7 Things: 2 Books 3 Films a Drama Series and a Podcast
What I'm reading, what I've watched and am planning to watch and what I'm listening to.
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What I’m Reading
Book 1
In a previous post, I mentioned that, having been an avid fiction reader all my life, I’m finding it difficult to stay engaged with fiction books at the moment. I started a new book, Independent People by Halldor Laxness - translated from the Icelandic; I’m a few chapters in, but I’m just not drawn in enough to stay with it.
I will go back to it but meanwhile, I’m rereading my copy of The School of Life An Emotional Education by Alain de Botton, a philosopher, writer and founder of The School of Life (www.theschooloflife.com) devoted to helping people live more fulfilled lives.
In this book, he writes about how childhood conditions us and what to do about it, how to understand your emotions and achieve emotional maturity, what love is and how to sustain it, and how to gain self-understanding. His writing style is very accessible, but there’s so much to mentally digest in it I’m sure a second reading will enlighten me a little further.
Book 2
I’ve recently been reminded of a writer I used to love to read. I was browsing the travel section in a branch of Waterstones, where I was attending a book reading/signing by a friend, and came across a neat little book by Diana Athill entitled A Florence Diary. It’s now sitting on my table waiting to be read, because I’m reading the other book by her that I bought at the same time. This is called Somewhere Towards the End.
Diana Athill was born to a privileged family in 1917. She helped her friend, Andre Deutsch, set up his publishing company and worked there for four decades as an editor. She never married but writes about the men in her life with whom she had relationships. Her writing output was mainly non-fiction but she did produce one novel. Her life was long, having reached the magnificent age of 101 in 2019. I read her when The Guardian newspaper published articles by or about her.
That paper had an interview with her when she was 100 and planning her next book. The one I’m reading is a memoir comprising brief chapters on various aspects of living into old age, published in 2008 when she would have been in her eighties. In one chapter, she described her grandmothers and how they wore clothes specifically for older women. Here’s a quote from that chapter that resonates with me: “I know for sure that I both feel and behave younger than my grandmothers did when they were old.”
I enjoyed her writing, especially because she seemed to see it through a similar lens to my own. She says in this Guardian interview, when asked about the positive realism of her writing, that she is not one for fantasy or exaggerated writing, and neither am I. I’m learning more about her in this book and look forward to reading the one on Florence, which was written in the year I was born, 1947, when she was 30.
What I’ve Watched and Am Planning to Watch
TV Drama Series
When I want to watch a film or tv series, I usually watch Netflix or Amazon Prime. I stopped watching the BBC after the way I felt they did the British public a great disservice with their partisan reporting on the political events surrounding the two last elections. As you have to pay the BBC a licence to watch any channel on television, I gave up watching it at all. Hence my current viewing habits.
However, I’ve recently discovered another source of great film and drama with YouTube. They are popping up amongst all the usual short videos I watch, so I’ve created a playlist. On it I’ve got three film adaptations of classic books: Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (2007) with Billie Piper and Blake Ritson; Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop (2007) with Martin Freeman, Gina McKee and Steve Pemberton, and Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree (2005) with Keeley Hawes, Steve Pemberton and Ben Miles. Some good winter viewing there that I’m looking forward to.
It’s so odd that when I watch streamed films, I always like to watch current titles; new films and documentaries. However, these on YouTube are from the past. The first I watched was a tv drama series I viewed over two nights. I’m sure I’ve already seen it on tv but I couldn’t remember the plot at all. It’s called Amnesia (2004), starring John Hannah, Jemma Redgrave, Patrick Malahide and Brendon Cole, a sterling cast. The plot, the writing and the acting were superb. The twists and turns kept you guessing right to the end. It wasn’t just a “who dunnit?” but a “did they do the deed or not?”
What I’m listening to
This is one of the books that I bought either this year or last and couldn’t finish it. It’s Chemistry Lessons by Bonnie Garmus. It has appeared as a podcast on YouTube. I thought maybe I could finish the book this way. It was a little disconcerting to hear a man’s voice narrating the book as it’s largely about a woman, in fact, a feminist in the sixties.
It should have been just my sort of thing, but I found when reading the book that it wasn’t. It has a talking animal in it and you have to suspend disbelief to accept this animal as part of the plot. I struggle with having to do that. I got over a third of the way through the book, so maybe I can finish it with the podcast.
Source : Interview in The Guardian with Diana Athill by Claire Armitstead on Fri 15th Dec 2017