Yakitori Tsukada, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

We tried a lot of different types of places our first couple of days in Tokyo—a tendon place, a ramen place, a yakiniku place—all costing about $10 per person. We did a fancer meal our last night at Yakitori Tsukada, a yakitori place specializing in chicken, and really enjoyed it! The other thing to point out is that there is a lot of fish and beef in Japan, and it is nice to have another option altogether when you are eating out each and every day.

I love skewers, but the meal started with something I plan to try to make at home--potato leek miso soup. We managed to score quite a few different types of miso when we were in Osaka, and I think it would be possible. The fortune cookie style chicken cut out stuffed with chicken liver is not on that list, but we did pick up some persimmons at home because we had so many good ones, including here. Every part of fowl was offered, including some grilled quail eggs, duck breast, and even a chicken meatball to dip in a raw egg! My favorite was that, and my spouse liked the chicken shoulder best, but really, everything was delicious and I would recommend it.

Flashlight by Susan Choi

The Booker Prize short list for 2025 had some real gems in it, this among them. Flesh was the winner, and while it wasn't my favorite, it was very good. The Audition was weirdly innovation, The Rest of Our Lives was excellent up to the ending, and The Loneliness of Sunny and Sonia was an excellent, long, messy saga that embraces both love and immigration. This one is also very good and quirky in it's story telling, which in the end I liked, although it took some time for me to get used to. Here goes. The the Kang family is damaged. Serk grows up an impoverished Korean in Japan. He immigrates to the US as a grad student after his family sets off for North Korea, lured by promises of socialist paradise. Anne has a child, Tobias, that she gave birth to at nineteen and signed away to her older lover and his wife. Her college plans are derailed, but she is able to find work as a transcriptionist for an eccentric academic, which is how she meets Serk. There is a mutual identification in their remoteness yet neither can figure out how to overcome it. Louisa—Serk and Anne’s only child—is not consciously aware of all that precedes her, but it is the water she swims in--nobody communicates. Anne welcomes Tobias back into her life without consulting Serk, and Serk takes an opportunity to relocate to Japan for a year without telling Anne of his primary goal: surreptitiously seeking out a path of return for his family. Louisa witnesses to shreds of each of her parents’ secrets and over time learns to nurture her own. So, yes, another messy family saga--I had the added luck to read it while I was vacationing in Japan, which added an extra layer to an already multi-level story.

Karate Kid Legends (2025)

What is it with the 1980's reboots? I watched this one on a long haul flight recently, and whil I did not like the other one I watched (one the critics and audiences alike did like), I enjoyed this--which was not true of the aforementioned critics and general audience. So proceed with caution. This is the sixth entry in the series, gives its intended audience—which is to say, anyone who enjoyed any part of the other movies—what they came looking for. No more, and for me at least, no less. Li Fong (ably played by Ben Fong, who is both acrobatic and charming, and I hope to see him again) is a teenager who moved from Beijing to New York City’s Chinatown because his doctor mom (Ming-Na Wen) got hired by a Manhattan hospital. Li is a character we haven’t seen before. There are early scenes at kung fu school where we see him being mentored by Mr. Han (Jackie Chan). Like every protagonist before him, Li gets bullied by unlikable thugs. They train at a dojo near his school. Their leader is karate prodigy Connor Day , two-time winner of the Five Boroughs tournament. Li’s school also happens to be near an independent pizzeria owned by former boxer Victor Lipani. Victor’s charming and witty teenage daughter Mia (Sadie Stanley) works the cash register. She and Li hit it off. Naturally, in order to turn the heat up, Mia was once Connor’s girlfriend. Connor’s father, who owns the dojo, is a mob-connected underworld figure who loaned Victor the money to open the pizzeria and expects to be paid back soon. You see where this is going, and this movie is all about nostalgia, so there are no surprises, although it was surprisingly nice to see the chemistry between Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio. Chan in particular remains the all-time best at getting laughs through martial artistry, and there’s ascene between him and Fong that wouldn’t look out of place in any other of Chan’s stuntwork ballets.

Inventing Japan by Ian Buruma

As you might suspect with a book that covers a hundred years of history and the core of a nation's identity in under 200 pages, there is some reductionism at work here. I read this in preparation for a tourism trip to Japan, and it reinforced other things that I had read, and seemed less anti-Asian than many other things I had read. Japan has been assiduous in its early days about isolation. The original opening of Japan came in the mid-1500s when European traders and Christian missionaries arrived. But the nation was closed back up at the start of the 17th century when the overt practice of Christianity was snuffed out and all trade reduced to Dutch sailors in Nagasaki. They didn't completely cut themselves off--Japanese intellectuals studied Western science and ideas — known as Dutch learning — in order to borrow what was useful. But the culture continued in seclusion until Commodore Matthew Perry appeared in Edo Bay on July 8, 1853, with four armed ships. This book covers the time from American Commodore Matthew Perry’s explosive appearance in Edo Bay to the end of the shogunate, the failed attempts at democracy that followed, the rise of militarization and colonialism, a war against Russia, a war against China and finally World War II, the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Douglas MacArthur as American overlord and a post-war commitment to an overheated economy with an emphasis on construction for the sake of construction. And in the epilogue the author takes the story even further with the boom of the Japanese economy and talk of a “Japanese Century” — and then the bursting of the bubble. There is so much more to the story, but this is a kind of Cliff Notes introduction.

Gardens in Tokyo

There are some huge beautiful green spaces in densely populated Tokyo, where you can sit on benches, listen to birds and get away from metros where you might on occasion have to shove yourself in backwards and hope the door closes—my close encounter involves having to stand n one foot initially because my other foot kept the door from closing. These were imperial grounds, shrines, and feudal gardens that remain today—and are free to roam. We visited two and it is amazing just how far from a busy city you feel in the The Imperial Palace East Gardens is a historical garden in the Tokyo Imperial Palace. The gardens were first used by the Tokugawa shogunate. The garden was built on the grounds of Edo Castle. Meiji Jingu Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Shibuya, Tokyo, that is dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shōken. There are wide open spaces and on a weekend day there were dozens of couples and families fanned out over the lawn enjoying the peaceful surroundings.

Twist by Colum McCann

Here is the thing about this author. He is a very good writer, I enjoy the story mostly because the story teller is talented, but mostly I just do not care for the characters. The story starts off straight forward enough, but there is truth in advertising--the title lets you know that it is going to get messy. Anthony Fennell, an Irish writer down on his luck, gets an assignment from an online journal to write a piece on the undersea cables that carry the world’s data and the repair teams that patrol the oceans, fixing ruptures. He agrees to this because he has a bit of writer's block and he has an image of cruise ship rather than working ship and thinks he is going to get some time to write his own stuff as well. Fennell’s editor sends him to Cape Town, where he is to sign on with a repair ship and meet a man named Conway, who is in charge of operations. Conway is, and will remain an enigma: immediate and engaging at first, later aloof and noncommittal — and capable, as we’ll see, of extraordinary actions. Though they’ve just met, he straightaway asks Fennell to come meet his partner, Zanele, a South African-born stage actress. The three of them weave in and out of each other's stories throughout the book, all with an undercurrent of moving against the grain of society. It is a story well told.

Naked Gun (2025)

I guess I should have thought twice before watching this movie on a recent Trans Pacific flight. If I thought the original was dumber, what made me think that this wouldn't be dumber? Don't let me dissuade you though, because reading through reviews, I am pretty much alone on this. Liam Neeson plays Det Lt Frank Drebin Jr, who is the son of the LA cop once played by Leslie Nielsen, and haunted in a rather Freudian way by his late father’s reputation. He is given to making yearning monologues addressed to Drebin Sr’s presence, begging him to send a sign that he is there in spirit if not in person. Paul Walter Hauser plays his stolid partner Capt Ed Hocken Jr, son of Drebin Sr’s partner who was once played by George Kennedy. The new Drebin (who is old, BTW) investigates the possible murder of a man found dead at the wheel of a hi-tech electric car, and must confront the sinister plutocrat who invented this vehicle (sound like anyone we know?). There is a love interest, which I will not go into because even though this harken's back to an earlier sensibility, it is exaggeratedly offensive--and no where near far enough back for the likes of the current autocratic misogynist administration would like to go--Make Suffregettes relevant again kind of stuff--it is still beyond the pale. The new Naked Gun has the look and feel of an 80s LA action movie, with sense-memories of Beverly Hills Cop and Terminator, but not in a good way, at least for me. It did make me think i should not rewatch Beverly Hills Cop but rather leave it safely in my memory as not nearly as offensive as this.

