The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes

 

I listened to the unabridged version of The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes, which is nicely narrated by Anne Hancock.

The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes is a short story and a work of historical fiction set in London, England. 

Marie Belloc Lowndes is a new to me author. I was drawn to The Lodger, because it is about Jack the Ripper. I am fascinated by Jack the Ripper's true identity. Who really was Jack the Ripper? Marie Belloc Lowndes gives us a fictional look at who he might have been.

Below is the publisher's summary for The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes from Chirp's website:

According to legend, in 1910, Marie Belloc Lowndes attended a London dinner party where a guest told her that his mother’s butler and cook claimed they had once rented rooms to Jack the Ripper, the notorious mass murderer. The idea for “The Lodger” was born.

Mr. and Mrs. Bunting have sunk their savings into their house with plans to let rooms. But no lodgers have materialized, and they are on the verge of penury when, one foggy night, a knock on the door brings Mr. Sleuth, an unassuming gentleman whose needs are perfectly suited to the suite of rooms the Buntings have to rent.

Gradually, relief turns into suspicion, then dread, as Mrs. Bunting notices their savior’s strange habits are not mere eccentricities. When his late-night forays seem to coincide with the lurid headlines her husband reads to her about the grisly murders in London, she slowly realizes she may be harboring a monster. And if he’s discovered, it will mean ruin for the Buntings.

This is the original 1911 short story. Jack the Ripper’s identity was never discovered but “The Lodger” offers a tantalizing possibility that has entertained and intrigued readers for more than a century.

I am giving The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes a rating of 3 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!

We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets

I had We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets on my reading wishlist for quite a while. I finally read the hardback edition earlier this month. This novella is a quick read at 138 pages. I wasn't sure what I was expecting with this novella when I first started reading it. However, it most definitely packs a punch and sends a powerful message about the perils employees face while work in stressful environments.

We Had to Remove This Post highlights the impact of social media in general and the working conditions of social media content moderators, which feels like an important topic to examine. 

The fictional employees featured in We Had to Remove This Post watch videos during their shifts at a company named Hexa. During their shifts, employees decide whether the videos they watch are allowed to be posted online or are taken down due to the video's content. 

The employees view some pretty horrific things while watching these videos. Over time, the employees seem to be effected by post-traumatic stress disorder due to watching videos during their shifts. Some of the employees turn to alcohol and drug use/consumption to cope with stress caused by viewing the views, some deal with insomnia or other sleep disturbances/issues due to watching these videos, and some display other disturbing behaviors.

We Had To Remove This Post is told through the point of view of Kayleigh. Kayleigh works at Hexa and so does her girlfriend, Sigrid. The focus is on Kayleigh's time at Hexa, how working at Hexa effects her negatively, how the work effects Sigrid and their relationship, and the effects on other employees too.

I think the author does a fantastic job describing the horrors of being a social media content moderator for such a social media company! I cannot imagine watching horrific video after video after video for hour after hour after hour over weeks and months. It must wreak havoc on one's psyche.

As much as the author does a fabulous job in describing the horrors of being a social media content moderator, it was all too much. Plus, parts of this novella were boring and felt disjointed. Maybe this is because We Had to Remove This Post is a translated work?

Below is the publisher's summary for We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets from Amazon's website:

Kayleigh needs money. That’s why she takes a job as a content moderator for a social media platform whose name she isn’t allowed to mention. Her job: reviewing offensive videos and pictures, rants and conspiracy theories, and deciding which need to be removed. It’s grueling work. Kayleigh and her colleagues spend all day watching horrors and hate on their screens, evaluating them with the platform’s ever-changing terms of service while a supervisor sits behind them, timing and scoring their assessments. Yet Kayleigh finds a group of friends, even a new love—and, somehow, the job starts to feel okay.

But when her colleagues begin to break down; when Sigrid, her new girlfriend, grows increasingly distant and fragile; when her friends start espousing the very conspiracy theories they’re meant to be evaluating; Kayleigh begins to wonder if the job may be too much for them. She’s still totally fine, though—or is she?

I am giving We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets a rating of 2 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!

Bookish Quote of the Day!!

 

Book Recommendations For Native American Heritage Month

I'm a bit late with this post in celebrating Native American Heritage Month!! 

I recently discovered an article on Good Housekeeping Magazine's website titled, 32 Best Books by Native American and Indigenous Authors to Add to Your Bookshelf by Sarah Vincent and Lizz Schumer.

I've read and reviewed The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (I truly enjoyed this one), Heart Berries by Therese Marie Mailhot (I didn't enjoy this one), and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (I loved this one!). All three of these were mentioned in the Good Housekeeping article.

I have There, There by Tommy Orange, To The Moon & Back by Eliana Ramage, The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters, Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty, Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo, and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer on my reading wishlist.

Have you read any of the books listed in the Good Housekeeping article? If so, which ones and what did you think of them?

Goodnight Moon Postage Stamps!

 

I recently ordered the 'Goodnight Moon' literary postage stamps. They are really cute in person! I am looking forward to using them. 

I really like it when the United States Postal Service creates literary themed postage stamps and hope they create more stamps with a literary theme in the near future.

Poisonous Books!

 

Wowza! Watch the above, short video I discovered on YouTube! These green covered books contain arsenic. Interesting information for those who collect and love books.

The Queen's Gambit: Novel vs Miniseries Post Using Google Gemini!!

My husband and I watched 'The Queen's Gambit' miniseries on Netflix earlier this month. I'd really wanted to watch this miniseries after reading the novel and my husband wanted to see the miniseries just because I wanted to see it and had enjoyed the novel so much. My husband enjoyed the miniseries as much as I did.

