The canicular days of August left me too lethargic to leave the house on August 4, and that might have been an error on my part. I don’t regret missing “Christopher Robin” and “Eighth Grade,” but recent reviews tell me that I may have overlooked the virtues of “The Spy Who Dumped Me” and “The Darkest Minds.” I don’t know if I will try to catch either of those next weekend, but I will consider them. Of course, I might also stay home again and finish re-reading George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” for the seventh or eighth time.
I can’t say that I am thrilled at the prospect of “The Meg” next weekend; the trailers make it look like “Jaws” on steroids. I don’t know if I will want to sink my teeth into that one. I still have plenty of books at home that need reading; this summer I have thoroughly relished Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series of Canadian mysteries and David Morrell’s Victorian noir trilogy about Thomas De Quincey, the notorious “opium-eater.” Morrell has come a long way since he created John Rambo.