To read or not to read?

In mid/late March, PBS will be launching two new series on Sunday nights:  "The Forsytes," based on "The Forsyte Saga" novels from the 1920s by John Galsworthy, and "The Count of Monte Cristo," based on the 1844 classic by Alexander Dumas. I plan to watch both! (at least the first few episodes, to see if I enjoy them). 

(I remember my mother watching "The Forsyte Saga" when I was a kid, back in the 1960s -- or was it "The Whiteoaks of Jalna"?  -- Probably both, lol. Apparently there was a new version of "The Forsyte Saga" made for British TV in 2002, too. The original 1967 series is apparently available to watch on YouTube... hmmm...)    

I have not read any of the books these shows are based on. I generally do like to read a book first before seeing any movies/TV shows based on them, and I figured I would read these before the TV shows began. Of course, time zoomed by between when I first heard about the shows and the present... With just a few weeks left to go, I recently bought cheap e-copies for my Kobo reader, and opened them both earlier this week.  

I did not realize (until I did) that both are LONG books!! I checked on Goodreads, and the paperback Penguin edition of "The Count of Monte Cristo" is almost 1,300 pages long;  "The Forsyte Saga" is 900!  Granted, I suppose I could just read whatever I can before the shows start -- the first episode(s) won't cover the entire book, after all.

But do I really have the time, energy and focus right now to tackle two very long books like these?   Are there other books I could/should be reading right now instead?  (especially given my book club obligations). Will reading the books first enhance my understanding and appreciation of the shows -- or just annoy me, when I realize what they've left out and how they've miscast certain characters that I imagined differently??  etc. etc.  (lol)  Is it worth reading the books first when it's likely I'm just going to be annoyed by the TV show's lack of faithfulness to the subject material?? 

In the case of "The Forsytes," the project is being led by Debbie Horsfield, who adapted the first seven "Poldark" novels by Winston Graham for a TV series for a new generation (2015-2019), a few years back. (There was also a "Poldark" TV series in the 1970s, which my mother & I watched together.) The first several seasons of "Poldark" were mostly faithful to the books and very well done... right up until the final season, which completely departed from the novels, and was nowhere near as satisfying. (I've written about both the Poldark books & TV shows on this blog in the past, and tagged them all as "Poldark.")    

And I've been hearing rumblings that "The Forsytes" TV series led by Horsfield won't be a strict adaptation, but rather will be "reimagined" from the novels. (See, for example, this article from Drama Quarterly, and this one from Radio Times.)  Hmmm....  I don't mind a few tweaks and trims (you can't include EVERYTHING in the books, of course), but it does bother me when too many liberties are taken with the original story (especially when the author doesn't have any say in the changes!).  

What do you think?  Do you generally like to read a book before seeing the movie/show -- or do you think it matters?  (Have you read these books before?)  

(I was amused to see, while browsing through my past Poldark-related posts, that I wrote a similar post on this subject back in 2017!) 

"The Queen Who Came in From the Cold" by S.J. Bennett

With a bit of time between book club reads, I eagerly dove into "The Queen Who Came in From the Cold" by S.J. Bennett, the fifth (5th) volume in the "Her Majesty the Queen Investigates" mystery series, which was published in November.

I've read and enjoyed the previous books in the series, and they're all reviewed here on my blog (see the links below), as well as Goodreads and StoryGraph. The books feature Queen Elizabeth II, juggling royal duties, family, corgis, and solving mysteries on the side, with a little help from her assistant private secretary (APS).  

The first three books take place in 2016, when the Queen was 90, and feature her new APS, Rozie Oshodi. #4 takes place in 1957, during the early years of the Queen's reign -- before Rozie was born! -- and so features a different (but equally engaging and resourceful) APS, Joan McGraw, who did intelligence work at Bletchley Park during the war.  

