Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills take on Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers at balmy Highmark Stadium today. The temperature is supposed to be in the mid-70s with a stiff breeze. The game is a sell-out so 65,000+ screaming fans will be in attendance. The Bills are 6 1/2 point favorites. How will your favorite NFL team perform today?
Where were you at 8:45 A.M. on September 11, 2001? What do you remember about that day?
The movie version of Come From Away, the musical about the flights diverted to Newfoundland because of 9/11, is available on Apple TV. Wonderful! GRADE: A
I’ve had Josephine Tey’s mysteries on my shelves for decades. Last week I decided to read one of Tey’s books and I chose The Daughter of Time (1951). Friends who have read Josephine Tey’s works rave about The Daughter of Time. Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, while recuperating from a broken leg, finds himself drawn to a portrait of Richard III. That fascination leads Grant into investigating the heinous crime Richard III is supposed to be behind: the murder of his brother’s children to protect his crown.
Clearly, investigating a crime hundreds of years old is the coldest of cold cases, but Josephine Tey provides Grant with the help of facts from the British Museum and an American scholar to clarify whether Richard Plantagenet was really behind the killings of the Little Princes in the Tower.
I confess I wasn’t expecting such a suspenseful tale with so much history behind it. After reading The Daughter of Time I wanted to drop everything and watch a performance of Shakespeare’s Richard III! Robert Barnard’s fine “Introduction” provides more insights into the book and the author. GRADE: A
Jeff Meyerson mentioned Carlos Santana’s CD of duets in a comment a few weeks ago. I have a number of Santana CDs scattered throughout my Collection (yes, I’m trying to get more organized!). But, fortunately, I found my copy of ALL THAT I AM and listened to it again.
My favorite song is “I’m Feeling You” with Michelle Branch and The Wreckers with its energy. I also enjoyed Anthony Hamilton on “Twisted.”
Joss Stone and Sean Paul do a nice job with “Cry Baby Cry.” And Santana ends the album with “Da Tu Amor” with some classic Santana guitar riffs. Jeff was right about this album: it’s one of Santana’s best! Are you a fan of Carlos Santana? GRADE: A
Robert Silverberg is one of my favorite Science Fiction writers, but back in 1959 Silverberg started writing for a men’s magazine called Exotic Adventures. Silverberg wrote under a number of pseudonyms and sometimes wrote ALL the stories in an issue of the magazine!
For the first time, these exotic adventure stories have been collected and this volume includes original cover artwork and interior black & white illustrations. It’s wild and wacky and offbeat stuff! Check out the titles below! GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
ADVENTUROUS BEGINNINGS, introduction by Robert Deis & Wyatt Doyle
CAMPUS HELLCAT (as David Challon)
SAFARI OF DEATH (as Leon Kaiser)
I WAS A TANGIER’S SMUGGLER (as Donald Gorman)
BRIDE OF THE JAGUAR GOD (as Malcolm Hunt)
NUDIST PARADISE ON THE FRENCH RIVIERA (as Martin Davidson)
TAHITI, LUSTY ISLAND OF UNTAMED WOMEN (as Leonard Colman)
EGYPT’S CITY OF PROSTITUTES (as David F. Killian)
RADIANT JADE: THE CHINESE MATA HARI (as Sam Mallory)
SABA, LAND OF LOVE-STARVED WOMEN (as Len Patterson)
OPIUM DEN IN VIETNAM-adventure (as Lawrence F. Watkins)
ISLAND OF EXILED WOMEN-article (as Lin Charles)
THE ARABIAN SLAVE GIRL RACKET (as Jim Hollister)
A TEMPORARY HUSBAND IN LADAKH (as Karl-Heinz Kirschner)
WOLF CHILDREN OF INDIA (as Ronald Bradman)
I WATCHED THE SECRET SEX RITES OF UGANDA (as Richard Banham)
LOVE HUNGRY GIRLS OF JAPAN (as Nick Thomas)
I ESCAPED FROM THE SOVIET SLAVE CAMP (as Anna Lukacs)
Steve Martin stars as an actor whose last successful TV show was a decade ago. Martin Short plays a Broadway director whose career is stalled and he’s running out of money, and Selena Gomez is a mysterious young woman who knows more than she’s telling. All three characters are bound together by their love of true-crime podcasts. And, when the body of a man is found in their hotel, The Arconia, the three unlikely investigators decide to work together to find the murderer.
