I like these. I really, really like them
For a long time, what is often called genre or commercial fiction has become a greater share of my reading. Not sure whether it’s getting older, or the stresses of recent years, but in my free time I’m inclined to seek joy, escape, solace - whatever you’d like to call it. Most of that reading is in romance and crime fiction, though I occasionally wander into fantasy and science fiction.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the case for why we should stop apologizing for reading - and loving! - books that will never be on a Pulitzer shortlist put better than in this recent essay from the L.A. Review of Books. And now I also need to watch the Speed Racer movie, I guess.
In the spirit of owning what you love, here are some recent reads, listens and viewing that made my life better in recent weeks.
Reading
Ink, Blood, Sister, Scribe is what people who know from fantasy describe as low fantasy - that doesn’t mean its quality, it means what I used to call realistic fantasy. These are books that take place in our world but involve magic or other fantastic elements. Think Harry Potter, or A Discovery of Witches. This is also in some ways a book about books, another subgenre I love.
Those of us lucky enough to attend the Key West Literary Seminar - or go to the first Friends of the Key West Library Speaker Series event - earlier this year got to see S.A. Cosby in person and from that experience I can say, if you get a chance to hear him talk, take it. Since he was here, his latest novel, All The Sinners Bleed, has been published and like his previous works, it’s a page-turner that also has real insights into character, place and history. The story of a Black sheriff in the Virginia town where he grew up resonates on all kinds of levels. And even if it’s a bit of a bonkers serial killer plot, that didn’t keep me from caring about what would happen to Titus Crown, professionally and personally. And hey, seemingly impossible serial killers are among us, as the recent developments in the Gilgo Beach case show. I learned about that case 10 years ago from Lost Girls by Robert Kolker, one of the best true crime books I’ve read and notable for how it focused on the women who were killed and why police did not take their disappearances seriously at first.
Another writer who was at the Seminar this year was Annette Gordon-Reed and at the Seminar I bought her book, On Juneteenth. I finally read it and finished it, fittingly enough, on Juneteenth. It’s a small and slim work of nonfiction, something I have come to appreciate.
And it’s a lovely blend of memoir and history, telling the story of Texas, where the Juneteenth holiday was born, both through Gordon-Reed’s personal lens and the longer perspective of the state’s journey. Not surprisingly, Texas is a lot more complicated - and interesting! - than its reputation and I learned a lot in its relatively few pages. (Small aside: as a city that stayed under Union control throughout the Civil War, Key West had its own interesting emancipation story, which Dr, Corey Malcom, lead historian at the Monroe County Public Library’s Florida Keys History Center, recently researched and wrote about.)
Romance has a near-infinite number of subgenres and some of them are pretty goofy. Like, say, balloon animal shifters who are in a menage a trois. I haven’t read those books, but I’m very happy they exist - someone wanted to tell this story and they got to do so. And is it REALLY less plausible than, say, the exploits of Jack Reacher or Jack Ryan? On a slightly more realistic note, one of my favorite romance sub-genres is STEMinist - as in science, technology, engineering and math. I don’t think anyone’s doing that better than Ali Hazelwood and her latest, Love, Theoretically, is her best yet. It includes enemies-to-lovers, a dash of fake dating and a LOT of excellent shade about academic politics. The emails from Elsie’s students that open each chapter are hilarious and I’m afraid probably all too realistic.
Another romance I read recently (though it’s been out for almost a year) is Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade - the third book in her series that started with Spoiler Alert. That was a charming love story with an actor in a Game of Thrones-ish saga and a writer of fan fiction about the series. The second and third books also involve actors from the show (and plus-size, body-positive heroines, which is nice to see) - and this one might be my favorite, especially because it takes the busting on the showrunners (CLEARLY based on GOT showrunners) to a new level.
Listening
I really love a good limited series podcast, especially one that digs into a story I would not otherwise have known about. Some examples: In The Dark (both seasons), The Dream (especially the first season), White Lies (I have only listened to the first season so far). A recent example that is especially impressive because it comes from a local public radio outlet is The 13th Step from New Hampshire Public Radio. It’s an expansion on their blockbuster story last year about rehab entrepreneur Eric Spofford, his behavior and how vulnerable people who are recovering, or trying to recover from, addiction are.
I’ll leave it to you to make your own conclusion about the ethics of making huge amounts of money from recovery. But it’s especially concerning that in this case, the home of the podcast’s primary reporter, one of her colleagues at New Hampshire Public Radio, and the home of her parents were all vandalized with the strong message that she should stop her investigation.
Fortunately, she did not, and the FBI recently made some arrests in the case. Still, it’s a chilling example of attempted intimidation.
On the way-more-fun listening front, last month Mark and I saw The Beths for the second time, in Orlando. You don’t have to take my word for how great they are - they made Obama’s summer playlist. If you want to listen to a band that plays with joy, check them out.
If you want to know where to start, I’d go with Future Me Hates Me, the album or the song. But really, you can’t go wrong with anything.
Watching
I grew up in a Star Trek household - we all watched the re-runs and liked them. So I was excited for Star Trek Discovery - especially because I was already a fan of Sonequa Martin-Green, Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh. But ugh that first season with all the boring Klingon backstory. I was up for Picard, too - who doesn’t love Patrick Stewart and I liked his new ragtag band - but the TNG fan service was too much for me in that last season.
When I heard about Strange New Worlds I was worried - because we all know what happens to Capt. Pike, right? But … it turns out they handle that in a really interesting way. I already liked Anson Mount from Hell on Wheels. And it has Melanie Scrofano, aka Mrs. McMurray from Letterkenny and Wynonna Earp. It’s got a nice blend of the folks we know (Spock, Uhura, Nurse Chapel) and some new additions. And most importantly, it gets the balance of of adventure-of-the-week and longer storylines just right.
Plus, in recent weeks they’re just getting goofy. First there was an episode where the cartoon characters from Lower Decks crossed over to the Enterprise. And this week they did a musical episode, with the requisite accompanying nonsense “scientific” explanation. It was perfect.
Reviews, both from professional critics and people I know, have been very mixed for Wes Anderson’s latest movie, Asteroid City.
I loved it. I love all of Anderson’s movies, to varying degrees (my husband and I are both The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou loyalists, but I will accept other people’s rankings).
Some viewers seemed to find its artifice off-putting. I liked it, the whole movie that is a TV show about a play. I bought into the characters both as their characters in the play and, in some cases, as the actors playing those characters. As always, I adore Anderson’s visual palette and his analog nostalgia. I wouldn’t be writing this blog and you wouldn’t be reading it in the pre-digital world and I wouldn’t get to text my friends about everything from the Tour de France to the latest Wes Anderson movie. But damn, sometimes I miss that world where you weren’t tempted to constantly check your phone just in case you’re missing something.
I also appreciate very much that Anderson, in The French Dispatch and this movie, is playing around with how the story is framed. And more significantly, that he appears to be moving on from his previous obsession with father-son relationships. I mean, I get it. They’re important. But there is also a lot more to life and I think in these latest two movies he’s reaching out and exploring in different ways love, loss and why making art matters in the first place.
Plus his movies are just so damned cool to look at.
I saw Barbie, too, and found it entertaining throughout but nobody needs another opinion on that movie.
