It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Sometimes, I share what I’ve been listening to.
Thursday I received a package from Thriftbooks and inside was supposed to be a copy of Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis (check), a copy of The Nancy Drew Scrapbook by Karen Plunket-Powel (check), and a Murder She Wrote Mystery (no check). Instead of the Murder She Wrote mystery, I found a very old book with a crumbling dust jacket and more dust than this mild-asthmatic with allergies was comfortable with. I barely looked at the book but I thought the title looked French.
Later that night after sending off an annoyed email to Thriftbooks to tell them they sent me the wrong book, I decided to take a closer look at the book, to at least find out the name.
I had never heard of the book, but it was called Murder A La Stroganoff by Caryl Brahms and SJ Snow. Inside the cover, it had a stamp that said it was from the Newberry Library, had been retired from their shelves, and was part of the Barzel Dance Collection. I searched a little more online and these books are fairly rare because it is a first edition from 1938 and the book is no longer in print. They did issue a paperback copy in 1985, but there are not a ton of the hardcovers published by The Crime Club, Doubleday & Co, New York out there.
Sadly, the book isn’t necessarily worth a ton without the dust jacket, which crumbled in my hands when I opened the package, but I couldn’t find one online being sold for less than $20 so, hey, if I ever do decide to sell it, I could make at least $20 off something I was shipped for free. With the dust jacket it could be worth up to $150. Apparently there aren’t a ton of these first editions out there and it’s a bit of a cult classic among mystery readers.
Thriftbooks did get back to me, by the way, and didn’t get the point that they sent the wrong book. Instead, they said they were sorry the book didn’t show up the way I wanted it to and that they didn’t have any other books with that title (they still think it is the Murder She Wrote book I first ordered) so to just keep the book and do what it with I wanted. They then issued me a refund for the book.
The book is a mystery and crime book with some satire mixed in about the ballet industry and is the second book in a series. I can not find a description of the book line but I think I actually want to read it so I might get a copy of the paperback instead of trying to read this older book which might bother my allergies.
I will be writing a blog post in the future about the book and its authors, though, because I fell down a rabbit hole researching what the book might be worth. I suppose that in the end getting the wrong book wasn’t such a bad thing.
Last week I finished The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie and The Clue in the Diary by Carolyn Keene (A Nancy Drew Mystery).
I’ll have reviews of both of them soon but I did enjoy them both. The Pale Horse was obviously more adult — I mean, not like “adult-adult” but more mature themes. But not like … mature-mature. *wink*
I’ve been enjoying some leisurely reading of P.G. Wodehouse’s The Imitable Jeeves.
The book is so funny and witty. It’s been a very nice escape. The Jeeves books are comedic books about Bertie Wooster, a British gentleman from London, who is always getting into somewhat weird situations where he has to be bailed out or helped by his valet Jeeves.
This book is exactly what I have needed this week.
I think I’m going to have to give up on The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley by Courtney Walsh before I even really get too far in it. I pushed through the first chapter wondering why the author was giving me so much information at once and when she was going to get to an actual story. The first chapter is entirely Isadora standing in a supermarket, thinking about her life with very little interaction with anyone else or action. It looks to me like the whole book is mainly her thinking about things and dumping a lot of info on the reader all in one go. I just can’t get into it, in other words.
I might try again this week, but otherwise I am going to move on to Prince Caspian and then But First Murder by Bee Littlefield.
This week I watched Gaslight (1944) as part of my Summer of Angela movie watching event and really enjoyed it. It isn’t a movie I’d watch over and over because it is pretty dark in some ways, but I did enjoy it. I also watched The Rains Came, a 1939 movie with Myrna Loy and Tyrone Powers and Abbott and Costello in The Jack and The Beanstalk. This morning I watched church with Lisa Harper as the guest pastor and followed it up with a couple episodes of Just A Few Acres Farm.
I’m working on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School and wrote a little more this past week. I hope to have more time to write this week since Little Miss is going to VBS and I’ll probably wait at the church for her to save gas.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
I hope everyone in the U.S. had a very nice Fourth of July. My family did and partly thanks to cooler temperatures in our area.
It wasn’t too cold or too warm for our afternoon cookout and an early evening waving of sparklers in the backyard at my parents’ house.
Today we stayed inside from the warming temps and watched movies and relaxed while our son went to visit a friend.
Last night some neighbors were shooting off fireworks, which always freaks out Zooma the Wonder Dog.
She hates gunfire (which does happen here occasionally), thunder, and fireworks and lately when she hears any of those she has been getting so nervous she just paces back and forth and goes to each of the family members and paws at us. She was doing this last night. We tried to let her out to see if she needed to use the bathroom, gave her an extra treat, and do other things we thought she might want but finally decided it was indeed the fireworks upsetting her.
So last night I finally got a clue – after looking online and after an hour of her pawing and pacing and refusing to settle. I closed all the windows and turned on the fan and air conditioner for some white noise. Then I wrapped a blanket around her (thankfully yesterday was a cool day) and rubbed her temples and she started to close her eyes and finally flopped over on the couch next to me and fell asleep.
The poor thing had had a long day at my parents, running all over their property, and I knew she had to be exhausted. She laid next to me asleep under that blanket for a good hour.
