Books and new TV
8. The Vintage Caper, by Peter Mayle, is more of a light guide to good food and wine in Paris and Marseilles than a fictional story. The mystery behind the theft in question isn't very mysterious with the culprit exposed NLT half-way through the book. The caper isn't exactly the script of Ocean's Eleven either - pretty easy in and out, all things considered. The best thing about the book, I guess, is, again, the descriptions of the food and wine (and having read The Billionaire's Vinegar last year gave me insight into the wine vernacular). It also seems an attempt at casting Marseilles in a good touristy light. I don't know what I was expecting when I picked it up - more of a mystery read, I think.
9. The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman, is an excellent debut novel and an especially timely story about the waning days of newspapers that we're living through. It starts off in Paris, where I had just spent time in The Vintage Caper, and spans around the globe, though spends much of the book in Rome where the English-language newspaper is produced. Each chapter deals with one specific character in the employ of the newspaper and how that person connects to others mentioned throughout the book, as well as to the paper itself.
10. Further Tales of the City is the third Tales installment from Armistead Maupin. During the Borders bankruptcy sale I picked up the rest of the original seven installments of the Tales series (two more novels have been published since 2007 as well as omnibuses). After reading the first two books they quickly became comfort food reading - easy breezy writing, likable characters - so I'm intent on completing the original seven novels.
However, I wasn't expecting the Jim Jones double theory plot as a device to bring one of the more background characters from the last book to the forefront. A farfetched device even for a far more serious mystery story, especially given the way the Jones character starts out as one thing/person earlier in the book, then suddenly turns into a cartoon villain at the flip of a switch. And involving the kidnapping of small children in the plot is never a favorite theme of mine, and quite off the beaten path from the kind of story I've quickly come to expect from this series.
Sundays become a potential landmine of TV scheduling conflicts beginning tonight. There's Mildred Pierce on HBO, The Borgias on Showtime, Camelot on Starz, and The Killing on AMC. Plus Sister Wives on TLC, and The Kennedys which finally found a home on Reelz (never heard of this channel until today, and surprisingly we get it). Luckily I can catch all of the pay-cable series On-Demand. Even better, Showtime and Starz have already uploaded the first two episodes of their series. We saw the first episode of Camelot a month ago when they had a special preview airing. The second episode is now available, and we'll either watch that early tonight or save it until tomorrow. I watched the first two episodes of The Borgias early Friday evening, so I'm already caught up there.
The jury is out for Camelot and The Borgias. I need to see another episode or two before I decide if either or both are Must See TV. I found The Borgias to be particularly frustrating in that at times it was interesting, and other times really boring. To a lesser extent I felt the same way about Camelot. But I'm not ready to make a judgment call on either series yet.
The one series I'm most excited about, and the one that has received tons of accolades so far - like this one - is AMC's The Killing, which has its two-hour premiere tonight, and that's the one I'm going to be watching. I've set up the dvr to catch the 15 minute preview of Game of Thrones on HBO which is being attached to tonight's third episode of Mildred Pierce. Also being recorded is The Kennedys and Sister Wives. I've already got a headache thinking about it all.
I HATE when the networks do this - throwing everything on one single night, like there aren't six other days of the freaking week.
9. The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman, is an excellent debut novel and an especially timely story about the waning days of newspapers that we're living through. It starts off in Paris, where I had just spent time in The Vintage Caper, and spans around the globe, though spends much of the book in Rome where the English-language newspaper is produced. Each chapter deals with one specific character in the employ of the newspaper and how that person connects to others mentioned throughout the book, as well as to the paper itself.
10. Further Tales of the City is the third Tales installment from Armistead Maupin. During the Borders bankruptcy sale I picked up the rest of the original seven installments of the Tales series (two more novels have been published since 2007 as well as omnibuses). After reading the first two books they quickly became comfort food reading - easy breezy writing, likable characters - so I'm intent on completing the original seven novels.
However, I wasn't expecting the Jim Jones double theory plot as a device to bring one of the more background characters from the last book to the forefront. A farfetched device even for a far more serious mystery story, especially given the way the Jones character starts out as one thing/person earlier in the book, then suddenly turns into a cartoon villain at the flip of a switch. And involving the kidnapping of small children in the plot is never a favorite theme of mine, and quite off the beaten path from the kind of story I've quickly come to expect from this series.
Sundays become a potential landmine of TV scheduling conflicts beginning tonight. There's Mildred Pierce on HBO, The Borgias on Showtime, Camelot on Starz, and The Killing on AMC. Plus Sister Wives on TLC, and The Kennedys which finally found a home on Reelz (never heard of this channel until today, and surprisingly we get it). Luckily I can catch all of the pay-cable series On-Demand. Even better, Showtime and Starz have already uploaded the first two episodes of their series. We saw the first episode of Camelot a month ago when they had a special preview airing. The second episode is now available, and we'll either watch that early tonight or save it until tomorrow. I watched the first two episodes of The Borgias early Friday evening, so I'm already caught up there.
The jury is out for Camelot and The Borgias. I need to see another episode or two before I decide if either or both are Must See TV. I found The Borgias to be particularly frustrating in that at times it was interesting, and other times really boring. To a lesser extent I felt the same way about Camelot. But I'm not ready to make a judgment call on either series yet.
The one series I'm most excited about, and the one that has received tons of accolades so far - like this one - is AMC's The Killing, which has its two-hour premiere tonight, and that's the one I'm going to be watching. I've set up the dvr to catch the 15 minute preview of Game of Thrones on HBO which is being attached to tonight's third episode of Mildred Pierce. Also being recorded is The Kennedys and Sister Wives. I've already got a headache thinking about it all.
I HATE when the networks do this - throwing everything on one single night, like there aren't six other days of the freaking week.