Monday, June 3, 2019

May 2019 Films and Series


Won't you be my neighbor?













Game of thrones (season 6).










Game of thrones (season 7).










A star is born (2018).









Game of thrones (season 8).













May 2019 Books

I was looking for something more personal than this book, which was billed as a memoir but mainly addressed Macron's political platform. Nevertheless, I did find it interesting and informative, and it was clearly written and engaging. I'm still looking for something more biographical, but may have to wait until he's out of office.













Although I'm not very interested in interactive online games, I really enjoyed this novel set in the future about a world where much of the action takes place in a virtual reality environment called the OASIS.















I have mixed feelings about this novel that is made up of three distinct sections: two longer novellas and a shorter interview segment. The first novella tells the story of a 27 year old assistant editor who's in a relationship with a much older, well-known author. The second novella is about an Iraqi-American trying to travel to Baghdad through London who is not permitted to enter London during his two-day layover. The third, shorter, section is an interview of the author from the first section











I've been a long-time fan of John Irving, and I've read most of his novels; however, I never picked up this collection until now. It has three parts: the first contains three short memoirs; the second contains six short stories; and the third contains three essays about Dickens and Gunter Grass. Each work has a short essay that follows, with Irving's musings about it from a distance of years. I found this to be quite a hodgepodge. The title essay explains how Irving decided to become a writer. Another describes his dinner at the White House with Ronald Reagan, and the third memoir describes in excruciating detail his interest in wrestling. I'm not a big fan of short stories to begin with, and I didn't find these particularly good. And the three essays about Dickens and Grass were only mildly interesting. Overall, I think this was a little self-indulgent, and wouldn't recommend the book. Stick with Irving's novels.




I enjoyed this memoir by John Baxter, an author, screenwriter, book dealer, and collector.