#maria semple

[d-criss-news]

mariasemple: I ten to hyperbole when it comes to Broadway musicals, but MAYBE HAPPY ENDING is beyond brilliant! A genuine word-of-mouth hit, for a reason. It’s unbearably sweet, mindbogglingly directed, has visuals that stun, and the acting— @ darrencriss will WIN THE TONY! HURRY TO THE BELASCO to laugh and cry and let robots teach you to feel more human. I rode the coattails of my more famous friend, Ken, backstage. (Darren Chris— so humble and sweet I could barely survive the encounter.) If the evening couldn’t get any more surreal… look at the photobomb! (Only the compose of the BEST 11 o’clock number EVER WRITTEN!) My point: become an early adopter, go see @ maybehappyending and experience the magic yourself.🇰🇷🤖❤️🎶🎭😍

[veryslowreader]

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Bunheads: "Next!"

[mzannthropy]

In Where'd You Go, Bernadette, the line "She was an artist that stopped creating" (might not be exact, I listened to it on Audible), hits so hard.

All in all I enjoyed this book (people complain that it's about rich people in Seattle being ridiculous, but that's the point). I love Bee, she is such a great kid. I'd adopt her as a niece.

[boxofmaniacs]

There was no relief deeper than being loved by the person who’d known you the longest.

Today Will Be Different - Maria Semple

[juniperusashei]

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple - 5/5

It may be surprising that I like this novel so much. The Sally Rooney Colleen Hoover looking book cover doesn’t give it a favorable impression. Don’t judge a book by its cover… literally! But I probably would have if my favorite English teacher hadn’t read a passage to our class in high school (do you read this blog, Ms Palmer??) Since reading Where’d You Go, Bernadette years back, it’s been steadfastly one of my favorite novels, only better upon rereading. Between then and now, I’ve watched and enjoyed Richard Linklater’s film adaptation (he is one of my favorite directors!) but rereading reminded me just how much more of an edgy, personal experience this book is.

Firstly, Where’d You Go, Bernadette is one of the cleverest epistolary novels I’ve read. Collaged from emails between the titular neurotic architect and her outsourced personal assistant in India, DM’s, report cards, police reports, ship logs, and interviews, it could have been an overwhelming experience but was instead immaculately put together and flowed really well. There are moments where Bernadette’s daughter Bee interjects with prose explaining these in context, which is normally something that annoys me, but don’t worry, it is explained eventually within the diegesis of the book!

It is also one of the funniest, most nuanced discourses on mental illness. None of the characters are too bad or too good. My friend who I showed the movie to said he didn’t care about the problems of rich white ladies (do YOU read this blog, Aaron!?), but I think knowing that Maria Semple worked on the show Arrested Development contextualizes a lot of the class satire (which is a lot more prominent in the book, too!) Bernadette is a spurned architect who has spiraled into delusion after abandoning her craft, and her mentor sums up the thesis of this book: “People like you must create. If you don’t create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society.” The parallels to Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead are obvious, but as an intentional rebuttal of individualistic hubris.

[airplanes924]

Books I've Read in 2023

Number 33

Where'd You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple

[jesslovesboats]

Hello friends, I am back with more reading recommendations for your agonies! Next up we have the long awaited and much requested Sad Boat Fiction list. As with all of my lists, this is NOT exhaustive and there WILL be great books left off, and also you may or may not like these books! I only rec things that I've personally enjoyed or that come highly recommended by trusted friends, but taste in books is incredibly subjective, especially with fiction. If I missed your favorite, please add it in the comments or drop it in my DMs!

Now that I'm feeling more settled in my new job, I will hopefully have a lot more time to make book lists and do more virtual Readers' Advisory. I have lists in the works for women in polar exploration and companion reads for the HBO War series, but if there's something else you would love to see, please send me a message!

Classics of the Genre

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

The Terror by Dan Simmons

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

Media Tie-Ins

Who Goes There? (Filmed as The Thing) by John W. Campbell, Jr.

The North Water by Ian McGuire

Cold Skin by Alfred Sánchez Piñol

The Terror by Dan Simmons

Graphic Novels

Whiteout by Greg Rucka

How to Survive in the North by Luke Healy

The Worst Journey in the World- The Graphic Novel Volume 1: Making Our Easting Down adapted by Sarah Airriess from the book by Apsley Cherry-Garrard*

*this is only fiction in the broadest possible sense of the term, but there is a shiny new American version of this book coming out with a gorgeous new cover and you should pre-order it immediately

Science Fiction

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin

Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson

Romance

Under a Pole Star by Stef Penney

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

My Last Continent by Midge Raymond

Inspired by the Terra Nova Expedition

The Worst Journey in the World- The Graphic Novel Volume 1: Making Our Easting Down adapted by Sarah Airriess from the book by Apsley Cherry-Garrard*

The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge

Terra Nova: A Play by Ted Tally

Antarctic Navigation by Elizabeth Arthur

*this is only fiction in the broadest possible sense of the term, but there is a shiny new American version of this book coming out with a gorgeous new cover and you should pre-order it immediately

Inspired by the Franklin Expedition

The Rifles by William T. Vollmann

Minds of Winter by Ed O'Loughlin

Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler

On the Proper Use of Stars by Dominique Fortier

Literary Fiction

The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

We, The Drowned by Carsten Jensen

Inspired by the Classics

The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zárate

Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund

Modern Day Antarctica

How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior

South Pole Station by Ashley Shelby

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Polar and Nautical Horror

Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

Cold Earth by Sarah Moss

The Deep by Nick Cutter

All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes

Dark Water by Elizabeth Lowry

The Deep by Alma Katsu

Happy reading!

[utilitycaster]

thanks for the book answer! would you share your fiction favorites in general?

Hi anon,

I'll post a few but I think to clarify - this is also kind of just going to be a list. I meant more like...are you looking for book recs? If so are you looking for specific things (eg: queer characters, fantasy and if so which subtype, sci fi and ditto, literary fiction, etc.) Or do you just like, want a list of books I have liked.

Anyway this is a list of a handful of books/series/authors that I'd count as favorites, loosely grouped, but I didn't go into any details about anything.

Fantasy I read a teen and has permanently shaped how I interact with fantasy fiction; some of this is YA

a large swathe of what Diana Wynne Jones has written

The Belgariad and Mallorean by David Eddings

The Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix

Sorcery and Cecelia by Caroline Stevermer and Patricia Wrede (this came up on the comfort reads panel I watched yesterday and it is indeed a comfort read for me) and Mairelon the Magician by Patricia Wrede (set in the same sort of world)

Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

I read some of the Patternist series by Octavia Butler as a teen but then didn't revisit it until adulthood

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Piranesi is very different and also excellent but that came out when I was an adult, but it's still a favorite)

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley (I also read a bunch of her fairy tale-based books which I don't know if I'd call them favorites still but I do think they're an influence)

Sandman by Neil Gaiman

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Middlegrade/YA fiction I read as a kid that also permanently shaped something

Several Ellen Raskin books but especially The Westing Game

Elizabeth Enright's books but especially the ones about the Melendy family and Gone-Away Lake

Fantasy and SF I read as an adult and would consider exceptional/a favorite

The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisen

The City and the City by China Mievelle

The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir

Phedre's trilogy of the Kushiel's Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey (have not read the others in the series so this isn't saying they're bad, I just can't speak to them)

The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin

Arcadia by Iain Pears

The Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Night Watch books from Discworld by Terry Pratchett; I have read like, one other Discworld book and it didn't have Sam Vimes in it so I didn't really care

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delaney

Literary fiction/not sf I read as a teen or adult

(there's notably a lot less of this because I do lean heavily towards fantasy but)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

[bitter69uk]

On this night fifty years ago (10 December 1974) NBC broadcast a TV adaptation of Arthur Miller’s 1964 play After the Fall. (Full disclosure: I haven’t seen it! It doesn’t appear to be streaming anywhere). After the Fall is widely perceived to be Miller’s semi-autobiographical reflections on his stormy marriage to Marilyn Monroe between 1956 and 1961. Faye Dunaway (pictured) portrays Maggie (the Marilyn-inspired character). Which reminded me that Dunaway has portrayed a remarkably disparate range of real-life women in her career: Bonnie Parker (Bonnie & Clyde (1967)), evangelist Sister Aimee Semple McPherson (The Disappearance of Aimee (1976)), Joan Crawford (Mommie Dearest (1981)), Eva Peron (Evita Peron (1981), Maria Callas (onstage in Master Class (1996)), Yolande of Aragon (The Message: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)), Mae West (The Calling (2002)) and - briefly! - Katharine Hepburn (onstage in Tea at Five (2019)). (Totally botched the date on this post! "The production was broadcast on NBC on December 10, 1974." My mistake!).

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 10.9

Beer Birthdays

Anna Maria Hartig Krug Schlitz (1819)

Jacob Schmidt (1846)

Pat McElroy, Miss Rheingold 1949 (1928)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Scott Bakula; actor (1954)

Guillermo del Toro; Mexican film director (1964)

John Lennon; English rock singer, songwriter (1940)

Camille Saint-Saens; composer (1835)

Robert Wuhl; actor, writer (1951)

Famous Birthdays

Rocky Aoki; Benihana founder (1938)

Brian Blessed; English actor (1938)

Jackson Browne; singer, songwriter (1948)

Bruce Catton; historian (1899)

John Doubleday; English artist (1947)

Alfred Dreyfus; French military officer (1859)

John Entwistle; rock bassist (1944)

P.J. Harvey; English rock singer (1969)

Nona Hendryx; singer-songwriter(1944)

E. Howard Hunt; CIA officer (1918)

Steve Jablonsky; composer (1970)

Yusef Lateef; jazz musician (1920)

Aimee Semple McPherson; Canadian-American evangelist (1890)

Sean Ono Lennon; pop singer (1975)

Chris O'Dowd; Irish actor (1979)

Michael Pare; actor (1958)

Mike Peters; cartoonist (1943)

Belva Plain; author (1915)

Nicholas Roerich; Russian archaeologist and painter (1874)

Otto Schnering; candy bar manufacturer (1891)

Karl Schwarzschild; German physicist and astronomer (1873)

Johann Andreas Segner; German mathematician, physicist (1704)

Tony Shalhoub; actor (1953)

Alastair Sim; Scottish-English actor (1900)

Mike Singletary; football player (1958)

Simeon Solomon; English painter (1840)

Jacques Tati; French film director (1907)

Charles Walgreen; drug store founder (1873)

Jody Williams; academic and activist (1950)

[sea-changed]

third quarter of 2023 in books

30. Sex the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey, Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy [this was everything a biography should be, I think; idiosyncratic and entertaining and informative.] 31. The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson [reread] 32. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson 33. The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, Eric Cervini [shockingly badly written] 34. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston [reread] 35. Late Bloomers, Deepa Varadarajan 36. Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America, Christopher Bram 37. Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple 38. The Calder Game, Blue Balliett [reread. still an unfortunate end to an otherwise lovely series] 39. Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps, ed. Michael Bronski [for some reason I'd thought this was an academic study rather than an anthology, but I will say Bronski's introduction and editorializing were excellent and appreciated] 40. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton [reread] 41. The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America, Jack Kelly [this was nicely done, I thought--gripping popular history that didn't sacrifice to melodrama too often] 42. The Real Thing, Tom Stoppard 43. Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement, David K. Johnson 44. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton [reread] 45. A Death at the Dionysus Club, Amy Griswold and Melissa Scott [reread. I love these books so dearly, and I think every time through I enjoy them more--the subtlety in the handling of the characters' emotional development is so lovely, and not underdone, while still being realistically restrained.]

[singwhenyoucantspeak]

4, 12, 17, 18!

4. What is your favorite book? too hard!!! some books I have really loved recently instead: Among the Hollow - Roman Ankenbrandt, Where'd You Go Bernadette - Maria Semple (probably the one i've reread the most as an adult i have no idea why), Piranesi - Susanna Clarke, the Vera Kelly series - Rosalie Knecht, Nothing to See Here - Kevin Wilson. I really do not know how to choose a favorite book

12. Where is somewhere you'd like to visit? Italy

17. What is something you're really good at? music and writing i guess?

18. What is something you're really bad at? uh staying up past 10 pm LOL

Thank you!

Questions Game

[pinkboxess]

1, 20, and 45 for the book asks!

1: Best book you've read so far this year

I stopped keeping up with logging my books in Goodreads (it was starting to feel like pressure to meet my goal and log progress) which is to say that I don't even have a perfect memory of what I've read....but I think I'm going to give the award to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. I am a big Hunger Games fan and I really enjoyed the prequel. Snow's inner dialogue is absolutely hilarious-- it's very clear how narcissistic he is, but I find it funny how it comes out. He's a sassy boy. Also, the way Collins is able to tackle these enormous themes about the nature of humankind--making her books sit in conversation with famous historical theorists while still being written for a younger audience-- is really remarkable. I have so much admiration for her as an author.

20: Where and how do you find new books to read?

A few different ways. Some books I read because they've become popular enough for me to encounter them in the wild, so to speak. People talk about them in the various circles I'm part of so I hear about them and get interested. Other times I just go on my library's website and browse the available e-books for whatever looks interesting.

A third less-common way is through my colleagues, since I work in libraries. But for the most part we don't actually just sit and recommend books to each other 😂most of the work is geared towards managing the library on the back end instead of participating in using it.

45: What books would you sell your soul to get a TV or movie adaptation of?

So, The Mysterious Benedict Society did get an adaptation in 2021, but it was canceled after an under-funded season 2 and then removed from Disney+, meaning there is now no legal way to access it.

So my (bit of a cheater) answer is to simply bring back the existing adaption, but re-do season 2 since I didn't end up liking it very much, and then do a season 3 based on the third novel in the series.

As for some other contenders...

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune -- as a TV show. I feel that book adaptations are always better as shows vs. movies because there is more time to follow the plot of the novel and include things without having to cut half of what makes the book good.

To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf I think would be STUNNING visually if done well. Although, after googling to check, it appears there is a movie adaptation done in 1983! I have not seen it, though.

This is not part of the question, but these are my favourite book-to-screen adaptations that I think were done brilliantly:

A Series of Unfortunate Events Netflix TV adaptation of Lemony Snickett's middle-grade series

Orlando film adaption of Virginia Woolf's novel

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? film adaptation of Maria Semple's novel

And, as previously mentioned, season 1 of the Disney+ adaption of Trenton Lee Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society, which is no longer viewable outside of sailing the high seas.

[starry-bite]

2, 6, and 11 for the 3 things ask!

aww thank you dear!!

2. 3 movies you have rewatched many times

i am a constant rewatcher of things so i'll give my most recent: glass onion, dnd: honor among thieves, and the laundromat

6. 3 characters that inspire you

i tend to relate to characters deeply more than be inspired by them, but a few who fit this description are:

elizabeth mccord - madam secretary: i was obsessed with this show in middle school and am rewatching now so i can finally finish it, and i just find elizabeth so comforting. she's not saintly by any means, but her dogged faith and morality in the face of often-ugly politics and a crumbling world are reassuring to me. the series is aspirational, and elizabeth inspires me to hold onto my stubborn hope.

justine sokolov - things heard and seen: kind of left field but i LOVE this movie for its reversals of female stereotypes in horror, and i just remember being so floored by justine the first time i saw it because she broke so many scripts i anticipated. she felt so wholly herself, so ungoverned by fear.

bibi garvey - bad sisters: inspires me to be gayer, hotter, and better at archery and murder

11. 3 books that you would recommend everyone to read

station eleven by emily st. john mandel

- oh my god this book. i am not usually a dystopia girlie, but this story of the human spirit sustained by community and art. agh. also just a gorgeous ensemble piece that plays with time and weaves past and present together with elegance and heart. also! scenes set in malaysia!

where'd you go, bernadette by maria semple

- love this as an artist who goes a little insane when art is inaccessible to me, as someone in mother-daughter relationships, as a person on the earth. i first read it in a library cafe in singapore over one afternoon which was especially intense because it broke a years-long reading block. broke my mentor's reading block too!

the bluest eye by toni morrison

- i just finished this book, and it is heavy and imperfect and horrible and true. chicken toni for the soul. helped to quantify some nebulous pains and feels important to understanding the longstanding, layered, generational impacts of racism on a society. our society.

[self-made-cages]

How did you like Today Will Be Different? I love Where’d You Go Bernadette but haven’t read anything else by her.

It wasn’t as good as WYGB, felt less plot driven and I wasn’t very attached to the characters, but I really like Maria Semple’s writing flow. That almost stream of consciousness, spacey but keen narration? It’s a joy to read, once I get into it. So I’d say worth it!

[lavoixhumaine]

“People like you must create. That's what you were brought into this world to do, Bernadette. If you don't, you become a menace to society.”

—Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

me.

the menace.

this is something my husband is struggling to understand at the moment.