The World's Common Tater

I left for Kentucky early Wednesday morning and returned late Tuesday night so most of my reading and viewing took place while traveling. I don’t remember watching a movie before or during the trip so it will all be TV and books.

TV

Before we left I watched mostly reality/game shows with my daughter. We watched episodes of The Chase, Beat Shazam, Don’t Forget the Lyrics, and Survivor. Besides Survivor, we tend to gravitate to music and trivia game shows.

While I was away all I watched on TV was part of the NBA finals and the college softball world series.

I came back to my DVR at 98% full so I have been making an effort to clear shows from that. Here is what I have watched:

The season finale of Fear the Walking Dead – the finale brought Madison Clark back to the show. I’m not sure how I feel about her coming back right after the actor who played her daughter left the show.

The season finale of New Amsterdam – it’s ridiculous what they keep doing to throw obstacles at Max and Helen’s relationship. I hope they spend the final season next year letting all of the characters be happy for a change.

The season finale of Chicago Fire – The end of the whole “the new EMT is trying to blackmail me to get my job” story wrapped up way too neatly. At least the wedding happened before they made it look like Kelly and Stella might be murdered.

Multiple episodes of Beyond the Edge – Celebrity Survivor. Not nearly as good as the real show and the host is terrible, but it is fun to see celebrities deal with living in the jungle.

Books

I finished two books while traveling.

City of the Dead by Jonathan Kellerman – The latest in the Alex Delaware series. Milo and Alex respond to a scene where a naked man was hit by a truck and then a woman is found dead in a nearby house.

It was your typical Delaware novel. They delve into their personal lives to find out who might have killed them. I like a good mystery and Alex and Milo are a good team. It’s always good to have familiar territory when you are in a reading slump.

Stalker by Lars Kepler – I picked this book up when we won a round of pub quiz at the Maryland/Delaware Library Conference. I like to take the freebies like this when I travel so I can leave it behind for someone if I finish and I don’t have to worry about it getting lost or damaged. I didn’t realize it was part of a series until I had been reading for a while and decided to add it to Goodreads. Luckily, I didn’t feel like I was missing much without reading the others.

It is a Swedish novel and revolves around the Swedish police tracking a serial killer who sends videos of the women to the police when he is about to kill them. They enlist a psychologist to help with interviewing one of the victim’s husbands. The main character of the series appears later in the book when someone goes to find him where he has been living with his family after the events of a previous book. Not knowing he was the main character, I was confused about that part of the story.

I did enjoy the book. I had a suspect in mind as the possible killer and I was wrong. I was not expecting the reveal. I’m always happy when a book surprises me. I did like the main character and will probably go back and read the previous books.

On Deck

I have Dog, Cyrano, and Uncharted on DVD. The Batman and Secrets of Dumbledore are on HBO Max. I hope to watch at least one of those soon.

TV will be more DVR catch up and shows like Beat Shazam.

I am about to start reading Razzmatazz by Christopher Moore.