The World's Common Tater

This week turned out to be a bit different in terms of TV shows than I expected. I did finally find a book that held my interest and made me want to read more than watch TV.

Movies

I didn’t watch any movie in its entirety. I’m struggling to remember any I watched at all. I did see part of Back to the Future and Back to the Future 2 on AMC yesterday. Two is better than I remember, but one and three are still the better movies.

TV

I finished the first season of Dark Winds, the show based on Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee books. I thought the show we very well done. I’m looking forward to the next season. My wife didn’t watch because the synopsis made it sound like there were much more supernatural elements than there were. I think she would have liked it.

I watched a few more episodes of Ozark. I like the show and plan to finish it unless it bores me in later seasons. I didn’t watch as much as I thought I would. As my days without AC continued, I needed something light and funny so I switched to

Sex Education on Netflix. I had heard good things about it and my curiosity was piqued Ncuti Gatwa was cast as the Doctor. I have already watched all of season one and half of season two. It was exactly what I needed this week. A light, British, high school dramedy. I think Gatwa could be very good as the Doctor.

I’m happy to have Ken Jennings back hosting Jeopardy this week.

Books

I finished two books this week.,

Tell Me An Ending by Jo Harkin – Nepenthe is a company that specializes in removing unwanted memories for people. There are two types of clients: self-informed and self-confidential. The self-confidential client also wants the memory of the memory erasure removed. When Nepenthe loses a court case after some clients have trace memories, they must inform all of the self-confidential patients of their procedure. We follow Oscar, a man who remembers nothing of his life; William, a police officer suffering from PTSD; Mai, a young woman with memories of a city she doesn’t remember visiting; Finn, an Irish architect in Arizona who believes his wife’s procedure was to forget an affair; and Noor, who works for Nepenthe.

As with most books told from various viewpoints, some stories were more interesting than others. Some of the stories interconnected with others and some never got closure and only had a tenuous connection to the rest of the story. It was well written and I was intrigued by the concept. Unfortunately, too much of the book made me want to put it down and do anything else.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid – Reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is ready to tell her life story in all of its scandalous glory. Hugo will only tell her story to an unknown magazine writer, Monique Grant, She tells her story of her life in Hollywood, her seven husbands, and her one true love. Eventually, she also tells the story of how she is connected to Monique and why she is giving her the story.

This was the first book in a while that I didn’t want to stop reading. I loved the story. I loved the way the story was told. I loved how the author made Evelyn seem real, and not some heroic figure. I spent the book trying to figure out her connection to Monique but didn’t get there until a few pages before the reveal. This will be in my top ten at the end of the year.

On Deck

I have Ambulance and Morbius on hold at the library. I might try to go see Thor with my daughter at some point.

I will keep watching Sex Education and Ozark while my family is busy/asleep.

I will watch The Challenge USA with my daughter.

I am currently reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote for book club.