Don Giovanni - film from Glyndebourne

I hadn't realised how much humour this opera contains. Brilliant show, apart from one thing - it's a shame they had to break the atmosphere up with interviews at the beginning of the second half of the film - we went back, all ready and eager to be plunged into the story again - and lo! analysis and explanation . . . I thought these guys were supposed to know about dramatic tension.

Jean-Claude Izzo and food

A book about him and his relationship to Marseilles, its food etc.
Love death and basil - the Marseillais cooking of Jean-Claude Izzo, by Pierpaolo Pracca.


It includes lots of recipes (in Italian) at the end of the book.

Darkover stories - Marion Zimmer Bradley

Thanks to Djibril for recommending these.

La Traviata on TV from Royal Opera House

Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell

I think this is the first of the Wallander series -

The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

An absorbing book - with shades of magical realism in the way Obreht uses myths and stories to illuminate the narrator's  own more down-to-earth approach to life in the Balkans just after the wars of the 1990s.

Another book in which the relationship between grandchild and grandparent is vital.

more to come