I think the blanket is a comfort to her because in the winter our daughter covers her up like she is a baby and they fall asleep together that way.
She is a bit of a spoiled dog and she pretty much knows it.
Tonight I also I want to offer up prayers for the people of Kerrville, Texas and the surrounding area. I’m sure many of you know about the flooding there so I won’t go into detail. I’ve been struggling with the news of this since last night. My 10-year-old daughter has gotten a lot of hugs and kisses since I first heard yesterday. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about those girls and their families and the other victims.
I know that it seems to be common these days for people to try to politicize absolutely everything, but in this case, I wish people just wouldn’t.
The fingers of blame have been shot out at everyone from the current administration, the past administration, meteorologists, camp leaders, media, and everyone in between.
The fact is that sometimes some people might be to blame for a response to a weather event, but sometimes weather is going to do what weather is going to do. That doesn’t make the aftermath any easier or less horrifying, of course.
In 2011, when I lived 45 minutes north of where I live now, we were told by the National Weather Service we would get heavy rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Sandy. There might even be flooding, we were told. It could be significant flooding, especially since our town was along two rivers that converged right at the end of town. We were not told the whole town might flood, though. That hadn’t happened since the remnants of Hurricane Agnes in 1972.
What we were not told until the middle of the night, mainly because forecasters didn’t know this was going to happen, was that the storm system had stalled over our area. That meant that rain kept falling and falling and falling. Hours earlier, business owners in our town’s business district were told they would get some damage, but their businesses should be fine. Homeowners were told to get to higher ground, but they should be okay.
By 2 or 3 a.m., though, it was clear those assurances were absolutely wrong. One business owner recalled to my husband that when they got the middle-of-the-night call from the fire department, they were told, “We were wrong. The weather people were wrong. The river is coming over its banks. You’re going to lose everything. You can’t come into town, though because there is water over the bridge and it’s not safe.”
The business district was destroyed. The next day, people were in boats on main street, just like in the photos I had seen from 1972. It was completely surreal.
People who hadn’t left their houses were trapped on their roofs. A few houses floated downstream, just like the photos we are seeing in Texas. As far as I know, the owners were not in the houses at the time. We did not have the high number of fatalities like they have in Texas.
I’m sure a lot of blame flew around after that flood, but most people understood what really happened was that nature did what nature does — acted in an unexpected way for us, but an expected way for it.
No one, or at least very few people, could have predicted that storm system would stall and dump more than 10 inches of rain on the area overnight and even more the next day.
From what I am reading about Texas, a similar situation occurred, but even worse because dams overflowed. I watched a video of how fast it all happened and yes, people knew there would be flooding, but flooding that wiped out entire towns? No. They didn’t predict that because the area had been a drought about two months ago. A lot of news channels are choosing not to share that because they want to stir up controversy.
While some responses might have been lacking (I have no idea yet), most people were completely caught off guard — even officials. This area isn’t like a city or even a well traveled rural area, from what I understand. This is true wilderness without not a ton of communication and that’s how people want it. These are campgrounds. They did have cellphones in some areas but even then they were keeping an eye on the water, but had no idea it was about to break loose further upstream.
I just wish the hyper-political people in our country (those who see life through political lenses only) would keep their mouths shut until we can at least bury the dead.
I should also add that there are still people missing in North Carolina from the flooding last autumn which surprisingly people have stopped talking about. That entire area is still devastated, and people are living in temporary housing, and others are still waiting to bury their dead.
There is too much tragedy in the world for us all to keep up on it, so I don’t blame people for not knowing about what is happening in N.C. still. I can’t take it all in most days. I disassociate myself by watching movies, reading books, and then writing blog posts about it all.
I simply wish we didn’t all have to start dividing each other even more during these tragedies. Screaming that this or that party is to blame for this or that natural disaster isn’t going to help these families through their grief. I hesitate and hate to say this, but I think in this situation, no amount of warning was going to help stop some of this from happening.
Even if they had known the rivers would rise fast, I don’t see how they could have known it would rise up to 20 feet in less than an hour. That’s just not something that normally happens….which brings me to another topic that I probably won’t write about on this blog ever because I usually try to keep posts here as happy as I can.
All this being said, I’ll be back to happier topics tomorrow in my Sunday Bookends when I write about Thriftbooks sending me the wrong book but it turned out to be a possible collectible.
Next week Little Miss and I will be going to VBS, helping my parents, and dealing with some heat again. Maybe we will even find some time for swimming.
What have you been doing and what do you have going on next week?
Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.
You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
This summer I am watching Angela Lansbury movies for the Summer of Angela.
This week I watched Gaslight (1944), which was Angela’s first movie and also her first nomination for an Academy Award. I think I stated before that she won the Oscar, but she didn’t. Whoops!
She was 18 years old when she portrayed Nancy, the odd, boisterous and flirty housemaid of Ingrid Bergman’s character.
After I watched it, I knew this movie was going to be hard for me to write about without giving tons of spoilers and without expressing my strong desire for one particular character to die, or at least suffer greatly by the end of the film, but I am going to try not to in case any of you who haven’t watched it want to watch it later.
Ahem.
Sorry for being so blunt about wanting a character to die or suffer, but…. it is true.
This movie is about a woman who is made to believe she is insane.
That’s pretty much the description. Here is a little more from Google, though: “After the death of her famous opera-singing aunt, Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is sent to study in Italy to become a great opera singer as well. While there, she falls in love with the charming Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). The two return to London, and Paula begins to notice strange goings-on: missing pictures, strange footsteps in the night and gaslights that dim without being touched. As she fights to retain her sanity, her new husband’s intentions come into question.”
It stars Ingrid Bergman as Paula Alquist, Charles Boyer as Gregory Anton, Angela Lansbury as Nancy Oliver, and Joseph Cotten as Brian Cameron.
When I asked my 80-year-old mom if she wanted to watch the movie with me this week, she said, “No! Oh no!” and looked horrified.
That didn’t make me feel excited to watch it until she explained it wasn’t a bad movie, just somewhat dark and creepy. I told her that her response reminded me of how she might react if I asked her if she wanted to watch The Birds with me. The Birds is my mom’s least favorite movie.
When I was a child, she once came rushing into the house from mowing the lawn.
“The birds!” she cried waving her arms over her head, brushing at her hair. “The birds! They were swooping! Swooping down at me like in that movie! Swarming me! The Birds!! The Biiiiirds!”
Needless to say, that was not a movie I ever watched with her and won’t ask her to watch again.
Anyhow, Gaslight is based on a UK version of the movie, which was based on a play called Gas Light (two words). As far as I know, the American version is considered the better version since it was nominated for seven Oscars, winning two, including one for best actress for Ingrid.
Joseph Cotten portrays a police inspector, whose interest in an decade-old murder case is piqued when he sees a woman who looks like the victim. It turns out the woman is the niece of the murdered woman.
Cameron wants to know more about what is going on and why the niece never leaves the house, or if she does it is for a very short time and never without her husband. He finally gets his chance when Paula stands up to the controlling Gregory and tells him she wants to leave the house for an event they were invited to by a woman she knew as a child.
Throughout the movie her husband has been accusing her of stealing or moving things, suggesting she doesn’t remember when she does the these things and hinting, more than once, that she might be insane. Even at the event she finally is able to go to he accuses her of stealing his watch, which leads her to having a near mental breakdown in public.
As the movie goes on, we begin to wonder who is actually crazy, but we do know that her husband seems pretty horrid and abusive. We also know that one reason Paula thinks she is crazy is because she notices the brightness of the gaslights decreasing and increasing throughout the evening, something no one else in the house seems to notice.
I don’t want to give too much away, but this movie did have me on edge throughout the entirety. I felt such anxiety for Ingrid’s character and a lot of anger toward her husband, though I wasn’t sure what was really going on.
Angela’s character was evil and selfish. That’s the only way I know how to describe her. She definitely was brilliant in her role because she made me so uncomfortable. If I could describe her even more succinctly, I would say “what a trashy little tart.”
What Angela said about the movie:
Angela was 17 when she auditioned for the movie.
“As far as I was concerned, I was very consciousness at the age,” Angela said in an interview with the SAG-AFRTA Foundation. “So I went about learning my lines and listening to George Cukor direction and he directed the test . . .I did it with an actor called Hugh Marlow who played the part of Charles Boyer’s role (for the test) and we did a very extensive test. I’m glad we did. Cukor took great care because I think he really wanted me although the first decision was that I wouldn’t play it, you know, I was too young. But I signed a contract anyhow because Albie Mayer saw my test when he came back from a trip back east to see his horses … and he saw my test and said ‘sign that girl.’”
Angela said she had a lot of interaction with L.B. Mayer, who ran Metro-Golden-Mayer (MGM) studios and that she was very fond of him. Not only did he sign her but also her mother and wanted to sign her twin brothers, but they decided not to let the twin sign. Instead, they later became writers for the movie and television industry.
After being nominated for Oscars for both Gaslight (1944) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Angela says she was never considered a starlet, always an actress. That made her job a little easier.
Angela said that she was glad in many ways that she didn’t win the Oscars she was nominated for because in her view many people who win Oscars second guess what their next steps will be. They often overthink what roles they need to take next because they are always thinking about being as good as an Oscar winning role, she said. She thinks that for her she didn’t have that pressure. She just went with whatever she wanted to do next, though she was a little disappointed that MGM didn’t have anything lined up for her so she could use the momentum of the success from her first two movies.
She went on with laughter in the interview saying that she was nominated for her first two movies and “it all went downhill from there.”
Angela was nominated again, however, for The Manchurian Candidate in 1963 where she played the role of a mother to an actor who was only three years younger than her. She told the interviewer that she felt the fact she was given roles where she was playing older women showed her that she was always a character actor.
In a 2000 interview with NPR’s Fresh Air, Angela recalled how the audition for Gaslight really came about.
“Well, I was introduced to the studio, which was MGM, by a young man who was being considered for the role of Dorian Gray. His name was Michael Dyne. And he arranged that the casting director would see me, this young English girl, who at that time was – I think I was 17. And I went to the studio with my mother and was interviewed for the part of Sibyl Vane in “Dorian Gray.” And the head of casting, a man called Billy Grady, came into the room while I was sitting there. He said, sort of whispered in the ear of Mr. Ballerino, the man I was seeing, you know, you should suggest that this young lady meets George Cukor, who’s trying to cast the role of the maid in “Gaslight.” And so right then and there, I was whipped off to meet George Cukor. And so, well, the rest, as they say, is history.”
The interviewer asked Angela if she was aware of some of the darker elements of the film, or was she a little naïve because she was so young at the time.
“I can’t honestly say, except by my on-set demeanor,” she responded. “I think my on-set demeanor was a very, very careful, covered, rather shy attitude about what I was doing. And when I say that, I don’t mean that I was aware of that, but I know from my own uncertainty about my personal – you see; I’ve always been a very private person. When it comes to the work, I’m on solid ground. When it comes to the – Angela Lansbury the young woman, I was on very uncertain ground.”
She continued: “So, I had to marry those two rather carefully. And that’s why, as I say, I always felt that I had to, shall we say, tread rather warily from a personal point of view. Just listen and hear and do what I was told and asked to do. I could discuss it, but I – in most instances, I was pretty quick to pick up directorial indications from somebody like George Cukor because he was extremely clear and funny and helpful. And what he said I understood. So you could say I was fortunate in that I could understand what he wanted and then deliver it. This is what I do, and this is what I always maintained throughout my career – was that I had that ability to take direction and also to understand what the – what was required of the character.”
Angela turned 18 on the set and had this to say about that time: “Oh, it was required that there was a social worker with me until my 18th birthday, which I celebrated on the set of “Gaslight,” actually. And I always remember it because Ingrid and Charles and George Cukor were so wonderfully kind. And Ingrid gave me lovely bottles of Strategy, which was a lovely, smelly cologne, which – I’d never had anything as lovely as that – and powder, you know, sort of talcum powder and things that, you know, set. I always remember that. It’s interesting, the things you do remember.”
This part made me laugh so I had to include it: “And we celebrated. And I was able to take a cigarette out of a packet in my purse and smoke it, which I hadn’t been able to let on, that I had been smoking from the time I was, really, about 14 years old. I say that without any sense of pride at all. And I stopped smoking 30 years ago. But nevertheless – I don’t know if you remember, but I do smoke a rather long Cigarettello in the movie. And that was part of the business in the movie of “Gaslight.” But they only let me puff it. And I wasn’t allowed to inhale, as Mr. Clinton would say.”
As Mr. Clinton might say. Wahahaha! I remember that interview with him. He didn’t inhale and he didn’t have sexual relations with that woman…well, we all know how that second one went.
According to TCM.com: “MGM head Louis B. Mayer, determined to eliminate the competition for what was expected to be one of the studio’s biggest hits of the year, ordered all prints of the 1939 British version purchased and destroyed. Prints, however, did survive, and the film turned up again in the 1950s, often under the title of the original 1938 stage production, Angel Street.”
MGM tried to sue Jack Benny in the 50s because he presented a spoof of the movie called Autolight. Benny played Charles Boyer’s character and Barbara Stanwyck performed as Bergman. The comedians lawyers argued the skit was in the realm of parody and therefore not a copyright violation and the suit was dropped.
Ingrid Bergman was filming The Bells of St. Mary’s when she won her Oscar for Gaslight. The star of the film, Bing Crosby, and the director, Leo McCarey, had previously won Oscars. In her acceptance speech Ingrid quipped: “I am particularly glad to get the Oscar this time because I’m working on a picture at the moment with Mr. Crosby and Mr. McCarey and I’m afraid if I went on the set tomorrow without an award, neither of them would speak to me.”
From TCM: “In the big confrontation scene between the chambermaid and the lady of the house, Lansbury was required to light a cigarette in defiance of her mistress’s orders. But because she was only 17, the social worker and teacher assigned to her would not allow her to smoke until she was a year older. When her 18th birthday arrived, Bergman and the cast threw her a party on the set, and the scene was done shortly after.”
Director George Cukor suggested that Ingrid Bergman study the patients at a mental hospital to learn about nervous breakdowns. She did, focusing on one woman in particular, whose habits and physical quirks became part of the character. (source IMdB)
The first time Ingrid Bergman encountered Charles Boyer was the day they shot the scene where they meet at a train station and kiss passionately. Boyer was the same height as Bergman, and in order for him to seem taller, he had to stand on a box, which she kept inadvertently kicking as she ran into the scene. Boyer also wore shoes and boots with two-inch heels throughout the movie. (source IMdB)
Charles Boyer‘s wife, Pat Paterson, was pregnant with what would be the couple’s only child. Boyer and Paterson had been trying to have a baby for many years, and Boyer was exceptionally nervous while making Gaslight. He rushed between takes to call and check on his wife’s health as the expected birth date grew nearer. The baby was expected to come after Boyer had finished working on this movie, but he arrived early. Boyer broke down in tears when he was notified, and he informed the rest of the cast and crew of his son’s birth. Production was halted for the day and the cast and crew opened up bottles of champagne to celebrate the birth. (source IMdB)
Angela had been working at Bullocks Department Store in L.A. before getting the part in Gaslight. When she told her boss that she was leaving, he offered to match the pay at her new job, expecting it to be in the region of her Bullocks salary of the equivalent of twenty-seven dollars a week. He was shocked to find out she’d be earning $500 a week. (source IMdB)
Cat from Cat’s Wire also watched the movie this week and you can read her thoughts here. She compared the British and American movie versions and a German televised version of the original play. I absolutely loved how she compared these three!
