The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: The Book

I have a crush on Bill Nighy who plays Douglas in the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
based on the book These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach

After waiting for three months, my name came up on the library reserve list for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (which is really titled These Foolish Things) by Deborah Moggach. The movie (here) was such fun that I immediately put my name on the list for the book and now I have it and am enjoying it very much.

The story is about a group of retirees who leave England and relocate in Bangalore, India at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a somewhat faded residence left over from the days of the Raj. The individuals have come for various reasons but mostly because of reduced financial circumstances and the state of the health care system in Britain.

The book has pretty much the same characters but there is much more background given on each of them. We learn about grown children, husbands, and careers that weren't covered too much in the movie.  The story takes a clear look at the consequences of aging. Joints pop, hearing grows fuzzy, eyesight wavers, thoughts get confused, vulnerabilities appear. I laugh out loud while nodding my head in recognition of some of the symptoms.

But this is not a somber treatise on growing old. These folks have left the familiar for the very, very exotic and unfamiliar and most face the change with a very British stiff upper lip. Although some of them are not very likable - namely the coarse Norman Purse who is constantly on the lookout for a bit of romance (only that is not what he calls it) - they each have a way of dealing with the upheaval to their lives.

I don't often compare a movie to its book (one usually comes out on the short end of the stick), but there is enough of the book in the movie and the movie in the book to make it an enjoyable experience. Now I find I want to see the movie again.

A Pocket Full of Rye

That Agatha Christie. She fools me every time. I just finished reading A Pocket Full of Rye and was caught unawares as usual. The murders are based on the nursury rhyme:

 

Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of rye.

Four and twenty blackbirds,

Baked in a pie.

The first to be murdered is Rex Fortescue "in his counting house," the second is his wife "eating bread and honey," and the third is Gladys, the maid, who was "in the garden hanging out the clothes."

Suspects include two sons and their wives, a mysterious housekeeper, two lovers, a daughter, and of course a butler. It is all very classy and clever as usual. Miss Marple makes an appearance and solves the crimes along with some help from Inspector Neele.

A lovely bedtime read.

Bell, Book, and Candle - The movie



Pyewacket and James Stewart in Bell, Book, and Candle


Much earlier in my blogging career - in fact, it was in March - I purchased the DVD "Bell, Book and Candle" (here). I was barely three months into creating this blog which is a play on that title.

Well, last night I finally got around to watching the movie starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. What a treat. I know this is a book blog, but the movie is about books...in a way. It is based on the play written by British writer John Van Druten and was released in 1958 (making for some great outfits for Novak to wear).

Stewart plays Shepherd Henderson, a New York publisher. He lives above the shop/apartment of Gillian Holroyd (Novak) who is a witch with a familiar - her Siamese cat Pyewacket. Other characters include Jack Lemmon as her brother and warlock Nick, and Elsa Lancaster as their aunt Queenie, also a witch.

The story consists of Gillian casting a love spell on Shepherd and stealing him away from his fiance on the night before his wedding. Things go along smoothly for a while until Shep wants to marry Gillian. Of course a marriage between a witch and a human is unheard of but she is willing to give it a try. She tells Shep the truth about herself and in his fury he has the spell undone. But not to worry, falling in love has taken away Gillian's powers and all's well that ends well.

And now to the books. Shep's office has some lovely high shelves filled with books, I suppose the ones his firm has published. There is also a library ladder on wheels that adds to the bookish atmosphere. I only saw one title - Cakes and Ale by Somerset Maugham - and that was because it was face out. Shep's partner's name is Andy White. One of my favorite author's is E.B. White; his nickname was Andy. Don't you think that was a nod to him? I do.

In Gillian's apartment there is a bookcase that also serves as a drinks bar which gets lots of use. In Shep's apartment there are books piled on the fireplace mantel, on shelves, and on his desk along with typewritten manuscripts that he has brought home to read and review.

Ernie Kovac's plays a successful author, Sidney Ridlitch, that Gillian conjures up based on a comment by Shep that he would love to publish his next book; his first one being the bestseller Magic in Mexico. Now, Ridlitch wants to write a book about witches - "They are everywhere, you know; even right here in Manhattan."  Nick reveals to him that he is a warlock and offers to collaborate with him and let him in on all the witchy secrets and introduce him to all his witch and warlock friends. So we have a couple of scenes of both men hunched over typewriters (!) writing away.

One of my favorite lines comes in the scene where Pyewacket jumps onto Shep's shoulders which causes Shep's nose to itch and his throat to scratch. Shep says:

"Hasn't this cat got anything better to do? Couldn't you give him something to read?"

A Reader Diagnostic Guide

Interior with artist's daughter
Vanessa Bell
1935-1936

Cornflower Books alerted me to this book reader diagnostic guide on The Atlantic Wire. Oh my. So many to choose from.

What kind of book reader am I? Well, I am definitely not The Hate Reader, The Chronological Reader, or The Book-Buster. And no way am I The Anti-Reader.

I find that I am a combination of The Delayed Onset Reader #1, The Bookophile, and The Multi-Tasker with a healthy dose of The Book Snob and The Devoted Reader.

What this all means is that I buy books that I don't always read right away. I love the touch, smell, and sight of books. I am probably reading more than one book at different times of the day and evening (non-fiction in the morning, a mystery before bedtime). I am hard to impress (you won't catch me reading Shades of Gray -- heck I can barely bring myself to even type the title!) and I respect my favorite authors and know they won't disappoint.

The descriptions of the types of reader are very clever and spot on. There are even suggestions for books that will appeal to each type of reader.

Take a look and let me know: What Type of Reader Are You?

Baseball and a Good Book

As someone who has found work to be highly overrated, I can't think of a better way to celebrate Labor Day than by attending an afternoon baseball game and then settling in to read a good book.

And, if I had white shoes, I would put them away.

Enjoy your day.

An Artist Date

Romanian Blouse
Henri Matisse
1940

Today, I took myself off to a place that I have never visited before: the Cincinnati Art Museum. I call trips like this an Artist Date after Julia Cameron's suggestion in her book The Artist's Way to take time once a week to explore, by myself, something that interests me.

What interested me at the Cincinnati Museum was a sketching studio that is held in one of the galleries on the first Sunday of every month. Aspiring artists don't even have to take supplies as the museum rolls out a cart filled with pencils, erasers, charcoal, sketch books and even small stools for the artists to sit on as they draw.

I took my own sketch book and captured a couple of faces: an American Indian woman, a small child wearing a white head scarf, and the portrait of a duchess. I also snagged a quick sketch of Matisse's "Romanian Blouse." I adore Matisse.

Before I began my sketching though, I wandered through a special exhibit of musical instruments from all over the world and I oohed and ahhed over the art vases manufactured by the Rookwood Pottery which was founded in Cincinnati in 1880 and is still in operation. I got lost in the warrens of galleries but finally found my way to the cafe for lunch. I did make sure to visit the British Gallery - in keeping with my English theme this month - and saw landscapes with brooding skies, portraits of rosy-cheeked children, and a few ceramic pieces all from the 18th and 19th centuries.

My favorite was an oil painting of a shepherd and his flock. It was unusual in that the shepherd was walking away from the viewer so I had a lovely view of the twenty of so bouncing rumps of the woolly sheep. Not your normal pastoral scene. It made me laugh.

It was a very successful artist date; I can't spend all my time reading.

Oh, To Be In England

Queen Elizabeth II

I have hoisted the book London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd back onto its place on the shelf. I am afraid that I will have to postpone starting such a tome until I can purchase a reading stand. It is much too heavy to hold.

But, I am still going to celebrate, in my own way, the Queen's Jubilee during September. I have quite a royal To Be Read list going.

My neighbor lent me a copy of Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island. As a longtime Anglophile, I look forward to chuckling over his observations of what makes Britain so very British.

I also have Mrs. P's Journey by Sarah Hartley that I bought in Stanford's in London a decade ago and have never read.  It is the story of Phyllis Pearsall who created the A-Zed map of London's streets.

I plan to linger in the gardens of Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols. This book is the first in a trilogy (I have them all) about his efforts to restore a Georgian house and its gardens after WWII. I have read this one before and can hardly wait to accompany Mr. Nichols down the garden path.

Of course, there are also all those lovely mysteries by Agatha Christie. I am reading one now on my Nook - A Pocket Full of Rye.

I envision many a lovely September afternoon sipping tea and reading about The Emerald Isle.

Long live the Queen.