Hi all! Last week was the Summer Solstice which marked the official beginning of summer (though the weather here has only just started to feel like it and honestly it’s a little bit too hot at the moment. Basically as soon as it gets over 25 in the UK, it’s kind of gross, there’s a very fine sweet spot between about 20-23 where the weather is actually nice and comfortable). Anyway, the change of the seasons means its time for another Quarterly Rewind, the feature where I wrap up one season on the blog and look forward to the next one. This Spring has been a ridiculously busy one for me, with lots of travel, lots of theatre, and generally a lot of fun stuff so I’m excited to tell you all about it. This post will cover from 20th March-25th June (as I am posting a little late!):
Image From Spring:
Libreria Acqua Alta is a bookshop I’ve been wanting to visit for years and I finally got the chance when I was in Venice last month (sidebar, how was that last month? It feels like much longer ago!). I loved Venice in general but this was definitely one of my highlights.
Favourite Quote From A Book You Read This Spring:
“If TV has taught us anything, it’s that the murder rate in small villages is disproportionately high.” -How To Solve Your Own Murder, Kristin Perrin
As someone who likes murder mysteries, this quote just made me laugh a lot!
This Spring In One Word:
Travel! (I had quite a few holidays).
Most Popular Review of Spring:
As ever, I still haven’t really got around to sitting down and catching up on my reviews from the past year or so, I swear eventually I will but I’ve been very busy recently and that shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. So as I have before, I’m going to just share my most popular review overall and once again, that’s Looking For Jane. I don’t know what it is about this review that it’s been so popular again but if it’s helping more people find a great book then I love that!
Top Two Books This Spring:
Once again it’s been kind of a slow one, I’ve read 2 3/4 audiobooks over the time this Rewind covers-I’m almost done with my third one, so it’s not so much a case of picking favourites as just sharing the books I’ve read I’m afraid!
- How To Solve Your Own Murder-Kristin Perrin
I really enjoyed this one, the premise of it was certainly unique, a 60 year old murder in the making and I liked Annie, the narrator very much, she was very funny. There were a few things I might have tweaked about the final resolution to the murder but all in all I had a really fun time reading it and I appreciated that the author did something a bit different with the small town murder mystery.
2. The Phoenix Crown-Kate Quinn and Janie Chang
It took me a while to get into this one and it’s not my favourite of Kate Quinn’s books, in fact I much preferred Janie Chang’s chapters but I think that’s largely because I warmed to Suling as a character faster than I did to Gemma. It did really pick up once it got to the actual meat of the story (the earthquake) and once I was hooked, I was really hooked, it just took a while to get there. I was also thrilled to find out that Alice Eastwood was a real person, if a fictionalised version because she was such a badass and I really hope one of them writes more about her someday.
TV Shows I’m Looking Forward To Watching This Summer:
I’m again super behind on TV, I’ve got a lot to catch up on that I’ve missed over the past few months, so this section will probably be made up of a lot of that and quite a few of them might be the same ones I had on my Spring list because I really haven’t watched a whole load of TV over the past few months!
- Heartland Season 17
The most recent season of Heartland was released on Netflix in the UK, I think earlier this month and it’s definitely next on my Netflix watchlist, as it’s one of my favourite series. Hopefully I enjoy this most recent offering as much as I have enjoyed previous seasons of the show-though I will be forever grumpy that Netflix UK no longer has the entire Heartland catalogue as S3 is my favourite and I can’t rewatch it anymore!
2. Bridgerton Season 3
Yes, I’ve not got around to Bridgerton Season 3 yet, I know, I know, I’m terrible. To be fair, I despise the whole release in two parts thing Netflix has going on and I wanted to wait till all the episodes were out to watch, now that they are, I just need to get around to it.
3. A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder
I love this book and the TV adaptation of it is coming out in July! I’m super excited to see how the story translates to screen and of course, I will be doing a post about it on Book Vs Movie when I finally get around to watching it.
4. Resident Alien Season 3
This is one that I’m watching with my mum so I have to wait for a time when we’re both free to watch it, which is harder than you would think! Season 2 left on quite a cliffhanger, so I’m excited to finally pick it up again for Season 3.
5. Only Murders In The Building Season 4
Only Murders In The Building is one of my favourite new shows of the past few years, I get so excited every time a new season rolls around and this summer is no exception. Yet another reason to be excited for August (although the main reason is Eras Tour, I won’t lie).
