u/Technocracygirl

I'm watching the Ustinov *Evil Under the Sun*, and the staging is confusing me. To my eyes, almost all of the clothing looks tacky and try-hard (So. Much. Sequins.). The food is disgusting to look at and not remotely what a rich person would eat. (Tiny pink sausages on a stick? Maraschino cherries on a stick? Aspic thingys?)

I get that this is 1970s aesthetics. What I can't tell is whether this is supposed to be pretend-rich people at an actually rich-people resort, or whether this is supposed to be pretend-rich people at a pretend-rich resort.

In the book, (IIRC) it was more middle- to upper-middle class people at an upper-middle-class resort. (Solidly British, but for non-peers and the lower levels of nobility. And rich Americans, but there are rich Americans in a lot of places.)

Like everyone else, I have a decent-sized hole in my must-listen podcast feed. I also have been wanting to actually finish some non-fiction books, instead of trying to burn my way through them like they were fiction and giving up a third of the way in. Some folks suggested listening to them on audio book, since I do like listening to fairly dense podcasts.

So I'm currently listening to John Ganz's *When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s.* I've been trying to read this ever since it came out in hardcover, and it's just so much smoother in audio form. I kind of wish that there was more emotion in the reader's voice, but I also get that the clarity is what's important. And I'm already further than I ever got in paper or digital.

So consider this both a wonky recommendation for *When the Clock Broke* and for audiobooks in general about this fetid swamp that we can't look away from.

Any other books out there that folks ought to give a try?

(Also, if your library has Libby or Hoopla, you can check out audiobooks from the app on your phone and listen to them right there -- no need for downloading or anything like that. Just as easy as a podcast app.)