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the-forest-library · 4 days

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Your 10 (ish) Most Read Authors (According to Goodreads or Whatever System You Use)

I was tagged by @bookcub - thanks!

What are your ten most Most Read Authors? And how many books have you read by them? Also tag someone who you would like to do this! (Original Instructions (this option wasn't available for me): Scroll to the bottom of your shelves and most read authors is listed underneath. What I did: Exported my Goodreads library and did some Excel magic.)

Note: I only started tracking my reads in Goodreads in 2020 - these stats reflect that.

Terry Pratchett - 15 (Looks like I've read a lot of Discworld in the last few years.)

2. Martha Wells - 10 (Hello, Murderbot!)

3. Chloe Liese - 9 (This is mostly the Bergman Brothers series, which I highly recommend. Lots of neurodiversity rep.)

4. Megan Whalen Turner - 8 (Attolia, my beloved.)

4. Cat Sebastian - 8 (Lots of historical romance.)

4. K.J. Charles - 8 (More historical romance - I love that Charles and Sebastian are tied. I discovered them around the same time, and I frequently confuse them.)

5. Rainbow Rowell - 7 (Novels and She Hulk graphic novels.)

5. Gail Carriger - 7 (I discovered her books a few years ago and ran through a bunch of them, but haven't read another one in a hot minute.)

6. Sarah Andersen - 6 (Relatable comics. Also, read Fangs if you haven't yet.)

6. Olivia Atwater - 6 (Regency/Victorian faerie tales which I adore.)

6. Alisha Rai - 6 (Including one of my favorite romances: Girl Gone Viral.)

6. T. Kingfisher - 6 (Another new-to-me author I began exploring.)

6. Brigid Kemmerer - 6 (The full Cursebreakers series and a few books from other series.)

6. Holly Jackson - 6 (These are not great books, but they are addictive and twisty.)

6. Jenny Colgan - 6 (Easy, seaside, small town reads. Some of the first audiobooks I tried.)

There are 11 (!) authors tied for fifth place, so I'm not going there, but I do want to shout out Talia Hibbert and Maria V. Snyder from that list because I love them.

Tagging (no pressure, just fun!): @godzilla-reads, @brightbeautifulthings, @emspooky, @dkafterdark, @dauen, @bibliophilecats, and anyone else that would like to give this a go!

#books #booklr #reading #bookish #bibliophile #tflo

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littleevil0ne1 · 10 months

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I've been on a quality healthy romance books kick (not dissing toxic romances, I love that shit) but

God Bless authors that do mental health right

That teach me without feeling like I'm being taught cause fuck yall are the REAL ONES 👏👏❤️👏👏❤️👏👏❤️👏👏❤️👏👏❤️👏👏

Specifically this is my shout out to:

Penny Reid who's book Beard in Mind depicts REAL OCD and I will now forever be judgemental of the half ass versions in media

Chloe Liese who's Bergman brothers series taught me about autism from autistic perspective (and validated suspicions I have about myself) as well as the struggles of chronic bowel disease, showed me what arguments in healthy relationships look like and blessed me with bisexuals making out in a bookstore 🥵

Mazey Eddings for her Brush with love series which validates ADHD as a disability (my ADD is different than Lizzies because im introverted but it still means a lot to me personally) and the plus one WRECKED me PTSD dudes if you need to hear that you're valid and deserve to be happy this author is here 👏 to 👏 tell 👏 you 👏

And shout out to all three for putting their characters in therapy (INCLUDING the ACTUAL THERAPIST CHARACTER) NORMALIZE 👏THAT 👏SHIT👏

#authors #books #mental health #romance #ocd #ptsd #adhd #mental health struggles #book recommendations #chloe liese #mazey eddings #penny reid #text

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wewebaggit · 9 months

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"El never had romantic feelings for Mike"ers 🤝 "Mike had romantic feelings for El"ers

Y'all think y'all are arm wrestling bt it's actually called a handshake in most parts of the world.

Both come from some weird desire for romantic miIeven to have meant nothing/something for both.

Cuz everything has to be just right and fair and neatly tied in a bow. God forbid the gay boy have struggles with his sexuality or the straight girl get her heart broken in the process. Evil evil things. To have your feelings unrequited. Unless it's Will. Cuz he's single and has to stay single and pure and loyal and what not, and it's only temporary. Soon in a few years after the time skip at the end of the series he'll be rewarded for being reduced to a pathetic little sap with no social life beyond Jonathan, Mike and the horrors of having spidey sense for 2 seasons.

