Books and TV, Redux

I've gotten less sleep this week, but I managed to finish reading North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell last night. Here's the review I posted on Shelfari:

After watching the BBC miniseries based on this book, I wanted to see how the story was written. As much as I loved the series, I felt that it was a bit rushed. I was right. What was lacking in some of the development of the characters in the TV production was fully fleshed out in the novel. Margaret Hale was more haughty and yet still likable. Mr. Thornton was more vulnerable, if that's possible. Mrs. Thornton was much more sympathetic. The BBC production was very faithful to the book until the very end. They are similar in terms of the ultimate ending, but the locations are different. I'm OK with both endings. What I found challenging was navigating and interpreting the working class English of Nicholas Higgins and his daughters. It took until about halfway through the book for me to feel that I had a good grasp of the entirety of what they were saying. I got the gist enough and having seen the miniseries first helped me to know what was going on. If you like old classics, you may enjoy this book. I did, thoroughly.

I admit to tears at the very end. I am a romantic sap.

I also finished listening to the very short, abridged audio version of Sylvester by Georgette Heyer and narrated by Richard Armitage. He is an excellent narrator who acts the characters instead of merely reading them. I enjoyed listening to it so much that I started Venetia, which is just as fun a listen. And these abridged versions seem to be better than most - there are times when you can tell that there was some heavy editing/paring, but the general story still works.

In TV news, I bought a second Roku unit. The one we got last year got moved to the TV in my office in the basement when we got the new HD TV for the living room. That TV is internet enabled, so we can stream Neflix, Amazon Instant, etc. directly from the TV. However, lately there were times when I was doing things in our bedroom and wishing that I could watch something from Netflix, but couldn't. I had a little money in my PayPal account, so I splurged on the new Roku. It's already paid for itself in the laundry that's been folded and put away in the past couple of weeks! And I've managed to catch up on some stuff that I've wanted to watch for a while.

For instance, I'm watching MI-5, which I started to watch years ago and never got back to. I'm currently in season 8 and it's annoying me. There's a CIA woman who is clearly not being played by a real American if her terrible accent is anything to judge by. She's close, but so not close that it grates on my ears. Add to it that I haven't trusted her character to be honest, which turns out to be the truth, and it's doubly aggravating.

I'm also watching BBC's Robin Hood which is super campy in a Xena sort of way. I never watched Xena because it was campy. So it's a struggle to continue. But I will.