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Sins & Needles (The Artists Trilogy, #1)
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Sins & Needles was the winner of my "What to Read Next" question so here I go :)

So I've literally just finished it and once again I'm crying. This is definitely one of those where you NEED to have the second book to jump straight back into this trilogy because after that ending, you just need to know that Camden is going to fight for Ellie, that she's not going to give into Javier and that they're eventually going to get their HEA after all this time.

Unfortunately though, I don't own the second book and my to-read shelf is almost 300 books long, but when I get through a few more books I will certainly buy it and get back to these two and their journey back to each other.
  
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Neil Gaiman recommended All That Jazz (1979) in Movies (curated)

 
All That Jazz (1979)
All That Jazz (1979)
1979 | Drama, Musical, Sci-Fi
8.5 (4 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Second film: All That Jazz, Bob Fosse. It’s an incredibly hopeful, uplifting art journey and you know, on the one hand it’s about a man who is killing himself through over-work and who is over-extended and miserable and is going to die of a heart attack, and on the other hand, it’s Bob Fosse’s celebration of the fact that he didn’t die of a heart attack. He came through, and now he’s going to take the events that precipitated him into his heart attack, create a roman à clef around them, and build something magical, which he does. There’s a sort of strange and lovely honesty to it that, the first time I saw it when I was about 15/16 and it was on television, I found arresting, and it’s magic."

Source
  
 The Department of Sensitive Crimes (Detective Varg #1)
The Department of Sensitive Crimes (Detective Varg #1)
Alexander McCall Smith | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, Mystery
6
6.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
*possibly mild spoilers*
This wasn't a bad read, but I got to the end and I felt a bit like well that was a whole lot of nothing.
What I mean is there were a few cases that were solved during the course of the book, but for each one I was like 'was that it?'. There wasn't some big twist, and the way they came to the conclusions were occasionally odd, and abrupt, without a satisfying narrative.

*Nearly* all of the characters are completely unchanged by the end of the book, and the most entertaining journey was potentially the main characters dog 😅

I was looking for a quick easy read in between some heavier books, and this certainly achieved that, but I won't be picking up the rest of the series.
  
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Sjon recommended The Taiga Syndrome in Books (curated)

 
The Taiga Syndrome
The Taiga Syndrome
Cristina Rivera-Garza | 2019 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, Thriller
(0 Ratings)
Book Favorite

"This slim novel is one of the most intriguing works of literature I have come upon in a long while. Part mystery, part metaphysical journey, part fairy tale, part adult love story, it brought me to a state of the most welcome strangeness, similar to the one I sought out as a young reader of books that challenged how we perceive reality and reconstruct it in text. In the narrative’s mysterious, slow burn of a chase, a woman who has left her husband is tracked down in The Taiga, a territory where the laws of nature are as much out of joint as the rules of its isolated human society. In its uneasy atmosphere there are echoes from Tarkovsky's film Stalker as well as from golden age private eye novels."

Source
  
The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
2008 | Action
9
7.4 (9 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Casting (2 more)
Plot
Special effects
No sequel (1 more)
Seemed a little familiar in more ways than one
The First Karate kid
Loosely Based on Chinese mythology, kung fu legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li Co star in this fun adventure loosely based on Chinese mythology.
Full of stunning visual effects and kung fu moves as only they can do, this punch (and kick) adventure places the two in anchient China, when an everyday teen hooked on Goofy but classic kung fu movies is mysteriously thrown back in time where here meets the drunken master (Chan) and a mysterious Monk (Li).
Together the two must train the boy to fight as the chosen protector of the staff of the Monkey King in a journey to return it to its master.

Then they can kill each other (movie joke).
  
Upside Down by Matt Shill
Upside Down by Matt Shill
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Rating
He says his foundation is all rock and soul but we also hear some deep folk roots. Matt Shill is a singer-songwriter from New York, currently based in Miami, Florida. He has a great falsetto, and something about this groove gets me giddy; the 6/8 is so fast you sort of miss it until you are forced to wonder where the snare hits are coming from. It's like an audio version of Where's Waldo, and it's just fun.

This song is a journey through somewhere we've never been. It feels Raphael Saadiq at the same time it feels like Damien Rice; this is modern music at it's best: true synthesis between roots of folk, soul, and rock with a strong voice, good polish, and some elements of surprise.