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31
Jan

#Get Out the Popcorn! January Movies

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JANUARY:

  1. Mr. Mercedes – (Netflix) – Love Brendan Gleason…but NOT in this. Turned it off after 3 episodes – disappointment 
  2. Lost Illusions (Apple) – Movie only tells only  part 2 of the book…does NOT do Balzac justice! – Bah
  3. Pluribus (Netflix) -I like Rhea Seehorn…otherwise I would have turned it off after episode 3 – boring
  4. Murder in Monaco (Netflix)- Sloppy production, boring and waste of my time.  – boring  – 01.01.2026
  5. Weapons  (Apple) –  Beyond bad…! Nothing remotely creative/intelligent …just a bunch  of zombies. Bah. o2.01.2026
  6. A Real Pain (Disney) – Not what I expected…Culkin is too crazy…..and Eisenberg too stiff. 04.01.2026
  7. His Three Daughters – (Netflix) -..It was okay…not great.  New York Times films 2024.  06.01.2026
  8. Man on the Inside (Netflix) – NOT funny…each episode felt like cringy …stopped after 5 episodes. 17.01.2026
  9. Cover-up (Netflix) – many memories about the news in 1960s  – EXCELLENT
  10. The New Yorker 100 Years (Netflix) – my favourite magazine! – EXCELLENT
  11. Sunday Best: the Untold Story of Ed Sullivan (Netflix) – EXCELLENT
  12. The Holdovers – (Netflix)  ….good feeling movie, loved it!  – EXCELLENT
  13. Evil Under the Sun (BBC 2)..love Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith = EXCELLENT
  14. Documentary (Art History)   “Basquiet: Rages to Riches”. (53 min)
  15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23gz8pbPKOI  = WOW…just WOW!
29
Jan

#BlackHistoryMonth 2026 Reading and Film Lists

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Davie Hammons and Gustave Klimt

NOTE:  If you want to learn more about DAVID HAMMONS …  here is a LINK for article in NYTimes

 

 

#BlackHistoryMonth 2026 Reading List:

  1. Africa is Not a Country – Dipo Faloyin (NF)
  2. Toni at Random  – Dana A. Williams (NF) – READING
  3. Parable of the Sower –  O. Butler (SF)
  4. EyeMinded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art ( 23/37 essays) – Kellie Jones (NF) READING
  5. Misbehaving at the Crossroads – Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (NF) – REVIEW
  6. The Intentions of  Thunder – P. Smith  #NationalBookAward 2025  (poetry)
  7. I’m Still Here – A. C. Brown (NF)
  8. Four Hundred Souls – Ibram X. Kendi (NF)

 

 

FILMS:  Outstanding directors 

  1. Raoul Peck (Haiti): I Am Not Your Negro (2016) AppleTV (rent)
  2. Ava DuVerbay (USA):  When They See Us (2019)  Netflix  (mini series 4 episodes)
  3. Spike Lee (USA): Katrina: Come Hell and High Water (2025) Netflix. (mini series 3 episodes)
  4. Dee Rees (USA): Mudbound (2017) Netflix
  5. Sir Alan Parker (UK): Mississippi Burning (1988) AppleTV (rent)…(one of my favourite movies…re-watching)
  6. Chinonye Chukwu (Nigeria): Till (2022) Prime and AppleTV (rent)
  7. George C. Wolfe (USA): Rustin (2023) Netflix 
  8. Ryan Coogler (USA): Sinners  (2025)   HBOMax Southern Gothic horror  – 16 Oscar nominations!
  9. Mike Leigh (UK) (2025 – Hard Truths AppleTV (rent)
  10. Malcolm Washington (USA) (2024) Netflix – The Piano Lesson 
  11. Greg Kwedar (USA) (2023) – Sing Sing AppleTV (rent)
  12. Dawn Porter (USA) Luther: Never Too Much (2024) – AppleTV (rent)
  13. Minhal Baig (USA) (2023) – We Grown Now AppleTV (rent)

 

 

 

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Untitled (Mother and Child) 1967 Tom Feelings

25
Jan

#National Book Award 2025 Patricia Smith

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The Intentions of Thunder New and Selected Poems by Patricia Smith by Patricia Smith (no photo)

Finish date: 25.01.2026
Genre: poetry
Rating: A+++++++++++++++++++++
#BlackHistoryMonth 2026 reading list

Good News: This collection is a clear-eyed chronicle which shows us how issues of power, violence, race and gender are played out on a daily basis.