New Obsession This Spring:
- Tash Hodgson’s Substack, It’s All Good Stuff
I just have the one for you this time, as you all probably know by now, I’m obsessed with Operation Mincemeat and Tash is one of the writers and the original Ewen Montagu in the show and since she’s left, she’s started this very niche and random substack of basically recommendations of all the things she’s enjoying at the minute. It’s bonkers and makes little sense a lot of the time but it makes me laugh every time I read it!
Things I’m Looking Forward To This Summer:
- ERAS TOUR!!!!
Did you expect anything else to be at the top of this list? Yes, now that Taylor has done her first set of London dates, the countdown is officially on for her return in August and when I at last get to see the Eras Tour! I’m going on 17th August (the Saturday) and I am very impatiently waiting for that day to arrive. My dream surprise song would be a mashup of White Horse/Back To December but honestly I just really want White Horse, I would so love to hear her play that one live! (I will obviously be thrilled with whatever I get and the fact that I just get to be in the room in the first place, because it was touch and go there for a while!).
2. Going to lots of theatre
Yes, as always, I have plenty of theatre plans for the next few months. Alongside the expected Mincemeat, I’m going to the Roles You’ll Never Play concert on Monday where West End actors sing songs they wouldn’t usually get to sing on stage which sounds like a blast. I’m also going to see title of show at the Phoenix Arts Club, a venue I’ve never been to before, Jak Malone from Operation Mincemeat is doing another cabaret so of course I’m going to that, I’m finally getting the chance to see Cable Street which I missed at Southwark Playhouse earlier in the year and I’m going to see the UK tour of War Horse, a show I’ve not seen since I was 14! There will of course be even more than this, this is just what I have currently booked, I have a lot of big plans for September with that being my birthday month.
3. Diamond League Athletics
My family is once again going to the London Diamond League event in July and it should be pretty exciting this year as it’s one of the last events before the Paris Olympics I think!
4. Olympic Games
No, I’m not going to Paris, but I’m still excited to watch all of the Olympic action on the TV over the summer, you don’t get many opportunities to see that many different sports on all at once. As always, the ones I’m most looking forward to are the gymnastics, the athletics and the equestrian events!
Five Most Popular Blog Posts This Summer:
This season’s Quarterly Rewind is following much the same trend as my previous ones did, a mix of Book Vs Movie and review posts. It’s very typical that as I’ve stopped really doing reviews, suddenly a whole load of my old ones have got really popular-where was this energy years ago guys?!:
- Book Vs Movie: A Series of Unfortunate Events
I’m really surprised this one made it in the top spot as it’s kind of a niche book series and an even more niche film and TV series but I’m glad you all seemed to enjoy this post, it was a really fun one for me to do as it’s incredibly rare that I have a film and a TV series to compare a book to (watch the Netflix series, do not bother with the film).
2. Looking For Jane Review
Unsurprisingly as it was my most popular review of the last few months, this has made it into this section as well, for the second Rewind running. If you haven’t read Looking For Jane yet, I really do highly recommend it, it’s a fantastic book and the subject matter is very pertinent with the rolling back of reproductive rights for many women in different parts of the world that has happened in the last few years.
3. Book Vs Movie: Gone Girl
This one was in this section last time as well, so I’m glad to see it’s still going strong and finding new readers. This is probably one of the most difficult Book Vs Movie judgements I’ve ever had to do because honestly the book and the movie are so near identical that it was hard to really judge which one I liked more-this is what happens when the author is actually able to be involved in the film process, you end up with something much better!
4. Unsouled (Unwind #3) Review
This one is perenially popular and I can’t really understand why as it is the third book in the series and I’ve reviewed all 4 plus the short story collection, so I would have thought if any review in the series would be the most popular it would be the first one, but I am clearly wrong because this review pops up time and time again in this section!
5. The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi Review
We end with a new one for this feature, I’m really happy more of you seem to be finding this review as it was one of my favourite books of last year (and one of very few I actually managed to review!) so if my review is helping more of you find it and read it then I’m absolutely thrilled.
Posts I Enjoyed This Spring:
- Nina Starner did this really interesting deep dive in the How I Met Your Mother series finale on the 10th anniversary of the show ending and explored why it just didn’t work and still doesn’t land ten years later. Honestly I’m still pissed off about the way they ended it even ten years after the fact and I would hazard a guess that one of the first things anyone will mention to you when you talk about How I Met Your Mother is how much the ending sucked. Which is a shame because when this show was good, it was really good-however when it was awful, it was truly horrendous.
