UK Blackwell's Bookstores Up for Sale, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret Movie, Tom Ellis in Washington Black series, A Special Place for Women by Laura Hankin, Nives by Sacha Naspini, and Believe Me, A memoir of love, death and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard

Welcome to February, the month of love! Actually yesterday was my son's original due date, had he not decided to make his appearance in late November, 22 years go. So I always think of February 5 as a special day of "what if," though Nick is fine just as he is, and grew up to be a strong, smart and handsome young man whom I'm very proud to call son. At Any rate, I've been binge-watching and reading up a storm, so lets get to it.

I bought a book on Amazon recently that was actually put up for sale by Blackwell's in Oxford, and much to my delight, it came with a historic information bookmark and a cheery greeting from the good British folk of England, a place I have always wanted to visit. Now it turns out that the iconic stores are up for sale. Now more than ever I wish that I could win the lottery and buy these wonderful bookstores, where I wouldn't change a thing. My neighbors, BTW, have the surname of Blackwell, and they're lovely people. 

U.K. Bookseller Blackwell's Put Up for Sale

U.K. bookstore chain Blackwell's https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz51073926, which has been owned by its founding family since the first store opened in Oxford in 1879, has been put up for sale "for the first time in its 143-year history after scrapping plans to hand ownership of the business to its employees," Sky News reported. The company has appointed corporate financiers to oversee a sale process.

Sources said discussions with prospective buyers had been underway for some time, and that a deal was possible in the coming months.

Blackwell's operates 18 stores--as well as online--including its flagship bookshop in Oxford, where the company is based, and also trades under the name Heffers at a store in Cambridge, as well as in London and Edinburgh.

"The sale of Blackwell's represents a genuinely unique and exciting opportunity for any potential buyer to own a much loved and trusted bookselling brand," said David Prescott, Blackwell's CEO. "The business has been quietly and successfully transitioning itself in recent years to establish a substantial global online presence alongside a core portfolio of iconic shops. We hope that a new owner and investment will help us to secure a long term future for Blackwell's and its booksellers for many years to come."

Blackwell's "explored a refinancing process last year that would have seen it converted into a structure owned by its roughly 350 staff, but concluded that it was impractical owing to the impact of the pandemic," Sky News wrote.

Toby Blackwell, the controlling shareholder and company president, said he "would have loved to have handed over the company to its staff, but I also accept that in order to grow and remain competitive in the future, it is time for new ownership, ideas and investment. I have always stood for innovation and transformation in the constantly changing world of bookselling. I am delighted to have supported, and now see, Blackwell's become a significant player in online bookselling and to have helped keep alive the concepts of service and expertise so well embodied by our chairman and board and our wonderful staff."

 I remember reading this book as a young teenager, and being shocked that there was actual masturbation described therein, at a time when female masturbation was almost never discussed in any form of media. So I look forward to seeing this film, and what they plan on doing with the iconic Margaret.

Movies: Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

Lionsgate's film adaptation of Judy Blume's classic Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz51073981 has been scheduled for a September 16 release, Deadline reported. Kelly Fremon Craig is directing her script, with Gracie Films' James L. Brooks producing. The two teamed up on The Edge of Seventeen. The movie stars Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, Abby Ryder Fortson (as Margaret), and Benny Safdie.

I adore Tom Ellis, particularly during his 5 season stint as the Devil himself in Lucifer. I'm also a fan of Sterling K Brown in This is Us, so I look forward to seeing what these two dashing gentlemen come up with.

TV: Washington Black

Tom Ellis (Lucifer) will be a series regular in Washington Black https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz51076842, the Sterling K. Brown-fronted adaptation of Esi Edugyan's novel, which received a straight-to-series order at Hulu, Deadline reported. Selwyn Seyfu Hinds (Twilight Zone) is adapting the limited series for 20th Television. Ellis, who will play Christopher "Titch" Wilde, joins Ernest Kingsley Jr., who stars in the title role, along with Iola Evans, Edward Bluemel, Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Brown.