Good News: Patricia Smith is not only a poet, she is a witness:….never forget….never become indifferent (read the poems about the murder of Emmet Till through the eyes of his mother…powerful) Somer poems are rooted in lived experience (youth, growing up, hurricane Katrina, reports of black males and their abuse of women).

Good News: Strong point: Writing…her humour, her lip and nerve. She never sugarcoats. (Poem:   “Biting Back” about being a mother of teen-age son: “When squeezed I spit money”).

Good News: Strong point: defining the world she sees and letting the rest of us in on what things look like now.

Good News: Strong point: a journalist’s eye for detail…and a novelist’s ear for language.

Personal: Strong point: Reading very slowly…some poems take my breath away…and some were too upsetting to finish reading (black fathers killing their toddler as revenge on their x-wife). I’ll try to read these 2-3 poems later when I feel mentally prepared for them. The book took me a month to read…a few poems at a time. Some books are like people….they turn up in your life when you need them. This is my book. While the many in the USA are trying to fathom what is going on this month in Minneapolis Minnesota, I found THE line in Ms. Smith’s poem “Scars Poetica” (pg 332) that sums up all the tweets, podcasts, headlines, Insta videos:
“We kill without blinking, loathe without thought.”

11
Jan

#2026 Great Canadian Reading Challenge

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  1. Have you seen The Great Canadian Reading Challenge?
  2. Hosted by That Happy Reader
  3. Hashtag: #2026GreatCanadianReadingChallenge
  4. Goal: 12 books

 

  1. It looks like fun!
  2. If you read the masterlost Jodie has included lists of Canadian writers.
  3. I found in the comments section  more suggestions from another blogger:
  4. Book Around the Corner (Emma)
  5. Michel Tremblay, Dany Laferrière, Marie-Claire Blais, Gabrielle Roy,
  6. Andrée Michaud (crime), Roxane Bouchard (crime), Michel Jean (Indigenous) or Eric Plamondon.
  7. Michel Tremblay, Dany Laferrière, Marie-Claire Blais.
  8. I love reading in French!
  9. I don’t read  many books by Canadian authors
  10. …but Canada has  been such a great “strong” country in 2025/2026
  11. …I just have to support them!
10
Jan

#2026GreatCanadianReadingChallenge

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The Rebel Angels (The Cornish Trilogy, #1) by Robertson Davies by Robertson Davies Robertson Davies

Finish date: 09.01.2026
Genre: novel “The Rebel Angels”
Rating: F
Hosted by That Happy Reader

#2026GreatCanadianReadingChallenge – Goal 12 books

Good News: I finished it.

Bad News: Do you know how bad a book has to be to feel more entertainment reading my weekly grocery shopping list?

Personal: Oceanic (and sometimes tedious) self-contemplation (examining or reflecting on one’s own thoughts, feelings, desires, behaviors, and values) of 4 university academics and 1 brilliant female student. They all are in love with her in their own special way.
I cannot tell you how many times I fell asleep reading this book. If If you want to read good literature which fuses Medieval mysticism and the intelligentsia, read Umberto Eco…not this gibberish.

Conclusion: NOT going to read any more books of The Cornish Trilogy.
My opinion of Robertson Davies? Well, I’ll have quote Hamlet:
“He was a man, take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again.”

7
Jan

#Winter 2026 The Netherlands

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  1. What is this?
  2. Think I’ll stay inside next to the radiator.
  3. First real winter since years…in The Netherlands.
  4. Even my grocery delivery was cancelled
  5. …so I had to trudge to store for basics:
  6. milk, bread and of course some cookies with my morning coffee.

