Bears, lions, and tigers, oh my!
Well, truthfully, it’s been more like dogs, cats, birds, and horses, oh my, here on the blog lately as we’ve been chatting about pet cozies and WWI stories about horses this month on Berryville Book Buzz. But that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Joey is just a lovely, somewhat high-strung bay horse, living on a small Devon farm, with his beloved teenaged owner Alfred when World War I breaks out. He’s soon sold to the British military and, thus, begins Joey’s odyssey as a military horse for both the British and the Germans. Along the way, he meets several owners and finds himself doing everything from charging into battle to hauling artillery to pulling ambulance wagons.
There’s a mystery sub-genre for all occasions and tastes. Literally. You want to read a mystery with food in it? There’s an entire sub-genre devoted to it. You want to read a mystery that involves some hardcore knitting? There’s an entire sub-genre devoted to it. You want to read a mystery that involves cute dogs and cats? Well, this post is for you!
Personally, as much as I enjoy mysteries, I’ve never really delved into these types of mystery sub-genres.
I’ve already talked about my hopeless track record in regard to food and mysteries.
Knitting and needle-crafts in general are not my friends, so that’s just not even an option.
But it’s really kind of odd that I’ve never gotten into pet mysteries because I really do like pets, specifically dogs. I’m currently owned by a 3-lb. Chihuahua named after a Roman emperor.
Even beyond my own personal enjoyment of animals, one of the first books I remember loving as a child featured pet detectives (sort of)–Bunnicula. Granted, they were paranoid and not always terribly competent pet detectives, but that was a huge part of their charm.
So, if like me you’re a newbie to the world of pet cozy mysteries, here’s a roundup of introductory titles to this oddly-specific genre.
Continue reading “Oddly-Specific Genres: It’s Raining Cats and Dogs!”
My love for Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (which some ungenerous souls might call an obsession) has been well documented on this blog.
But my interest in the story transcends the book. The 1967 film adaptation is one of my favorite movies and is one of the examples I always point to when people claim that a movie can never be as good as the book.
A few months ago, I watched the 1996 miniseries adaptation of the story with my coworker Jen. If the 1967 version is one of the best adaptations I’ve ever seen, the 1996 version is easily one of the absolute worst.
Usually the “From Page to Screen” series is a venue for me to compare and contrast books with their adaptations. But this is my series and my rules, and I’ve decided to bend the rules for this one. So, this month we’re comparing and contrasting two adaptations and exploring why one is considered a masterpiece and the other, well, isn’t. Let’s just call it Screen vs. Screen for this month.
Continue reading “From Page to Screen: In Cold Blood (1967) and In Cold Blood (1996)”
I spend a fair amount of time talking to all of you about what I’ve recently read, but seeing as we’re almost 1/4 of the way through the year, I thought now would be a good time to ask you, gentle readers, what you’ve been reading in 2017.
So, what have you read this year that you particularly enjoyed?
Have you read anything recently that you didn’t like?
What are you planning on reading next?
Is there a book you have been dying to read, if only the library would finally get it?
What would you like to see me review in 2017?
Be sure to tell us in the comments, either here or on Facebook!
In thinking about true crimes of passion I could relate to, the title of this book most definitely caught my eye!
John Gilkey’s claim to fame as a career criminal was not how much he stole but what he stole: rare books, mostly. Why specialize in stealing rare books? Writer Allison Hoover Bartlett wanted to find out and by following his story provides a look not only into the motivations behind his crimes but also into the world of legitimate rare book collectors, stories of other book thieves, and the story of the man who tracked Gilkey down, Utah antique book dealer Ken Sanders.
Continue reading “Allison Hoover Bartlett’s The Man Who Loved Books Too Much”
The need to find balance in all aspects of your life is much touted these days. We at the Berryville Library want to do our part to help you in this quest. So, after a February full of hearts, love and chocolate, we thought March was a perfect time to feature true tales of love gone wrong! 🙂
Of course, said love gone wrong doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic love. . . .
The fight is real . . . at least for Walt Longmire. As sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming, Walt never has a dull day as he works to solve crimes, contend with family, friends, coworkers, and confront the personal demons that have haunted him since the death of his wife.
Craig Johnson’s sheriff is the focus of a series of a books, as well as a popular television series. I have had numerous people recommend the books and the TV show to me, so comparing the first entries in both seemed perfect for our next “From Page to Screen” feature.
This is what happens when a review is 13 years in the making. You’ll understand when you’ve read to the end!
Those of you who have been reading this blog for some time–or, for that matter, those of you who know me in person–probably realized pretty quickly that I have some odd hang-ups when it comes to pop culture. I prefer to think of them as eccentric, but really, that’s just to make me feel better about myself.
One I don’t think I have chatted about on here is my tendency to delay reading or watching something that I suspect I will like simply because I fear being disappointed by it.
So, instead of eagerly trying something that I am excited about like, I don’t know, a normal human being, I will procrastinate about it. And I’m not talking about a matter of days or weeks or months. I mean putting it off for years.
Such was my experiences with Deadwood, the 2004-2006 HBO show about the rough mining camp of Deadwood, South Dakota during its heyday in the 1870s. I first read about the show when it was airing. I was a teenager without access to HBO, but my curiosity was piqued. I love history, and as we established a couple of weeks ago, I also really like Westerns.
I’m also a big fan of several of the character actors in the cast, so knowing that there was a show that brought together the likes of Powers Boothe, Keith Carradine, Garret Dillahunt, Ray McKinnon, William Sanderson, Brian Cox, Zach Grenier, and Leon Rippy just made me ridiculously happy.
After I started working at the library, every time someone would check it out or return it, I’d think, “Oh yeah! I’ve wanted to watch that since I was a teenager. I should put that on hold.”
I also would stumble across discussions about it on pop culture websites, and I was always intrigued by the nostalgic tone its fans adopted when talking about. After reading any article and comment section devoted to Deadwood, I’d think to myself, “I really need to watch that show.”
But I kept putting it off and delaying because I also read about how the show was cancelled suddenly and doesn’t have a proper ending. I didn’t want to devote hours to something that would disappoint me.
I also secretly feared that I wouldn’t even like the earlier seasons before the cancellation was an issue, and for something that I had built up so much in my head, that was just something I couldn’t quite bear. So, I spent nearly 13 years not watching Deadwood but frequently thinking about watching it before late last year, when I finally decided that I was being ridiculous.
Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd has a mission that he did not ask for nor one that he wishes, though he readily admits the necessity of his journey. A news reader who makes his living traveling between rough frontier towns in the tension-filled midst of Reconstruction-era Texas, he is asked to return a 10-year-old girl to her family. The child, Johanna, was captured by Kiowa years earlier and seems to have no memory of her former life or native language. She just wants to return to her adopted tribe and keeps trying to run away every chance she gets. As the two travel hundreds of miles together through a land beset by raiding parties and criminals, complications ensue.
Berryville Book Buzz 