bookish stuff & fannish stuff

[starfishstar]

Thoughts!

1. sanguinity, if you're around these parts... Thank you again for recommending As My Wimsey Takes Me, the podcast about Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novels. I'm now here to heartily pass along the recommendation to everyone else! I listened to the introductory "episode 0" a while ago, and wasn't sure whether it was something I would end up getting deeply into or not; it's a great concept, but I have a million things bookmarked already and can't always get to new things fast. But last night I listened to episode 1 (and then immediately to episode 2...) and was absolutely sold on it. The podcast is fantastic, the podcasters are fantastic, and I might have to do a whole series re-read after all. :-) It's an excellent mix of squee over the author and characters, critique of problematic elements, and insights into literature and history. Highly recommended!


2. Also thank you to whoever (almost certainly one of you Holmestice folks) mentioned Sherlock Holmes and the Furtive Festivity! Again, I'm only now getting back to things I'd bookmarked ages ago, so I don't remember where I heard about it. (And probably everyone else already knows it, since it seems to have been crowdfunded by fans!) This is a short film about a Victorian-era Holmes/Watson, as Watson tries to conceal a surprise birthday party from the world's greatest detective. It's fan-made, I think? But highly professional in quality – and utterly, utterly, utterly charming! 12 minutes of Holmesian delightfulness.


3. If you're looking for a reading challenge, or if you just like having a little nudge to read genres and books you might not otherwise have thought of, Book Riot once again has their Read Harder Challenge for 2020. Right now I need to focus on my thesis and can't let myself get distracted by/excited about trying to read even more than I usually do... but I may circle back sometime later in the year to see how many of the challenges I've met already, and if there are a few more I want to make a point of meeting.


4. A friend who has almost-seven-year-old twins asked me for book recs for them; she started reading Harry Potter to them and they LOVED it (my heart!!) but it's still a little too old for them; even the second book was already too scary and gave one of them a nightmare. So I've been having a lot of fun poking around at different resources, putting together a list of suggestions for books that are similarly complex in characters and relationships, strong on adventures and friendships, and immersive as a reading experience – but not too scary for seven-year-olds.


Okay – I'm off to cook dinner and listen to episode 3 of As My Wimsey Takes Me. :-)


ETA:

5. The trailer for the Miss Fisher movie!! It looks like they're making good on their promise to make this like a James Bond film – but this time, a woman gets to be James Bond. Also, I was wondering how they would manage to balance the "Phryne out in the world adventuring" aspect with the Phryne/Jack pairing that fans have gotten so attached to (i.e., be true to Phryne's character and the adventure spirit of the movie but also don't disappoint us sentimental fans) and it seems like they may have actually pulled it off. I am suddenly VERY excited for this movie.

Comments

[sanguinity]

I trust your parents are much improved, if you've been able to take recovery time for yourself? And yay for things feeling normal again!

It was indeed exhausting, and it didn't help that I came down with a cold AND wasn't permitted to take time off to deal with it, but had to keep dragging myself to work while sick. UGH.

But yes, it's settling out! And I'm FINALLY figuring out how to get writing time in despite the demands of work, so hooray!

[starfishstar]

Yes, they're still recovering, but doing a LOT better. Like, mostly able to manage their own lives instead of being 100% helpless and needing me to coordinate everything. I really can't express how amazing it feels just *not* to be in crisis every single second of every day!

YAY, so pleased to hear your new job is settling in – and that you're figuring out how to still get writing time along with work, because that's huge!

[sanguinity]

Oh, hooray, I'm pleased to hear they're so much better. And yes, they're likely to be recovering for a long time, from something as huge as that, but to have gotten to the point where they can take point on their own care and recovery, that's going to make a huge difference in everyone's well-being. (Theirs, too, I assume -- it can't be easy to be 100% helpless!)

And yes, writing time! It's requiring Discipline and also Good Decisions about how I spend my time, but happily I've spent a lot of effort in making writing feel like good, positive, self-care time, so the need to be disciplined and make good decisions isn't feeling to arduous. I still long for the sheer quantity of time and space I used to lavish on it -- of course I do! -- but this will work for now.

[starfishstar]

That's excellent! Balancing obligations and creative time is always hard, so that's fantastic that you're already making it work, even with the job being so new. Hooray for you and your writing time that's also self-care time.