HULU released three of the 10 episodes in the Only Murders in the Building series this week. One of the new episodes will be released each Tuesday until the finale on October 19.
It’s a little early to judge the series, but so far Diane and I are enjoying it. It’s a little silly, but that’s not so bad for the terrible times we’re living through. GRADE: Incomplete
WINNER OF THE JAMES BEARD AWARD AND IACP AWARD FOR BEST GENERAL COOKBOOK — One of Epicurious’ Greatest Home Cooks of All Time delivers creative, delicious weeknight dinners with this quick and easy cookbook for beginner cooks and foodies alike. “More than 200 simple weeknight dinners that deliver big weekend flavor in under an hour–with many that take only 25 minutes.”
This is a collection of quick recipes for weeknight dining, inspired by Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television show, including dishes as yakiudon with pickled ginger, pork schnitzel, kale and white bean soup, Indonesian fried tofu salad, and three-cheese pizza. Nice one page directions with beautiful photos to match from the America’s Test Kitchen guy.
You can probably guess what my favorite chapter is! If you’re looking for a no-frills, quick and easy cookbook, this is the one you should go with. Yummy! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction — ix
Fast — 1
Faster — 89
Fastest — 173
Easy Additions — 213
Supper Salads — 243
Pizza Night — 277
One Pot — 311
Roast and Simmer — 337
Sweets — 369
INDEX — 394
THE RACONTEUR’S COMMONPLACE BOOK belongs to a genre that goes back to Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. A group of strangers are stuck together–in this case they’re in an inn during inclement weather–and they pass the time by sharing stories. But, in this book, the stories are part of a much bigger and ominous story.
I particularly liked “The Game of Maps,” “The Queen of Fog,” and “The Storm Bottle.” Kate Milford weaves all of these stories together to produce a conclusion I did not see coming. If you’re a fan of story-telling with unusual elements, I recommend The Raconteur’s Commonplace Book. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The Blue Vein Tavern — 1
The game of maps — 21
The whalebone spring — 57
The devil and the scavenger — 71
The queen of fog — 85
The roamer in the nettles — 105
The hollow-ware man — 131
The coldway — 139
The tavern at night — 177
The blue stair — 193
The storm bottle — 203
The ferryman — 223
The reckoning — 245
The particular — 259
The three kings — 297
The gardener of meteorites — 315
The summons of the bone — 347
The crossroads — 373
A NOTE ABOUT THE CLARION BOOKS EDITION — 385
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS — 389
The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Ninth Series is the first volume NOT edited by Anthony Boucher. But Robert P. Mills may have edited the best volume of the series simply because it includes the classic Flowers for Algernon. Flowers for Algernon was expanded into a novel by Daniel Keyes and later became the movie, Clarly. It’s the story a man who takes an experimental drug that increases his intelligence.
On top of Flowers for Algernon, this volume also includes Robert A. Heinlein’s time-twisting “All You Zombies…” You would think that would be enough to put this Ninth Series volume into the top tier of this series…but wait, there’s more!
Other top-notch stories: “Casey Agonistes,” by Richard McKenna, “What Rough Beast,” by Damon Knight, “The Pi Man,” by Alfred Bester. And then there’s one of Theodore Sturgeon’s best stories, “The Man Who Lost the Sea.”
The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Ninth Series is the best volume in this series so far and is full of excellent stories! Don’t miss this one! GRADE: A
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