December in Review

Books Acquired:
Appetites: A Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain
Six Poets: Hardy to Larkin: An Anthology by Alan Bennett
Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi
My Dad Wrote a Porno by Jamie Morton, Alice Levine, James Cooper, Rocky Flintstone

Books Read:
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Sex Criminals, Volume Three: Three the Hard Way by Matt Fraction

Hope everyone had a great holiday to end 2016! Lee-Ann and I took a last minute trip to Maui over Christmas this year. This was my first warm Christmas, and I could definitely get used to it. We came back on New Year’s Eve and both immediately fell quite ill, so I think our bodies are mad at us for leaving.

The first three books on my acquired list came from a gift certificate I received from work. I love book gift certificates, so I was very happy with that gift. I just found out I won a $30 gift certificate from The Book Depository through the Back to the Classics Challenge 2016, which was a nice surprise, so I’ll get to have another free shopping trip soon!

Appetites is Bourdain’s newest cookbook, and it features recipes he cooks at home for his family. Maybe someday I’ll figure out a decent way to review cookbooks and talk about it on here. Six Poets isn’t something I’ve seen before, but it looks great. Alan Bennett discusses his favourite poets in a conversational tone, and it sounds like a great introduction. I’ve had mixed success getting into poetry, so an Alan Bennett anthology sounded like a great idea. Zoe’s Tale is the next book I need to read in the Old Man’s War series. It’s a retelling of The Last Colony from another character’s perspective, which sounds a bit unexciting, but I have faith that he’ll pull it off in a fun way.

The last book I recieved in December was a copy of My Dad Wrote a Porno: The fully annotated edition of Rocky Flintstone’s Belinda Blinked. My Dad Wrote a Porno is a podcast where the father of one of the hosts self-published a book of erotic literature, and each episode is spent reading through a chapter of the book and tearing it to pieces. It’s a great mix of filth (which is compounded by the fact that it’s his father) and terrible writing, and the hosts are hilarious. This book is the Belinda Blinked novel with their annotations scribbled throughout.

Movies watched:
Harmontown (2014) – Documentary following Dan Harmon on tour with his live podcast just after he was fired from directing Community. An exploration into fandom, fame, and self-destructive behaviour. Really enjoyed this.

Zootopia (2016) – Watched this with my girlfriend and her family. Not knowing anything about it going in, I was happily surprised with it. Humourous, fun action sequences, and good commentary on the dangers of subconscious prejudices.

War Dogs (2016) – Watched this on the plane back from Maui. It was okay. The acting was good, and the story was interesting, but something about it didn’t really click with me.

TV watched:
Rick Stein’s French Odyssey (2005) – I rewatched this with my girlfriend. I really enjoy Rick Stein’s food shows. Relaxing television with recipes that actually inspire me to get up and cook.

Games played:
None

What have you been reading/watching/playing this month?