It’s been a mostly sport-centric week with Kentucky basketball, Super Bowl, and Olympics on TV. Here is the meager non-sports recap.
Movies
I only watched one movie this week and it was one I found on a movie channel Wednesday afternoon. It was The First Time starring Dylan O’Brien and Britt Robertson. They star as two teens who go to different high schools and meet at a party. The movie covers the weekend they spend getting to know each other and falling in love. O’Brien and Robertson are very good in the movie. It was well done. I think it could have used a little bit of comic relief.
TV
I watched a lot of Olympic coverage this week. Figure skating, halfpipe, curling, and speed skating.
I watched the Jeopardy College Championship. I like Jeopardy, but I think regular Jeopardy and then primetime Jeopardy four days a week is a bit much.
I watched Euphoria, Righteous Gemstones. Resident Alien and Astrid & Lilly Save the World.
Books
I finished two books this week.
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn – Told in letters it is the story of the fictional island of Nollops off the coast of South Carolina. Nollops was named after Nevin Nollop, the author of the sentence “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” When letters in the sentence on a statue honoring Nollops start to fall, the high council makes it illegal to use the fallen letters. The letters telling the story start to drop those letters as well.
This was a very quick and pleasant read. It was interesting to see the island become like a cult worshipping Nollops and banishing people who violated the new rules. It did become hard to read as more letters were dropped.
The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera – A comet is about to hit Earth. Petra and her family are chosen to board one of the shuttles to a new planet. Petra’s parents want her to be a scientist like them. Petra wants to be a storyteller like her grandmother. The passengers are put in cryosleep during the hundreds of years journey. When Petra awakens she discovers a Collective has taken over the ship and wiped everyone’s memories of Earth and purged anyone who remembers. Petra is now the only human who remembers life on Earth.
This is a very interesting concept and, for the most part, the author does it well. It dragged a little in the middle and could have been a bit shorter, but the beginning and the end are very good and keep you reading.
On Deck
Free Guy hits streaming this week so we might watch that.
A lot of the shows I watch will come back this week with the Olympics ending. I’m looking forward to a normal TV Schedule.
I am currently reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
The World's Common Tater 
I remember enjoying Ella Minnow Pea a lot, and that it did become harder to read as more letters were eliminated. But that made it all the more fascinating to me. I should read this again. This is one you have to read, not listen to.
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I’m so glad you read Ella Minnow Pea. My son loved the book in high school and introduced me to it. He started a band and named it The Saucy Stenographers, which he borrowed from the book.
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The Last Cuentista sounds interesting, I shall take a look. In terms of films, we’ve been watching some Tommy Lee Jones and finally caught up with ‘No Country for Old Men’. It was full of really stellar performances from a great cast. Grim too, but I’d not expect anything else from Cormac McCarthy.
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I don’t think I’ve ever watched that one.
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