Distractions

 I haven't been producing a lot here, and the main reason is I'm in consumption mode. I am sucking in books, on paper and kindle and audio. I'm pursuing movies, not just the Oscars game, but other trivial movies as well. And TV. My ultimate zone-out is HGTV, where I know I'm in trouble when there's nothing but shows I've seen before. Though I do watch some more challenging TV - I am watching Snowpiercer, starring the wonderful Daveed Diggs. But it's dark, and I ration it - an episode is at least an hour, and one is generally all I can take at a time. 

On movies, the most recent of the Oscars contenders is The Father. It is wrenching, especially if you have known anyone with dementia. It is a fine piece of cinema, playing with the unreliable narrator to the max. I appreciated it, I'm glad I saw it, it affected me more than Minari, but less than some others (Promising Young Woman, Never Rarely Sometimes Always). So I think it is worth seeing, and a possible contender.

For books, are any of you into mystery series? I've got a new hot tip - and I was thrilled I was able to turn a librarian friend of mine onto it, indicating to me it's not that popular. But it deserves to be: the Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd. Our heroine, Bess, is truly a heroine - a nurse on the front lines of the First World War. But she pops home to England often (who knew they did that?) and much of her detecting takes place there. I've recently encountered in fiction several British works that bring home to me how very devastating, and society-changing, was that war for Britain. In my reading, we're now up to 1918, the Americans have entered the war, and the first wave of influenza has struck. 

The setting is unique (in my experience), and our heroine is extremely admirable, as are many of the recurring characters. (I have to like some of the folks or I won't bother.) But the books also revert back to Downton Abbey / Agatha Christie settings, so there is familiarity as well.

And my library has most of these as audio books - I've decided to go that route! I have both jigsaw puzzle apps and coloring books on the ipad, and listening to a book while puzzling (the app makes a satisfying "snick" when a piece is in the right place) or coloring, is a splendid way to finish out an evening.

I take in new book selections from many sources constantly. I love me a series, where I can get to know the characters. But I also look at suggestions from other sources, including best seller lists and the Book of the Month Club selections. The most unsettling book I've read, a one-off from one of these sources, is Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. I'm not going to say much about it, other than it disturbed me and stayed with me. Mostly, I do comfort reading, and this was well outside my comfort zone. I found, while picking up the image for this post, that Netflix is adapting it to be a movie. 

Finally, (this is not by any means a comprehensive recap of what I've consumed recently, just what I'm talking about now), I watched Bridgerton, and enjoyed it well enough. Pretty people in pretty costumes in lovely settings being silly and (surprisingly) sexy. Actually, I multitasked through much of it - it didn't require the kind of focus Snowpiercer, for example, takes. But since I liked it, I got the book from the library, but stopped after a couple of hours of reading. Too different from the TV show, and not compelling enough to keep me paying attention. It might have worked if I read first, before watching.

Distractions can be a marvelous thing!