Washington Black is executive produced by Hinds, who also serves as showrunner, along with Brown under his Indian Meadows Productions banner, series writer Jennifer Johnson, and The Gotham Group's Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jeremy Bell, Lindsay Williams and DJ Goldberg. Series directors Wanuri Kahiu and Mo Marable also serve as executive producers, along with Anthony Hemingway. Esi Edugyan is co-producer.

 

A Special Place For Women by Laura Hankin was a book I bought for two reasons. First, because it was supposedly about feminism and a group of women supporting other women, and secondly because the authors last name is the same as my great Aunt Frieda Hankin, and I wondered if we might be related. Still, I always love books with strong, intelligent female protagonists, and all the better if they happen to be journalists. Unfortunately, the female protagonist in this novel, Jillian, has feet of clay, and is only interested in furthering her career at the expense of others, and in getting into the pants of her hot boss, a married editor, which is always a bad idea. Jillian is, frankly, a terrible person, an insecure and stupid young woman who literally burns down the place she's supposed to be investigating and causes irreparable harm to any number of people, including the one guy who has stuck by her side since childhood. Here's the blurb: It’s a club like no other. Only the most important women receive an invitation. But one daring young reporter is about to infiltrate this female-run secret society, whose bewitching members are caught up in a dark and treacherous business. From the author of Happy and You Know It.

For years, rumors have swirled about an exclusive, women-only social club where the elite tastemakers of NYC meet. People in the know whisper all sorts of claims: Membership dues cost $1,000 a month. Last time Rihanna was in town, she stopped by and got her aura read. The women even handpicked the city's first female mayor. But no one knows for sure. 

That is, until journalist Jillian Beckley decides she's going to break into the club. With her career in freefall, Jillian needs a juicy scoop, and she has a personal interest in bringing these women down. But the deeper she gets into this new world—where billionaire "girlbosses" mingle with occult-obsessed Bohemians—the more Jillian learns that bad things happen to those who dare to question the club's motives or giggle at its outlandish rituals.  

The select group of women who populate the club may be far more powerful than she ever imagined. And far more dangerous too. 

So deplorable Jillian mocks and debases everything these women are trying to do to help uplift one another and make inroads for women in society (and break the glass ceiling) while claiming she's getting "revenge" for a failed political attempt by a young female candidate (Nicole), only to learn that this candidate left because of the potentially corrupting nature of power, rather than anything to do with the women's club or it's members. Jillian also realizes late in the novel what every reader has known all along, that her editor, manipulative Miles, has only been using her to bolster his own career, and had no real intention of helping her at all. The fact that she screws up everything she touches, and faces little or no consequences for doing so, really irritated me. I mean she lied, cheated, steals from and commits arson to this group of women, and they thank her for it? Really? By the end of the book I was hoping that her friend/lover Raf, whom she treated like crap, would have dropped her sorry ass and that she'd be doing a nice long stint in prison. So while the prose was nicely done and the plot fairly straightforward, I was not at all happy with this novel, and I'd give it a B-, and that's being generous. I would only recommend it to those who like rather dim female protagonists.

Nives by Sacha Naspini is a short novel about an Italian farm woman who is mourning the loss of her husband and reflecting on her life, when she decides to call the local veterinarian when her pet chicken becomes hypnotized by a Tide commercial on TV. Here's the blurb:

One of the most exciting new voices in Italian literature brings to life a hauntingly beautiful story of undying love, loss, and resilience, and a fierce, unforgettable new heroine

Meet Nives: widow, Tuscan through-and-through, survivor. Nives has recently lost her husband of fifty years. She didn’t cry when she found him dead in the pig pen, she didn’t cry at the funeral, but now loneliness has set in. When she decides to bring her favorite chicken inside for company, she is shocked, confused, and a little bit guilty to discover that the chicken’s company is a more than adequate replacement for her dead husband.