2. YouTuber Hannah Witton wrote a really interesting piece about her decision to quit being a sex and relationships content creator and how becoming a parent impacted this.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/22/youtube-creator-creativity-mental-health-baby
3. Grace Campbell wrote this real beautiful and nuanced piece on the complicated feelings she experienced in the aftermath of her abortion.
Shows I Enjoyed This Spring:
Honestly I’ve been quite busy this Spring and I haven’t really watched many of the shows I wanted to see and some of the stuff I was excited for, eg Beyond Paradise and Celebrity Bake Off, I still haven’t actually finished, the only thing I’ve watched in full over the last few months is the sixth season of Young Sheldon which recently came to Netflix. So this section is going to take a break this time around and will return in September, hopefully when I’ve seen a bit more stuff that I can tell you all about!
Five Things That Happened This Spring:
- I went interrailing through Italy with my friend Hannah
As I mentioned at the top of this post, I went to Italy last month on holiday with my friend Hannah and we had the best time! We visited Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice and Verona and had such a good two weeks, eating the best food & exploring so many cool places, the only thing that wasn’t great was the weather!
2. I went to Chicago with my family
My second holiday of the summer was a week in Chicago with my family at the end of May/beginning of June and that was also really fun, I’d never been to Chicago before, so I really enjoyed exploring the city and I particularly enjoyed going to The Art Institute with my mum, that was a real highlight of the trip for me.
3. I went to the Olivier Awards
I went to the Olivier Awards for the first time this year with a bunch of my friends from Mincemeat to support the show and the cast as they were nominated for quite a few awards. It was such a fun night and we all cheered ridiculously loudly when Operation Mincemeat won best new musical, it was great to be able to share that love with all the new-found friends I’ve made because of this show.
4. I went to a lot of theatre
Yes, that perennial instalment, I don’t think I will ever not be seeing a lot of theatre again unless I someday move out of London and I don’t see that happening anytime soon, as I really love it here. I had a slightly insane few months, I saw 14 different shows over the last three months for a total of 28 performances, they were: Operation Mincemeat (again we do not need exact numbers here, cast change happened in May so the number is probably arbitrarily higher than normal!), Moulin Rouge three times, Kathy and Stella Solve A Murder twice, Wicked, Frozen, Outings, People, Places and Things, Death Becomes Her (in Chicago!), Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York), Marie Curie, Next To Normal and then a few concert type things that were still theatre related: Lucie Jones’ concert, Taylor Swift by Candlelight concert and Jak Malone and Claire-Marie Hall’s (from Operation Mincemeat) cabaret. So it was a very packed, but very enjoyable month of theatre.
5. I saw the cast of Operation Mincemeat perform at Hampton Court Palace
I have been wanting to go to Hampton Court Palace for years, I am such a Tudor history nerd so being able to combine that with seeing Operation Mincemeat perform and listening to a SpitLip (the creators of the show) Q&A afterwards at the Queen’s Reading Room festival earlier this month really was a treat for me!
Six Songs I Listened To Way Too Often This Spring:
- Is It Over Now?-Taylor Swift
This song is always playing on the radio at work, and whilst I do enjoy it and I love her, I probably don’t need to hear it three times a day…..(although on the plus side if she does this as one of the surprise songs at my Eras date, I have the lyrics DOWN).
2. Kathy and Stella’s Murder Podcast-Kathy and Stella Solve A Murder!
I first saw this show a couple of weeks back and this song has been stuck in my head ever since, it has such a catchy chorus.
3. Superboy and The Invisible Girl-Next To Normal
This has been on rotation in my head ever since I saw Next To Normal last week, it’s so darn catchy even though the song itself is kind of sad and I’m not sure at this point if it’s ever going to be leaving.
4. What Baking Can Do-Waitress
I went to see the pro-shot of the Broadway production of Waitress in the cinema on Sunday and ever since then this song has been absolutely stuck in my head!
5. You’re On Your Own Kid-Taylor Swift
I’ve listened to this one a lot because it’s been part of several surprise song mashups Taylor has done for the Eras Tour. She seems to really love this one-not that I’m complaining, I do too!
6. Maroon-Taylor Swift
Maroon is another of her surprise song perennial favourites, but it also comes up on my iPod quite a lot so I’ve listened to it quite a bit in the past few months.
So there we go, that was my Spring! It was a bit manic, but I had the best time especially on my holidays. Summer is currently looking a bit quieter but it’s all eyes on the countdown to Eras in August now and I’m sure I will end up doing a lot more things than I currently have planned! What have you enjoyed most on my blog this Spring (or Autumn for my Southern Hemisphere readers)? What have you been up to? Let me know in the comments!
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