Sunday night already! It feels like I'm measuring the passing of time by the frequency of my media round-up posts, which seem to come around all-too quickly.
What I've been watching
The Sopranos marathon continues... We're onto Series 6 now. We're six episodes down, with another six to go. And no matter how many times I watch the intro (see the clip above) I still think it's brilliant, so brilliant I won't let T fast-forward it although I'm sure it drives him barmy.
I'm also ashamed to admit that I spent pretty much all of yesterday on the sofa watching trashy TV (I never do this, but my brain needed a rest), including possibly the worst "documentary" about celebrity chefs in the UK and USA I've ever seen (can't remember the title of it now), and half of the Home And Away Omnibus in which I did not recognise a single character (aside from Sally, but she doesn't count) because it must be a good two years since I've seen this show!
What I've been reading
Earlier this week I began reading Prime Time, a Scandinavian crime thriller which turned out to be more of a murder mystery. I finished it this afternoon and then dived straight into Richard Flanagan's The Unknown Terrorist (which I "mooched" last week from someone in California -- isn't the internet great?) and before I knew it I'd ploughed through 140 pages without pausing.
I'm beginning to think Flanagan, a Tasmanian and brother of The Age journalist Martin Flanagan, is my new favourite author. A couple of weeks ago I read his second novel The Sound of One Hand Clapping and was so in awe of his talent I had to give the book a five-star review. I've since gone on to order a second-hand copy of his debut novel Death of a River Guide, which should arrive sometime this week. (I read his third novel, Gould's Book of Fish, a couple of years ago.)
Meanwhile, I'm also reading Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy as part of my self-imposed challenge to read more books by classic Irish authors (as opposed to the modern Irish writers of which I seem to read so much). Someone very kindly sent me a first edition of the book and I'm almost enjoying the heady smell of the musty pages more than the storyline. This is exactly why I could never get into digital books: the smell of the paper is a quintessential reading experience, don't you think?
What have you been watching and reading this week?
