WHAT have you finished reading recently? Fenway 1912, a history of Fenway Park’s first year in action as the Red Sox had a really good year, facing off the New York Giants in a World Series .

WHAT are you reading now? I’m two three hundred pages into Red Metal, a modern military/technical thriller in which Russia ‘s desire for rare-earth minerals begins the first major war in Europe in a generation while Red China threatens to invade Taiwan. An easy ceasefire in Europe is defied by some Zielinski fella. Ah, the wacky plot lines these authors can come up with.

WHAT are you reading next? Black Badge #3, Ace in the Hole, just dropped, so I’ve picked that up and will either read it on Kindle Unlimited or listen to Arthur Morgan read it — or both, as I’ve done with the previous two. (Bascially I listen to the Audible version until I get so interested in the story I need to find out what happens, then switch to KU.) The Black Badge series features an undead outlaw who has been saved from death/hell in return for doing missions for the White Throne, destroying creatures like werewolves, vampires, and lawyers roaming the wild west. It’s an interesting genre — western and dark fantasy. Alternatively, there’s also It’s a Beautiful Day for Baseball, a social history of baseball in the 1960s.

Here, just listen to Roger Clark /Arthur Morgan introducing the series:

Today’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is books we loved that became movies or TV series.

(1) A Series of Unfortunate Events deserves pride of place: it’s one of my favorite movies to watch & rewatch, and it led me to devouring the entire book series in 2009 and then watching the Netflix adaptation years later.

(2) Harry Potter: these books were coming out as I grew up, and the movies were still being released into my early twenties. While I didn’t get into Potterdom until 2007, it quickly became one of my favorite series/fandoms. I’m mildly interested in the series that’s currently being developed: it’s hard to think anyone can hold a candle to actors like Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith.

(3) Foundation, one of those golden-age SF stories (a collection of five stories, rather) that I frequently go back to, became an AppleTV series. I started watching it but couldn’t get into it.

(4) Roswell High (Roswell). You know, for this year’s Blast from the Past I may have to revisit this series like I did California Diaries last year. Roswell High is a SF/teen drama series about several aliens-in-disguise teenagers whose identities are partially exposed after one, Max, saves the life of a girl he loves. I loved this series in middle school and was dismayed when the covers began reflecting random teenagers from some TV show: it had been adapted! Although the WB show was not an especially faithful adaptation of the books, I grew to enjoy it on its merits as something distinct. They still did Alex dirty, though. The same is not true of the more recent Roswell, New Mexico show: I saw one episode of it and decided, “That’s enough of that”.

(5) Joe Pickett. Ooh, I haven’t done a reads-to-reels post for this, I now realize. The Amazon series Joe Pickett adapts several of CJ Box’s Saddlestring game warden stories to the silver screen, and does it in a creative way that accommodates the fact that every single Box book advances the timeline by one year. Plotlines from multiple books are woven in together in way that I thought worked quite well. Casting was…interesting. The sheriff and McClanahan were well chosen, especially McClanahan: his actor plays the swaggering bumpkin to perfection. My high school experience was littered with Skoal-chewing good ol’ boys like him. The biggest casting and characterization error for me was “Nate”: despite being consistently described as a cold Pole with a long blonde ponytail, they basically cast someone for Geronimo (one of Nate’s allies from later in the series) and called him Nate. He doesn’t read like the character at all, especially when he uses Mary-Beth in a hostage crisis to get away from the cops.

(6) The Brave Cowboy. This was turned into a movie called Lonely Are the Brave, and it’s arguably better than the book in some minor ways. This is a story about conscience and the state — and the plight of individuals against armed modernity.

(7) The Martian, Andy Weir. This curious mix of science fiction, survivalism, and absurd humor was one of my favorite books in its release yet, and I enjoyed the movie perfectly.

(8) Saxon Stories / The Last Kingdom. Bernard Cornwell’s Uhtred books have provided some of my favorite reading over the years, bringing Cornwell’s distinctive humor and gift for narration to plots brimming with medieval detail and politics. The series — which I only bothered with the first season of — was distinctly underwhelming in comparison, lacking that strong narrative voice. It probably didn’t help that I’d seen the History Channel’s Vikings before, and before Ragnar died, that show was awesome.

(9) Ready Player One. No movie could ever do justice to RPO, which — if you’re an eighties baby or kid — was a fantastic tribute to the era’s pop culture and tech. I enjoyed the movie well enough, though, especially the Shining allusions.

(10) The Circle. The Dave Eggers book was brilliant satire of our social media age. The movie was…well, it has Emma Watson doing an American accent, so that was fun. The movie’s ending completely missed the point of the book, though.