I have to admit that I started listening to the audiobook of this read by the most excellent Rosario Dawson, but it just didn’t grab me at all. I wasn’t hugely keen on the character and couldn’t quite picture the scenes. I wanted to give it another go, though, and dived into the ebook instead. I’m glad I stuck with it because it was an entertaining read. It was always going to be difficult for Andy to follow up the incredible success of The Martian, but this was a great effort.

I was expecting this to be one of those buddy comedies that you have to switch your brain off to get through. There were certainly elements of that rubbish stuff in there, overly sexualised and mildly offensive in places, and I don’t think it’s aged particularly well. There was also more to it than just dick jokes, though. I wasn’t expecting the development of both sets of relationships in the way they happened, and how things completely turned on their head by the end.

Norah has a beautiful voice but this album is the epitome of easy listening. Smooth, calm, relaxing, there’s nothing to complain about other than it may go on just a tiny bit long. I really like Don’t Know Why, so it’s a good opener to the album, but the rest of it gets a bit lost in niceness.

What an album this is. Obviously it means more having watched the revelatory and intensely moving documentary that goes along with it, but oof, it’s so good. A handful of the songs stand out when you’re not listening to the album but when you’re in it, it’s all good. My only complaint is House of a Thousand Guitars which doesn’t scan, and mildly irritates me every time I hear it.

I wasn’t too sure about this one. It’s one of those little gift-style books that is more than just words. It’s quotes, it’s pictures, it’s ideas, and it’s well put together. I just wasn’t sure it really told me anything, and I’m afraid I wasn’t a big fan of the illustrations.

There’s a lot not to like about this film too. To start with, it doesn’t really honour the canon of Sherlock Holmes and that’s before you even take into account that he doesn’t need to be in the film. Mention him if you must but why is he there? She could have done everything she did without his input. And it’s just a smack in the face for him to be all smug at the end having figured it all out anyway.

I don’t normally care for nature programmes. I mean, let’s be clear, I think they’re incredible. The time, effort and production values always blow me away and whenever I see an episode of a nature show, I’m usually entranced. But they don’t really grab me and I don’t seek them out. However, I couldn’t really ignore the enticing idea of Paul Rudd narrating a half hour show that focuses in on the smaller elements of this planet of ours - the new Apple TV nature show Tiny World.

I make no apologies for choosing to watch this clearly bad film, even the trailer made it look like a trashy piece of teen entertainment. That’s exactly what it was but here’s the thing: Amanda Bynes is really good and I love watching her running around getting into scrapes!

This is such a gorgeous but sad book. Telling the story of a love affair from both sides - with two men struggling to find themselves, and the strong women beside them who facilitate their path. We start with Ellis who leads a lonely life and you don’t really know why until the back story begins to come out. His remembrances are all about the early days, and how everyone came together but also ended up apart.

Considering the quality of names attached with this, it was awful. Far too much exposition to start with, and then when it finally got going, the horror that was those witches. Inexplicably awful.

I had purchased The Power In You and then realised it was the second book that Henry had written, so I quickly snapped up the first one just to make sure I read them in order. It’s an inspiring story, just the simplicity of making every day and good day and having gratitude for the big little things. There’s a determination in Henry that might not be in everyone, going back to school so quickly after his accident was really impressive. But the ideas of acceptance and gratitude are surely within everyone.

It’s always going to be difficult following the wonder that is Lost in Translation, and it probably didn’t help that we only watched that movie quite recently. Even Sofia Coppola said she left off teaming up with Bill Murray again for fear of not being able to follow in their own footsteps.

I don’t remember why I picked this up, at some point during one of our alcohol-fuelled nights the topic of Greek mythology come up and I realised I knew nothing and probably should know more. So this seemed like a good introduction, and I think it was. It took a minute to get into it because there’s a lot of names and things to remember, and people sleeping with their relatives, and people eating their own children. It’s a bit weird.

This was far too stressful for a rom-com. The lies and pretence, the high stakes of getting caught, and getting that white coat dirty! I love Jennifer Lopez, and I quite like that she can have chemistry with anyone, but I don’t really buy them as a couple which doesn’t help the whole point of the film.

If you start an album with Pure Shores, you’re really raising the bar very high and giving yourself a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, I don’t know that the rest of it stands up, although of course Black Coffee is a good single too, but if I’m honest, I couldn’t pick the rest of it out of a line up.

Really good album, very country of course, but with some proper highlights. I’m Not For Everyone stands out as a meaningful one, Make It A Good One also. However, we can’t ignore the middle of the album where it suddenly goes all twiddly and really, quite annoying. It might have been a 5/5 if not for that.

Just glorious. My knowledge of Springsteen is limited at the moment but growing all the time, and I like what I hear. This documentary is so good - soft and gentle, introspective and thoughtful. It’s about friendship and loss, about connections and re-connections. It’s about the strength of music, of a group, of the power of getting together exceptionally talented people.