And yeah there will be cirque du soleil levels of acrobatics being performed to show why this story and narrative makes sense. And I'm not opposed to it for being that but just that on show that prides itself for show don't tell it neither shows nor tells and then there's outside the show telling by cast cuz inside the show showing was less subtle and more in the realm of not there at all.

MiIeven is NOT a "plot device" for Byler any more than Mike being revealed gay is a plot device for independent El. They're both self contained arcs for the respective characters. MiIeven thoroughly exploited the BSY dynamic with how their interactions were framed and played and okayed and filmed. It's incredibly condescending to fault the GA for buying into the self insert fantasy of nerdy boy gets supergirl when the show didn't shy away from profiting off of it. Regardless of Mike's impending sexuality. Especially because of the super ambiguity of Mike's sexuality it cannot be classified as anything but trope exploitation. Subversion where? Leaving some visuals here.

El initiating the kiss in S1E6

And I'd love it if anyone explains them to me that's not the tired af "El's idea of romantic love comes from her watching soap operas" cuz she was shown watching it once. She was stuck in a cabin with a TV so she watched TV most of the time and daytime is soaps. You know what she (also) watched regularly? Westerns. Miami Vice.

Also El did make the first move in s1e7 to kiss Mike. Before Mike ever kissed her in s1e8. And before the soap operas n all other things. Point being. The BSY has always been BSYing.

Poor babies being forced by Lucas, Nancy and daytime TV into making out and enjoying it. Tsk tsk. (S3E1)

A forced to be flustered and blushing El after talking to her boyfriend.

Time to make out some more. It hits different at 4:20. - Mike & El probably. Dunno it's on mute.

Naive but powerful fawn rebelling against father for nerdy boyfriend. Ya. White American thing cuz Mike would be pissing his pants if he were anywhere else or maybe anyone else. (Can you imagine Lumax this way?)

For God's sake your platonic soulmate and so called lesbian awakening's brother is dying there.

Don't even understand the point of this shot. Since Mike never looked Billy's way. Or comforted Max. A glance at El that, idk what it meant, no mike crow expressions to guide me.

Scenes from a Marriage (1973) dir. Ingmar Bergman

Scenes from a Marriage (2021) dir. Hagai Levi

There's an intentional way in which the MiIeven scenes (not just the kisses 🤮) are filmed in a more "adult" way as opposed to the "cute teenaged romance" way that some people purport it is in contrast to Lumax and Duzie. (I guess they didn't go through puberty.🤷‍♀️) Heck even Jancy, Stancy never looked this weird even though sex was shown/ implied. (Because they were played by actors born in the 20th century and even then they weren't 13 🤷‍♀️.)

MiIeven is not a plot device for Byler. It is fan service. The adults shipping them and comparing them to various other adult couples isn't outta nowhere. Please compute. Which is why it was stretched for 4 seasons.

As of NOW Mike's sexuality is still plausible deniability and the breakup too is neither here nor there. It's NOT straightbaiting. Lmao. Not at all. It's fan service. Leaving the OBVIOUS BSY aside, the point neither party were forced into anything nor were they doing it to keep appearances cuz canonically NOBODY cared. Not Dustin, not Lucas, definitely not Will and I'm sure neither did Max.

El was a willing participant and initiator and Mike was also not opposed to it until puberty monster/feelings caught up with him. El has shown her attraction to guys and it is okay. There's no need to take that away from her cuz that is also an experience of girlhood. She barely has any experiences anyway. Let her have that.

It's the same for Mike. He's not some evil monster for being gay. Not anymore than Joyce was for being with Bob out of convenience and the fact that she liked him n didn't hate him. Mike does love El and cares about her deeply as all of S4 shows.

So to sum it up. Yes I smooshed 2 posts cuz I couldn't be arsed talking about these 2 AGAIN. But Mike and El were independent agents when they decided to embark on their disastrous romantic journey and Born Sexy Yesterday is REAL.

P.S. If you find this shit cute and y'all roll your eyes over byler kissing n what not (even in fics goddamnit). Hit your head against a spiked wall till you can't no more. Piss and love. 💙💛

P.P.S. Mike's the clingy one. NOT Will.