Here is my full schedule of movies I am watching for the Summer of Angela:
Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
I hope you are all having a nice summer. Ours has been pretty tame, but we still have two months, so we will see if we find some adventure for July and August. I’ve been spending my summer reading, working on the fourth book in my cozy mystery series, and watching movies. I’ve also been helping my elderly parents some and figuring out some health issues (the good news is that things are getting a little better as I figure out some things. It’s going slow but, yes, I am seeing some progress and I am so thankful to God for that.)
Once again this week I want to mention the loss of a member of our blogging community a couple of weeks ago. Patrick Weseman, author of Adventures in Weseland passed away the week before last and we only learned of it after we posted our Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot post, which featured his blog.
Now, let’s introduce our hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
Sue from Women Living Well After 50 started blogging in 2015 and writes about living an active and healthy lifestyle, fashion, book reviews and her podcast and enjoying life as a woman over 50. She invites you to join her living life in full bloom.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
A little about Emma: Hello, I’m Emma Peach, a 49-year-old journalism graduate. I grew up in Cambridgeshire, then at the age of 26 I moved to Nottingham for 13 years (where I did a Masters in TV Journalism) before relocating to the North West in 2013. I’ve worked in broadcasting since 2001, mainly TV, but also online and radio. When I moved to Cheshire, I took the plunge and left my staff job to go freelance and have never regretted it!
I started Style Splash when my daughter was two years old; it was the culmination of finally feeling like I had regained my identity since becoming a mum. I’d always loved fashion and beauty so it seemed like the perfect creative outlet. I have to admit that I was more than a little intimidated by all the blogs featuring flawless 20-somethings wearing the latest designer clothes, but while there’s certainly a place for those blogs, along with the glossy magazines for us to aspire to, they don’t reflect the day to day existence of most people. Becoming a mum or reaching a milestone birthday shouldn’t create fashion boundaries…style has no age limit!
Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!
And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:
I plan to feature more bloggers each month but since this is just getting started we didn’t have as many entrants. That is totally fine. This is all just for fun!
1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to bookstore, etc. You get the drift.
2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not your website) that is related to books or reading. Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention too.
3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.
4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.
5. If you add a link you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).
Today’s prompt is: Freebie/Throwback (Come up with a topic you’d like to do or go back and do an old topic you missed or just want to do again!)
So this week, I chose to share my last ten reads so far this year with quick, two to three sentence reviews for each.
I am telling you, guys and gals, I am reading so slowly this year! The number of books I have read so far is a very sad amount. I know what is important is that I’m reading at all, not how many I have read, but ugh! I feel like I am not spending enough time just relaxing and reading!
Of course, I also have started some books that took up quite a bit of time and then decided I couldn’t finish them. I also read two very long books that took me longer than most of the books I read.
Anyhow, on with the post!
The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
This third book in the Chronicles of Narnia series was a very fun read with a lot of humor, but yet also seriousness, thrown in. It is a children’s book, but there is a lot of spiritual wisdom if you read between the lines.
2. The Tuesday Night Club by Agatha Christie
Interesting and intriguing collection of short stories that are connected by the fact a group of people are sitting around sharing their stories about mysteries they experienced and either couldn’t solve or did later. This is a Miss Marple book and in many of the stories Miss Marple ended up solving the crime. This wasn’t my favorite Agatha Christie book but it was an interesting concept.
3. Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke
I’ve heard tons about this series over the years and I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I did not like this book as much I hoped I would. I liked most of it, but toward the end it totally fell apart for me. I might try others in the series but at this point, my expectations have been lowered.
4. The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
It took me quite a long time to get through The Fellowship of the Ring but once I really sat down and got into this one, it took a lot less time. I very much enjoyed this one. I love the friendships, the fight of good against evil, the adventure, all of it. I do not like that the two “bad guys” have names that are so similar to each other, though. Up next in this series will be, of course, Return of the King, and I’m saving that for late fall, early winter.
5. The Twisted Claw by Franklin W. Dixon (A Hardy Boys)
This was the first Hardy Boys book I read and I ended up enjoying it. I’m looking forward to reading others.
6. Peg and Rose Solve a Murder by Laurien Berenson
I enjoyed this first in a new series and by a new-to-me author. I am looking forward to finding and reading book two soon.
7. Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (On A Dead Man) by Jesse Sutanto
This one was the second book in a series and it was not as good as the first, at least for me. I enjoyed Vera’s character like I did in the first book, but in this second book, things took a really dark turn and I was having a hard time pushing through. I didn’t connect with the characters in this second book like I did with the first either. It was still a pretty good book and I will read more in this series, if there is more.
8. The Wishing Well by Mildred Wirt
I enjoyed this juvenile mystery by the original Carolyn Keene. It is a book from the Penny Parker Mysteries and the wit and quick tongue moments in this book were Wirt at her finest. In these books Wirt is free to write how she wants and not how Harriet Adams of Stratemeyer Publishing wanted her to write.