A Marriage At Sea by Sophie Elmhurst

I read this when it was on Obama's reading list, and it is now also on the New York Times 100 Notable books for 2025. This is a story that is almost unbelievable yet true. ​​On June 28, 1972, 40-year-old Maurice and 32-year-old Maralyn Bailey, newly married but with this long held plan, set sail aboard a 30-foot sailboat they named Auralyn on what they hoped would be a yearslong voyage from England to New Zealand. Their plan was to travel across the Bay of Biscay to Spain, then to Madeira and the Canary Islands, then 2,700 miles across the Atlantic Ocean through the Caribbean, Panama Canal, across the Pacific Ocean to the Galapagos. After that, they’d sail to the Marquesas Islands, the Tuamotu Islands and Fiji, and then their final destination. But on March 4, 1973, eight months into their expedition, a disaster happened: a 40-foot sperm whale slammed into their boat, creating a gash in its side. Within minutes — just enough time for the Baileys to grab their passports, a log book, a compass, Maralyn’s diary and a few other essentials, before jumping into their 4.5-foot-in-diameter life boat and attached dinghy — their boat sank about 300 miles from the Galapagos. Of note, they did not have a radio on board, so there was no way for anyone outside them to know where they were. They survived for 4 months and several ships passing by that did not see them before they were rescued. They were emaciated, ill, and in need of long term nursing back to health, he more than she--but then what happened? They set out to do it all over again. It is very reminiscent of the Shackleton story--not only was their marooning of note, their inability to survive on land was also quite impressive and for me, incomprehensible.

Sumida Hokusai Museum, Tokyo, Japan

I love the Japanese Edo era woodblook prints, as did the impressionists, who I also love. This museum has just the works of Katsushika Hokusai. He moved dozens of times, but he was born in now Sumida-ku now and spent much of his life there. He also wrote some pieces of ukiyo-e of this area. This museum has collected only works of the artist. He is most famous for his wave print, and I love his Mt. Fuji series, but we saw depictions of courtesan life. These were produced in huge numbers and were hugely popular during the Edo period (1615 – 1868). They are known as ukiyo-e, and depicted scenes from everyday Japan. Ukiyo-e literally means 'pictures of the floating world'. The 'floating world' referred to the licensed brothel and theatre districts of Japan's major cities during the Edo period. Inhabited by prostitutes and Kabuki actors (Kabuki is a traditional Japanese form of theatre), these were the playgrounds of the newly wealthy merchant class. Despite their low status in the strict social hierarchy of the time, actors and courtesans became the style icons of their day, and their fashions spread to the general population via inexpensive woodblock prints.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

This is a lot about what the immigrant experience is like--in this case it is immigrating to America, but I suspect there is overlap with immigrating to other places. The United States is a place with a rich and deep Native American culture that is largely unknown and ignored and otherwise it is a jumble of cultural influence that is shallow and often troubled. So imagine having familial ties in a place that has deep cultural roots and centuries of conflict over them? On the surface, this is a novel about the relationship between Sunny Bhatia and Sonia Shah, whose families are neighbors but not friends, and whose attempts to make a match begin their on-off liaison. Where Sunny dreams of journalistic success, Sonia’s heart and mind lie in writing fiction. The sheer exhaustion – mental, physical and artistic – caused by the constant need for self-invention and reinvention, whether individual, societal, national or global--it does seek to accurately and productively capture this yearning for gravitas. Yet just underneath the surface of what they say they want is a search for belonging and being valued. It leads them to be together and apart, in India and the United States and back again, and yes, it spans years and it messy and complicated.

The Christmas Contract (2018)

It is December, let the holiday movie season begin--right before the short lists for the 10 categories that are announced by the end of the month and the season of well respected documentaries and international movies begin. A little fluff before getting down to that more serious business. This is all too predictable, as a holiday movie should be, and yet I found it easy to watch. The story is this--Jolie is a New York website designer reluctantly heading home to Louisiana for a traditional family Christmas. She loves her family and their traditions around Christmas is a year-round job for them, they love it so much, but the problem is that her long-time former boyfriend, from the same home town and who recently broke up with her, will also be there and with a new girlfriend. Jolie would love to have a plus-one to save face, but thre is no one in the queue. He best friend Naomi suggests her brother Jack. He is a struggling freelance writer who had already stood up Jolie on their first date way back when. Jolie reluctantly says yes to the plan--she really doesn't have any other viable options and Jack is on board because he can research the Louisiana-set romance novel he's been asked to ghostwrite. Her family is charming, they embrace the two, and you basically know the rest. If 2025 has been rough for you and you enjoy this time of year, check this one out.