#i need an award for taking these screenshots #i avoided the kisses cuz 🤮 but they only add to the evidence #byler #stranger things #anti mileven #i guess #wewe's opinionions #any mistakes are all yours #i ain't reading that shit again

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noneedtoamputate · 3 months

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Miscellaneous Tag Game

Thanks for the tag, @ronald-speirs.

Favorite place in the world you’ve visited?: Australia

Something you’re proud of yourself for?: For making it through a difficult time in my life with a greater understanding how hard life it and a greater compassion for people

Favorite books?: Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, Say Goodnight, Gracie by Julie Reece Deaver

Something that makes your heart happy when thinking about it?: My child's hugs and a night in my 20s when I was in the car with my friend and "Dancing in the Dark" came on when we were at stoplight and we started singing at the top of our lungs with carefree abandon. A car with people in their 50s next to us laughed and cheered us on. Now that I am closer to their age than the age I was when I was in the car, I understand the joy they felt at watching us.

Favorite thing about your culture?: Americans are weird that we consider ourselves from somewhere else. My great-grandparents were from Eastern Europe, and my favorite thing about that is the food. My favorite thing about being American is diversity we have here, and Independence Day. I know it's not poltically correct to say one loves Independence Day, but I do. Parades, baseball, day drinking, cookouts, fireworks - Americana all in one day.

When did you join the HBO War fandom? What was the first show you watched?: I joined the fandom rather recently in the summer of 2023, but I watched BoB when it first aired. I just watched The Pacific over the summer.

Have you read any of Easy Company’s books? If so, which ones were your favorite?: I've read Band of Brothers and bits of pieces of others. My favorite is "Easy Company Solider" by Don Malarkey. I just borrowed "Helmet for My Pillow" on audiobook read by James Badge Dale.

Favorite HBO War character and your favorite moment with them?: I can't pick one favorite, but one of my favorite moments is when Tipper goes along when Luz pretends to be Major Horton. He wants to laugh so much.

Do you make content for any fandoms, if so; what sort of content?: I am in the middle of a series called "Every Beautiful Thing" featuring Chuck and an OFC in postwar San Francisco.

Favorite actor/actress and your favorite film of theirs?: I love Tom Hanks ("A League of Their Own"), Jimmy Stewart ("It's a Wonderful Life"), Ingrid Bergman ("Casablanca") and Jodie Foster ("Silence of the Lambs")

Favorite quote/s that you wish to share with others?: "The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." -Gloria Steinem

Random fact your mutuals/followers don’t know about you?: You want me on your trivia team.

If you’re a writer, do you need a beta reader (say yes so I can be your beta reader 🤭)?: I've never had a beta and would be happy to let anyone read my WIP.

Three things that make you smile?: Finding money in a coat pocket the first time I wear it in the fall, little kids trying to play baseball or softball, a really cold beer on a hot day

Any nicknames you like?: My dad used to call me Pumpkin when I was little.

List some people you love to see around on tumblr!: There are so many, but some people off the top of my head are @xxluckystrike, @the-cinnamontography-is-amazing, @dcyllom, @latibvles, and @jump-wings.

What would you do during a zombie apocalypse?: Find the best people and do what I can to earn my keep in their group

Favorite movie?: Too hard to pick one but two of my favorites not listed above are "The Sound of Music" and "Hoosiers." I recently watched "1917" and the way the it was filmed like one continuous shot was really innovative.

Do you like horror movies?: I don't like slasher films, but I like psychological horror films. My husband made me watch "The Shining" about ten years ago, and it scared the crap out of me,

#meme game

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cosmicmuckup · 1 year

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Currently obsessing over the Bergman Brothers series by Chloe Liese. Had book one on my shelf, the rest on order. Started reading book one and realized I couldn’t wait for the rest to arrive so now I’ve borrowed the second one on audio. I’m adoring these books so far and am super keep to curl up with number three this weekend if it arrives in time!

#bergman brothers #the Bergman brothers #Chloe liese #books #romance books

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bluepancakesandanxiety · 10 months

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My bookstore just got the Bergman Brothers series by Chloe Liese and the new Ali Hazelwood book and I actually started dancing and jumping around.

Then I spent about 80$ (the USD equivalent of the money I spent in the currency used in my country. Which comes out to a lot of money). I think my bank account hates me, but it was 100% worth it.