Joan has returned for book #5, which takes place in 1961 (the year I was born!). The Cold War is in full swing, and there are timely references to James Bond novels, Yuri Gagarin's historic space flight, the (unsuccessful) American invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, and an upcoming visit from President & Mrs. Kennedy. . 

The Queen and Joan are travelling from London to an engagement in Liverpool aboard the royal train, along with Princess Margaret and her new husband, Tony Armstrong-Jones (who will be continuing on to Balmoral), when Margaret's lady-in-waiting claims to have glimpsed a body being disposed of near the tracks, as the train passed by. The victim turns out to be a photographer friend of Tony's, who may have been involved in a plot to help a dissident Soviet scientist escape. The Queen and Joan race against time to uncover the truth while preparing for the Queen's official state visit to Italy, aboard the royal yacht Britannia -- a trip that suddenly becomes a lot more complicated than expected....  

This was another fast-paced, fun read, full of twists, turns and red herrings, and packed with details about royal life and life in Britain generally in the early 1960s.  Bennett has done her homework!  Be sure to read both the Afternotes and Letter from the Author for details on the historic truths -- some of then surprising -- that are present in the story!  (Also, my copy contains the first chapter of the next book in the series, due in fall 2026:  "Death on the Royal Yacht.") 

Queen Elizabeth is gone now, but long may she reign in these delightful books.  :)  

ALI note:  Princess Margaret is newly pregnant (with her son, David -- previously the Viscount Linley, and now Lord Snowdon, since the death of his father) in this book. The Queen juggles her roles as monarch and mother, and a young Princess Anne makes a brief appearance at an equestrian event with her mother. There is a "child in jeopardy" plot, and the suggestion of adoption by a childless couple late in the book (which I will admit I found mildly irritating). 

Not ALI-related, but I found it both infuriating and funny to read about the sexism both the Queen and Joan endure throughout this book (and the previous ones), with men assuming and taking credit for all their hard work!  (Necessarily, given the times and the Queen's need to remain neutral in such matters --  but still...!)  

4.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded down to 4 on Goodreads (after some thought).  

Previous reviews of the other books in this series:  

• #1:  "The Windsor Knot" (original review) 
• (Re-read of "The Windsor Knot")
• #2:  "All the Queen's Men" (alternate title: "A Three-Dog Problem") 
• #3:  "Murder Most Royal" 
• #4:  "A Death in Diamonds" 
• Related/Bonus post:  "#MicroblogMondays: You never know who's reading your blog...!" 

This was Book #5 read to date in 2026 (and Book #4 finished in February), bringing me to 13% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 1 book behind schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books." 

#MicroblogMondays: Olympic hangover

The Olympics are over, and I'm both sad -- and relieved. I love the Olympics, and I especially love the winter version -- there's figure skating!! (Plus curling, hockey and other good stuff to watch.) Our Canadian athletes usually do pretty well, and they came home with 21 medals -- not their best showing, but not bad either.  And it's a welcome distraction from the cold and gloom of February.  

But -- 17 days of wall-to-wall coverage does get to be a bit much after a while...!  (Although -- being in Canada, we did have excellent coverage through CBC and its partner cable networks, including several TSN and Sportsnet channels, as well as CBC's free Gem streaming service, which showed ALL the events.)  I feel like I haven't done much else, and am now even further behind on my to-do list than I was when we got back home, after a full month away in Manitoba over Christmas (which included my mother's sudden death & funeral).  

But as dh remarked near the end of the two weeks, "Sometimes I get bored with my regular routines... until I'm out of them!"  lol  I had to agree!  

How about you?  Sad or glad, or a bit of both? 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

#MicroblogMondays/Annoying thing: Ens***ification

Somewhere between 5-10 years ago, after I got my first smartphone, I was looking for an app where I could keep my shopping lists and reminders (etc.) and refer to them when I was out (instead of lugging around a purse full of random scraps of paper, lol). 

Someone mentioned Evernote, and I tried it out and liked it. I didn't need all the fancy features it offered (and continued to add over the years), but it was free and easy to use, and I was able to use it on both my phone and laptop (where it's a lot easier for me to type), and sync the content between devices. I used it to make lists of things I wanted to buy at various stores, the exact kinds and sizes of jeans and yoga pants I buy regularly, the great-niblings' current clothing sizes, books I want to buy and read, music I want to purchase, an inventory and wish list for my essential oils, packing lists, a list of toiletries I keep at my parents' house (and what needs replenishing), step-by-step instructions for making turkey & stuffing like my mom's (honed over several years' worth of Thanksgivings and Christmases), etc. etc.  

By now you may have heard about the "enshittification" of the Internet? (There's a book about it, which I haven't read yet, but I thoroughly agree with the premise...!) Google's AI Overview describes it as:  

...a term coined by author Cory Doctorow to describe the deliberate, gradual degradation of online platforms and services. It refers to the process where platforms start by providing high-quality experiences to attract users, then shift value to business customers, and finally maximize profit for shareholders, rendering the service less useful, enjoyable, or user-friendly...  This phenomenon has been used to describe the decay of platforms like Facebook, Twitter/X, TikTok, Amazon, and Spotify, which prioritize ads, "hidden" content, and monetization over quality user experience... The term is often used to criticize "Big Tech" for reducing product quality to maximize short-term profits. 

Case in point:  After using Evernote for several years, I was notified (a few years back) that I had a limit on the number of notes I could create. (OR, I could pay and upgrade to their premium plan!)  

I combined a couple of categories of lists to keep the number of my notes/documents under the limit.

Some time after that, I was told I could now only use the app for free on one device. (OR, I could pay and upgrade to their premium plan!) 

I reluctantly deleted the app on my laptop, but continued to use it on my phone. 

Last week when I opened the app, for the very first time, an ad popped up (beyond the usual offers to upgrade). And then a notification that I could choose to receive ads tailored to my interests, randon untailored ads -- OR, I could pay and upgrade to their premium plan, and remain ad-free! (I think the price quoted was $60 for a year -- U.S. dollars, of course -- although there was a 40% off offer that would have reduced the price.)  

I said, "No thanks" (actually, something less polite, lol), and started looking for another notes app. 

I remembered several people mentioning that they used (and loved) Google Keep. I had a look at it and decided it would serve my purposes just fine. I downloaded the app, and then spent an hour-plus copying my lists over from Evernote and pasting them into Keep.  Once I had all my content moved over, I deleted Evernote from my phone. 

So far, so good.  

Have you noticed "enshittification" in your own online life lately? 

What app(s) do you use for notes, lists, etc.? (Any hints for me on effective use of Google Keep?)

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

"The Four Graces" by D.E. Stevenson (re-read)

"The Four Graces" by D.E. Stevenson (first published in 1946) will be the next book my DES group reads and discusses together, and I just finished (re)reading through it in advance. This was one of the first books the group read after I joined back in 2014, and the first one I managed to read along with then and participate in the discussions.  You can read my original review from April 2015 here. 

So it's been a while since I first read this one, but I was happy to revisit it. My 2015 review says "I enjoyed this volume as much, if not more, than the three Miss Buncle books that preceded it," and I would say that holds true now too.  It's sometimes referred to as "Miss Buncle #4," but it's really only tangentially related to the three Miss Buncle books: it takes place in a nearby village, shortly after the events of "The Two Mrs. Abbotts" (Miss Buncle #3, which we also recently read), during the Second World War, and some of the same characters make appearances here too (including, very briefly at the beginning, Miss Buncle/Mrs. Abbott herself).  It's not entirely necessary to have read the earlier books first, but you will enjoy and appreciate the book more if you have.  