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

This somewhat sentimental and ultimately tense novel follows the interwoven lives of two married couples in the fictional town of Bonhomie, Ohio. One half of the first of these couples is Cal Jenkins, the sweet-tempered son of a gruff and traumatized first world war veteran, born in the spring of 1920 with one leg shorter than the other. This is a pivotal problem for Cal--he is marginalized because of it, is challenged romantically by it, and it keeps him out of WWII so he is home while others are away. He instead ends up spending his days in drudgery at the local concrete factory. As luck would have it, a chance meeting with Becky Hanover, a young woman with a dark bob and a loveably whimsical way about her, sees Cal and they are soon married. The second couple are the Salts--Margaret and Felix. Margaret grew up an orphan, never feeling safe or loved, so she can be forgiven for not understanding what was going on with Felix, but while he was away on a battleship in the Pacific, she begins an affair with Cal. That is how the couples become entangled with each other, and the rest of the story would be quite comfortable in a Faulkner novel--overdone a bit, but engrossing none the less. The book also takes us through racism, classism, and homophobia in mid-century America.

Nippori Fabric Town, Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo has neighborhoods and Nippori Fabric Town lies in a quiet part of Nippori, just east of the Yamanote Line station and makes for just as exciting of an adventure for fabric aficionados, as it does for most of us non-connoisseurs. There are dozens of shops selling anything from fabrics, leather, buttons, zippers, beads - you name it - Nippori Fabric Town has established itself as a hotspot for Tokyo’s textile lovers over the past century and is an ideal place to get some inspiration for your next creative endeavor. Start your journey through Nippori Fabric Town by making your way up the central street (Chuo-dori) that runs towards the east of Nippori Station and you’ll soon notice the yellow signs that mark the beginning of textile heaven. Tomato is perhaps the neighbourhood’s most famous and easily most recognizable establishment, boasting several shops along the main street and a main building that stretches over a whopping five floors. Each of Tomato’s stores is dedicated to slightly different types of fabrics including textiles for interiors, a shop dedicated to sewing kits and even an outlet where can have your very own fabric designs printed. There is a lot of high quality Japanese fabric for very good prices, but if you are looking for kasuri or shibori, you need to go to a used kimono store to find that.

Looking For Smoke by K.A. Cobell

I read this for a Goodreads challenge and to celebrate Native American Heritage month. It is a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick as well--and mirrors another one of her picks, a YA book called The Firekeeper's Daughter. It is also a novel where a teen girl has to figure out what is happening in her community. Mara Racette is a high school student who recently moved to the Blackfeet Rez in Browning, Montana. The book is told from a number of different viewpoints, and includes Loren Arnoux, whose older sister Rayanne went missing three months earlier, Brody Clark, who has a crush on Loren and the joker of their friend group, and Eli First Kill, whose biggest concern is his younger sister. During Indian Days weekend, Loren’s family honors the memory of her grandfather by doing a giveaway, and soon afterward Samantha White Tail, Loren’s best friend, is found murdered. The FBI gets involved because unlike with Rayanne’s disappearance, there is a body and a chance for the agent on the case to pretend like he cares. As happens all too frequently in real life, the tribal police are under-resourced, and the killing of native women goes un solved and unpunished.

A Paris Christmas Waltz (2023)

This movie should only be watched when you are doing a string of Xmas movies. It is Hallmark Christmas movie material (even though it is not, strictly speaking). It will be very satidfying if that is the urge you are looking to itch and the streeet scenes of Paris are an added bonus. Emma is enraptured watching classical dancing, and she finds Leo, a professional dance competitor, to be divine to watch. He is so inspiring that when friend gives her dance lessons, she takes a deep dive and gets pretty good for a beginner. Most importantly, she loves how it makes her feel and you can tell by looking at her. So when Leo, recovering from a broken heart and trying to recapture his love of dancing decides to enter a por-am competition--in Paris--he picks Emma and she accepts. Leo's old partner doesn't at all like the look of Emma or how Leo looks at her, and goes about spooking her AND getting in her head, which works up to the point that it doesn't and it ends exactly as you expect it will, which is okay, because that is what Christmas movies are supposed to deliver. Happy Holidays!!

History Lessons by Zoe Wallbrook

This is part murder mystery and part romance novel--I picked it out for a Goodreads challenge fulfillment and enjoyed it. Daphne is a Black woman in academia mobilizes her research skills to investigate the murder of an unlikable collogue who she is on the verge of accusing of plagiarism. She is a brainy junior professor at illustrious Harrison University, Daphne studies the history of Black families under French imperialism and has some very enjoyable best friends who keep her spirits up. When a fellow professor in the anthropology department, Sam, is killed, a last-minute text message from him subjects her to the perpetrator’s continued threats. With the encouragement of Rowan—a local bookseller, former police officer, and Daphne’s crush—and for self-preservation she investigates Sam’s death while uncovering the misogyny, racism, and lies of her college’s new dean. This is by no means ground breaking work, but it was an enjoyable read that ticked a lot of boxes for me.

Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo, Japan

Tsukiji Outer Market (築地場外市場, Tsukiji Jōgai Shijō) is a district adjacent to the site of the former Tsukiji Wholesale Market. It consists of a few blocks of wholesale and retail shops, as well as restaurants crowded along narrow lanes. Here you can find fresh and processed seafood and produce alongside food-related goods such as knives. A visit to Tsukiji Outer Market is best combined with a fresh sushi breakfast or lunch at one of the local restaurants, which typically open from 5:00 in the morning to around noon or early afternoon. Because most of the fish served and sold at Tsukiji Outer Market is delivered directly from Toyosu Market, it is one of the best places in Tokyo to enjoy fresh seafood. We were there before the sun came up and it was a good start to our Japan vacation.

These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

For some reason I was thinking this was more high brow literature than it ended up being, and so was maybe more disappointed than I would have been if I had been slightly better informed. The author is a romance writer, and for me, this book is deeply rooted in that tradition--you can see what is coming down the proverbial pike from a mile away. Although it turns out this was on the New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2025, so maybe it is just me. The senior Storm has died and left his prodigious estate in limbo. On the one hand everyone counted on getting their share of a sizable inheritance pie and on the other, what were they thinking? That their husband and father would not try to manipulate and control them beyond the grave? Alice is the black sheep of the family and our window into the family. She’s an outsider who used to be an insider, as she was exiled from the family by her father five years ago for rebelling against her father over a sexual harassment situation, so we are on her side in this — she is the only person who had ever stood up to him. There is so much hurt and pain amongst all the Storm siblings, as they have lived in the shadow of their larger-than-life father, and all of them, except Alice, have always done his bidding. The twists, turns, and layers of Storm dysfunctional family relationship dynamics are central to the story--if that sort of saga appeals to you, this would be good reading.

The Family Plan (2025)

I read a review that basically said that this is a decently entertaining action movie, and I would agree. Mark Wahlberg is the perfect actor to pull off a character who is now changing diapers but used to be a paid assasin, and when his cover is blown, he needs to not rile up his family too much but also to keep them safe they need to be on the run--they are making their way to Vegas to get their fake. After fending off assassins all the way from New York to Nevada, but always in a way that everyone but the baby misses, the Morgans finally get to the City of Sin, and while I’m willing to suspend some disbelief to help a dumb comedy like this work, Dan leaving his kids, including the baby, to go out to a nice dinner with Jessica, is literally insane. Of course, the Morgans get separated, McCaffrey finds them, and everyone learns the truth. I watched this on a trans Pacific flight--in other words, the perfect setting to tolerate an utterly unbelievable plot that is helped along by an amiable and likable lead actor, and enjoyed it way more than the critics apparently did.

Plunder by Menachim Kaiser

I read a review of this book which had a quote from the book that more or less sums it up. "Family stories are poor preservers of history: they’re fragmented, badly documented, warped by hearsay, conjecture, legend — of course errors are going to creep in. This seems somehow wrong, even blasphemous, at odds with the private sacredness we impute to our origin stories. But most stories in most families aren’t meant or relied on as preservation of hard information, they’re meant and relied on as preservation of soft information, of sentiment, narrative, identity, of who someone was and, subsequently, who you are." The author is the grandson of someone whose property in Poland was seized when the family was sent to a concentration camp and all the rest of them died. It was by family lore a modest property--they were middle class not wealthy and when he decides to try to get it back, he knows that it is a long shot and that there isn't much bang for the buck, in that he is going to spend time and money on this project, and that it is not the destination so much as the journey. There are a lot of surprises for him along the way, and the book takes us through it in an almost thrilling sense, that we quickly learn that there are many corners to turn on this adventure, and that there are quite a few interesting people who get involved as well. I would recommend this for many reasons, because many of us know our histories only through stories, and some of those stories might very well have surprise endings too.

