Talkie Tuesday: The Mysterious Affair at Styles

 

"Perhaps one day, when this terrible war is ended, 

we shall work again together, eh?

And Poirot will explain it all to you."

 

Hello everyone!

 

My, but it's been a WHILE since I've done one of these.

 

It's a shame really, because this piece tonight happens to be part of one of my all-time favourite series ever made, and I'm talking EVER.

 

There is nothing out there that can compare to it.

 

Basically, I'm someone who grew up watching Jeremy Brett play his way through Sherlock Holmes stories, then once I was old enough, I switched to this.

 

But apparently all I've ever done have been snippets and vague looks into the series, which won't do!

 

It's time to be more serious about it, possibly even gotta-catch-em-all serious.

 

So without further ado, let's hop straight into The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

 

Tome Thursday: DH Beauty from Ashes

 

Hello everyone!

 

I'm picking up a slightly different book this week, one I stumbled over VERY randomly - I don't even know how or where, to be honest, just that I really liked the blurb and figured I could give the story a shot, so that's how it ended up on my shelves.

 

But then it took a bit for me to actually get to the reading of it part, and so I forgot how it got there.

 

Oops.

 

ANYWAY.

 

If you know me, then you'll know I'm also a sucker for anything and mostly everything related to either WWI or WWII as I firmly believe we should remember (though not to the detriment of making progress and taking huge leaps forward). So naturally, seeing that one of my favourite stories was tweaked to fit into a WWI timeline, that caught my interest.

 

Jane Austen is a favourite of mine and has been for a while, but I will say that seeing Elizabeth and Darcy in a different setting is also quite amusing.

 

So let's go ahead and have a look at Darcy's Hope: Beauty from Ashes, which is a WWI Pride and Prejudice variation story!

 

Tome Thursday: Tre Volte No

Hello everyone!

I have something slightly different for you today.

After taking it up a notch with my Tuesday blog post, I'm going in and keeping it extra real with this one tonight, because every once in a while I reach for a book that's slightly different from anything else I've read.

It also usually covers some sort of war aspect, too.

I've done a couple of these on the blog since I started, but I do feel like I should maybe do a few more as well, given that this is a topic that should never be forgotten, ever.

And one of the best ways to do it is if you know specific authors who write magnificent books about it.

Boris Pahor, one of my fellow countrymen, is one of them.

God bless him for his long, fruitful life. He has a collection of books mostly dealing with World War II era in the Trieste region, and I've read a number of them already.

Tre Volte No is just another in a long, long line.

The Red Knight of Germany (Booktober)

"You will be home before the leaves fall from the trees."

If you've ever picked up any history book ... you'll know that World War I wiped out practically an entire generation. You'll also remember that last year was the 100th anniversary of the peace treaty. In that vein, there've been many books published on the topic, or re-published, and I chose to focus on one that is absolutely stunning - and heartbreaking. The Red Knight of Germany tells the story of the best pilot the world had ever seen at the time. It tells the story of the men who lived and died in their planes, and the era when chivalry died.

Because they were indeed knights. Knights in the sky, the last of their kind.

1927. The story of Baron von Richthofen, Germany's great war bird. Manfred von Richthofen was known as the Red Knight or, more commonly, the Red Baron due to the color of his plane. As a German aviator in World War I, he was attributed with eighty kills, or enemy planes shot down, and ended up being killed in action in 1918.

(from Goodreads)

xx

*image not mine

The Kommandant's Girl (Booktober)

Nemesis (Booktober)

Outlander series (Booktober)

The Conqueror Series (Booktober)

The Lost Symbol (Booktober)

The Host (Booktober)

The Bridgertons (Booktober)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Booktober)

The Infernal Devices (Booktober)

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Booktober)

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Booktober)
Broken Sky (Booktober)

The Shadow of the Wind (Booktober)

Dracula (Booktober)

Life and Death (Booktober)

ACOTAR series (Booktober)

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Booktober)

Sepulchre (Booktober)

Pride and Prejudice (Booktober)

Tempting Autumn (Booktober)

Harry Potter (Booktober)

The Hobbit (Booktober)

Talkie Tuesday: The Ottoman Lieutenant

"I thought I was going to change the world.

But, of course, it was the world that changed me."

Hello everyone!

It's blog post time yet again and I've dug out an older entry from my little sheepy notebook. One that I absolutely LOVED while watching but somehow never got to actually review before, which is actually shame on me, but what would you? 

Anyway.

Last summer during my little vacation, when I took the time off to not be online more than strictly necessary, I watched a heck of a lot of movies.

And among them was one which I'd actually stumbled upon rather randomly without even knowing I'd been looking for it. Of course this happens to me a lot when I somehow land with movies I never knew I wanted to watch until I watch them haha.

I'm talking about one that might not have gotten the international promotion that Avengers did, but it was cool just the same: The Ottoman Lieutenant.

Tome Thursday: The Red Knight of Germany

Hello everyone!

Okay, so.