"The Four Graces" are the four daughters of George Grace, the widowed vicar of Chevis Green: Elizabeth (Liz), the oldest, who is doing farm work on a nearby estate; Sarah (Sal), who keeps house for the family;  Matilda (Tilly), who plays the organ at church, resists change and views outsiders with suspicion;  and Adeline (Addie), the youngest, who has enlisted in the women's auxiliary service and lives in London. As I said in 2015, "The title may be just slightly misleading, as we don't actually see a lot of Addie in the book; most of the adventures that unfold revolve around the three older sisters, and Sal and Liz in particular."  

The Graces' cozy life together is disrupted, first by the arrival of a boarder -- an archeologist named William Single; then by a local soldier, Roderick Herd, who appears to be interested in one of the sisters (but which one??) -- and finally (and most annoyingly) by the arrival of Aunt Rona, the wife of their late mother's late brother, who has been bombed out of her home in London. It soon becomes apparent she is looking for a new husband as well as a new home. ;) 

This book is a favourite of many DES fans, and while my longtime favourite remains "The Baker's Daughter," this one ranks up there too. :)  Re-reading it, I did notice a few flaws -- aside from a few ALI/CNBC triggers (see my note below), I winced a little at some of the dated attitudes -- for example, Roddy's refusal to take "no" for an answer, and the scene where Tilly enters an ankle competition (!) at a local fete and listens to the "judges" commenting on her physique. The dialects used by the working-class locals, faithfully reproduced by the author, can be a little hard to wade through at times.  

But I love the easy camaraderie among the four sisters, their loving relationship with their gentle father, the quiet strength of William, and the insights into everyday life on the homefront during the war. 

My original 2015 blog review was written before I joined Goodreads in 2016 and started assigning star ratings;  however, I did log it retroactively and gave it 4 stars then.  That rating stands.  

I'll count this book as a(nother) re-read after our group read concludes. 

ALI/CNBC content warnings:  There are a couple of wince-inducing passages in this book (which I detailed in my original 2015 review), including the traditional happy ending. Not enough to make me abandon the book, then or now, but your mileage may vary, depending on where you are in your journey -- caveat emptor. 

This was Book #4 read to date in 2026 (and Book #3 finished in February), bringing me to 10% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) on track (for the first time in a while...!) to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books." 

What's saving my life right now

I've been quiet here lately. Tomorrow is 7 weeks since my mother died, and it's almost 4 weeks since we (finally) returned home from Manitoba -- and I still feel like I'm trying to get a handle on things (and not quite succeeding, with emails and notifications and to-do lists piling up).  Aside from a few book reviews, I've been finding it hard to find things to write about here, much less the motivation to actually get them down on screen.   

It's not just my mom that I'm grieving, too. I lost six people my age or younger last year -- friends, cousins, classmates. Today would have been my friend R.'s 68th birthday. Friday, my cousin would have turned 66. Both of them died unexpectedly in November, and sometimes I find it harder to believe that they're both gone than that Mom's gone. (Mom was 84, after all.)  

Beyond grief, part of my malaise, I think, is just... February.  February has long been my least favourite month of the year -- and not much has happened so far to make me change my mind -- I've had a severe case of the midwinter blahs. We've had a lot of snow this winter, and we just went through a stretch of 23 consecutive days of sub-zero temperatures (the record was 40+, back in 1976) -- that's zero degrees Celsius, by the way, i.e., below freezing. (We woke up a couple of mornings last week to windchills in the -30C to -35C range and I thought I was back in Manitoba, lol.) 

The state of the world, as reflected in the nightly news, is depressing. (And not all because of the Orange One either... Case in point:  we just had a rare school shooting yesterday, in a small town in northern British Columbia.)  