This was a freebie given away by Apple Books, I’m not sure I would have picked it up otherwise. It’s a functional rom-com style book but to be honest, it wasn’t my favourite. As always, the promise of heading off to a sunnier climate to get over a heartbreak is a great bit of escapism but I got a bit frustrated by our main character. She was sent over there with a job to do but really didn’t seem to get a lot of work done.

It was laugh out loud funny in a lot of places, but it really felt like watching a couple of sketches put together. The through story wasn’t really fleshed out enough to fully sustain the movie, and it was a short one at that. There’s a good moral in there about not using your phone too much but it did find it hard to strike the balance between telling a story with a moral and really just frowning on the modern world.

The next book I own in the 87th Precinct series and this time we see the return of the Deaf Man, as heralded by the title of the novel. He’s popped up on a couple of previous occasions, and whilst I like the continuity of a nemesis, I’m not sure I care too much for the Deaf Man - his motives don’t really come across and the weird way he toys with the police doesn’t seem to have a point to it.

I liked the format of the story - the highs and lows of a final night on the town for a group of friends, with the flashbacks of a relationship slowly falling apart. Eventually the two strands meet and I was really happy that the end was an affirmation of female strength rather than dropping back into the old familiar.

I was completely convinced that there wouldn’t be a bad Julia Roberts movie, but I was wrong. Couldn’t get past the twenty minute rule on this one, it was awful! She just wasn’t a sympathetic character at all, flipping out about a prophecy that she essentially forced upon herself, ditching her husband for no apparent reason and having a complete meltdown about it, and then jumping in with the young actor starring in the play she wrote so their dialogue was unfathomably pretentious.

Some nice classic Oasis here, this was their debut album. I’ve already consumed (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, and obviously this one doesn’t live quite up to the heights of that. But what I like about this is you can feel all the potential in there. Songs that hit the spot and some that don’t but you just know these guys are gonna hit some heights.

I love Travis but didn’t realise this album was coming out so it was a nice surprise. I really liked listening to it, devoured it straight away and was more than happy to listen twice. The only thing is, it wasn’t that memorable. Looking back from the distance of a few days, I can’t remember what any of these songs were.

This was a spur-of-the-moment choice - pick something random off Netflix and see how it unfolds. It was good actually, a slightly crazy idea but at least a relatively original one. The two leads were good and they had great chemistry together, and there were moments that really made me laugh - the Tiffany song in the car was brilliant.

Every now and then I dip into the world of Zombies Run even though I’m not much of a runner these days. I forgot I had bought this book a while back, and actually reading it now was really uncomfortable! It’s brilliantly written and gets you right into the world they are portraying. But some of the hopeful notes and “being healthy is all you can do right now” messages were surprisingly on point.

Once the assistants met and started bantering with each other, things really picked up. Zoey and Glenn are adorable apart and together, and as I mentioned Pete Davidson stole every scene he was in. The bosses were caricatures really but you get to know a bit more about their motivations as the film unfolds and it’s interesting how the relationships change and evolve.

I really didn’t know anything about this book other than that it had been made into a film that I haven’t actually seen yet. I didn’t realise it was about vampires! But it’s a really interesting read, isolating the protagonist as seemingly the last human left without the vampire virus.

We were looking for something really trashy to watch and thought this upside down take on Big might be the one. However, I wasn’t expecting it to actually be very good! I think our low expectations made it seem better than it actually was, but still, it stood up! The premise of the magical janitor was a bit rubbish, but I think the writers were like we can’t beat Zoltar so let’s just get it over with.

I’ve seen this before a long, long time ago, to the point where I couldn’t really remember anything about it except Yul Brynner was in it. So it was almost new to me, and a lot of fun. It’s a good Western in that it’s not too slow paced, and the action is great but not too bloody. The mission is good, and the rag-tag collection of gunmen make for an interesting group.

It’s such an incredible film. There’s obviously the outlaw on the run side of it, but more than that, it’s about these women and how their friendship sees them through everything life throws at them, whilst they’re also changing and growing and learning how to rub alongside each other even though they’ve changed. I also hadn’t appreciated the Harvey Keitel character who actually seems to understand these women - which is not something you see on screen very often.

The latest iPhone software update introduced the concept of widgets - an ability for apps to take up a bit more space on the home screen and display more useful information than just a link to the individual app. The software was rolled out quickly and at the expense of time for developers to do what they do best, so it’s taking a while for apps to be updated, but the few that I’ve seen so far have been really good.

Love this album. I actually knew a lot more of it than I’d expected (went into it thinking I Try would be the only piece I recognised) and I really loved the whole thing. It felt like what I wanted the Billie Holiday album to be - an incredible and unique voice but, thankfully, overlaid not over jazz but general pop tunes.

Well, this wasn’t my favourite of Bon Jovi’s work. Some of the songs were okay, and it was listenable, but it really feels like they’re trying too hard. It’s clear that Jon and friends have some things to say and they’re not afraid to get political, but the effort in trying to get a point across overshadows the actual music. The lyrics are, well: ‘I’ll keep my social distance but I’d like to give the world a hug’. Oof.