#also as my library volunteer’s mother said when I met her there #books make you smarter #so I’m gonna be a super genius #chloe liese #Bergman brothers #ali hazelwood #love theoretically

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maddiesflame · 2 years

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Everything For You headers

like/reblog if saved © maddiesflame

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ash-and-books · 1 month

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Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb: It’s a room-mance for the books in this tender, steamy story about unexpectedly finding love and being brave enough to let it revise life’s narrative in the final book in the beloved Bergman Brothers series.

Viggo Bergman, hopeless romantic, is thoroughly weary of waiting for his happily ever after. But between opening a romance bookstore, running a romance book club, coaching kids' soccer, and adopting a household of pets—just maybe, he’s overcommitted himself?—Viggo’s chaotic life has made finding his forever love seem downright improbable.

Enter Tallulah Clarke, chilly cynic with a massive case of writer’s block. Tallulah needs help with her thriller’s romantic subplot. Viggo needs another pair of hands to keep his store afloat. So they agree to swap skills and cohabitate for convenience—his romance expertise to revive her book, her organizational prowess to salvage his store. They hardly get along, and they couldn’t be more different, but who says roommate-coworkers need to be friends?

As they share a home and life, Tallulah and Viggo discover a connection that challenges everything they believe about love, and reveals the plot twist they never saw coming: happily ever after is here already, right under their roof.

Review:

The conclusion to the Bergman Brothers series is finally here and will romance book lover Viggo finally find his happily ever after in the grumpy author who doesn't believe in romance? Viggo has always dreamed about finding his soulmate, about getting his happily ever after, and after seeing each one of his family members get theirs' he is desperate to find his. He's always been able to charm everyone... everyone except for Tallulah Clarke, the chilly cynic who is uncharmed by Viggo. Tallulah doesn't believe in love, she's seen what its done to her parents and she wants no part of it, too bad her next book requires she write a actual convincing couple and she's got zero experience with love and has writer's block. Tallulah needs help writing and who better to help her than a romance book lover like Viggo. Viggo is opening up his own romance bookshop and desperately needs help running it so Viggo and Tallulah come up with an agreement, she will live in his flat and help him run his store while he helps her write her book. Yet for two polar opposites, there is an undeniable attraction between them... but can they make it work when one of them doesn't believe in love and the other only wants to find his true love? This was a cute way to end the series and was heavy on the romance book lovers theme. The story is perfect for fans of grumpy cat x golden retriever, doesnt believe in love x believes in love, and grumpy x sunshine trope lovers out there. I have always loved and appreciated the representation that Chloe puts in her series and the authenticity and care she puts in conveying the struggles of these characters and their growth. This series has and will always be dear to my heart because of how beautifully written each of the love stories were and I was so happy we got to see Viggo's happily ever after.

*Thanks Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group, Berkley for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

#book review #bookish #book #the bergman brothers #only and forever

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booksandfantasies · 9 months

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Chloe Liese just posted the new covers for her Bergman Brothers series and they are absolutely gorgeous. I love how bright and colorful they are and the characters designs are perfection. I only own the paperback of Everything for You and I have the ebooks of the others that are out so I'm glad I waited to buy the physical copies for the other ones because I love these covers. I really enjoy all of the books in the series so these are definitely a must buy for me. I can't wait to add these books to my collection.

#chloe liese #Bergman brothers #bergman brother series

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hopeless-nostalgiac · 1 year

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Contemporary Romance Recs

This is for @coffeedepablo but anyone can enjoy these good stories :)

Listed in no particular order:

The Deal by Elle Kennedy - first book in the “Off Campus” series - follows four college-aged, hockey player roommates as they meet their significant others. Various tropes, pretty decent spice.

Only When It’s Us by Chloe Liese - first book in another great series, “The Bergman Brothers” - follows the siblings in a family, features characters with various disabilities

The Royals Next Door by Karina Halle - uptight bodyguard for young royals (who resemble Harry and Meghan) falls for local woman

Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter - so freaking cute!!! It’s YA, enemies to friends to maybe more? Can’t rec enough. Hope this becomes a movie.

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang - another first book in a series, but it’s far and away the best of the trilogy. Male escort teaches woman with ASD how to succeed at sexy times. Plus feelings.

