Friday Five - books and tv

I hope everyone had a good week!  My knee pain seems better and it only really hurts when going down stairs.  I tried a short run earlier in the week and there wasn't much knee pain at all.  Sadly, my back pain is still there.  I think it might be a muscle strain based on what I've found online.  But it's getting better and hopefully I'll be able to get through the 10 miler Sunday with the help of some advil.

In the meantime, it's Friday!  That means time to link up with Mar, Cynthia and Courtney for the Friday Five.  So I thought I'd take today to talk about 5 books and tv shows I've been enjoying lately.

1.  Crazy Horse and Custer:  The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors - This is a biography of Crazy Horse and Custer by Stephen Ambrose and it's really interesting because he not only talks about the clash between these two men, but he uses their lives as parallels for the clash between the two cultures that was going on at that time in the US.  I really found the writing to be engaging and the story to be compelling.  Though, be warned, it is violent in places.  It isn't gratuitous as I don't know how you could talk about this subject without the violence but I just wanted to put that warning out there.

2.  Empire of Storms - On a lighter note, I've really been enjoying this series by Sarah J. Maas.  It's young adult fantasy but with really fleshed out characters that seem like real people, flaws and all.  The plot is a little trite at times but I feel like there are enough surprises to keep me engaged and even on the edge of my seat at times.

5. The Hamilton Affair- I've mentioned my love of the musical, Hamilton, before.  So when I saw this historical fiction written by Elizabeth Cobbs, I had to give it a try.  It's a fictionalized account of the lives of Alexander Hamilton and Eliza Schuyler, his wife.  I love that it spends as much time on her life before she met him as it does on his early life.  And I love that it continues to explore the ramification that his actions may have had on her after their marriage.  This is not a story that erases the women in the narrative and I really appreciated that.

4. The Get Down- This is a series on Netflix that I'm just a couple episodes into.  It's created by Baz Luhrmann and set in the Bronx in the 70's.  If you're familiar with Baz Luhrmann's other works (Moulin Rouge, the Great Gatsby), you'll know how this one goes.  It's kind of a dream like exploration of the Bronx at the time which involves the birth of hip hop as well as the death of disco.  The writing and the music are phenomenal, though the acting is a little rough in places.

5. The 100 - I just randomly saw an episode of this CW show and then have binged through 2 seasons because it is so intriguing.  I'm halfway through season 3 now and then will have to wait for season 4 to air on tv in January.  The premise is that it's a 100 years after a nuclear war on earth and that people survived by living on space stations.  Now, the space station is running out of air and 100 people are sent back to earth to see if it's habitable.  A lot of craziness ensues and it teeters over into ridiculous at times but I'm completely caught up into wanting to know what happens next and how the story ends.

So if you're looking for something to read or watch, those are some of my current favorites :)  I hope everyone has a great weekend and good luck to those of you running races!