Catch-all

I'm heading out of town, and thus have made the promised book switch: Keats is on hold for the time being (though I am enjoying it), and I'm looking forward to settling in with Jo Nesbo's The Redbreast tomorrow. Entertainment Weekly compared series protagonist Harry Hole* to The Wire's Jimmy McNulty in their review of Nesbo's latest book. Naturally, I was sold.

A few links to round out the post:

Manly Slang from the 19th Century - Brilliant. And you've always needed another term for your fist, am I right? (Try "bunch of fives.")

Sporcle Quizzes: Literature - It's a time-waster all right, but, man, is it a good one. Who knows, you might even learn something. (All of the subjects are good, I should add, I just linked to literature in an attempt to stay roughly on topic.)

Review of The Genius in all of Us by David Shenk (The New York Times) - You guys, we may all still have time to be geniuses if we work reallyreallyreally hard. Of course, I misread the author's name as Shrek, so I may be out of the running. (In my defense, I read William Steig's Shrek to kiddos twice last week. Excellent, excellent book.)

Also, if you're in the mood for a BBC period drama, try He Knew He Was Right, based on the novel by Anthony Trollope. It's available to watch now on Netflix. I enjoyed it because it had several interesting storylines, and the main one is quite different from any other period drama I've seen - a husband grows so jealous that it actually drives him mad. Poor Louis Trevelyan, idiotic as he was. I thought he was quite ably played by Oliver Dimsdale, and I was very sympathetic toward his wife Emily (Laura Fraser) as well. Also stars Stephen Campbell Moore (pictured above with Christina Cole)**, David Tennant***, Bill Nighy, and a bunch of actors that might look familiar from other places (I was pleased to see Barbara Flynn from Cracker, she's aces.)

I'm off for a bit - looking forward to coming back with a Redbreast review!


*Let's all pretend it's pronounced differently in Norwegian, shall we?

** I am really starting to love him. He looks born to play the cad, but so far I've always seen him as the nice guy (well, a bit smarmy in The History Boys, but not bad). He makes a lovely nice guy. (See also: Ashes to Ashes, Bright Young Things)

***Yes, you have cracked the mystery of why I sat down to watch this in the first place.