mostly books, plus alan alda
What I just finished reading:
bring up the bodies which i overall enjoyed even tho i couldn't figure out what henry viii saw in jane seymour. which is kind of like wolf hall in which i couldn't figure out what henry saw in anne boleyn. at least anne was portrayed as pretty intelligent (if manipulative and kind of a bitch) - thomas cromwell didn't like her but recognized she had some talents - but jane isn't witty and isn't sharp and apparently isn't even exceptionally pretty. mostly she's quiet and noncommittal and much smaller than henry. (which, well, he was a big guy.) cromwell is an interesting dude, tho - missing his wife and daughters (they died of plague), trying to set up his son for a good future, invested in the successes of the folks in his household, generous to his friends, and... profoundly manipulative. i think by the end of the book he knows the landed gentry who asked him to get rid of anne were just using him so they didn't have to get their hands dirty, and will throw him under the bus at the first hint of suspicion. there's a lot of backbiting and backstabbing and political maneuvering and jockeying for position and i don't think cromwell is a very nice person but he sure can get things done. he makes a really good protagonist.
What I am reading now:
mary jane, in which fourteen-year-old mary jane dillard has been introduced to the famous rock star and his famous movie star wife who are staying at the house where she's nannying because her little charge's dad is a therapist and the rock star is a drug addict. and now mary jane thinks she's a sex addict because... i'm not sure. she can't stop staring at the rock star's chest? (she's never even kissed a boy, for the record.) it's kind of silly but to be fair she's a sheltered fourteen. i'm not sure how i feel about the story so far but it's not uninteresting.
(i ended up not really liking the last book my sister thought i should read - the lost girls of paris - but she also recommended the song of achilles which i did like, so it's a tossup whether or not i'll like this one.)
What I'm going to read next:
i do not know. i should probably read the galaxy, and the ground within but there's also the mirror & the light which is the last wolf hall book and i can find out what happened to mr cromwell.
my wifi went out yesterday morning (fortunately i could still zoom for my ten o'clock meeting) which was good for the comcast tech. he went outside and discovered the line coming into my apartment was on a splitter, so he unplugged my line and plugged someone else's in. which made me side-eye him internally, but what can you do. it sounded like there were more lines coming off the utility pole than there were households that needed service, like if you have cords plugged into ten outlets but only eight devices that need to be plugged in. in any case, he thought he'd fixed it for good. fingers crossed.
alan alda is still awesome - it's just a really nice interview. he and his wife (whose name is arlene) have been married sixty-five years. wow.
bring up the bodies which i overall enjoyed even tho i couldn't figure out what henry viii saw in jane seymour. which is kind of like wolf hall in which i couldn't figure out what henry saw in anne boleyn. at least anne was portrayed as pretty intelligent (if manipulative and kind of a bitch) - thomas cromwell didn't like her but recognized she had some talents - but jane isn't witty and isn't sharp and apparently isn't even exceptionally pretty. mostly she's quiet and noncommittal and much smaller than henry. (which, well, he was a big guy.) cromwell is an interesting dude, tho - missing his wife and daughters (they died of plague), trying to set up his son for a good future, invested in the successes of the folks in his household, generous to his friends, and... profoundly manipulative. i think by the end of the book he knows the landed gentry who asked him to get rid of anne were just using him so they didn't have to get their hands dirty, and will throw him under the bus at the first hint of suspicion. there's a lot of backbiting and backstabbing and political maneuvering and jockeying for position and i don't think cromwell is a very nice person but he sure can get things done. he makes a really good protagonist.
What I am reading now:
mary jane, in which fourteen-year-old mary jane dillard has been introduced to the famous rock star and his famous movie star wife who are staying at the house where she's nannying because her little charge's dad is a therapist and the rock star is a drug addict. and now mary jane thinks she's a sex addict because... i'm not sure. she can't stop staring at the rock star's chest? (she's never even kissed a boy, for the record.) it's kind of silly but to be fair she's a sheltered fourteen. i'm not sure how i feel about the story so far but it's not uninteresting.
(i ended up not really liking the last book my sister thought i should read - the lost girls of paris - but she also recommended the song of achilles which i did like, so it's a tossup whether or not i'll like this one.)
What I'm going to read next:
i do not know. i should probably read the galaxy, and the ground within but there's also the mirror & the light which is the last wolf hall book and i can find out what happened to mr cromwell.
my wifi went out yesterday morning (fortunately i could still zoom for my ten o'clock meeting) which was good for the comcast tech. he went outside and discovered the line coming into my apartment was on a splitter, so he unplugged my line and plugged someone else's in. which made me side-eye him internally, but what can you do. it sounded like there were more lines coming off the utility pole than there were households that needed service, like if you have cords plugged into ten outlets but only eight devices that need to be plugged in. in any case, he thought he'd fixed it for good. fingers crossed.
alan alda is still awesome - it's just a really nice interview. he and his wife (whose name is arlene) have been married sixty-five years. wow.