I'm back with another book based off World War One, and this one is slightly different than the exploration I did about the topic of what started the war.

This one is about aviation.

Also, it's about the man probably hailed as one of the greatest pilots of all time, especially because he was flying when planes certainly weren't as well-equipped as they are today.

I'm talking about a time when the aviators themselves were the ones discovering new tricks and weapons and practiced flying at high altitudes and high speeds, when soldiers in the trenches would look up above them and see the "birds" flying back and forth as they sought out their prey.

I'm also talking about a time when your first flight could pretty much also be your last, and for a large number of pilots it was exactly what happened.

The book we'll be talking about tonight is The Red Knight of Germany.

Tome Thursday: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Hello everyone!

I picked a slightly different book for my review tonight, mostly because a ) I honestly think it's an interesting read and wish it gets translated into English and b ) I never got around to finishing the book I was MEANT to review.

Oops?

Let's just say, the week going into Easter Weekend is having me hopping about like the Easter Bunny, only I'm not really carrying chocolate eggs with me, sadly.

Instead I feel like I'm all over the place, so you'll forgive me if this review post seems to be slightly pulled out of the magician's hat. I kind of feel as if I SHOULD be able to do a better job, but occasionally life does take the front row seat and everything else has to relocate.

In any event, however, I picked a Slovene book this time, which would roughly be titled Death of an Heir: Following Slovene Interpretations of the Sarajevo Assassination.

If you've guessed that this will be all about Archduke Franz Ferdinand, cookie for you!

Saturday Snippet: Remember

xx

*video not mine

Talkie Tuesday: Wonder Woman

"I will fight for those who cannot fight for themselves."

Hello everyone!

So after that impromptu break which I took without announcing anything, I figured I might as well come back with a big bang. Right? Right. 

There I was, minding my own business at the seaside, when I stumbled upon Wonder Woman quite by accident. As in, I had known there was a movie being made and that it was just about to drop in theatres by the time I hightailed it to the coast, but I wasn't paying too much attention to the actual dates.

And here and now, let me tell you: boy, am I glad I paid attention later!

DC has sort of been lagging behind Marvel in terms of their superhero movies, only just coming into their own with Man of Steel and the following Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (which a lot of people complained about and I, personally, only really checked the ending of), but they now seem to be on the right track.

Let's begin our journey then, shall we? With the one, the only, Wonder Woman.

Tome Thursday: The Kommandant's Girl

Hello everyone!

I come bearing the gift of another blog post! And I swear, I won't even cry.

Or, I'll try not to.

See, a while ago I noted down the name 'Pam Jenoff' and the title 'The Kommandant's Girl', but never got the chance to do anything with that note until about ten days ago. At which point I got a copy of said book, and sat down to read it.

Of course I knew what I was getting myself into.

See, the thing with me is that I do my homework, and I research most of the books that I want to read, specifically if they're going to be about a period in recent history. In this case, it meant World War II and the occupation situation in Poland, which included but wasn't just limited to martial law and curfew.

So yes, I knew that whatever I was about to read would probably lead me down a dark road and I'd end up with streaming eyes and a runny nose.

I persevered, however, and although a lot of people do criticise it - which I can understand - I think It's a very good book.

Talkie Tuesday: Downton Abbey (season 1)

"I am a caretaker, not an owner."

Hello everyone!

Alright, so. Once again, this Tuesday blog is going to be a bit different, as it will not, in fact, be about a movie of any kind. And there really is a perfectly simple explanation for that. 

That is, more or less.

See for a time now, one of my best friends has been badgering me (gently, of course) to start watching Downton Abbey. The thing was, with all the regular shows in season, and everything else I generally watch in between, I just never found the time. More accurately, I never made it, really.

Then a few weeks back, I finally decided to bite the bullet, for one thing because I hate not being able to deliver, and for another because I had been told, in no uncertain terms, that Dan Stevens is pretty wonderful in this show.

Dan Stevens? THE Dan Stevens, aka the Beast?

Scuse me while I find the popcorn and get my groove on.

Ahem. So, finally capitulating, I managed to run through the first season of the show since then, and boy, am I thankful for the constant persuasion!

Talkie Tuesday: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

"My philosophy is: if you worry, you suffer twice."

Hello everyone!

So this past weekend, my friends and I decided on a group outing and went to see what was probably one of the most (if not THE most) anticipated movies of this month, which just goes to show that a little bit of magic can go a long way in any movie. 

I'm talking, naturaly, of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the screenplay of which was written by Rowling herself (as opposed to something I will not name).

I can honestly say that I'd only ever seen the one initial trailer for the movie proper, and maybe it wasn't even a trailer but a teaser trailer, before it sort of fell off my radar because I was a bit busy with a lot of other things, so I went into the cinema pretty much with no definite decision of what to expect.

Which is just as well, actually, seeing as I probably enjoyed myself a whole lot more because of this. Seriously, I tend to get my hopes up WAY too much.

But then of course, this movie also had Colin Farrell ...

I digress. I should probably start the actual review now.