What Grandma is reading and watching

 

 

  Books Grandma is Reading, TV programmes she is watching

Tangerine

  Two young women with a shared history of going to the same college meet up in Tangiers .A convoluted story which dragged on with various unlikely characters added to hold it together. A silly story  of jealousy, love and loss which  I finished although I felt like giving up several times.Might be a good read if you are visiting Tangiers.

My Cousin Rachel -- Daphne du Maurier

Seeing the recent film has sent me back to reread this book .A master story teller at work here with the mysterious widow of wealthy landowner Ambrose arriving in Cornwall to stay with his nephew and heir, Philip.Is Rachel  a truly heart broken widow or a manupulative adventuress?A beautifully written book ,unable to put it down.The film is good too with Rachel Weisz as Rachel.

Do not buy the abridged Kindle version, it is very poorly adapted.

 

  The Couple Next Door--Shari Lapena

Although on the best seller list I found this book rather tedious with the story going round in circles.

 A couple go to a dinner party next door and foolishly leave their baby daughter alone,unattended in their own house.She disappears and what follows unravels the relationships between family members and their ambitions and secrets.An okay read for a journey or on the beach.Silly ending

 

 

Anne With An E -Netflix

I loved this adaptation of Anne of Green Gables .A darker view is examined of the welfare of orphans put up for adoption or put out to work in Canada in the late 1800s.The photography is superb, especially the winter snow  scenes .Geraldine James as Aunt Marilla is moving and dignified as she finds herself becoming attached to the orphan Anne .

 

The Handmaid's Tale -Margaret Atwood

This award winning book has been made into a 10 part TV series that is compulsory viewing.Offred ,played by Elizabeth Moss is the narrator in a state run by Gilead.This strict fundamentalist world has become infertile and the few fertile women available become the handmaidens of an elite whose high ranking men try to impregnate them.

Costumes copied from paintings by Vermeer add to the bleak washed out world of fear and repression that has references to the present world of Trump's America.

  Since writing this review there as been a second series.Enjoyable but not as good as the original adaptation