This was another fun entry in the 87th Precinct series, with a crime that initially seems solved but has a bigger story behind it. Only the hero, Steve Carella, is convinced that there’s more to the crime than first appears and he has to convince those around him to help him out. Meanwhile, the love lives of various detectives is also interwoven in the story, which is impressive because it’s not a particularly long book.

This is a really good documentary, that tells the story of the cafe from its humble beginnings to being more famous than its capacity can handle, through the journey of new and aspiring songwriters alongside those who have been around for a while. It threw up some really interesting arguments too - people were saying that it’s not about the building, it’s about the songs, but others arguing that you can’t just move the under-threat building to a new location as you’ll be overwriting history. Would a Bluebird Cafe somewhere else in Nashville have the same impact?

Picked this up when I saw that Lauren Mayberry from CHVRCHES had tweeted about it and the concept seemed interesting. It took me a little while to get into it but once I did, I really liked it. The first few chapters aren’t as interesting as the rest, I think. They’re a general overview of fandom which included why people sit outside venues waiting and what it means to be in a fan club.

What a lovely book this is. Simon Barnes takes 23 examples of ways you can get in touch with nature as simply as possible - whether that is just taking the time to sit outside and soak it in, or learn a couple of bird songs, or invest in some good binoculars - there’s something in there that everyone can try.

It’s a good mystery at the heart, with a few twists and turns along the way. I wasn’t so bothered by the astrological stuff, rolling my eyes occasionally just as Strike himself did. But I liked the case very gradually revealing itself over the course of the year. And it was interesting to see the new dynamic in the agency itself as Robin adjusts to a management role as well as the normal investigative work.

With the world imploding, I’m occasionally in the mood for a soft and squishy rom-com style book, and this seemed to fit the bill. Rosie’s husband leaves her with some pretty dire warnings about how her orderliness will keep her single and unhappy for the significant future. So she upends her entire life, buys a van, leaves London and hits the road, dispensing tea and cakes at various festivals. Along the way she finds friends and love, and a little bit of happiness.

I liked this a considerable amount more than My Best Friend’s Wedding. Firstly, it was clear from the beginning that the pair would make a great couple and had a lot of chemistry. Then, he didn’t do anything outrageously horrible to try and break up the wedding - sure he dropped hints and played the game a bit, but he didn’t get anyone fired from the job they absolutely loved.

All the reviews seem to dislike this one and much prefer the first, but I feel the exact opposite. It was so much better when the pair got on right from the start. Well, perhaps got on isn’t the right saying, but they at least had a grudging respect for each other.

It’s a worthy sequel to the first movie but it’s not exactly what I would say a success. It’s fun, the comedy is a bit more obvious and the scares a bit more toned down, so it’s an easier ride. The child is the most unbelievable kid character I’ve ever seen - he was barely scared by anything, far too clever for his own good, and never got dirty even when running through a desert or a jungle.

Here’s the annoying thing: I may have read this before, I don’t remember, but I read it now because we watched the film adaptation. And although in 9 times out of 10 the book is always better than the movie, in this instance I’m not so sure. If I’d read this before watching it, it’d probably have been a straight up 5 out of 5, John Grisham writes law adventures exceedingly well, of course.

I only really started to like this film once the mis-matched pair started to get along, so that was probably the last 15 minutes of the film. Up until then, Nick Nolte’s character was just plain awful - grumpy, racist, rude, aggressive - all for no apparent reason and despite the fact that it wasn’t really getting him anywhere.

I remember really liking this when I was younger but I haven’t seen it in ages and it was curious seeing how it stands the test of time. It takes quite a long time to get going, the movie, particularly with the history class at the beginning that turns into the battle sequence that is still a couple of years behind where the actual story starts.

I knew going into this that I’m not really a fan of jazz, but having watched Forever Young which features the wonderful Billie Holiday singing The Very Thought Of You, I thought it was worth a shot. The album was pretty much as I expected - Billie’s absolutely exquisite vocals layered over jazz music. And as anticipated, I didn’t enjoy the jazz but you can’t argue with Billie’s voice.

I was expecting good things from this album, and I wasn’t disappointed. Really catchy songs right from the get-go, some good messages in there but perhaps not quite so righteous as the last album. There isn’t really a weak point throughout the album, until you get to the last two tracks. For some reason, Keith couldn’t decide between the We Were track by himself, and the We Were track featuring Eric Church… so he put them both on the album, one after the other. It’s really weird to have finished a song and then the exact same song starts over again.

I, like many many people, thought that the Ted Lasso series wasn’t going to be anything special. I was vaguely aware of the character, designed for a one-off sketch, and yea, that fish-out-of-water trope can be funny. But to bring the Southern American football coach to the UK to manage a Premier League team seemed ripe for sub-par comedy. I was expecting there to be a lot of jokes at the expense of the British way of life, lots of men bouncing off each other in the locker room, and a bit of a boorish ten episodes.

I’m sure I’ve read this before but couldn’t remember much about it except the sweet shop situation, obviously. It’s actually a neat little book, telling interesting stories from a childhood, rather than your standard run-of-the-mill memoir. I don’t know if it’s aimed at kids or not but it has that simple feeling that children and adults can enjoy equally.