PopBetty

A Love Letter to Pop Culture

The Bletchley Circle

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Aside from Sherlock, I never quite connected with PBS’ current Sunday night line-up of British mini-series. While they’re all relatively good, for me  Downton Abbey has too much soap opera plotting, Call the Midwife has too many women screaming in agony, and Mr. Selfridge has too much Jeremy Piven.

The Bletchley Circle

From left: Julie Graham as Jean, Anna Maxwell Martin as Susan, Sophie Rundle as Lucy and Rachael Stirling as Millie.

But with The Bletchley Circle, a trilogy about 4 former WWII codebreakers hunting down a mass murderer & rapist, I’ve finally found another show to love.  It’s beautiful to look at (the costume & set designers deliberately muted the color palette to create a somber, sepia-toned landscape), and well-acted. What’s most interesting for me, though, is the tension of watching women who saved lives during the war trying to fit back into the narrow roles available to them after the war ended. Available on Netflix Streaming.

To Watch: Coffee Prince

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Coffee Prince

The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince (link takes you to streaming video excerpts): I’m totally into Korean TV dramas right now–first My Lovely Sam-Soon and now Coffee Prince. A super-short Coffee Prince plot summary: straight boy falls in love with a girl who he mistakes for a boy. Unbearable sexual tension ensues. It is awesome.

Reading List: 12/07/07

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Reading List

Some recent reads. All the title links take you to excerpts or detailed reviews, so be sure to click through:

  • The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry: A foodie Eat, Pray, Love, written by a journalist turned Cordon Bleu student. I loved the recipes, cooking advice, and classroom anecdotes (the school sounds terrifying), but could’ve done without the romantic stuff.
  • Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster: A must-read for consumers, this book details how luxury businesses emphasize marketing over product quality to maximize profits. Dana Thomas also throws in juicy anecdotes about people like Miuccia Prada and Bernard Arnault.
  • Freaks and Geeks: We’ve only seen the first six twelve episodes, but wow. Absolutely brilliant, painful, funny, and true.
  • Misquoting Jesus: Solidly written, occasionally dense book on the way early scribes changed the Bible. I gave this to Mom for her birthday, so haven’t read it through (she did, though, and loved it). Sample bit: John 8:3-11 (“Let the one who is without sin among you cast the first stone”) was not in the original gospel.
  • The Bugle: Funny Guardian podcast featuring John Oliver (The Daily Show) and Andy Zaltzman.
  • Mario Unclogged: Short videos of Mario Batali talking about things like restaurant playlists, how to sauce pasta, and his tiff with Marco Pierre White.

Reading List: 11/08/07

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Reading List

One of the joys and pitfalls of working at a bookstore is the proximity of tempting books and films. Four recent finds:

  • Fashion Babylon, by Imogene Edwards-Jones: An “up the skirts” view of the fashion industry, it seems like every fashion blogger has read this. Dishy, fun, and shocking in a totally unsurprising way.
  • The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick: An innovative and well-done mix of illustrations and text, focusing on film pioneer Georges Méliès (remember the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight” video? It was based on Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon). I like how the book’s construction evokes intertitles.
  • The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov: Just started this, so not much to say other than the first fifty pages are brilliant.
  • The Beauty Academy of Kabul: A solid documentary about an American beauty school in Afghanistan (now defunct). Watching the interaction between the Afghani students and the American teachers is fascinating, occasionally cringe-inducing, and for me (the daughter of a Salvadoran) somewhat familiar. See a short documentary here about the film.