Bookman 📚

@bookman

Been reviewing books for more than 40 years (Booklist, the Winnipeg Free Press, others). Former radio playwright. Bookseller. Amateur smart-ass, hoping to turn pro. Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.

965 Folgt1.635 Follower2.340 Posts

Bluesky

amateur

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir bookman.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Bookman 📚@bookman· 11d

I have questions.

Bookman 📚@bookman· 15d

Maple is also four. He says hi.

Bookman 📚@bookman· 21d

So much gooey fun.

Poster for the unrated version of 2023's Toxic Avenger.

Bookman 📚@bookman· 23d

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. @emilymandel.bsky.social

Cover of Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel.

Bookman 📚@bookman· 25d

Today's viewing while the family is out of town.

Bookman 📚@bookman· 26d

I watch this series in its entirety at least once a year. It's that good.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Jul 12

Reviewing @leegoldberg.bsky.social's new Eve Ronin novel for @ala-booklist.bsky.social.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Jul 11

Over on FB there's a thing called Vintage Stars that apparently makes up stories about television shows that aired several years ago. Not sure why they'd bother, but whatever.

Rubbish story from a rubbish FB page claiming renewal of Clarice, which was cancelled several years ago.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Jul 8

To give you some context for my moderately giddy post about reviewing @ericidle.bsky.social's forthcoming new book, here's my 2024 @ala-booklist.bsky.social review of his The Spamalot Diaries.

Bringing Spamalot, the musical based loosely on the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, to the Broadway stage was no easy feat. But it was worth it: the production, written by Python’s Eric Idle and scored by John Du Prez, was a spectacular, Tony Award–winning success. Idle kept a diary, recording the joys, frustrations, and unexpected moments of discovery that came with the process. It is published here exactly as he wrote it: a contemporaneous record of Spamalot’s creation, and it is quite simply wonderful. Spamalot’s success was far from a certainty; Idle had serious doubts from time to time, as did director Mike Nichols. The book takes us through the writing, casting, and staging of the production. We also get to know Idle himself, an immensely talented man who would draw on ever-dwindling reserves of creativity and courage to overcome one stumbling block after another. This is so much more than a making-of book; it’s also a portrait of Eric Idle in the kind of detail that a more traditional memoir of Spamalot’s creation might not have provided.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Jul 6

Delighted to be reviewing the forthcoming Idle in Provence, @ericidle.bsky.social, for @ala-booklist.bsky.social. I've been a fan literally for as long as I can remember (I was born six years before Monty Python), so this is a real treat.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Jun 28

Saturday night entertainment.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Jun 19

Another awful movie I love unreservedly. Cool to see Brian Keith and Natalie Wood speaking actual Russian, though, not English with a terrible accent. Credit where credit is due: most movies with Russian characters don't bother to use Russian-speaking actors.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Jun 18

I know it's terrible, but I love it.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Jun 14

Superman and Otis rescuing a sunken submarine. (Oh, and Stacey Keach is here too.)

Ned Beatty, Christopher Reeve, and Stacey Keach in a scene from Gray Lady Down.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Jun 14

Maple wants to make a new friend.

Maple looking at a bunny out the front door window.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Jun 9

New @ala-booklist.bsky.social review assignment. Always a pleasure to review a new @chuckwendig.bsky.social.

Cover of The Calamities by Chuck Wendig.

Bookman 📚@bookman· May 20

Haven't seen this in a couple of decades. Enjoying it just as much. But I completely understand why it didn't do so well at the box office: it's a lovingly crafted homage to a six-decade-old cinematic era with which most of its target audience was unfamiliar.

Bookman 📚@bookman· May 8

Really loving this one. Just what I'd hoped it would be. Does anyone do horror-comedy as well as Mr. Raimi?

Bookman 📚@bookman· Apr 29

It boggles the mind that this masterpiece was directed by the same fella who made Jaws: The Revenge. I mean, I know most directors have their ups and downs, but jeepers....

Poster for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Apr 29

Revisiting some old friends and one of the most convincing and rigorously constructed post-apocalyptic worlds I've ever encountered. A magnificent series. @seananmcguire.bsky.social @orbitbooks.bsky.social

Feed, the first volume of the Newsflesh series.

Bookman 📚@bookman· Apr 27

I quite liked @robertjsawyer.com's The Downloaded (2024), and said nice things about it in the Winnipeg Free Press. I'll be reviewing its sequel, Ghosts in the Machine, in a forthcoming column.