#amending-death

Sorry for taking so long to reply to such a lovely question!

My two absolute favorite rose tea blends are both quite pricey, and as I work through my tins of them I am debating with myself about which I'll repurchase:

Tay Tea's Persian Rose - black tea blended with rose petals, borage, and green cardamom

Fortnum & Mason's Rose Pouchong - simply rose petals and black tea

For lower caffeine, I'd recommend Tea Fiori's White Tea with Rose if you can find it; Mina's Moroccan Rose White Tea; and August Uncommon's Dolomite (almond jasmine green tea). Dolomite is not primarily a rose tea but it has a wonderful subtle rose note.

I am currently out of Tea Heaven's Rose Cardamom Black Tea, but it's a lovely solid choice; they also have a rose vanilla I'd like to try.

The now defunct Tea Head's Raspberry Rose Oolong is my favorite of favorites for iced tea, and once I work my way through my stock of it I will be in the market for a good replacement.

Ooh, I’ll do favorites, with an aside that, while I absolutely loved Ralph Fiennes as Basil Brown, I am grumpy about the very beautifully filmed “The Dig.” I thought it was clumsy and sentimental in places where the book was subtle and understated.

Book to film:

Atonement (yes, I know there were changes, but the film is so gorgeous, and it’s hard for me to imagine how the casting could be bettered.

The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje reportedly replied to an indignant friend that the film had done nothing to his book; that they were two separate entities. True. Also, the chemistry of all these actors with each other. Also the unbelievably beautiful cinematography. Also the unbelievably beautiful actors.)

Random Harvest (author James Hilton did the voiceover for the opening of the film, charmingly, and the film itself is, imho, pitch-perfect in its evocation of an idyll snatched despite history, and in its emotionally authentic melodrama.)

Rebecca, 1940 (the secret to getting your sexy, sexy Gothic novel adapted and past the censors is Alfred Hitchcock. Still mad about the 2020 version; that can be a bonus round for the least favorite.)

Book to TV:

Brideshead Revisited, 1982 (the secret to getting your angsty, angsty Catholic novel adapted and past the censors is Jeremy Irons’ obscenely beautiful baritone, apparently. I love this so much. Bonus least-favorite to the 2008 “adaptation” which squandered a brilliant and beautiful cast with a bad script. I’m still mad about that too.)

Pride and Prejudice, 1995 (the cast, the score, the natural light, the interiors, the fabrics, the delightful indulgence of it all. Yes I do have a rant about the ‘05 version, but I’ll spare you.

It makes me so happy that you thought of me! <3 I'm going to tag @eatingmuffinsinanagitatedmanner, who is also on a lilac perfume journey.

The only one of these I've tried is the Caswell-Massey Lilac, which is quite lovely and was actually my most frequently worn perfume for several years. I haven't worn it for a while as I've been really into the new experience of perfume oils, but I still have something like a quarter of a large bottle waiting for me when I'm ready to come back to it.

Hello, kind inquirer/fellow appreciator of Ciarán Hinds’ face!

As for my detection obsession...! I’ll avoid giving you a life history here, but it all started with Sherlock Holmes. When I was about six years old, I had a book of lavishly illustrated Sherlock Holmes stories adapted for children. These were, in addition to a précis of the “Study in Scarlet” intro: The Speckled Band, still terrifying; The Naval Treaty, still a favorite; The Red-Headed League, A Case of Identity, The Blue Carbuncle, and The Final Problem. I still remember weeping inconsolably when we (for these were read aloud by my father) got to “The Final Problem.” This may, in fact, have been the origin story of my being allowed to watch Granada Holmes, for reassurance purposes.

https://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/blog/

3 and 24 already answered!

16. What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

I am so sorry everyone, but it would have to be Gideon the Ninth. 

This is such a great prompt! 

But also really hard, which is why this has been languishing in my inbox for so long. Reflecting, I think epistolary in film is very hard to pull off at all - I was thinking about how I’ve seen five different film adaptations of Dangerous Liaisons, and they all, to a one, basically do away with the epistolarity. 

This is the best I could come up with, for a pretty generous definition of epistolarity:

The Piano (1993), dir. Jane Campion

The Favourite (2018), dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

The Earrings of Madame de... (1953), dir. Max Ophuls

The Pillow Book (1996), dir. Peter Greenaway

Letter Never Sent (1959), dir. Mikhail Kolatozov

Le Corbeau (1943), dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot

The Story of Adele H (1975), dir. Francois Truffaut

Personal Shopper (2016), dir. Olivier Assayas

weirdly, The Vanishing (1988), dir. George Sluizer has quite prominent epistolarity, though I’m not sure I can recommend it.