The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan - niche content here: former porn star-turned-business woman teams up with a rabbi to make sex more positive and approachable for his congregation; the second in a duology

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes - woman who recently lost her emotionally abusive husband takes in a baseball player with the yips; promise you won’t be disappointed

An Ex for Christmas by Lauren Layne - not this author’s most notable work, but’s really cute and you’ll never think of mistletoe the same way; friends to lovers

Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon - if you liked the Netflix film, “Set It Up,” you’ll like this

The Trouble with Hating You by Sajni Patel - first in a series, good banter, the Indian characters are well represented

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren - fake dating, one bed, need I say more?

I have more, plus recs in other genres mixed with romance-just let me know!

#contemporary romance #book recs #i haven't been able to chat books since i left goodreads #so much fun!

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dawnlibrary · 7 months

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Two in one, Chloe Liese edition

If Only You (Bergman Brothers #6)

Summary:

Ziggy I’m the youngest player on the National Soccer team, the baby of my family, and thoroughly sick of being underestimated, so I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. Which is where my brother’s best friend and teammate, the infamous Sebastian Marchand, comes in. Seb needs to rehab his reputation. I want to give mine an edge. So I propose a fake friendship with real benefits: spending time in the public eye, my good-girl image and his bad-boy notoriety rubbing off on each other. He’s my devious, dark-haired fantasy come to life, but his destructive ways make it easy to keep him in the (fake) friend zone. Or so I thought, until I start to see the heart of gold he’s been hiding beneath that sinister surface… Sebastian Like any self-respecting reprobate, I’ve been spiraling downward, and finally I’ve hit rock bottom. My hockey career and sponsorships are in jeopardy, and while I’m not ready to actually reform my ways, I’m happy to pretend that I have, to secure the life I’m on the brink of losing. So when my best friend’s sister, Ziggy Bergman, proposes a public “friendship” to revamp our reputations, it’s an offer I can’t refuse. Up till now, I’ve stayed away from Ren’s sweet, shy little sister to avoid any risk of ruining my one good friendship. But I reassure myself there’s no risk in our scheme. I’ll fake a friendship with Ziggy, fix my reputation, and get back to hockey, the one and only thing I love. At least, it was, until what began as a transactional arrangement became the most loving relationship I’ve ever known. If Only You is a brother’s best friend, (fake) friends with benefits to friends to lovers romance about a bighearted, quietly fierce soccer star on the autism spectrum, and a thoroughly unprincipled, almost irredeemable hockey player who has celiac disease. Complete with an absurd level of mutual pining, meddling family and friends, and a spicy slow burn, this standalone is the sixth in a series of novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after.

It was lovely to read someone finding confidence in who they are and being loud about it.

***

Everything for You (Bergman Brothers #5)

Summary:

Gavin We’ve been teammates for two years, but it feels like a lifetime that Oliver Bergman’s been on my last nerve. A demanding captain and veteran player, I’m feared and friendless, while he’s the beloved rising star, all sunshine smiles and upbeat team spirit. To make matters worse, he’s obscenely attractive. In short: he’s genetically designed to get under my skin. Avoiding Oliver has been my survival tactic on and off the field. But when Coach drops the bomb that we’re now co-captains, avoiding him becomes impossible, and keeping the truth from him–let alone my distance–is harder than ever. Oliver Life was great until soccer legend Gavin Hayes joined the team and proved he’s nothing like the guy I grew up idolizing. Instead, he’s a giant–albeit gorgeous–grump who lives to rain on my parade. I’ve sworn off pranks since entering the public eye, so rather than settle our differences the Bergman way, I’ve had to settle for killing Gavin with kindness. There’s just one problem: killing him with kindness is killing me. To make matters worse, Coach gives us an ultimatum: put an end to our enmity or say goodbye to being captains. I’m prepared to be miserable while we meet her demands and make nice, but the last thing I expect is to discover an explosive attraction we can’t help but act on, and worse yet, to realize the man hiding beneath Gavin’s gruff exterior is all I’ve ever wanted. Everything for You is a grumpy-sunshine, enemies-to-lovers, age gap sports romance about an upbeat rising soccer star with anxiety and his curmudgeonly veteran teammate who lives with chronic pain. Complete with nosy senior citizens, nosier siblings, and a meddling coach, this standalone slow burn is the fifth in a series of novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after.

Oh, Gavin made me angry several times, but over all I enjoyed this one.

Yes, I read book 6 before book 1... and then went backwards and read book 5, again, before book 1... things happen.

