This week...

I'm reading

Last week I finished listening to Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Brendan O'Hea and Dame Judi Dench. What a delight hearing many of the stories about her roles, performances, friends, her sense of fun and about Shakespeare and his continuing relevance today! Dame Judi Dench is voiced admirably by Barbara Flynn, but there are some quotes where it is Dame Judi who is speaking, and there is 45 minutes at the end of the audiobook where there is a conversation between the two authors! I don't read a lot of non fiction so it is fantastic when I do and it is so enjoyable!

I then started Corked by Marc Fennell but put it off to one side to listen to The Briar Club by Kate Quinn. I think Corked was actually a podcast but now it has been packaged up and is showing on Goodreads as a book. So far The Briar Club is an excellent audiobook experience but I do kind of wish I was reading it so I can see the recipes that are included throughout the text. I might swap if I can get the book from the library when I go later this week. 

I finished reading Adam & Evie's Matchmaking Tour by Nora Nguyen. I really enjoyed all the places in Vietnam that we visited in the book, and ultimately the romance was satisfying, but it did take a long time!

Then I read a couple of books for Paris in July. I read One Summer in Provence by Carol Drinkwater (review here) and then I read Fresh Water for Flowers by French author Valerie Perrin. This was a very unusual book but I did really enjoy it! My review for this one will be up later in the month.

I then started a couple of things which I wasn't really feeling, but then the library helped me prioritise when I couldn't renew two books so I read the third book in Amanda Hampson's Tea Ladies series, The Deadly Dispute. These books are so much fun and I sped through it in one sitting last night!  I have one other book I need to read in the next couple of days but that will be on the list for next week.   

I did reach my Goodreads reading challenge goal for this year last week! I think I will increase it to 150 books which is basically 2 books a week for the rest of the year.

I'm watching


I went to the movies a couple of times last week. The first one I went to see was Grande Maison Paris which is a Japanese movie about a chef who runs a fine dining restaurant in Paris and is desperate to be awarded a third Michelin star. I have written a review which will be up on the weekend as my Weekend Cooking/Paris in July post. Here's the trailer.

The other movie we went to see was called Number 24. It is a Norwegian movie which is showing as part of the Scandinavian Film Festival. It is about a man who was part of the Norwegian resistance in WWII. It was a really interesting movie. It was structured as the elderly main character giving a speech to a group of students and then flashing back to the things that happened during the war. It was very well done. Here's the trailer.

Life

Not much to talk about here! Fingers crossed I have some exciting news to share soon.

Posts from the last week


Top Ten Tuesday: Honorifics
Paris in July: French-ish songs
Blog Tour: The Village Cafe in the Loire by Gillian Harvey
Blog Tour: One Summer in Provence by Carol Drinkwater
Weekend Cooking/Cook the Books: A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K Runyan
Spell the Month in Books: July 

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date and Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz

This week....

I'm reading

I mentioned in last week's post that I had started a few books. I still have a couple of those books in progress.

I did finish A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K Runyan. This is the current Cook the Books selection so now I just have to decide what to make before I post my review this weekend.

I also finished The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl. I did like this one, but there was something that bothered me about the book. The review for this one will be up soon where I will elaborate!

I read The Village Cafe in the Loire by Gillian Harvey for a blog tour this week. I do have another blog tour later in the week but I haven't started reading that book. I best get onto that.

I also started Adam and Evie's Matchmaking Tour by Nora Nguyen. I have no idea where I saw this book which then prompted me to then request it from the library. It's a romance that is set in Vietnam which is interesting.  I am enjoying visiting lots of the famous sites of Vietnam through the book.

We had our read on a theme book club meeting on the weekend. The theme for this meeting was war and I actually read 4 books that fit the theme. They were The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn, The Lost Story of Sofia Castello by Siobhan Curham, The Girl from Normandy by Rachel Sweasy and A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K Runyan. The picture above shows some of the books that were read by the whole group. Next month we are doing something a little different for us as a group and that is we are all going to read the same book. The book we have chosen to read is Butter by Asako Yuzuki.

I was very excited this week. I got some physical book mail from a publisher for the first time in forever! So excited! I have booked to go and see this author at an event soon so I will be trying to read the book before then!

I'm watching


We watched a documentary that was produced by the Sail GP team called Uncharted. Basically it was about Australian sailor Jimmy Spithill leaving the US team and starting a new Italian team and how both teams fared following the changes

I stumbled across a TV show on Disney called No Taste Like Home with Antoni Porowski. I had no idea who the host is (apparently he is the food and wine expert on Queer Eye), but the show certainly looked interesting. The idea is that he takes a special guest through their family history but also focusses on the food that their ancestors would have eaten. Think Who Do You Think You Are but foodie. The first episode was with Florence Pugh and I really liked it. I will be watching more this week.

We finished watching the first season of Murderbot. I was pleased to see that the series has been renewed for a second series!

I also saw that there is an adaptation of Before the Coffee Gets Cold announced. Will definitely watch that. There is already a Japanese language adaptation but I haven't been able to watch it yet. I might see if I can find it on any of the streaming services this week.




Life



After being sick for weeks, I finally feel better although I do still sound a little croaky.

My first social outing in weeks with anyone other than family was to go and see the play Julia, which is a two woman show which tells the story of Julia Gillard who was the Prime Minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013. The show builds up to the famous speech that she gave in Parliament on 9 October 2012 about misogyny. It was an exceptional play.

On Sunday went to the Bastille Day Festival at the Queen Victoria Markets. We were only able to be there for just over an hour but loved the vibe. We wandered around drinking hot chocolate, having a very nice macaron, listening to music and we bought some delicious pate which we will find an opportunity to eat soon.




Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Rereads

Blog Tour: The Magic of Provence by Alison Roberts
Paris in July: A Secret Garden in Paris by Sophie Beaumont
Paris in July: Three Books by Antoine Laurent
Weekend Cooking: The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: June Statistics (and for the first 6 months of the year!)



I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date and Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz