Friday, October 20, 2023: Recommendations
Daily Diary, Day 1145:
Brief check-in: In another warm spell, but the early morning fog seems to have been keeping it within reasonable highs, so no A/C necessary so far. But this has turned out to be a difficult week in maintaining writing speed. Just a whole series of unexpected interruptions added to the regularly scheduled ones, and today looks to be no different. Looking forward to a reset tomorrow, which is the beginning of my week.
Although I don't particularly like the blow up decorations, this one was cuter than usual and I thought I ought to use it to balance out the creepy, which seems to be the theme this year!
Now on to what I’ve been doing to entertain myself and can therefore recommend.
TV watching:
We finished watching the first season of the new show, Mrs. Sidhu Investigates, and I can recommend it as a pleasant British cozy mystery show. The rest of the past two weeks have been spent continuing to rewatch Lewis and cycling through the new season of the French police procedural Candice, and the second season of Annika (the former actress from Unforgotten – Nicola Walker- now playing the head of team of cops (Marine Homicide Unit) that investigate murders done in water in Scotland. We also watched an episode or two of the new season of Harry Wild (Jane Seymour as novelist turned sleuth) which doesn’t hold up as well as Candice or Annika.
In short, except for a couple of new Graham Norton’s talk show, and some more Abbot Elementary, our evening fare has been pretty consistently British cop show of the gentle Midsomer Murders variety. A good way to end days where the world at large has not been peaceful at all and get a good night’s sleep.
Listening:
I finished the first Thomas Perry, The Vanishing Act, a Jane Whitefield mystery, and I will probably listen to some more books from him which I got on sale. But I am now currently listening to Adam Bradley’s most recent Flavia Deluce mystery (featuring a young girl sleuth in 1952 Britain.) I really do enjoy these, and the narrator is perfect.
I am still listening to the podcast, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, interspersed with music from the mid-sixties (which is where the podcast is now up to.) In the podcast only parts of songs are played for illustrative purposes, so I then find myself wanting to hear the whole song or album.
Reading:
I am still reading the short stories in The Big Book of Cyberpunk. This is going to take me years to finish since I only get about 5-10 minutes before lights out. But I have promised myself that I am going to take a day off soon to binge read my new CJ Cherryh book that came out this week.
I have also done a good job of keeping up with my science magazines by steadily reading them whenever I have a minute or two during the day. When you add up the half hour I spend in the morning reading newspapers, the half hour I read my substack newsletters at lunch and in any breaks during the day, the listening to books and podcasts I do when I clean and then walk, the bits and pieces of magazines, and then the 10 minutes reading my short stories before bed, plus about 2 hours of TV watching, I can certainly say that I get in a lot of both education and entertainment during my days. How about you?
In case you aren’t sure how you got here, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. This is my newsletter reflecting on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. If you aren’t already subscribed but are interested in doing so, you can subscribe by clicking the little button below. If you enjoyed this post, please do click on the little heart and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments!