Movies, TV shows, Dramas, Videos in the queue. (Have I missed anything?)
The Inugami Family (Japanese Movie)
Year of Release: 1976
Director: Kon Ichikawa
Based on the Book: The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo
Recommended for fans of: Gothic, Foreign Period Dramas, Eerie Mysteries, A touch of Horror, Brilliant Plot, Golden Age of Detective Fiction
Some time back, Words & Peace had recommended The Inugami Curse and I’d wanted to read the book ever since. I decided to take the shortcut when I accidentally discovered there was a subtitled movie adaptation too.
It’s a superb plot. The patriarch of the Inugami family clan dies, leaving behind several competing successors and a really crazy will. I don’t think it’s giving away spoilers to say that the will goes along the lines of “If A dies, B gets the property. If B dies, C gets the property….” It’s like the dreadful old man was setting them all up to murder, starting with A! Along the way there are some red herrings – the challenge is to identify which ones are red herrings and which ones are not.
Is “tri-monthly” the right word? June, July, August — loads of books and shows that I discovered and even liked (wonder of wonders)! Interestingly, in pretty much all of these, I also found that the blurb or the trailer had been misleading. Here’s a (long post) wrap up.
A rather strange and underrated historical fantasy work set in the 1880s involving a “road trip” from New York to Scotland. The journalist heroine sets out to help her odd brother (and also escape her marriage). Then she finds herself embroiled in a blackmail plot and with her young nephew and niece in tow. This book really defies genre and age groupings. The suspense is slow to build-up, the “fantasy” part is very, very subtle. I even thought there was some LGBTQ representation in this 1976 book. Also historically accurate, as can be expected from Aiken.
A very quirky new adaptation of one of Agatha Christie’s more complex mysteries. This cryptic question changes every time: Why didn’t they ask Evans? Why didn’t they ask Evans? Why didn’t they ask Evans? Wait at least till Episode 2 for the show to really get going.
It’s been a while since I cross-linked to old favorite poems. But here are a few to keep the week going. The videos add to the beauty of the poem, so hope you watch those even if you’ve read these pieces before.
Since most books these days have both prologues and epilogues, this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic didn’t really ring a bell for me. Instead, I’m just gushing about 10 recent screen adaptations of books. Just in case you want to add to your watchlist….
Work in the past 3 months was like Godzilla. I read very little, and got nowhere on the 10 Million Reading Challenges that I had over-ambitiously planned. But I binged on mystery and detective stuff a lot, and here are a few things that kept me going.
In the last week of October, I probably read more books than in the past 3 months. So I’m really hoping that my reading/ blogging blues are finally over. There’s a lot to record and catch-up with, all those blogposts that I missed — still need to get up to speed there! In the meantime, here’s a bunch a mini-reviews / reading wrap-up for October 2021.
