There goes August in all its..er…Autumnal glory. Someone said to me on the first of September that it was meteorologically the start of Autumn, and I replied that was wrong because it had started three months ago.

And I get how bad other countries have had it weather wise. But if I was in charge of tourist Ireland I would be pushing our mild climate to tourists:

Come to Ireland, where it’s always Autumn. Don’t worry if the sun’s out - things will turn to shit again before long.

We talk too much about the weather. As I am too. Onwards

Books

A cracking month for reading, if I do say so. A couple of fine Irish thrillers, both riding high in the book charts, in the shape of Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent and the startling debut Kala by Colin Walsh. ‘The Power of Geography’ by Tim Marshall was a fascinating and very readable follow up to the best selling ‘Prisoners of Geography’. Keeping with Non-Fiction and ‘Ootlin’ by Jenni Fagan was lyrical and moving debut, a devastating read that’s sure to feature on the best of lists come the end of the year. I now understand the hype behind ‘Yellowface’ by Rebecca F. Kuang, a thriller looking at cultural appropriation, greed and racial discrimination in the world of publishing. ‘The wren, the wren’ was a beautifully written work, as you’d expect, about family, trauma, love and hope from the pen of Anne Enright, surely one of Ireland’s finest living novelists.

‘The untethered soul’ was a re-read for me, though this time on audiobook. The picture at the start of the blog is where I mostly listened to this bestselling work by Michael A.Singer, and it was as fresh and accessible to me as it was first time around. I very much enjoyed my coffee and dawn sunshine listening to it. Such an accessible book on awareness and inner freedom.

A special word for ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ by Amor Towles, which hit all the right notes for me, and joins my elite list of favourite books of all time. Yeah, I enjoyed it that much, and I’m sad that I had to finish it and I miss the company of the Count and the rest of the characters. Wonderfully written and set in a fascinating period of time, utterly charming and moving.

Films

I really wanted to go and see ‘Oppenheimer’ in the cinema but haven’t made it yet. One reason is that I’m a tinnitus sufferer, and when it’s particularly bad the volume in the cinema can be hard to bear. I live close to the cinema and each night I’m going to bed I hear a terrific boom. I wonder what that could be.

So it’s been catching up on a few films. One of the stand outs was ‘Togo’ which features dogs and Willem Defoe. That should be enough.

‘The deepest breath’ on Netflix was a really compelling documentary about a free driver training to break a world record. It’s such a dangerous pastime, and the competitors are so driven. Heartbreaking as well if Togo wasn’t enough for you.

Another catch up was ‘Shadowlands’ by Richard Attenborough, starring Anthony Hopkins and Debrah Winger, about Belfast’s own CS Lewis. Not sure how I missed this the first time around, perhaps I thought a film about dusty academics in Oxford was a bit slow back then, and it is, but the acting and the dialogue more than make up for it. The ending had me in bits.

Being ‘in bits’ was definitely a trend in my film viewings this month.

‘The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal.’

Television

I stated so many things on TV and quit them half an hour in. So much dross out there, and shows that are padded out unnecessarily. Just tell the story, and don’t take 22 episodes to do it. If something hasn’t grabbed me in the first episode, I tend to forget about it fairly quickly.

But I did really enjoy ‘A little light’ which is about Miep Gies, who along with her husband Jan, hid the Frank family in Amsterdam during the nazi occupation. Such a performance from Bel Powley as Miep, and Liev Schreiber as Otto Frank reminding us he’s such a great actor. Really got into this - superbly recreated, obviously moving and great chemistry between the actors. Definitely worthy of your time.

So that’s it for August. And farewell Robbie Robertson.

To offset all the sad movies and TV I watched this month, I’ve been listening to this a bit. The voice, the trumpet at the end. Until next month.