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3
Jan

#Poetry Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004)

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Czeslaw Milosz Selected Poems by Czesław Miłoszby Czesław MiłoszCzesław Miłosz

Finish date: 01.02.2026
Genre: poetry collection of 52 poems
Rating: A
#Winner of the Nobel Prize 1980

 

Good News: Places carry the weight of the past…visible (buildings) and invisible (suffering). The church is empty….but the light (faith, hope) is still there. (poem: Mittelbergheim)

 

Good News: It is impossible to recapture the past.. for example visiting your home town again. The CITY preserves, stands BRIGHT…but also obliterates b/c human lives…run their course and fade away. (poem: And the City Stood in its Brightness)

 

Good News: Just Read a series of poems written while Milosz was in his 20s-30s (1934-1944) “I am a poor poet, I have no words.” Yet Milosz demanded that we be a moral witness (WWII) …must see and remember. Milosz warns us of indifference and forgetfulness. (poem: The Poor Poet)

 

Good News: Finished part 3… these poems are post WWII, more reflective with less surreal images. Milosz has a sharp eye and traces justified betrayals he witnessed driving WW II: “Having the choice of our own death or that of a friend, / We chose his”. In other words…many turned a blind eye to the horrors of the concentration camps…even the Catholic Church. (poem: Child of Europe …child being the survivors of WW II)

 

Good News: Finished part 4…these poems were 70% optimistic 30% reflections on how culture and morality can quickly collapse in the face of war, historical upheaval (WW II). Poem “Heraclitus” was my favourite as I learned what a Heraclitian Challenge is: nothing is permanent…it is an illusion of stability. Heraclitus said: “No one ever steps in the same river twice.” So…embrace the present as it inevitably slips away.

 

Personal: Milosz’s poems are not easy reads. I used AI and asked it before each poem what is the meaning I should look for. This is truly the best way to read poetry. A poet is a witness…the poet refuses to let us forget…

1
Jan

#2026 Nonfiction – Travel P. Theroux

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Orient Express

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Therouxby Paul TherouxPaul Theroux

Finish date: 01.01.2026
Title: The Great Railway Bazaar  (1975)  (Asia )
Rating: F-

#ReadingNonFiction2026 – @ThisReadingLife

#ReadNonFicChal –  @Book’d Out

 

Good News: It took Paul Theroux 2 years to travel and then write about his train voyage through Asia: Outbound – The trip began in London on the Orient Express through Europe to Paris, then via the Simplon Tunnel to Milan, Brindisi, and a ferry to Greece. It continued through Turkey (Istanbul to Ankara), Iraq (Baghdad), Iran (Tehran), Afghanistan (Kabul), and Pakistan (Karachi to the Khyber Pass), entering India at Amritsar and proceeding to Delhi, Calcutta, and south to Madras. Return Malaysia-Singapore-Indonesia-Bangkok-Japan- Vladivostok through Siberia to Europe, arriving back in London in December 1973.

Good News: It took me 7 hours to read the book with many pages having to be skimmed.

Bad News: It will take me no more than 10 minutes (review) to blow the book to smithereens. I hated it…a huge disappointment because I was expecting so much from Paul Theroux

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Bad News: So many instances of  insensitive judgments on peoples or entire countries, almost without having gotten out of his train car! I  “He was Bengali, and the Bengali’s are the most alert race I have met in India. They are however irritable, talkative, dogmatic, arrogant and devoid of humor, perorating with malicious skill on all or almost all subjects.”

 

Personal:  Among the traveling writers I have read there is often modesty, restraint, a desire to understand what lies behind the surface of things. Theroux, on the contrary, delights in remaining on the surface, a prisoner of his train car, his confidence and his taste for hasty judgments.

I read Theroux’s book Deep South (review)

Deep South Four Seasons on Back Roads by Paul Theroux
by Paul Theroux and LOVED it! Where was that same author in the 1975 travelogue?
I guess I’ll just have to accept that an author can develop and improve through the years.

Looking for travel book? Deep South (2016) ISBN: 978-0544705173 is your best bet!

30
Dec

#2026 Challenge Watch a movie a day!

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JANUARY:

