01. So it really has been ages since I did a Bookish post… Over the last two months I’ve had a terrific holiday in Hong Kong; had a tense wait for results after having three more moles removed (all clear. Get your skin checked everyone); wrote eleventy-billion words for uni; and moved house. Our new house has a superb Crepe Myrtle in the backyard. I can’t wait to see it flower.
02. Hahahaha. Of course, I’m not any of these…
03. I think I’ll enjoy the Ferrante stories more as a film.
04. This post by Bookish Beck about swimming memoirs. Because I love books about swimming.
05. The library at Grey Gardens.
06. Not sure how I missed A Man Called Ove at the movies… I’ll have to find a little independent cinema that’s still showing it.
07. This is so far up my alley I can’t even begin to tell you.
08. I spend little time on social media these days but I thought this article was interesting. In particular, this caught my attention –
“I was an early arrival on Twitter and I recall those early days fondly. The microblogging platform was a party. Specifically a cocktail party with excellent finger food and name tags for everyone. It could get rowdy, but people were enjoying themselves and mostly everyone behaved well.”
I’m not on Twitter much now (the only place I’ve ever really been active) because, as John Birmingham notes, it’s just not fun like it once was. It’s a shame (but I’m not looking for a substitute).
09. Social reading, as summed up in this interesting post from Booker Talk.
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You’ve read 10 more swimming books than I have. And as for 09 – I just wanna read books. Now pass the goddammed gin!
I think my interest in swimming books is a niche 🙂 And yes, always pass the gin!
I think I saw the movie A Man Called Ove listed on Amazon Prime…must watch!
I love the renovated Grey Gardens…not that long ago, I re-watched the movie that starred Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange….the place was definitely puke-worthy then.
Sad story, though.
It is definitely annoying to be in a book club with know-it-all members!
Here are MY BOOKISH/NOT SO BOOKISH THOUGHTS
I really loved the Barrymore/Lange movie about Grey Gardens – thought it was so well done – crazy but sympathetically told.
Thanks for the mention of my post! I’d read 2 and a bit of the ‘Swimming’ titles you listed.
I have Pondlife in my TBR stack but also just got The Last Wave, fictious story about a English Channel Swimmer.
That tree is beautiful – congratulations on your new home 🙂
I’m still surrounded by boxes and my bookshelves aren’t in order but I have a nice garden outlook!
Glad to see you found the post on social reading interesting 🙂
i’m so ambivalent about Twitter – I use it but am really not sure what value i get from it
Twitter was so different in the beginning. Like the author of the article, I was on there early – there was less ‘noise’, fewer people and you couldn’t link to other things easily – as a result, you really had to write pithy tweets.
In those early days, I made some great connections with people who have similar interests (people who I’m now friends with IRL). It was also ‘connected’ in a different way – I watched the Christchurch earthquake unfold as it was happening – news channels weren’t on it yet and suddenly people I followed in NZ were tweeting “I think we’re in the middle of an earthquake…” There was an immediacy to information that hadn’t happened on other social media platforms (an immediacy that we take for granted these days). Twitter was my highly tailored news feed.
When people started linking to other web sources and also setting up automatic twitter feeds things changed – the point of your carefully crafted 140 characters was lost.
I still use it to follow authors and publishers – my feed is tailored to bookish stuff now and that’s about all I look at.
I think my issue with Twitter is that unless you’re glued to a screen watching the feeds you can miss the most interesting things and instead get left with a whole load of repeat tweets
Yes, feeds have become too crowded ☹️
I just adore crepe myrtles. So vibrant in summer! Yours looks beautiful. Sadly, my book group is about to fold. I shall miss it, even though I’m the one who usually hasn’t read the books.
Of course, we no longer have the fig, orange, grapefruit, almond and lemon trees… the new garden is absolutely beautiful but strictly ornamental.
Could you start a new book group? Why is the old one folding? I always think of book groups not as ending but morphing. Mine has seen members come and go over the years but it’s chugged along for almost 20 years!
OMG that tree is AMAZING! I am so jealous. I love crepe myrtles!
Stay tuned for a pic of it in flower.
Epigenetics really does sound fascinating. Your new tree is beautiful. 🙂