Organic Shapes with Carolina Oneto

First off let me say that the Modern QUilting world is a big and generous world. I was able to participate in this virtual workshop with a teacher who is living in Buenos Aires with a quilt guild in Rochester, all while I am in yet another location, and it worked out great. I have not been able to get a class in person with Carolina at QuiltCon, and so the chance to do this was too good not to take. She has had some really gorgeous quilts in that show, and while I did not have a need to learn this technique--I already have so many UFO's that I have joined not one but in 2026 will be adding another one to be able to stay on task and quilt more, so that I can continue to get inspired and do more and work my way through my truely impressive stash of fabric. Oh, and also so that I might have way to much to do that when I retire I am relieved to be able to spend more time in this hobby. The class we all took was an improv round shapes class. Think building cairns with stones, but they are more colorful, and do not have to balance on each other. The thing I like about this expereince beyond the actual learning and expanding my ideas and skill set is that it is so convivial to be with strangers in a virtual environment and create together. My own quilt guild, which I am deeply invovled with and invested in, is in a city I do not live in--so I know most of the members virtually. I do meet up with some people IRL on occasion, but most of it is while I am in my parlor or my dining room at home, and I feel connected and that I know them. As a non-gamer, this is a new experience for me, and my creativity has been expanded exponentially through this. Can't wait to do another course like this!

Black Moses by Caleb Gayle

This was recommended by Jacqueline Woodson, author of Brown Girl Dreaming, and of course also by the National Book Award as well. It is about Edward Preston McCabe, who was born free to free parents, and who appears to be a classic success story of the Reconstruction period. In 1878, after stints as a clerk in New York and Chicago, he arrived at the forlorn town of Nicodemus, Kansas, and took over the local government. He enticed more settlers and helped to foster the town’s increasing prosperity. After two terms as state auditor, McCabe then lit out for the Oklahoma Territory, where he co-founded the town of Langston, played a prominent role in the founding of Langston University and served as the territory’s assistant auditor. In 1890, he met President Benjamin Harrison in the White House, where he angled for an appointment as territorial governor. But McCabe was a Black man in Jim Crow America, and while he appeared to have a lot of things going for him, the reach of his dreams of a place for black Americans to be in charge, to command their own fate, became too great a liability for white Americans. Racism shaped the contours of his ambition, and then it crushed him. The retelling of his life is one way for him to live on, which makes it extra important to read and know about.

Thunderbolts (2025)

Ok, finally a Marvel movie that I can follow. Admittedly, I watched it on a plane (so not on the big screen by any means, but also with an eye towards passing the time. In my mind, this is the very best conditions to view marvel under because I am giving it more attention than I would at home but I am satisfied with so much less because of where I am). In any case, I agree with one review I read--this is the best Marvel movie in quite some time, and for an impressive stretch, it actually looks and feels like a real movie, with solid action, vivid emotional stakes and characters memorable enough that you won't mind seeing them again in the inevitable sequel. Part of the attraction is that the star is the terrific Florence Pugh, who was introduced several movies back as Yelena Belova, the younger sister of Scarlett Johansson's now-deceased Natasha Romanoff. Like Natasha, Yelena is the product of a top-secret Russian program that turned innocent children into spies and assassins. Years later, Yelena still can't shake off the grim memories of her indoctrination, or her grief over Natasha's death. Yelena now works as undercover muscle for the malevolent CIA director, Valentina, who is bad news, and before long, Yelena is betrayed and trapped in a deadly lair in the middle of nowhere. To get out alive, she must join forces with a few other similarly betrayed and trapped operatives, some of whom have special powers. Basically, you know the rest, but it is good fun.

Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee

This was a Parnassus Books Friday "If You Haven't Read It It Is New To You", which is mostly made up of books that are not new at all but you might have missed, but shouldn't have. I love this featured weekly video, even though it would be quite challenging to keep up with their recommendations if you had read none of them. This is once again about the American immigrant experience, and in this version, how one’s mastery of the English language affects everything. Henry Park, born in the United States to Korean parents, has spent much of his life attempting to overcome the legacy of his parents’ language. He sees perfect English as an avenue to success, and though his English is, in fact, very American, he finds himself lacking. The book focuses on Henry--as a boy, where he has a fraught relationship with his father and his mother dies when he is young. Then as a husband, with his white wife, and finally his employer, who pay him and other first generation immigrants who have a foot in both camps, the old and the new, to be an undercover spy. Glimmer & Company keeps tabs on labor organizers, radical students and the like. Henry's job, on behalf of an unnamed client, is to infiltrate the organization of John Kwang, a city councilman from Queens whose progressive rainbow-coalition appeal is gaining prominence on the New York political landscape. All these roles flesh out who Henry is and it is a very interesting psychological profile of the first generation American experience.