This book felt very long to me because it was broken down into a lot of short stories with the related thread being James’ time in the military. It was a little tedious to me to read straight through, so I took breaks and read it a few times a week, a couple of chapters at a time. In the end, I really enjoyed the book, the stories about James in the military and his family life, and the stories about Tristan, which were hilarious. I could absolutely picture the actor who plays Tristan in the new series as I read stories he was a part of. When I was done with the book, I actually felt a little sad because it had been part of my life for at least three months, and I felt like I had been reading about family in some ways. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the books that I haven’t read yet in the series.
10. The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
I finished this one just Sunday night and enjoyed it when I originally thought I wouldn’t. This book deals a lot with occult and mediums, etc., which is not my thing, so I didn’t think I would like it. About halfway through, I had to find out what happened and couldn’t put the book down. I felt a little stupid that I didn’t figure out who the guilty party was until it was revealed, since it was a little obvious, but I like how it was brought out, and I really liked the very ending. That’s all I will say about that.
What are some of the recent books you’ve read?
Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.
You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
This summer I am watching Angela Lansbury movies. This week — well, last week — I watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
First, a movie description:
During the Battle of Britain, Miss Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury), a cunning witch-in-training, decides to use her supernatural powers to defeat the Nazi menace. She sets out to accomplish this task with the aid of three inventive children who have been evacuated from the London Blitz. Joined by Emelius Brown (David Tomlinson), the head of Miss Price’s witchcraft training correspondence school, the crew uses an enchanted bed to travel into a fantasy land and foil encroaching German troops.
The children come to live with Eglantine Price not because she wants them to, mind you. She is sort of cohersed into it by a lady from the community who ran out of room for the other children who came from London.
Once there the children decide they are going back to London. Miss Price doesn’t eat normal food (she doesn’t eat any sausages at all!). Miss Price can’t let them go back to London because the city is being bombed but..oddly enough…later in the movie she takes them all back to London via a magical bed. Yes, you read that right. A magical, flying bed.
The movie is based on two novels by Mary Norton, The Magic Bed-Knob (1945) and Bonfires and Broomsticks (1957), about the adventures of an apprentice witch and the three children who come to stay with her to escape the bombing of London during World War II.
In some parts, the movie mixes live action and animation, similar to Mary Poppins.
Walt Disney (the man, not the company) purchased the rights to the first book the year it was published, but the movie wouldn’t be made until five years after his death, partially because of Mary Poppins. It took Disney years and years to convince P.L. Travers to give the rights to Mary Poppins. Walt wanted to make a movie based on Bedknobs and Broomsticks but decided he’d hold on to that one if he couldn’t get Mary Poppins. Of course, he did get Mary Poppins so Bedknobs was pushed aside for a bit.
Walt said the stories were very similar, so he wanted to wait to make Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a title that combined both book titles, when the frenzy from Mary Poppins had died down a bit. In the end, Walt died before Bedknobs and Broomsticks was developed and released.
Observer.com says this about the movie: “Bedknobs and Broomsticks is just as unhinged as it sounds. The 1960s through the 1980s was a period of decline for Disney, and the internal drama at the studio plus the Mary Poppins-related delays are evident in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a film that’s all over the place (ironic, as Lansbury called her performance “acting by the numbers;” each scene was storyboarded ahead of time). At first, it strikes the same chord as Chitty Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), but then it veers into West Side Story (1961) territory with extended dance numbers (including dancers in brownface). The scenes where the group travels using Miss Price’s magical bed are bizarrely psychedelic à la the tunnel scene in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which premiered the same year. And the arcs featuring a mix of live action and animation, particularly the soccer scene on the cartoon island of Naboombu, feel like precursors to future hits like Space Jam (1996).”
Who is in it:
The movie stars Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson (the father in Mary Poppins, incidentally) and three wonderful child actors Ian Weighill, Roy Snart, and Cindy O’Callaghan.
Highlights for me:
The children in this movie were absolutely amazing. They were hilarious, quick-witted and delivered their lines perfectly.
In one scene, the oldest boy decides he’s going to blackmail Miss Price into giving them better food (not vegetarian food that she eats) by telling her that the kids know she’s a witch. They know this because when they were trying to sneak out of the house to go back to London, they saw her trying to ride a broom for the first time and falling off into a bush.
“What we have here is an opportunity,” he says when he sees her fall off her broom. “She don’t want us to tell anyone she’s a witch so….”
Oh gosh, the kid is so funny in his delivery. His sister isn’t very pleased with him trying to manipulate Miss Price, by the way, and Miss Price isn’t easily manipulated so it doesn’t really work.
Angela, of course, was very good in this movie. I have to agree with some reviews that said she wasn’t as animated in the movie as she could have been. However, later in life she talked about how technical these types of movies have to be, adding that it is hard to improvise or do anything that breaks too much from the script when the movie is storyboarded so exact for the technical aspects.
There was one song that sort of made my eyebrows raise: Portobello Road. Mainly because of the women who come up to the professor on Portobello Road and seem to be flirting with him. They are dressed in brightly colored dresses that have a certain “look” to them. These same women are in the background of the song flirting with the soldiers and even get their own break out dance moment. As my mom would say, “Oh. Oh my!”
I’m really surprised they put “those type of women” in the movie, which was, clearly, meant for children. I kept looking for any commentary online about this and did find some, but mainly from bloggers.
