Saturday Snippet: Halloween

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*image not mine

Tome Thursday: Poldark 1-4

Hello everyone!

I'm picking up the pace with my reading a little bit, because even though I've been working quite a bit in the past couple of weeks, I've found that reading does in fact help me relax a whole lot more despite my initial thought that I couldn't focus on anything beside the manuals and stuff.

But all the same, some of the books I've read have been very mindless, very easy, and definitely not as time-consuming as you'd think.

Of course, there have been exceptions to this rule. After all, rules (about books) were made to be broken.

I'm a bit behind with my watching of Poldark, I have yet to see the latest episode but luckily for me, I'm actually AHEAD of BBC in terms of reading through the books. Since season two is an adaptation of books three and four, and I've finished four, I think I have quite a good jump ahead on the lot, don't you?

This blog post will briefly cover the first four books in the Poldark saga, without going into too much detail since there ARE four of them, not just one.

So, without further ado, let's get into it!

Talkie Tuesday: Everest

"The last word always belongs to the Mountain."

Hello everyone!

Okay, so for this Tuesday, I decided to open up the flood gates. And I don't mean fictional ones, either. 

While I was at the seaside, just, you know, relaxing on my vacation and soaking up some much-needed vitamin D which has by now apparently evaporated between the wind we have here and the incoming rains, I also watched a bunch of movies that made me wish I could go back and maybe never make the decision to watch.

Not because they were so crappy.

But because they were so good, and unfortunately so realistic (as based off true stories will obviously go) that I bawled my eyes out like a huge, oversized baby.

It was not, in fact, a pretty sight.

The movie I'm talking about this time around is aptly titled with one word only, but it doesn't really need any more introduction than that: Everest.

Saturday Snippet: MacGyver It

"Have a problem?
MacGyver it."

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*image not mine

Tome Thursday: Last Call

Hello everyone!

Whew, I'm finally bringing another series to a close!

Not that I won't be reading them again. Actually, I'm definitely feeling up for some Simon and Caroline cheerfulness, if you know what I mean, because the weather here turned into an absolute downpour and it's been raining since yesterday evening. Which does in fact mean I'm too lazy to do anything else but curl up and read.

Mostly.

Anyway, to get back on track, the book I will be talking about in tonight's blog is the last in the Cocktails series by Alice Clayton, which began with the infamous Wallbanger.

This is actually more a novella than a full-length book, it's mostly a summary and a nice epilogue to the couples that we've grown to love over the course of the entire series, and I have to admit that this has to be one of my favourites, for the simple reason that the characters are believable, real, and face the challenges life throws at them like you and I would.

So, let's get right into Last Call!

Talkie Tuesday: The Lone Ranger

"Never take off mask."

Hello everyone!

I had a different review lined up for this Tuesday, but then what happened was that my mother saw that The Lone Ranger would air on television, not for the first time, you understand, but for the first time at an hour when she could actually watch it and go to bed decently enough to be up for her morning shift at work. 

Ergo, she then decided to splurge a little and turned on the HD setting on the big television in the living room, and what did yours truly do?

I siddled over and watched, duh. It was like watching in theatre!

That being said, I HAD seen the movie before, almost right after it came out, because I fell in love with the first trailer and the fact that this was the same team which had brought us Pirates of the Caribbean, Gore Verbinski at the helm. 

Who doesn't want some Wild West humour?! Plus, it has Armie Hammer, too. I mean, do you even need more reasons?

Saturday Snippet: Rain

"A rainy day is a special gift to readers."

Amy Miles

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*image not mine

Tome Thursday: The Count of Monte Cristo

Hello everyone!

As I've promised, here is the accompanying blog post to Tuesday's movie review, because, as some of the most memorable movies that have ever been made, a lot of them are based off literary works.

The Count of Monte Cristo was no exception.

The thing with the movie, however, was that it was pretty severely hacked down. If you can imagine a tree with a lot of branches and leaves and everything, that would be the book that Alexandre Dumas (Pere) wrote down.

And then take a chainsaw, rev it up, and hack off most of the foliage.

Then you get the movie.

No offense meant to the movie makers, of course - they took the main story of the book and dropped the accompanying ones, and no one is any wiser unless you've actually sat down to read the monstrous thing itself.

Trust me, it should come with its own insurance.

Talkie Tuesday: The Count of Monte Cristo

"How did I escape? With difficulty.
How did I plan this moment? With pleasure."

Hello everyone!

This week is going to be a bit Alexandre Dumas-coloured, if I do say so myself. I've been meaning to do something of the sort for a LONG time, but unfortunately, other things kept on happening and distracting me, this included but not limited to Rick Riordan and his books popping in and out of my reading list.

Yeah, I should probably dial down on the whole Jack the Sword quotations, right?

Anyway.

A while ago (this being now a long while ago) I decided, for some reason, to sit down and read The Count of Monte Cristo from beginning to end. As luck would have it, this took a bit (that thing is HUGE).

As luck would ALSO have it, in the meantime they aired the movie adaptation on television, though I had to double back and watch it later on as well because ... let's face it, I missed the whole beginning.

With that in mind, let's launch into our Monte Cristo-themed week!

Saturday Snippet: Mayor Handsome

"'Mayor Handsome', they call you. Not for long, though."
"If you hit me again ... I'm gonna kill you."

Arrow, S05E01 (1:45)

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*video not mine

Tome Thursday: Crown of Midnight

Hello everyone!

So I am slowly trekking my way through these book series, even though sometimes it certainly does take me longer than one would think! In my defense, I tend tor read SO many books and start SO many series that I sometimes forget to go back to the ones I'd already read, or something else catches my eye, and then of course before I realize it, it's already been ages from the time I've read a certain book!

Then again, I also have to be into the story, so to speak. If I'm not, those books will be left waiting there on the shelves forever ...

I'm not exactly sure what my issue is with Sarah J. Maas' first published series though.

I absolutely love Celaena, she's the kind of character I could go for any day of the week, and yet when I actually sit down to read the books with her as the titular character, time seems to slow down into a crawl.

I start them alright - and when I actually read them I can breeze through them. But STARTING them to begin with is a complete chore for some reason!

Which is sad, because they're amazing. So, on to Crown of Midnight!

Talkie Tuesday: Poldark

"I make no apology for my actions."

Hello everyone!

I believe, at some point in these reviews and recaps, I promised that I would be doing something connected to Poldark, but decided that I was going to wait at the very least until the first half of season 2 was over. 

The thing is, last year we got eight episodes (one hour each, of course) and this year, we get ten, which means I've been waiting for five weeks to get this post up!

I do absolutely adore this show. It's not even all about Aidan Turner (but let's face it, it might just be anyway), especially not this current season as he has quite a few who can compete for the ladies' hearts now! Can anyone say Doctor Enys with me, please?

That being said, this blog post won't be going into incredible length and all the microscopic details I would have gone into had I been doing one review per episode from the beginning. This one is going to be a bit more of a brief than anything else, something you can grab onto and dust off when you've taken a bit of a break, maybe, and need to get back into it before continuing the show itself.

So, without further ado, enter Poldark, season two, stage right!

Saturday Snippet: Girl's Movie Night

"You might call it 'girl's night'.
I call it therapy."

Unknown

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*image is mine