alex George's latest, The Paris Hours, will be coming soon. I was not expecting such a big box from Sandie. It was like Christmas!!! So fun. 

Books finished since last Malarkey:

• Lakeshire Park by Megan Walker
• Nature's Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy

It's funny, I loved Lakeshire Park but I struggled to get myself to read much, this week, so I took advantage of Dewey's Readathon as an excuse to spend time reading on the weekend and finished it up pretty quickly on Saturday. Then, I moved on to Nature's Best Hope and kept falling asleep. I took 2 or 3 mini naps before deciding to start Hamlet and then realized I was still sleepy and gave up for the day. But, I was just overtired from a rough night and had no trouble finishing up Nature's Best Hope on Sunday. Hamlet is going to take me a while. It gets tiresome looking back and forth between text and footnotes and there are so many that I'll go back and forth about 12 times on one page, then reread the text and any notes that didn't sink in before moving on. Yep, it's going to take a while.


Currently reading:

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare

I'll add another book or two to the mix, today (probably one fiction, one nonfiction title), but I haven't picked anything out, yet, although I have ideas.


Last week's posts:

• Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix (book review)
• Fiona Friday - Skeptics (cat photos)

I decided not to review Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead till after reading Hamlet because they're related (Rosencrantz, etc., is the reason I purchased Hamlet), which left me nothing to review after Horrorstör. Hopefully, this will be a better reviewing week, now that I've finished a couple books. 

In other news:

We absolutely loved Treasure Island, the latest free production from the National Theatre. The current production available for streaming is The Twelfth Night, which we'll probably watch tonight. Next week's is Frankenstein starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller. I have a feeling we'll watch Frankenstein the first evening it's available. I've always wanted to see Benedict Cumberbatch on stage but any time he's been in a play in London the tickets have sold out within hours so this is about as close as we'll probably ever come to seeing him on stage. I can't wait.

The free Andrew Lloyd Webber production of the week was Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. We passed up going to see that in London, even though Ramin Karimloo (an actor we really like) was playing the Phantom, because we heard it was awful. Husband watched it but I declined. He said, "It was not good." I was reading nearby while he was watching Love Never Dies so I occasionally had him unplug his earphones and I'd watch a few minutes, shake my head, and he'd plug them back in. I haven't heard what's up next. I don't think we watched anything else. It was so pleasant outside, most of the week, that we spent a lot of time outdoors in the evening. Once the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes descend, we'll be stuck indoors. Gotta enjoy the nice weather while we can.


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