So I was grateful to see Modern Mrs. Darcy's annual post last week, in which she asks readers "what's saving your life right now?" and lists some of the things that are saving hers.  It's a great yearly reminder at a tough time of year to look for the silver linings, the "glimmers" that remind us that for every winter, there is also a spring.  (Eventually...!)  :)  

Without consulting my past posts on this topic... here are a couple of my current lifesavers right now:  

• Heated car seats!  lol  (We've been using them a lot lately when we've been out!)  
• Our second bathroom. It often comes in handy ;)  but the reason I've included it here is that we've been using it to shower, ever since we got back from Manitoba.  The spray in our master ensuite shower has been both lukewarm and rather weak, ever since it was "fixed" last fall -- and our building's recent boiler issues haven't helped matters (and we've been procrastinating on calling the plumber to come look at it). It's a bit of a pain (the tub/shower is not as easy to get in & out of as our walk-in shower cubicle, obviously), but having a consistently strong, WARM spray has been very nice. :)  (We bought a no-slip bathmat for the tub, and there have been no slips while getting in or out since then.) 
• Spending time with the great-niblings. Always a day brightener. :) 
• Watching the Winter Olympics from Milan-Cortina (the figure skating in particular)(another reason why I haven't been here much...!). 
• Watching Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier win bronze in the ice dance final with their exquisite "Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)" program. :)  
• This cropped henley sweatshirt from American Eagle. :)  I bought one on sale in light blue and it's so soft & cuddly that I bought another one in dark/navy blue. :)  I've been wearing one or the other constantly (especially during this frigid weather...!). 
• A gift card that one of my best friends from high school sent me for my recent 65th birthday. She lost both her parents a few years back, one after the other, and then her (adult) daughter in a car accident, so she knows something about grief. The card was for a (relatively) new brunch restaurant chain, with two outlets nearby, and we used the card last Friday. The ambience was lovely, the service was friendly and prompt, and the food was hot and good, with generous portions.  We will be back.  
• Starting a new D.E. Stevenson novel -- "The Four Graces" -- which I've read before, but this is one of my favourites of hers that I've read to date -- like a warm hug and a cup of tea. (A good cup of tea also being a lifesaver!)   

What's brightening your life right now? 

(Past "saving your life" posts here.)  

"You Are Here" by David Nicholls (re-read)

The April book for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club is one of my recent favourites, and one I thought would be perfect for the group: "You Are Here" by David Nicholls, who's written several other books I've enjoyed. I first read this one in June/July 2024 (reviewed here).  

Our main characters are two lonely, awkward people: geography teacher Michael, 42, has recently separated from his wife (Natasha), and is avoiding their empty home in York by taking longer and longer solo walks in the English countryside.  By contrast, Marnie, 38, a freelance editor and proofreader who works from home, spends her days holed up in her small London apartment, increasingly isolated since the departure of her husband Neil, as well as the pandemic lockdowns. All her friends are married and busy with their families. (Hmm, this sounds familiar...) 

Both Marnie and Michael are invited by their mutual friend Cleo to accompany her and a group of friends to hike a section of the Coast-to-Coast Walk through the scenic English countryside. Michael agrees -- but he intends to keep walking the entire 192 miles -- a journey that will take about 10 days to complete (and will end close to where Natasha is now living).  And Marnie finds herself deciding to walk "just one more day" along with him -- day after day after day...  

It's obvious these two are destined to fall in love (despite Cleo's plans to matchmake them both with other members of the group!). But there are plenty of twists and turns and unexpected stumbles and disappointments and discoveries along the way.  

I loved following Michael and Marnie on their journey together (physical and otherwise).  (I imagine there's been an uptick in people walking this trail since the book came out -- and I think a movie, properly done and filmed on location, would be wonderful!)  I loved that Marnie was an editor/proofreader (echoes of my previous life in the corporate world...), and some of her observations about the job made me laugh out loud.  :) 

And as someone who is childless not by choice, I very much appreciated the revelations that both Marnie and Michael are too.  As I said in my original review, "This is one of those rare novels where we CNBCers see our stories clearly and sympathetically reflected." Beyond the childless angle, it was nice to see two middle-aged characters gradually awakening to the possibility of second chances and new possibilities. 

My original rating for this book stands -- 4.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded up to 5 on Goodreads. 

This was Book #3 read to date in 2026 (and Book #2 finished in February), bringing me to 8% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 1 book behind schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books."