I actually did something that felt entirely different in London yesterday and went to see The Mousetrap. I say 'entirely different' because this very much feels like a 'proper' play to me compared to a musical, but I suppose if you're not much of a theater goer then it's all much of a muchness to you. It's the longest running show in London and I've often passed by it near Covent Garden and been curious so I decided to just go for it. It's also my very first interaction with literally anything to do with Agatha Christie as I'm always a bit prejudiced against her work as I associate it so strongly with grandmas in a twee and old fashioned kind of way, but I do love a good crime thriller so I was prepared to be wrong.
Unfortunately I was not wrong and I won't be buying any of her books any time soon, but I still enjoyed it! I didn't look at anything to do with the plot in advance as I really wanted to try and avoid spoilers, I didn't even read the program just in case. So I won't spoil it for you, but just to say that I saw half of the ending coming but not all of it. It does feel like a very old fashioned play to me which I'm not personally a fan of (and why I'm not even interested in old musicals or even revivals of old musicals) There's nothing offensive about it, but for example the humor just doesn't land for me (I'm not into the 'farce' style), the script felt a bit stilted at times, and the plot just relied too heavily on coincidences that just don't feel in any way believable and all of these things stopped me from being able to fully engage with it. But your mileage may vary, and it was certainly one of the most varied audiences I've ever seen in a theater which can only be a good thing.
Of course being in London I had to make use of having so many shops accessible, and of course being me I spent most of it in the book store. I've been spending more time in BookTok/BookTube/Book Reddit lately which has left me with a bit of bookshelf envy. I read a lot, but most of my books are either digital or thrifted and my shelves are a messy hodge-podge as a result. I don't care about most of it, books are made to be read after all, but I've always really admired these recent Hodder editions of Stephen King's works. Stephen King usually has super ugly books so I've never felt bad about having almost his entire bibliography digital only. But then I saw these! Admittedly the two I've bought so far aren't the best examples of this amazing cover art, but look at Misery, 1922, The Body, or The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and tell me these aren't well designed covers. And as an illustrator I love that stuff, and as Stephen King is my favorite author I decided that this is the 'aesthetic' book collection I have to have. I'm really excited to build this! Books are really important to me but not something I've ever allowed myself to spend much on, so this really is something that feels like the ultimate treat. All of the spines are a different solid color too, so when I eventually have the full collection it'll form a rainbow on my shelf.
These were the only two books I could find in this binding (there are so many different editions in the UK it's kind of exhausting) and whilst they're not my favorite designs I'm pretty happy with them being the start of my collection - Four Past Midnight which is a collection of novellas which includes The Langoliers was the first book by King I ever read and The Langoliers was my favorite of that collection and arguably what got me started reading him in the first place. So really I couldn't ask for a better place to start my physical book collection.
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