I really enjoyed the miniseries a lot! Sure it's a bit different than the book, but still fabulous in its own way! I loved the beautiful set designs for the various scenes and the amazing costuming used in the miniseries.

I wanted to do a compare and contrast post for the novel vs. the miniseries here on my blog. Since AI has become a huge deal in recent years with the likes of ChatGPT, Google Gemini, etc., I wanted to see how one of these AI platforms would perform writing a post comparing and contrasting the novel vs the miniseries based on how I write blog posts. 

I chose to use Google Gemini to see how it would write this post for me as I was interested to see if Google Gemini could replicate the way I write my posts and also see how it would compare and contrast the novel vs the miniseries. I liked what Google Gemini wrote overall. I did, however, have to omit one paragraph that Google Gemini wrote. Google Gemini had wrongly assumed that I had seen the miniseries first and then decided to read the novel afterward based on the way the actress, Anya Taylor-Joy, had played the character of Beth Harmon. So, I scrapped that paragraph entirely. The rest of what Google Gemini wrote is seen below in black text. I liked what Google Gemini wrote in terms of the compare and contrast part, but I'd say the post isn't necessarily how I would have written the post myself. What do you think?

The Queen's Gambit: Book vs. Miniseries! My Thoughts on What Netflix Changed!

The show did such a phenomenal job of capturing the feel of the book—the intensity of the chess, the mid-century style, and the sheer genius of Beth. But as is always the case, the screen adaptation made some major adjustments to the source material! I thought I’d share my five biggest takeaways on the difference between the Beth on the page and the Beth on the screen.

Novel (Walter Tevis) vs. Miniseries (Netflix): The Game Changers

1. Beth’s Backstory and Her Mother, Alice

The show really delves deep into the idea that genius and madness are two sides of the same coin, and it uses Beth’s mother, Alice, to illustrate this.

• In the Miniseries: Alice is a brilliant academic who suffers a dramatic mental breakdown, culminating in a deliberate suicide attempt where Beth is in the car with her. This experience is the root of Beth’s lifelong trauma and her relationship with the green pills. The show makes her mother an active, defining specter in her life.

• In the Novel: Alice’s death is handled much more quickly. There is little indication of suicide, and most importantly, Beth was not in the car. The book focuses Beth’s trauma more squarely on the cold, lonely experience of the orphanage itself, rather than the horrific car crash. This was a massive change that definitely gave the show higher dramatic stakes!

2. The Paris Loss to Borgov (Sober vs. Smashed)

This is perhaps the most significant change to Beth’s character development and addiction narrative.

• In the Miniseries: Beth is distracted and derailed by her Parisian "friend," Cleo (a character who does not exist in the book!). Beth goes on a bender involving drinking and sex and plays the most important game of her life completely hungover and distracted. The loss is clearly framed as being avoidable—a direct consequence of her addiction.

• In the Novel: Beth is sober and prepared for the match against Borgov. She loses because, quite simply, Borgov is the better player at that point in her career. The loss in spite of her best efforts is what triggers her subsequent downward spiral and isolation—not the other way around. This difference makes the novel's depiction of her eventual success feel even more hard-earned.

3. Jolene’s Return and Role

I absolutely loved the character of Jolene in the miniseries—she truly felt like Beth's guardian angel.

• In the Miniseries: Jolene returns dramatically, randomly showing up at Beth's home just when Beth is at her lowest point and needs her most. She provides the cash for the Moscow trip, acts as her moral support, and kicks her into sobriety.

• In the Novel: Jolene’s return is less coincidental. Beth actually reaches out to her for help when she hits her emotional bottom! Instead of just giving a pep talk, Jolene uses her physical education scholarship knowledge to put Beth through an intense workout regimen to help her detox and get mentally prepared for Moscow. Beth takes control of her recovery by actively seeking help, which I thought was a fantastic nuance.

4. Where Was Townes?

The beautiful reporter Townes plays a significant role in Beth’s life, both as her first crush and as a source of emotional complication.

• In the Miniseries: Townes reappears in Moscow as a U.S. reporter, giving him and Beth a beautiful moment of emotional resolution and support right before her final match.

• In the Novel: Townes is merely an early crush and never reappears after the first few tournaments. The relationship is left unresolved and fleeting, emphasizing Beth's solitary nature on her journey.

My Final Thoughts: Which is Better?

They are both fantastic, but for different reasons!

Tevis' novel is a sharper, more focused character study where Beth's triumphs feel isolated and internal. The miniseries is a broader, warmer adaptation that added emotional depth and provided the beloved found-family support system (like Benny, Beltik, and the return of Townes) that made the story feel cinematic.

The miniseries is a masterpiece of adaptation because it took a great book and added visual flair and emotional layers that served the medium perfectly. It also gave us the magnificent final scene in Moscow with the old men in the park, which in the book was actually an earlier, separate scene!

I am giving the adaptation of The Queen's Gambit a rating of 5 stars out of 5 stars!

Until my next post, happy reading!!

Raven Used Books in Northampton, MA

 

Here's another indie bookstore, which sounds like a fabulous one!! Raven Used Books in Northampton, MA is a place I'd like to shop for books. 

Check out the above video I found on YouTube about Raven Used Books in Northampton, MA.

Pablo Neruda - If You Forget Me

 

I don't read a lot of poetry usually. Every so often, I will read or listen to a poetry reading. 

I recently listened to this reading of Pablo Neruda's 'If You Forget Me'.

I hope you enjoy it! 

Bookish Quote of the Day!!!