  1. Mr. Mercedes – (Netflix) – Love Brendan Gleason…but NOT in this. Turned it off after 3 episodes – disappointment 
  2. Lost Illusions (Apple) – Movie only tells only  part 2 of the book…does NOT do Balzac justice! – Bah
  3. Pluribus (Netflix) -I like Rhea Seehorn…otherwise I would have turned it off after episode 3 – boring
  4. Murder in Monaco (Netflix)- Sloppy production, boring and waste of my time.  – boring  – 01.01.2026
  5. Weapons  (Apple) –  Beyond bad…! Nothing remotely creative/intelligent …just a bunch  of zombies. Bah. o2.01.2026
  6. A Real Pain (Disney) – Not what I expected…Culkin is too crazy…..and Eisenberg too stiff. 04.01.2026
  7. His Three Daughters – (Netflix) -..It was okay…not great.  New York Times films 2024.  06.01.2026
  8. Man on the Inside (Netflix) – NOT funny…each episode felt like cringy …stopped after 5 episodes. 17.01.2026
  9. Cover-up (Netflix) – many memories about the news in 1960s  – EXCELLENT
  10. The New Yorker 100 Years (Netflix) – my favourite magazine! – EXCELLENT
  11. Sunday Best: the Untold Story of Ed Sullivan (Netflix) – EXCELLENT
  12. The Holdovers – (Netflix)  ….good feeling movie, loved it!  – EXCELLENT
  13. Evil Under the Sun (BBC 2)..love Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith = EXCELLENT
  14. Documentary (Art History)   “Basquiet: Rages to Riches”. (53 min)
  15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23gz8pbPKOI  = WOW…just WOW!
27
Dec

#2026 Crime Fiction Challenge

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  1. Make a goal post and link it back here with your goal for this challenge.
  2. link to your sign-up  at  Carol’s Notebook 
  3. …for the Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge.
  4. I’ve discovered that this genre has much  to offer! 
  5. Goal:  20 books – DETECTIVE
  6. Hashtag: #CloakDaggerChal

  2026 List:

  1.  Bless Me, Ultima – R. Anaya (USA) 1972
  2.  The Pledge – F. Dürrenmatt (Germany) 1959
  3.  The Shape of Water – A. Camilleri (Italy) 2005
  4. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke  – Sjöwall & Wahlöö (Sweden) 1966
  5.  The Bat – Jo Nesbø (Norway) 1997
  6. Fearless Killers – Henning Mankell (Sweden) 1991
  7.  In the Darkness – Karen Fossum (Norway) 1995
  8.  The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency – A. McCall Smith (Scotland) 1981
  9. A Rage in Harlem – Chester Himes (USA) 1989
  10.  A Red Death – Walter Mosely (USA) 1991
  11. The Looking Glass War – J. Le Carré (UK) 1965
  12. A Legacy of Spies – J. Le Carré (UK) 2017
  13. Our Man in Havana – G. Greene – REVIEW (UK) 1958
  14. The Labyrinth Makers – Anthony Price (UK) 1970
  15.  Journey to Fear – Eric Ambler (UK) 1940
  16.  Beat in the Shadows – Edogawa Ranpo (Japan) 1928
  17.  In a Lonely Place – Dorththy Hughes (USA) 1947
  18. The Night of the Hunter – Davis Grubb (USA) 1953
  19.  The Franchise Affair – Josephine They (UK) 1948
  20.  Cotton Comes to Harlem – C. Himes (USA) 1965

  2025 List: READ

  1. And Be A Villian  – Rex Stout –  REVIEW   
  2. Berlin Game – Len Deighton  – REVIEW
  3. Mexico Set (1984) – Len Deighton – REVIEW
  4. Conclave – R. Harris  – REVIEW
  5. Call For the Dead – John Le Carré – REVIEW 
  6. A Murder of Quality – J. Le Carré – REVIEW
  7. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold – J. Le Carré – REVIEW
  8. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – J. Le Carré – REVIEW  (Karla Trilogy #1)
  9. The Honorable Schoolboy – John Le Carré (589 pg) – REVIEW  (Karla Trilogy #2)
  10. Smiley’s People  – John Le Carré (400 pg) – REVIEW (Karla Trilogy #3)
  11. The Daughter of Time – Josephine Tey – REVIEW
  12. Our Man in Camelot by Anthony Price – REVIEW
  13. And Then There Were None (1939) – A. Christie – REVIEW
  14. The Secret Pilgrim – J. le Carré – REVIEW
  15. The Beaver Theory (2022) – Antti Tuomainen – REVIEW
  16. Requiem pour une république (2019) – Thomas Cantaloube – REVIEW
  17. Mai 67 – T. Cantaloube – REVIEW
  18. Frakas – T. Cantaloube – REVIEW
  19. Bird in a Cage (Le monte-charge) – F. Dard – REVIEW
  20. Leopold’s Way:  19 Detective Stories – Edward D. Hoch – REVIEW
  21. Rodolpho Walsh’s Last Case – Elsa Drucaroff (Argentina) #WIT – REVIEW

 

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