Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Finished "Reaper's Gale" by Steven Erikson - well, the reunions happened, and the tragedies, one of which I wasn't expecting at all. I was reminded again just how dark these books whilst still being full of humour. Really not quite sure where it's going in the end, still. And haven't really anything coherent to say yet.

Started "Toll the Hounds", also by Steven Erikson - I've only read a few pages of it, so I've nothing to say yet.

Started "The Raven Tower", Ann Leckie - new Leckie landed yesterday, so reading that before the next Erikson one. I'm liking what she's doing with the idea of divinity/gods so far, it's also reminding me a bit of N. K. Jemisin's "The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms" tho I'm not sure why as it's been a while since I read the Jemisin. (It's working for me a lot lot better than the Jemisin tho, which I rather bounced off.)

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Making of the Middle Sea", Cyprian Broodbank - in the run up to the Classical period he's looking at how the Mediterranean coalesces into a more closely integrated system than previously, including even parts of the coast that had previously been more separate (like France and North Africa).

Listening

Podcasts: ep 134-143 of The History of China - moving on into the Northern Song dynasty who definitely re-unify China but aren't as much the big player in the local area as the Tang had been in their heyday.

bonus ep of The History of Byzantium - a brief interview with the podcaster that's part of someone else's history of history podcasting.

ep 216 of The China History Podcast - start of a series of episodes looking at one of the Southern Chinese non-Han ethnic groups, the Hokkien.

Sunday podcast: Listened to an episode of In Our Time about Judith beheading Holofernes - as represented in art (mostly Western Renaissance), tho they did start by talking about the biblical narrative.

Music: While running I listened to Counting Crows "August & Everything After". To drown out the TV sounds so I could write I listened to more of the "Dreamboats & Petticoats" compilation plus some of another compilation called "The Later Lounge" (which has a Billy May & His Orchestra track on it).

Watching

ep 8 of Icons - the final live showdown. Which was rather odd watching not-live and knowing who won. Despite rolling my eyes a bit at the format they chose it was a good series. And to be fair, the choose your favourite format did work - we certainly had a lot of fun talking after each episode about who we'd choose if we'd been voting.

ep 2 of Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil - continuing the depression with a look at how Greece's economic collapse nearly brought down the entire rest of Europe.

ep 3 of The Hairy Bikers' Comfort Food - Cumbrian dishes this time. Still making us hungry.

Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars - a biography of Eric Clapton, which was surprisingly interesting given I'm not particularly a Clapton fan.

ep 1 of The Ganges with Sue Perkins - as the title suggests she's travelling along the length of the Ganges river meeting people and seeing places. This episode included the source, and the ashram where The Beatles stayed.

Queen of Tigers: Natural World Special - we were looking for something lightweight and fluffy to watch last night, so picked one of the nature programmes we've had recorded for a while. Long enough that I'd forgotten the premise for it was a wildlife camera man looking back on the life of a tiger that he'd filmed many times over the years and going to see her one last time before she died. So that was a little less lightweight than we were quite after - too much of a reminder of missing our own ginger furball. Nonetheless a good programme, and some awesome footage of tigers.