Technically, the first thing I finished reading was Anton Chekov’s The Seagull for my theatre history class. I’d read both the play and the short story the first time I was in college 100,000 years ago, and didn’t like them then. I decided to give the dang thing a chance again. Still didn’t like it, but I understand it now. Also, the prof mentioned in passing that we should read the play with Hamlet in mind. I did, and wow, that helps. It also explains why I don’t like The Seagull (besides, you know, the symbolism, the suicide, the unlikeable characters). Hamlet is my least favorite Shakespeare play. Reading a later play based on Hamlet does not make me like that story any better. (Sigh.) So yes, I’m not recommending it…
I am still reading a very long, very dense novel that I’m loving, but it blocked my easy reads of lighter fare for most of the month. I read a few other things that aren’t worth recommending and are, in fact, quite forgettable.
So…here’s what I liked in March.
March, 2026
Abramovich, Seth, “The History of Mel Brooks, Part One,” The Hollywood Reporter, January 29, 2026. Full disclosure: I’m not the biggest Mel Brooks fan. His humor is too broad for me. Dean has tried to make me like Blazing Saddles as long as we’ve been together, and I just don’t. I saw it when it was released, I saw it with him when we were first together, and then later, he made me watch it again. The famous fart scene? Not funny to me. This is not my kind of humor. However, I do like some of his films. Young Frankenstein is a personal favorite as is Silent Movie (which no one ever mentions), particularly the scene with Marcel Marceau. I saw The Producers on Broadway because I adore Nathan Lane. We saw the show the very first week, scoring tickets through magic. And while I found it funny, I found it funny the way I usually find Mel Brooks’ material funny: I understood the joke and wished it would make me laugh.
That said, I admire the crap out of Mel Brooks. He’s 99 now, still creating, and still moving forward. This interview is all about risk and reward, about taking chances and about staying true to yo
ur vision. The introduction says this of Brooks’ work:
Across nearly a century, Brooks has repeatedly tested the limits of taste, commerce, politics and patience. He has offended studio executives, television censors, foreign governments and polite society at large, often all at once. He also has reshaped the grammar of American comedy, leaving behind a body of work that includes The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, History of the World, Part 1, High Anxiety and Spaceballs. Several of those films were dismissed or misunderstood on arrival, only to be adored later. Others were instant detonations. All of them bear the same unmistakable fingerprint: an artist who believes that nothing is sacred except the laugh itself.
Read this interview. It’s amazingly wonderful.
Armstrong, Kelley, Watcher in the Woods, Minotaur Books, 2019. This is the fourth Rockton novel and it does not stand alone. It starts shortly after the previous book ends. If I could have read something this dark before bed, I would have finished this book in one of those all-night marathon sessions. As it was, I read it when I could, and finished quickly. The unique setting and strong characters make both for good thrillers and fascinating reading. Start with City of the Lost and have fun.
Carter, Ally, Cross My Heart And Hope To Spy, Little, Brown, 2016 edition of a 2007 book. I love the Gallagher Girl Books. Set in a secret school for girls who are going to grow up to be spies, these books are delightfully adventurous. This time, Carter adds some rather mysterious teenage boys to the mix and a few teachers who might or might not be what they seem. This is my bedtime reading. It doesn’t usually keep me up (although the ending of this one did), but it is memorable and the characters are grand. (Btw, Books2Read malfunctions more than not for me, so you might have to find the book on your own.)
Carter, Ally, Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover, Little, Brown & Company, 2016 edition of a 2009 book. I blew through this book even though it’s my nighttime, don’t-stay-up-late read. Instead of one chapter, I probably read three or four per night, and then hurried through the ending because I just had to know. Carter introduces a Big Ba
d in this book that will factor into future books. (I know this because I’m deep in the next one.) I love the relationships the girls have with each other, and this school sounds like a great deal of fun. Books2Read malfunctioned again for me, so I don’t know if it’s the book or if it’s Books2Read (which seems to have gone downhill), but I was only able to get two links for you. If you prefer to shop elsewhere, you’ll have to look up the book on your own. Believe me, it’s worth the time.
Neville, Stuart, “Juror 8,” Ink and Daggers, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Titan, 2023. I’m still working my way through this volume. It’s heavily noir, which I like mostly, but occasionally the stories have left me cold. Which is why I love this Stuart Neville piece. Yes, noir. Yes, dark. But the voice is marvelous and the characters so dang real. I have several Stuart Neville books on my TBR shelf and I avoid them because he is so dark. But maybe now I’m feeling up to them…
Pirandello, Luigi, Six Characters in Search of an Author, multiple publishers, first published in 1921. Well, I’m remarkably consistent. I loathed The Seagull when I read it as a twenty-year old, and I loved Six Characters back then. I love it now. It was a fun read for my theatre history class. The other students were baffled as hell by it, but I love metafiction and this is one of the first well known pieces of metafiction. It was fascinating to learn that Pirandello was friends with Mussolini. (It was also fascinating to hear the prof, who is as liberal as they come, try to justify that friendship.) The discussion was glossed over in class, but it got me thinking about the age-old argument—do you judge the author by what they do or what they’ve written. I know with Rowling, I will not support anything of hers, because she’s doing active ongoing harm at the moment. Reading an old Pirandello play, aware of all the things Mussolini would do after the two men got to know each other…well, I just want to avert my eyes. In other words, I have no justification for recommending a play from someone who was a fascist, and yet, here I am, doing it.