But one day, Giacomina goes stiff in front of the tv. Unable to rouse the paralyzed chicken, Nives has no choice but to call the town veterinarian, Loriano Bottai, an old acquaintance of hers. What follows is a phone call that seems to last a lifetime, a phone call that becomes a novel. Their conversation veers from the chicken to the past—to the life they once shared, the secrets they never had the courage to reveal, wounds that never healed.

Nives reverberates with the kinds of stories we tell ourselves at night when we cannot sleep: stories of love lost, of abandonment, of silent and heart-breaking nostalgia, of joy, laughter, and despair. With delicate yet sharp prose and raw, astonishing honesty, Sacha Naspini bravely explores the core of our shared humanity.

While it's rare to find a book with a female protagonist over the age of 50, this novel doesn't flinch when providing a view inside of an older woman's life that is full of regret and bitterness at what might have been. As Nives (a name that is pretty much on point for the character, who slices everyone around her to ribbons with her sharp tongue) peels back the layers of her past while on the phone with Bottai, we learn that her anger and disappointment in her life can all be traced back to her youth, when she and her female friends all had affairs with a local gigolo and when Nives began an affair with Bottai, and became pregnant at the same time his wife became pregnant. Nives reveals that her daughter is actually their daughter, but now that she's grown and has children of her own, she counsels Bottai to not tell their daughter the truth of her parentage. After excizing the blister of her past, Nives realizes that she's actually had a good life, and decides to enjoy what she has left of it on her farm. Though the ending is abrupt, it's decisive and not out of order for the character. I found the prose to be well translated and the plot, which was mostly dialog, moved rapidly along. I'd give this bittersweet book a B, and recommend it to fans of Italian literature in general.

Believe Me, A memoir of love, death and Jazz chickens by Eddie Izzard is this months library book group book, which took me well over a month of slow page by page reading to finish. My dear friend Jenny Z is a huge fan of Izzard, who is known as an actor and stand up comedian. Hence I was looking forward to this book as being funny and insightful, but I was disappointed right from the start by the redundant prose and long, boring ego trips the author declaims in nearly every paragraph. Izzard is like one of those "rubbish" children who are always doing something stupid to try and get attention at all costs, because their egos are so fragile they need constant applause for every lame attempt at art or performance. This got annoying and boring after the first chapter. So getting through the book was quite a slog. Here's the blurb: “Izzard is one of the funniest people alive, a talented actor, a sharp cross-dresser, an experienced marathon runner, and a great writer. You will have to read this if only to find out what a jazz chicken is.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

With his brand of keenly intelligent humor that ranges from world history to historical politics, sexual politics, mad ancient kings, and chickens with guns, Eddie Izzard has built an extraordinary fan base that transcends age, gender, and race. Writing with the same candor and insight evident in his comedy, he reflects on a childhood marked by the loss of his mother, boarding school, and alternative sexuality, as well as a life in comedy, film, politics, running and philanthropy.

Honest and generous, Believe Me is an inspired account of a very singular life thus far.

I completely disagree with the above blurb, as I found very little interesting or extraordinary about Izzards life or comedic talent (or lack thereof. I tried watching two of his recorded stand up specials and I couldn't get past the first 15 minutes because he just wasn't funny, at least to me.) He babbles on about being a transvestite and later transgender person, then whines about doing marathons for charity, and then complains even more about how hard it was for him to become a comedian after being a street performer for 10 years. He covered the same ground over and over, ad nauseum, about learning comic timing or bits or jokes, hanging out with people with actual talent, and then going back to his pathetic past endeavors. YAWN. Where the heck was his editor? This book should literally have been half the size that it was, because it turns out that there wasn't much to say about Izzard or his life that couldn't be covered in about 140 pages. Hence I'd give this wittering and dull effort at a memoir a C-, and I would only recommend it to die hard fans of Izzards bizarre brand of comedy.