This week...

I'm reading

It was a busy reading week this week! I read several books, a short story and finished an audiobook. 

Firstly, I finished The House of Light and Shadows by Lauren Westwood which I reviewed here. If you like a book where a house is an integral character in the story, then this might be for you.

Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering also has a house like that and for added measure each chapter is named for a famous house in literature. Here is my review.

I was then excited to see that The Bookstore Keepers by Alice Hoffman was available. This is the third short story in the Once Upon a Time Bookshop stories. These are the first Alice Hoffman stories I have read. I will be reading more as I am amazed how much story and feeling she fits into these short stories.

I was then hoping to get a bit of my reviews for March and also read an Aussie author, but the book I wanted wasn't quite ready. I therefore started A Santorini Secret by Rose Alexander which I really loved. Will be searching out some of her other titles. The review for this one will be up later this week.

I am now sneaking in a non-review read. A couple of weeks ago I went to see Mary-Lou Stephen talk about her book The Jam Maker and so I have started that one!

I also finished listening to Pride and Prejudice, narrated by British actor Rosamund Pike. I then started 

Mis-Directed by Lucy Parker which also has a couple of celebrity narrators, Nicola Coughlin and Gwilym Lee. I sat on the couch to listen to this and may have fallen asleep so I need to rewind a bit. Generally I listen to audiobooks on walks or in the car. 

I'm watching

We watched Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story which was heartbreaking and inspiring in equal measures. Jelena Dokic was a young tennis player back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She came to Australia as a refugee and then represented Australia, until she announced that she was going back to Yugoslavia. She was infamous because of the way her father, Damir, acted, even getting thrown out of major tournaments due to his aggressive behaviour. However, what the public saw was only the tip of the iceberg. The abuse that Jelena was receiving at home was horrific. She is now estranged from her father, and she is a respected tennis commentator and body image advocate. Here's the trailer

Tuesday night I went to see a preview screening of The Last Journey, a Swedish documentary in which a man and a friend decides to take his elderly father on a road trip to the south of France, to try and spark him back into life. It was a lovely movie, and we went to see it in a fab art deco theatre I had never been to before. The son and his friend, who are famous in Sweden, who produced the movie were at the screening and there was a Q and A session after. It was so touching, because when it started it was about the son not understanding how aging had affected his father, and by the end it was about him accepting that his dad was getting old. Along the way they reminisced about their summers in France. If you get the chance to see it, do so, but maybe take some tissues. It's now the highest grossing Swedish documentary of all time.

Life

We went for a lovely lunch for Valentine's Day which I posted a bit about here. Other than that it was all about the dog this week.

Max

Our lovely boy had a relapse and is not well at all. Late last year he was really unwell and was diagnosed with Addison's disease, liver enlargement, muscle shrinkage in his head and brain, and hyperthyroidism. Despite that for the most part he is a happy dog. He is a Labrador though, so you know there is something wrong when he goes off his food and water, so we ended up at the emergency vet on Thursday. He now has a couple of more things medically and so the vets talk about him having a complex medical history. He takes more medication than Robert and I do combined!

He is recovering, but we have had to have some serious conversations about what happens next time. His a very handsome boy, and has a great nature but he is not genetically blessed and wouldn't have done well in the wild! 

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Have Never Reviewed
Blog Tour: The House of Light and Shadows by Lauren Westwood

Blog Tour: Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering

The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Weekend Cooking: What I Ate in One Week (Stanley Tucci Style)


I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date and Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz