March in Review

Books Acquired:
Tom Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters by Paul Mahar
Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home by Jessica Fechtor

Books Read:
The Land of Mist by Arthur Conan Doyle
32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line by Eric Ripert
Brother by David Chariandy

I was sick for a good chunk of this month. It was one of those sicknesses that just would not go away. It unfortunately also involved nausea and headaches, so I couldn’t really focus too much on a book or a screen, which is the only good part of being sick! I’m finally back to feeling like a living human, as close as I tend to get anyway, so I am very thankful for that.

Not a huge reading month, and actually the three novels I finished were all audiobooks. I’m reading through Assassin’s Fate right now, the latest Robin Hobb and the last in The Fitz and the Fool trilogy, and the progress has been slow despite the fact that I’m loving it. It is a chunker, though. I’m at the point now where the book is ramping down and I could burn through the rest rather quickly, but I’m also hanging on to each word. I love these characters and am not in a hurry to leave them.

The third book on my acquired list, Stir, is actually a prize I won in last December’s draw for the Foodies Read challenge. I can’t remember where I first heard of it, but I’m excited to give it a read. I love memoirs with recipes interspersed throughout. Thank you to Heather at Based On a True Story for hosting the challenge and the giveaway!

Movies watched:
Boy (2010) – We decided to go on a Taika Waititi binge at the beginning of the month and watch his two earlier movies that we hadn’t seen. Boy is a creatively shot and endearing movie about a young kid’s fantasy of his estranged father and how that compares to who he turns out to be. I loved this.

Eagle vs Shark (2007) – This is Waititi’s earliest feature-length movie. It’s an awkward little love story between two outcasts, played by Jemaine Clement and Loren Horsley. Horsley’s character was fantastic, but I felt like Clement’s character was just a bit too unlikable. He was hilarious, but it felt like the movie would have worked better if his character started to show some redeeming qualities a bit earlier in the film. Still a really fun movie, though.

I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017) – This is a quirky dark comedy about a woman who is fed up with everyone around her acting like assholes. After her house is robbed, she decides to track down her items and confront the thief. Fantastic violent fun that had me laughing out loud in places.

TV watched:
Ugly Delicious (2018) – This is David Chang’s latest food program, and it is so good. Each episode dives into a specific food – fried chicken, tacos, crawfish – and explores the traditions, the cultures differences in how it’s prepared around the world, and the attitudes surrounding it. I loved this, and if you’re a fan of Mind of a Chef, I think you will too.

Poh and Co., Season 1 – 2 (2016/2016) – I don’t think I would have watched this normally, but due to the above-mentioned illness and not really being able to read or focus closely on a screen too much, I was looking for a throwaway show to distract me for a bit. To my surprise, I actually really enjoyed this and ended up binging every episode on Netflix over the next few days. It follows Poh Ling Yeow, who I believe was an Australian MasterChef contestant, as she works on her garden and various food businesses. It’s a cookery program with a bit of DIY thrown in, and I found it really enjoyable.

Nailed It (2018) – Lee-Ann made me watch this, which I tried to avoid due to a deep hatred of both cooking competition shows and baking shows, but this turned out to be absolutely hilarious. I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this. And I think I inadvertently learned quite a bit about baking watching this too.

Love Your Garden, Season 3 (2013) – This is the second ‘illness distraction’ I watched this month, and I also ended up binging the rest of the season with Lee-Ann. I’m a bit embarrassed by the amount of TV I have listed here, particularly since a lot of it is bordering dangerously close to reality television, but they are short seasons. Anyway, this is a bit like that Extreme Home Makeover show, but much less douchey and as far as I know it hasn’t led any of the homeowners having to sell their houses due to skyrocketing taxes and utility bills. I suppose it’s a bit of aspirational television, as we might move into a home with a garden in the near future and like to imagine that we could work towards some of the ideas in this. A more likely scenario is that we’ll have an unkempt ruin of a garden with nothing but an upturned wheelbarrow and a few broken planter boxes scattered throughout, but one can dream.

Games played:
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (2018) (PC) – I didn’t play the first Vermintide, but I’ve really been enjoying this. It’s essentially Left 4 Dead in a fantasy setting with leveling and loot, and it’s great fun to play with both friends and randoms. Burning down a horde of rat-men with a flamethrower as your dwarf giggles with delight is a great way to blow off some steam after work.

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