November Preview

Hi all. We’re into November! It’s hard to believe as October seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, and now we have to contend with the time change. Argh. I’m a supporter of daylight savings time in which we get more light near evening hours. We really miss that up North when that is changed. It gets dark so early bahh. We’re also in a haze after the Blue Jays loss to the Dodgers in Game 7 on Saturday night. We were rooting hard for the Jays and somehow they had the game and then just a smidge later they didn’t. It was one of the most intense (close) series and endings I’ve ever seen. But it slipped away and now we’re left to cry in our soup, lol.

Meanwhile we’re into Nonfiction November now and I know many of you will be participating in reading nonfiction this month. My nonfiction numbers have been dismal this year, so I’m game as well. I have a slew of books that I’ve been meaning to read for a long while, and so here’s my chance. I’ve picked 12 (pictured above). You can see by the top row I have three (nature) bird books as well as three farm books. In the bottom row, I have three history with a bit of art history and the last three are writer’s memoirs. I hope to slip in these reads over the next three months as I still have fiction to get to too. I’m going beyond November! Maybe right into January. Have you read any of these?

And now let’s see what’s releasing in November. In books there’s new fiction by such well-known authors as Salman Rushdie, John Irving, Sarah Hall, William Boyd, and Stewart O’Nan among others. I’m also looking at several more including a shortish novel by British author Benjamin Wood titled Seascraper (due out here Nov. 4).

This novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize and apparently readers were a bit stunned when it didn’t make the shortlist. It’s about a 20-year-old shrimp fisherman who aspires to become a folk singer. His world expands when he meets a film director who pays him to serve as a location scout. But is he all he claims to be? We will have to see.

Next up, is The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (due out Nov. 11), which is also up for the Booker Prize and is on the shortlist. Could this novel win the prize on Nov. 10? It could, though I’m still tentatively picking The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny to win.

Miller’s novel follows neighboring couples in the British countryside who endure a famously frigid winter in 1962. Publishers Weekly says it captures a “stunning portrait of domestic turmoil and post-WWII unease,” while author Tim Pears calls it “a wondrous novel about the interior lives of the occupants of two marriages, set in the intensely realized physical world they inhabit.” So we will see.

Then I’m curious to pick up a copy of Margaret Atwood’s memoir Book of Lives due out Nov. 4. Atwood is a literary giant in Canada and has lived quite the literary life, which is packed into this memoir. Her December author event in the city here sold out in hours. Over the years I’ve read about seven of her novels (so far), including The Handmaid’s Tale and the follow-up The Testaments, which won the Booker Prize in 2019.

Apparently the memoir is filled with dishy tales about her life and others she’s met, and Kirkus Reviews calls it: “engaging, wise, and marvelously witty—illuminating both the craft of writing and the art of living.” So what are we waiting for?

And now in screen releases, there’s some big stuff coming out, woohoo. In TV series, Ken Burns six-part 12-hour documentary on The American Revolution will begin Nov. 16 and air for six consecutive nights on PBS.

I’m geared up for it especially since I recently visited George Washington’s estate at Mount Vernon and will be interested to review how the thirteen colonies broke from England and made a new nation. It will feature a slew of archival materials, including personal accounts read by many well-known actors including Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep among others.

Another historical show that looks good is Death by Lightning (a four-part series on Netflix, Nov. 6) about the U.S. presidency of James Garfield, leading up to his shooting by Charles Guiteau, who had been an admirer of his. It’s based on the book Destiny of the Republic by Candace Millard, which I’ve heard is excellent. I have read and liked Millard’s last nonfiction book River of the Gods from 2022 and would like to get to more of her historical works. This adaptation sounds like quite a story with Michael Shannon playing the president and Matthew Macfadyen (from Succession) playing the assassin.

Then there’s several big films on the horizon, including another Wicked movie (Wicked for Good out Nov. 21) and the WWII historical drama Nuremberg (out Nov. 7) that follows a psychiatrist (played by Rami Malek) who interviews Nazi members after the war to determine whether they’re fit to stand trial and enters a “battle of wits” when he encounters Hitler’s right-hand man Hermann Göring (played by a fat-looking Russell Crowe).

I’m sure it’ll be a bit unsettling. And apparently critic Pete Hammond says: that it’s a film “incredibly relevant for now” and that all world leaders should screen the movie. Hear, hear.

Three other notable upcoming movies include: Die My Love, Train Dreams, and Hamnet. Die My Love (out Nov. 7), based on the 2012 novel by Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz, looks like the return of actress Jennifer Lawrence (where has she been? … having two kids apparently).

It’s about a writer and young mother, who develops postpartum depression and is slowly slipping into madness, which worries her partner (Robert Pattinson) who feels helpless. It looks unsettling. We want to see it too because it was filmed around Calgary and Alberta, which is supposed to be Montana in the story.

The movie Train Dreams (out Nov. 7 and on Netflix Nov. 21) is based on the 2011 novella by Denis Johnson and is about logger Robert Grainier (played by Joel Edgerton) who works to develop the railroad across the U.S., causing him to spend vast times away from his wife (played by Felicity Jones) and daughter, and is struggling with his place in a changing world.

I have not read this novella but now I want to. The film was shot around Washington State where the big trees are. It premiered at Sundance in January and was bought by Netflix, so you can check it out there if you have it.

And then there’s Hamnet (in limited release Nov. 27) based on the 2020 novel by Maggie O’Farrell. It was quite a novel and looks to be a winner of a movie too. It’s about the love and loss that inspired Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Irish actor Paul Mescal (who I remember from Gladiator II) stars as William Shakespeare and Irish actress Jessie Buckley stars as his wife Agnes. You might recall Buckley from the movie Women Talking and as the narrator of the audiobook Long Island by the author Colm Toibin, which was excellent.

I didn’t even know they were making a movie of Hamnet. The Guardian critic says it’s a “poignant adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel with a stirring tearjerker ending.” So get out the Kleenex box.

Lastly in music this month, there’s new albums by Portugal the Man, the Avett Brothers & Mike Patton, Cheap Trick, and Mavis Staples among others. I like the Avett Brothers, but I’ll choose Mavis’s new album Sad and Beautiful World, which is her fourteenth solo studio album and includes reinventions of timeless songs as well as original music too. You can’t beat Mavis, who’s 86-years young. Here’s her cover of the song Beautiful Strangers.

That’s all for now. What new releases are looking forward to this month? Will you be reading nonfiction?