“I mean, it wasn’t until this viewing that I worked out that, yes, those are prostitutes attempting to pick up Professor Browne and not just friendly women,” Gillianred on The Solute.com wrote. “Which is . . . not something I expected from a Disney movie. But if you look at what they’re wearing and exactly how they size him up, it seems to me that, yup, they’re wondering if he’s got a few bob in his pocket to spare for a little bit of fun.”
I also enjoyed all the different cultures represented during the Portobello Road song. Soldiers who fought for the British during World War II were shown dancing in their own moments during the song, including Scottish, Indian, and Jamaica. Online there was at least one site that called this scene racist but I guess I didn’t see it that way. I just thought it was nice they were representing the other countries who fought with England.
I also felt that the Jamaican section in particular was very respectful because they were dancing to traditional music, the Jamaican women had the best dresses of anyone else in the dance sequence and everyone around them was clapping and enjoying themselves.
The children were even enjoying watching the dances and weren’t making fun of them, but trying to mimic them and try to dance like the people. To me the sequence is a chance to talk to children about the differences between culture. While the depictions are not completely accurate, to me, they are an attempt to bring awareness to all of those different countries that fought with the British during that time.
Eglantine’s cat looked like it had died – so that was funny to see. It looked like the cat we had, who we loved dearly, but was 19 when she died and looked awful. She looked like an animatronic cat that had gone through a garbage disposal at that point.
What I thought overall:
I liked this movie a lot but I don’t know that I would watch it again and again. Maybe if I had watched it as a child and had a sentimental connection, I would have loved it. Instead, I only liked it.
I almost loved it, maybe that’s a better way to say it. This was a comfy, cozy movie for me, even if it wasn’t my favorite Disney film. Yes, I know comfy and cozy are essentially the same word. Just go with it.
I loved the humor of the children and how they made the movie. I loved the silliness and the absolute detachment from reality it had , something people in the 40s would have really needed. Since the movie was released in 1971 it would have provided some people a happier way to frame that period, which was so dark for the world, but especially British people.
I’m actually glad children back then couldn’t see movies like this or read books like the Narnia Chronicles. They might have thought they were all going to mansion with professors or witches where they would disappear into a magical land via a wardrobe or fly away to adventure on a bed.
Nazis showing up at the end of the film was awkward and I imagine would have been very scary for children who watched it when really young.
Mr. Brown dreaming of Angela in a revealing acrobat outfit was also…er…interesting. Not inappropriate but a bit strange. In a funny way.
And, of course, the ending when — well, have you seen the film? I hate to give it away but I will say that a spell is cast and very exciting things happen to help make sure there is a happy ending.
If I were to boil down my overall opinion of the movie into one sentence I would say that it was a magical adventure for me that allowed me to escape life stresses and that is exactly what I think the makers of this movie wanted to do.
What Angela said about the movie:
I could not find the source for this again, but at some point, I was watching an interview with Angela and she said that what really made the movie was the children. Their acting was so good and, of course, children love to watch movies with other children in them.
In 1998 Disney released an extended version of the movie, adding in deleted scenes and musical numbers. Interviewed by Disney for the project, Angela said only those who acted in the movie knew what was missing all these years, but they were so glad to add those parts back.
“It was my passport to an entire generation of youngsters,” Angela said in the interview for Disney. “Now those children are all grown up and they are showing Bedknobs and Broomsticks to their kids.”
“To fly is everybody’s dream,” she continued in the interview. “And to have that experience of being suspended and moving freely through the air is a lovely feeling.”
Pullies and wires were used to help Angela and the other actors seem to fly but special effects also came into play.
“It has to do with make believe,” Angela said. “We had to understand that we were interacting with an animated creature, so your hand had to be in a certain position for him to put his hand on yours in the final print.”
A bit of trivia or facts:
Julie Andrews was offered the role of Miss Price in the movie but declined. When she made up her mind she did want to do it, it was too late. Angela had been offered the role and had accepted.
The Beautiful Briny was actually written for Mary Poppins, but saved out and filmed for Bedknobs and Broomsticks instead.
The song A Step in the Right Direction was cut from the movie and the footage could never be found to restore it to the restored version of the movie. Disney did, however, clip together some images and present it on the Disney Channel before airing the movie with all the deleted scenes added back in. (https://youtu.be/J-VwRkQGkAw?si=QpQ0jjsfKoP5H9wa
In the establishing shot of the animated soccer game, a bear wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt can be spotted in the crowd on the right side of the picture.
There were differences between the books and the movie. For example, in the first book of the series, the warm is not explicitly mentioned and the children are not orphans but are instead sent to spend the summer with their aunt in the country. It’s heard they meet Eglantine Price, who gives them the magic bedknob in exchange for not revealing she is a witch. In the second book, set two years after the first, the children travel back in time to 1666 before the Great Fire of London and that’s where they meet Emelius Jones (not Brown) and bring him back with them to the future.
Another difference between the movie and book is that Eglantine ends up traveling back with him to his time and takes the bed with her, which means the children will not have any more adventures or trips.