It seemed like I was in a sports romance roll for a few days because I read a few of those and then stumbled upon these ones and I enjoyed them.

#sports romance #chloe liese #books #bergman brothers #reading #read in 2023 #booklr

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justforbooks · 2 years

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Although she was born in London, and retained a classic English poise all her life, Angela Lansbury, who has died aged 96, was a Hollywood and Broadway star for more than seven decades, and one who was completely unclassifiable. On her film debut, she played Ingrid Bergman’s cockney maid in George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944) and was promptly nominated for an Oscar, though she was never to win one. She graduated to play Laurence Harvey’s evil, possibly incestuous, mother – although she was only three years older than Harvey – in John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and then a dotty amateur witch in Disney’s follow-up to Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).

This versatility, allied to her natural grace, vitality and chastely appealing features – her eyes were full, blue and unblinking, her face almost perfectly round, her mouth a cupid’s bow from the studio era – propelled her to stage stardom in Jerry Herman’s Mame (1966) and, in London at the Piccadilly theatre in 1973, as the show-stopping Mama Rose in Gypsy, by Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents.

Lansbury had been initially reluctant to assume Ethel Merman’s mantle in Gypsy but, like Merman, she gave the performance of her life, full of steel and tenderness in equal measure. Her performance was more nuanced and needy than Merman’s; the critic Robert Cushman described “a slow steady build towards magnificence”.

But she became best known worldwide for Murder, She Wrote, an American television series running from 1984 to 1996, with four subsequent TV films. She played the incisive and level-headed Jessica Fletcher, a retired English teacher, mystery writer and amateur sleuth in the coastal town of Cabot Cove, Maine, a sleepy location with a criminal body count as delightfully high and unlikely as in Midsomer Murders.

“It really was a fluke success,” Lansbury said, “and came at a time when that kind of family entertainment seemed needed.” She added that, of all the characters she played, Fletcher was the one most like herself: intuitive and sensitive, a voice of calm and reason in a troubled time. She gradually assumed ownership of the CBS series. Peter Shaw, whom she had married in 1949, was joint director of the production company; her son, Anthony, and stepson, David, were executive producers, her brother Bruce was supervising producer.

Family was always of paramount importance to Lansbury. She came from strong, muscular stock: her father, Edgar Lansbury, was a lumber merchant and one-time member of the Communist party and mayor of Poplar (his father was George Lansbury, a reforming leader of the Labour party); her mother, Moyna MacGill, was an Irish actor who took Angela to the Old Vic theatre in London from an early age. One of her cousins was Oliver Postgate, the British animator best known for Bagpuss.

She was educated at South Hampstead high school for girls and trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Her father died in 1934, and her mother merged her family – Angela and her younger twin brothers, Edgar and Bruce – with that of a former British Army colonel in India, Lecki Forbes, under one roof in Hampstead.

It was not a happy arrangement.

At the outbreak of war, Moyna decamped with her children to New York, and Angela continued her training for two more years at the Feagin school. While her mother toured Canada in a variety show for the troops, Angela did cabaret turns in Montreal. When Moyna’s agent sent her to Hollywood for an audition, she decided to move the children out there with her.

Nothing much happened at first, so mother and daughter took jobs as sales clerks at Bullocks Wilshire, the art deco department store in Los Angeles, while continuing to audition. Angela was still only 17 when she landed the role in Gaslight, and this set a pattern of playing older than her age. A notable exception was The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), in which she played Sibyl Vane, the chirpy music-hall singer, a role that brought her second Oscar nomination; through her co-star, Hurd Hatfield, she met her future husband, Shaw. She had been married previously, for just nine months, to the actor Richard Cromwell, who was almost twice her age.

By this point a Hollywood fixture, Lansbury played Elizabeth Taylor’s older sister in National Velvet (1944), sang Jerome Kern’s How’d You Like to Spoon With Me? in Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), fooled with Danny Kaye in The Court Jester (1955), peaked in glory in The Manchurian Candidate, with her third and final Oscar nomination, and joined another great cast list in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), which David Lean took over as director from George Stevens.

Lansbury took American citizenship in 1951, and made her Broadway debut opposite Bert Lahr in Feydeau’s Hotel Paradiso in 1957, following with Helen in Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey in 1960 and, most significantly, Cora Hooper Hoover, the corrupt mayor in Sondheim and Laurents’s 1964 flop Anyone Can Whistle. The show, which has since become a concert favourite, closed in a week, but Lansbury came out of it with flying colours, commended by critics for her agility and engaging personality; she was even likened to a young Bette Davis.

