Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with 2022, COVID-19, Elena Ferrante, German, television August 21, 2022

01. Hooray! All the main bits of my trip to Hawaii are booked (now it’s just the really fun stuff to organise – restaurants, snorkeling, diving, and some sightseeing). Continue reading →

Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with 2022, Austrian, COVID-19, eighties, Elena Ferrante, film, Jane Austen, Melbourne, Melbourne Writers Festival, movie, MWF, nineties, Ottessa Moshfegh, Sarah Winman, Scandinavian, television, Victoria Hannan July 31, 2022

01. Morning walk was accidentally interrupted by breakfast at Cumulus Inc. (BTW that’s a smoked trout frittata with crème fraiche, and madeleines with bergamot curd in the background). Continue reading →

Things that are making me happy this week

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with cooking, COVID-19, Elena Ferrante, film, movie, music, theatre, William Shakespeare November 21, 2021

01. MTC’s production of As You Like It – such a joyful note to end the theatre year on. Continue reading →

Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with 2021, book review, Canadian, debut, Elena Ferrante, Emma Jane Unsworth, fiction, Marlowe Granados, review October 5, 2021

At the end of a happy hour, one of two things happen – the party carries on, or everyone goes home. Halfway through Marlowe Granados’s debut novel, Happy Hour, I was in two minds – stay or go? Continue reading →

Drawing a Line Under 2020 Reading – Part 1

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with 2020, American, autofiction, book review, British, Elena Ferrante, fiction, German, Hilary Fannin, Italian, Jenny Offill, review, Sandra Hoffmann, Sofie Laguna, Tim Winton January 17, 2021

These books deserve thorough reviews but I also really want to be done with 2020. So, for the sake of completeness, quick reviews of the books I read in November and December last year – Continue reading →

Six Degrees of Separation – from Hamnet to Wild Game

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with Adrienne Brodeur, Anne Tyler, Elena Ferrante, film, James Fox, Maggie O'Farrell, Maggie Shipstead, movie, Paula McLain, Six Degrees of Separation, television January 2, 2021

It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up. Continue reading →

The Top 50 from the Best Books of 2020 List of Lists

Posted by Kate W in Fiction, Non-fiction, Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with 2020, Akwaeke Emezi, Alyssa Cole, Anna Wiener, Ayad Akhtar, Barack Obama, book list, Brandon Taylor, Brian Washington, Brit Bennett, C Pam Zhang, Cathy Hong, Charles Yu, Claudia Rankine, Curtis Sittenfeld, Danielle Evans, Douglas Stuart, Elena Ferrante, Emily Gould, Emily Mandel, Fernanda Melchor, Frances Cha, Garth Greenwell, Hilary Mantel, Isabel Allende, Isabel Wilkerson, James McBride, Jenny Offill, Jess Walter, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Kate Russell, Kawai Strong Washburn, Kiley Reid, Lily King, Liz Moore, Lydia Millet, Maggie O'Farrell, Marilynne Robinson, Megha Majumdar, Mikki Kendall, N. K. Jemisin, Natasha Trethewey, Peace Adzo Medie, Raven Leilani, Robert Kolker, Rumaan Alam, Samantha Irby, Sigrid Nunez, Silvia Moreno-garcia, Susanna Clarke, V.E. Schwab, Yaa Gyasi December 18, 2020

Presenting the 2020 Commonly-Agreed-by-the-People-Who-Publish-Best-of-2020-Book-Lists-Before-December-31 top 50 books. Continue reading →

Book vs. TV Series: My Brilliant Friend – The Story of a New Name

Posted by Kate W in Book vs Film and tagged with Elena Ferrante, Italian, television October 17, 2020

I didn’t care for the books, but thought the first TV series (with each episode representing one chapter in the first book) was superb.

The second series – which aligns with The Story of a New Name – is so, so good. It’s demanding viewing because the actress who plays Lila (Gaia Girace), is the master of the overt and the incredibly subtle – her glances, her body language, the slightest tilt of her head says EVERYTHING. Continue reading →

Things that are making me happy this week

Posted by Kate W in Book vs Film, Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with audiobook, British, COVID-19, Elena Ferrante, film, movie, podcast, television September 20, 2020

To be honest, it’s been a really horrible week, and I’m scratching around for the bright spots…

01. Spring is here and the weather has been glorious – perfect timing for our new two-hour walk allowance. Continue reading →

Sample Saturday – three very different memoirs

Posted by Kate W in Non-fiction, Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with Annie Ernaux, Chanel Miller, cooking, Elena Ferrante, foodie fiction, German, Lucia Osborne-Crowley, Luisa Weiss, memoir, nonfiction, Sample Saturday, translated August 8, 2020

Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye. Continue reading →