Red Lentil Soup

As we get nearer to Thanksgiving, I am thinking of comforting food, and trying to lean into the immigrant history of America--once the holiday is upon us I will be thinking of native food that helped sustain my relatives in those early days in New England four hundred years ago. This is a keeper. Very easy, start to finish, and I gifted a quart to one of my kids when he was picking up his dog, and my DIL had finished it before it was even cooled down--that good! Ingredients 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 large onion, chopped fine Salt and pepper ¾ teaspoon ground coriander ½ teaspoon ground cumin ¼ teaspoon ground ginger ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon Pinch cayenne--or I used sliced jalapenos 1 tablespoon tomato paste 1 garlic clove, minced 4 cups chicken broth 2 cups water 10 ½ ounces (1 ½ cups) red lentils, picked over and rinsed 2 tablespoons lemon juice, plus extra for seasoning 1 ½ teaspoons dried mint, crumbled 1 teaspoon paprika ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro Melt butter in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and some salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened but not browned, about 5 minutes. Add coriander, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, cayenne, and pepper and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and garlic and cook for 1 minute. Stir in broth, water, and lentils and bring to simmer. Simmer vigorously, stirring occasionally, until lentils are soft and about half are broken down. Whisk soup vigorously until it is coarsely pureed. Stir in lemon juice and season with salt and extra lemon juice to taste. Thin with water as needed.

Who Is Government? by Michael Lewis

This is one of the efforts to push back on the 2025 administration's denigration of what the government does, and it made it to Obama's 2025 Summer Reading list, so pay attention, this is important. The author did this during Donald Trump’s first administration with profiles of a handful of unknown federal government employees in order to valorize what Trump scorned and highlight the cost of breaking it. His point again in this book is that if you could lift the lid on any department you would find a similar treasure trove of stories: people you’ve never heard of, doing work whose importance you’ve never understood. Last year, Lewis assembled a crack team of long-form writers to uncover more of these stories for the Washington Post, and those articles are collected here. The gods have yet again smiled on him, if not his country, because the timing is horrendously perfect. One of the many people who doesn’t understand how the US government works has somehow been permitted to take it down to the studs in the name of “efficiency”. Elon Musk’s Doge has only been running for a few weeks but Americans will be suffering the consequences of his ignorant vandalism for many years to come, in health, national security, disaster preparation and more. It would not be surprising to learn that some of the people interviewed here have already been laid off, or their work defunded. At any rate, Musk’s demolition derby makes this kind of journalism feel, more than ever, like a civic duty.

Love In The Villa (2022)

The more the politics in my country deteriorates, so goes the movies that I watch. I become less interested in something that teaches me something and more interested in well worn tropes that can be found in Made For Cable movies, something that will never make it to the big screen. Hence we have this--a romantic comedy set in Verona, a city that Shakespeare reportedly never visited, but none the less made famous by setting his tragic play Romeo and Juliet there. The good news is that the bulk of the filming actually occurred in Verona so if you are like me, have it on your hope to see life list, then you will get a glimpse and see if it is for you. Julie is a grammar school teacher who is in love with Romeo and Juliet--she still sees it as a tragic love story rather than one of parents screwing up their kids lives. This is a dream trip for her up to the point where her long time boyfriend dumped her, and she decided to go anyway. Charlie is there for a wine expo and is hoping to score a great deal on a little known wine that has great potential--which seems possible in Italy. They are double booked in to the same Airbnb and because of the wine expo, there is not a room to be had in Verona. The first half of the movie is pretty unbearable as they try to get the other to vacate the premises, but once they declare a truce, it is and enjoyable ride the rest of the way. And the scenery!!

The Director by Daniel Kehlmann

This is a creepy bit of historical fiction. I had the same anxiousness reading it that I had when watching the 2024 movie Zone of Interest, which depicts seemingly innocuous family life--but right next to a concentration camp. A review noted that the book has all the darkness, shapeshifting ambiguity and glittering unease of a modern Grimms' fairytale. Couldn't agree more. The true life character who is fictionally depicted here is Georg Wilhelm Pabst. He was one of the most influential film directors in Weimar Germany, probably best known on the international stage for discovering Greta Garbo and Louise Brooks. His radical approach earned him the nickname of “Red Pabst”, and when Hitler was elected to power in 1933, Pabst reacted by taking his family to the United States--where he struggled to be at home. He intended to emigrate permanently, but what was supposed to have been a brief trip back to Austria to visit his sick mother saw Pabst detained inside the Third Reich for the duration of the second world war. He was conscripted as a film maker. Pabst himself seeks refuge in work, taking on subjects that are “German enough” not to offend the censor. The films he creates offer their own coded criticisms of the regime, though his resistance is too clever, too artistic to be easily discerned. The novel’s denouement takes us finally to the film set of his last film, relocated to Prague in order to escape the allied bombing. Pabst is determined to finish the film by whatever means necessary, even as more and more of his support staff are forcibly drafted and sent to the front. The really difficult part is that, much like in America in 2025, the people who are the most racist, the most vile, and the least needed are the ones who have the upper hand and they openly grind down those they hate in the most despicable ways.

