Out of episodes? We’ve matched up reads to small-screen favourites so that you can make that TV feeling last a little bit longer.
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ALU Editor
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For some, summer means days spent on the beach, playing frisbee, or camping in the great outdoors. For others, it means days spent camped inside, where air conditioning will take them straight into autumn. With one foot in each “camp,” we bring you the happy medium: books as exciting as your favourite TV shows that you can cart to the beach. * * *The Tudors = = = This Marlowe by Michelle Butler Hallett (Goose Lane Editions)If there’s a sultry-pout shaped hole in your life after finishing the Jon Rhys Meyers-led The Tudors, find solace in This Marlowe, its chronological literary follow-up. In Michelle Butler Hallett’s historical thriller, two rival schemers close to Queen Elizabeth (I, obviously) plot to control who the throne will go to next. Key to both of their plans is Christopher Marlowe, an accomplished poet and playwright forced back into the spying life.Bojack Horseman = = = Blind Spot by Laurence Miall (NeWest Press)Will Arnett’s titular disaffected horse finds his double in Laurence Miall’s protagonist, Luke. Unlike Bojack, Luke is not a horse, but like him, he is an unfulfilled actor fully dissatisfied with the way his life has gone. True fans of Bojack Horseman know how tragic this tragicomedy can get, and Blind Spot is no exception: Luke gives you no reasons to root for him, but you can’t help but feel for his disappointment, all the same.
Arrested Development = = = The Best Brothers by Daniel MacIvor (Playwrights Canada Press)Award-winning playwright Daniel MacIvor’s The Best Brothers is the logical follow-up to equally award-winning comedy Arrested Development, with themes of sibling rivalry at its boiling point and a cutting sense of humour throughout. Like frequently-fighting GOB and Michael Bluth, MacIvor’s Kyle and Hamilton are forced together after the untimely death of their mother, Bunny.Gilmore Girls = = = Roost by Ali Bryan (Freehand Books)While there are thematic differences between the Gilmore mother-daughter duo and recently single mother of two Claudia, Bryan’s novel hits all of the hilarious notes of this beloved TV series. Read Roost in anticipation of the new episodes, premiering in November on – you guessed it – Netflix.Portlandia = = = Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock (Gaspereau Press)If Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s wacky Portland isn’t modelled off of Stephen Leacock’s equally wacky Mariposa, then we don’t know what it is from. Read this classic that launched one thousand small-town examiniations, and in a beautiful editions that “pays homage to the original format and typography of John Lane’s The Bodley Head edition of 1912” – which totally sounds like something a Portlandia character would say.* * *We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the other time we matched books to Netflix picks (we watch a lot of TV, OK? Quit judging, judgies).