This led to her Mame acclaim, and her first Tony award. Lansbury played Auntie Mame, a free-spirited woman who picks herself off the floor of the stock market crash to sing Bosom Buddies (Lansbury duetted with Bea Arthur) and who ultimately recoups her fortunes by marrying a southern aristocrat. She won a second Tony in Herman’s next show, Dear World (1969), a musical based on Jean Giraudoux’s The Madwoman of Chaillot, in which she appeared to be dressed in “a wedding cake made of cobwebs”, according to the critic Walter Kerr.

A belated London debut followed in 1972, when she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych in Edward Albee’s All Over, playing the mistress of a dying man, locked in battle with Peggy Ashcroft as his wife. She took Gypsy back to Broadway in 1974 for a few months, winning her third Tony, then joined the National theatre at the Old Vic in 1975 to play a fairly youthful, glamorous Gertrude to Albert Finney’s thickset, plainspoken and powerful Hamlet, directed by Peter Hall; the production was part of the opening season in the National’s new home on the South Bank in 1976.

Back on Broadway, she hit another great milestone in Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd (1979), playing the gleefully cannibalistic, pie-making Nellie Lovett (and winning a fourth Tony) opposite Len Cariou’s demon barber in a dark and scintillating production by Hal Prince that played on Broadway for a year before touring the US for another 11 months.

Before Murder, She Wrote, a series of starry film roles included John Guillermin’s Death on the Nile (1978) with Peter Ustinov, David Niven, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow and Maggie Smith; Guy Hamilton’s The Mirror Crack’d (1980), in which she did some sleuthing stretches by playing Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, with Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Tony Curtis and, in his penultimate movie, Rock Hudson; Wilford Leach’s rocked-up The Pirates of Penzance (1983), opposite Kevin Kline as the Pirate King; and Neil Jordan’s wonderfully weird The Company of Wolves (1984), in which she played yet another eccentric old granny figure.

She did voices for two animated movies – Beauty and the Beast (1991, for Disney) and Anastasia (1997, for 20th Century Fox) – but was not in a feature movie again until she played Great Aunt Adelaide in Kirk Jones’s Nanny McPhee (2005), starring and written by Emma Thompson. Subsequently, she was with Jim Carrey in Mr Popper’s Penguins (2011).

For many years, Lansbury kept a home in County Cork, Ireland, where she and Shaw would spend two months each year while maintaining their base in Brentwood, Los Angeles. She rented an apartment in New York in 2007 to return to Broadway in Terrence McNally’s Deuce, a specially crafted two-hander for her and Marian Seldes about former tennis partners reliving past glories while watching a match at Flushing Meadow, and switching their heads from side to side during the rallies.

The play was not a huge hit, but Lansbury was electrifying and was greatly moved by the affection with which audiences greeted her. She had not been on Broadway since a possibly ill-advised 1983 revival of Mame.

Regarded by now as a national treasure, in 2009 she won her fifth Tony as Madame Arcati in Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit, wearing a bright red wig and “with a superfluity of bad jewellery, the gait of a gazelle and a repertory of poses that bring to mind Egyptian hieroglyphs”, wrote Ben Brantley of the New York Times.

At the end of the same year in New York, she appeared for six months as Madame Armfeldt in Trevor Nunn’s Menier Chocolate Factory revival of Sondheim and Wheeler’s A Little Night Music, winning plaudits for her nostalgic litany of fading qualities in Liaisons: “Where is style? Where is skill? Where is forethought? Where’s discretion of the heart? Where’s passion in the art? Where’s craft?”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences compensated for her lack of an Oscar with an award for “some of cinema’s most memorable characters” in 2013, and the following year she was made a dame, and took Madame Arcati to the Gielgud theatre in London. She was Aunt March in the BBC’s adaptation of Little Women (2017), and in 2018 she both appeared as a balloon-seller in Mary Poppins Returns, and joined up with another member of that cast, Dick Van Dyke, as guardian angels in the Christmas tale Buttons.

Shaw predeceased her in 2003, and she is survived by Anthony, David, her daughter, Deirdre, three grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and her brother Edgar.

🔔 Angela Brigid Lansbury, actor, born 16 October 1925; died 11 October 2022

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