I’ve been READING!!! Which I usually avoid, because it is very bad for me. But I’ve decided life’s too short, I’m taking a risk! And yes, I threw my shoulder violently out, and gave myself a migraine. Extreme Reading.
Thursday Murder Club
This is the first series I read! And the one that threw my shoulder out. If you stay up until 2 am reading and holding a heavy book without changing position, you wake up with shoulder pain and a swollen hand. But it’s WORTH IT.
It’s a lovely cozy mystery, 4 retirees in a retirement home solve murders. The first book was a little shakey, the author was getting to know the characters and sort of figuring things out. But the second book hit his stride, and by the 3rd book it was throw-your-shoulder-out good. The 4th book just came out and sort of takes the characters to a new level, and now the author is gonna take a break. So you can read 1-2-3-4 and have a complete arc in many ways.
The mysteries are okay, pretty interesting. And the comic set pieces get increasingly good as the books go on. But the characters are what really shine, the central 4 retirees get increasing depth book by book. It’s a happy series, everyone gets paired off one by one into lovely romantic couples, and generally it’s a happy place where nothing TOO bad happens. But it also has a strong tone of melancholy and aging.
The Appeal (Janice Hallett)
The worst part about this book is the title. It’s really hard to find because there are A MILLION books with the title “The Appeal”. But once you find it, super fun. It’s a mystery written in emails and text messages between a local community theater group. The biggest problem is that it makes you SUPER aware of what your own emails and texts are like. And that it is shockingly familiar to anyone who has ever been part of a community group (older couple everyone loves, slightly bossy organized younger woman who actually does all the work, very drippy needy person everyone avoids, and so on).
Pineapple Port Mysteries
I’ve suggested this series before, it is one of my old familiar soothing serieses. Young woman who lives in a retirement community in Florida (she grew up there living with her grandmother), she has her elderly best friends, her nice boyfriend, her boyfriend’s elderly uncle, and just generally murder mixed with Florida sun and retirees who believe in sweet cakes, water aerobics, and lots of breakfast meats.
dontcallitbollywood 
I’ve been reading Anuja Chauhan books lately. I really like that she can create great sexual tension within a well described outer world with twists that are mystery like. And I rewatched Zoya Factor because of her books I’ve been reading.
I read Accidentally Engaged by Ferah Heron and it was FABULOUS. Good fun all around. I read The Dating Plan by Sara Desai, and it started good, but by the end was so so. And I read Santa Baby a book of three novella’s by different authors, but the first author I was familiar with, Jennifer Crusie. And her story, that involved desperate Christmas Eve shopping AND Chinese spys was really great. Now, before I read the book my 11 year old looked at the cover and told me it was porn. I was familiar with Jennifer Crusie so I told him he was wrong. In fact I even narrated the whole story to him one day in the car while we were waiting for his older brother to get out of school. I was so into narrating the tale that when the older brother got into the car he said it looked like I was yelling at the 11 year old. I left the book in the 11 year old’s room so he could read it (which he did not). THEN I read the other two novellas, and they were in fact porn. So I guess I’m lucky the 11 year old never reads anything I recommend.
And to ignore the post title I would also like to discuss what I’ve been watching, which was basically some of Koffee with Karan. I saw the episode with Rani and Kajol and it hit me like a ton of bricks that the reason they weren’t close, despite being family, is that Rani had a closer relationship with Kajol’s Dad than Kajol was, and for her to have a real relationship with Rani she would have to be at peace with her relationship with her father. It isn’t surprising that didn’t happen, so that they only became friendly with eachother AFTER Kajol’s father died. And even now, Kajol looked uncomfortable in the interview and was over yelling, probably to try and cover up her discomfort. So my guess is having a father who leaves your family and then helps raise your cousins isn’t something that is easy to come to terms with even when he is dead. I also saw the interview with Ranveer and Deepika, and Margaret if you haven’t watched that you really should. It got DEEP.
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That Jennifer Crusie is so good! And absolutely not porn, because in a novella her hero and heroine couldn’t get to know each other enough to do any more than kiss. Also, it has that perfectly written child character who makes Christmas Shopping Desperation feel real. However, I absolutely can believe the other two are porn. Christmas themed romances tend to get very raunchy, everyone is so stressed….
Ugh, I don’t want to watch Ranveer and Dips go DEEP! I want to read Santa Baby and think about Chinese Spies and Christmas Shopping!
(my Mom used to tell us the plots of movies on the way to school in order to keep us walking. If our little legs stopped moving, she would stop talking. School was SO FAR)
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I thought you were home schooled?!?
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Only after age 9. 5 to 9, the looooooong 4 block trudge to school.
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Santa Baby was a PERFECT Christmas tale for me. It was silly and fun and at the same time had that desperate need to try and create magic for a child when the world was tumbling apart around him. I have a thing for dark comedies I guess. Santa Baby and Parugu. I did have so much fun narraing the tale to the 11 year old. Who is still 11. The 8 year old turned 9 yesterday. And school up to the age of 9 is QUITE A BIT of school. The Pandemic taught me (unfortunately) 2 & 3 grades (ages 7-9) might be the THE most important in education. (The 11 year old’s entire grade of over 100 kids has still not “caught up”).
Less than 5 times I’ve walked the two mile distance to our schools with my kids, but the older kids themselves have walked the 2 miles uphill to our house more than 5 times. It is actually only 7 blocks! Three of the blocks are REALLY LONG.
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I read that there were also property disputes between Kajol and Rani’s parental families.
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I’ve switched 99.9% of my reading to audiobooks. Otherwise I didn’t eat, sleep, move, drink water while reading a book. So I feel you!
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YES! It’s so bad for me!!!!
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My reading overall is going at a glacial pace these days sigh. But recently a friend of mine actually recommended a book called Bombay Balchao! I think it’s a novel that’s set around a Mumbai Catholic neighborhood…somewhere in South Bombay I think. I have only started it but viewing Archies did get me in the mood to sort of check that book out again. I don’t think the characters are Anglo Indian as such but the references with both this book and the movie feel familiar to me coz I’ve been around people who’ve grown up in those different cultures!
Been watching a lot of recipe videos too hehe…I’m planning my Christmas menu!! I’m also in two minds about whether to brew a little fruit wine this year, probably would be ready by Feb if I start now, and by May when I go to my parents’ place it might be quite nicely matured if I do it well enough!
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I’m getting excited about my New Years recipes! Well, “recipes”. I’m planning to buy a ton of tiny fancy appetizers from the frozen food section and then all with Albie Dog, then go to bed at 12:01. And probably wake up at 2:01 with a massive stomach ache.
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