From TCM.com: “In an interview filmed for the thirtieth anniversary of the film that was included as added content on the DVD release, Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, the brothers who were the film’s composer-lyricists, stated that they were given the task to write songs for Bedknobs and Broomsticks while the studio awaited permission from author P. L. Travers to film Mary Poppins. In an interview reprinted in a modern source, the brothers reported that Disney assured them that he owned another story about magic for which their songs could be used if Mary Poppins was not produced. According to the Shermans, the song “The Beautiful Briny” actually was written for, but never used in, Mary Poppins.”
According to 1971 studio production notes, three blocks of Portobello Road as it looked in 1940 were reproduced on Disney Studio soundstages. Among the props used for this sequence were carts rented from A. Keehn, a company that had a monopoly on them, according to set decorator Emile Kuri, who stated that for over a hundred years the company had collected a shilling a day for each barrow rented by vendors on Portobello Road. (Source TCM.com).
All longer scenes with Roddy McDowall as the local pastor “Mr. Jelk,” were cut from the film and he ended up in only a three-minute clip in the original film.
The New York Times stated in their review that Angela projected a “healthy sensuality” in the movie. (*giggle*)
This was the last Disney movie released while Roy O. Disney was still alive. He died a week after its U.S. premiere.
The armor in the climactic battle with the Nazis was authentic medieval armor, previously used in Camelot (1967) and El Cid (1961). When any item of armor was to be destroyed, exact fiberglass replicas were created and used.
In this movie, the King of Naboombu’s name is Leo. In official merchandise guidebooks, his full name is King Leonidas, after the Spartan King who died at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.
This was the last Disney-branded movie to receive an Academy Award until The Little Mermaid (1989). Others received nominations, and two Touchstone Pictures movies, The Color of Money (1986) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), received awards before that.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
The heat this past week was awful. Just awful. We couldn’t get out house to cool down part of the time. But we survived and are experiencing much nicer and cooler temperatures now.
I haven’t been adding a lot of books to my shelf lately, but I thought I’d share this lovely Little Women book I recently bought from an online used bookshop.
It is an illustrated copy from the 1970s and I absolutely love the feel of the book overall, the illustrations inside, and the beautiful outside of the book, under the outside cover.
I know I will be rereading Little Women this year and other years. I might not read it all the way through again, but there are favorite sections I will definitely read over and over after I finally read it for the first time last year.
When I posted about this edition on my Instagram, several people commented that they had the exact same copy. Do any of you have a copy like this too?
I am still reading The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie but will have it done later this week. I’m not sure what I think of this one, but will probably go for a Miss Marple book for my next Agatha read.
I am also reading The Clue in the Diary by Carolyn Keene. It is a Nancy Drew mystery and it is the first book where she meets Ned Nickerson, who readers of Nancy Drew will know is her boyfriend throughout the series.
I am reading The Imitable Mr. Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse off and on.
I just started The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley by Courtney Walsh. It is too soon for me to decide if I will like it or not.
Up next I hope to read Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis.
Little Miss and I are listening to Prince Caspian at night but she can hear it better because the phone is closer to her and I am closer to the air conditioner, which means I really can’t follow the story at all. That’s why I am glad I am going to be reading it soon.
The Husband is reading Glitz by Elmore Leonard.
The Boy is listening to Perturabo by Guy Haley. It’s a Warhammer book.
Little Miss just started the fourth book in The Harry Potter series, Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling.
I rewatched The Manchurian Candidate with The Boy last night. I picked up even more than I did when I watched it. Earlier in the week I watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks and an episode of Ludwig. This week I hope to watch Agatha and Me With David Suchet, more Ludwig, and Gaslight with Angela Lansbury for my Summer of Angela.
I’ve been listening to old Jack Benny radio programs before bed.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
Welcome to my June newsletter! That’s right. I’m going to try to do this once a month again and here on my main blog instead of Substack. I’ll have a page set up for you to find past newsletters.
All three Gladwynn books on sale
All three ebooks in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series are on sale this week on Amazon.
You can read descriptions of each of the books at the links.
Update on book four in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series
I’m working on book four of the Gladwynn Grant series but I wouldn’t say I am working on it steadly.
Alas, I am working on it here and there, but I have plenty of ideas. I hope to release it in October and will have a cover reveal by the end of July.
The book will be called Gladwynn Grant Goes Back To School. There will be a mystery, of course, since this is a mystery series. I can tell you that it will involve the local superintendent and that another family member of Gladwynn’s might show up for a visit. One we haven’t met yet.
There will be, of course, just a touch of romance like the other books.
I’ll have a description of the book by next month’s newsletter.
Admiring my roses
I always look forward to when the flowers bloom in our yard and this year was no different. The roses were beautiful this year but didn’t seem to last as long. The heatwave we had this week and the fact I failed to water them didn’t help.
Here are a few photos of them while they were blooming.
A Giveaway
I always had fun doing giveaways on my Substack Newsletter so I thought I’d do that with this newsletter. I would like to send one person a paperback copy of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing.
If you are interested in a copy you can simply tell me what your favorite book genre is in the comments and I will randomly choose a winner by next week.
Find me on social media:
I wanted to close by reminding readers of my newsletters that I am on YouTube now (still figuring it out and only doing shorts for now). You can find my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@goodbooksandtea
I want to thank everyone who supports my writing, whether here on the blog or by borrowing or buying my books, or just reading them at all. It really means a lot to me since writing is a distraction for me from other stresses in life.