Everest on Grand, St. Paul, Minnesota

This is a special place, where the food of the Himalayan region is featured. The owners came to Minnesota for educational reasons. Padam Sharma came to Minnesota in 1977 with his wife, Kamala, and their two children—son, Sam, and daughter, Pankaj—to pursue a master’s degree in Soil Science. They returned to Minnesota so that Padam could earn his Ph.D., after which he took a research position at North Dakota State University. They eventually returned to Minnesota, where Padam worked first as a researcher at the university, then as a consultant in a computer business. The restaurant grew out of a desire to bridge the gap between Americans and Nepalese through food. The family nature of the business has been its greatest strength, especially because Kamala, Pankaj, and Pankaj’s husband, Ujjwal, are all peak-level cooks of Nepalese cuisine. When you walk in, you can tell you are about to eat well--we started with Yak momos, because while I had yak years ago, it had been a while. We ordered our food medium, a 3 on a scale of 1-5 and there was definite heat to it, not to much, but more than enough to know they were not going lightly on us. I would recommend this as having a menu that is broader than many other restaurants of similar cuisine. I brought the leftovers home, and after sharing with my family we decided to get a Nepali cookbook and try our hand at it.

Group by Christie Tate

I read this as part of a Goodreads challenge and while I did not love it and I might have found it otherwise, because I am slowly but surely reading my way through the Reese Witherspoon book picks and this is one of those as well, it might have taken some time. This is a memoir that the author wrote about her experience with group therapy and how it changes--and saved--her life. She was academically successful but socially constricted and when she went to therapy to address the unhappiness in her life, she was referred to group therapy. The group she joined was one where there was no expectation of confidentiality and every expectation that you would share all aspects of your life with the group. It was a bit shocking for me as a mental health professional, but everyone goes in knowing what's what. There are few of the boundaries you would ordinarily expect--group members can date each other, get married--the therapist even goes to these weddings and he even has the patient over to his house at one point. The boundaries are very permeable. The book takes place over about a five year period of time, and while it includes very little about her professional life, it is quite intimate in the details of her personal life, most particularly her intimate partners. This does have a happy ending, but she has to kiss a few frogs to find her prince. It is a quirky memoir that I liked more once I finished it than I did reading it.

Manzone Giovanni 1925, Monforte d'Alba, Italy

We had an exceptionally good time tasting wine at this family run winery. The great granddaughter of the founder gave us the tour. • The estate focuses on high-altitude, steep hillside vineyards, including renowned Crus such as Gramolere and Castelletto, producing elegant and age-worthy Barolo. • Manzone follows a sustainable approach with organic practices, low yields, spontaneous fermentations, and extended aging in large Slavonian oak casks.

Stefano Manzone, born in 1860, founded the current winery. His son Giovanni, born in 1886, won the Ciabot del Preve, which was the former parish priest's house and farm located in Castelletto. This area was particularly challenging to cultivate due to its distance from the main property and its difficult terrain. Giovanni and his wife Maria relocated there, driven solely by the will to survive the difficult years ahead. This moment marked the beginning of the winery's history. Giovanni was a visionary who had previously worked as a cellarman in one of the area's most innovative wineries, the Cantina Sociale di Monforte d'Alba, established in the early 19th century by Monsignor Dall'Orto. However, following the Great War, this winery closed due to the spread of phylloxera. In 1925, Giovanni moved to Castelletto's Ciabot del Preve and began producing wine, leveraging his prior experience. During this time, the post-war Langhe region experienced a significant decline in population as many abandoned rural life for urban opportunities. Giovanni Manzone was among the few who chose to remain in this rural setting. Driven by innovation, he purchased the first Lamborghini crawler tractor—an essential tool for working the steep slopes of Castelletto. This acquisition was so significant that it attracted interest from other local farmers who sought to rent it. The property continued to expand over time. In the early 1970s, the Manzone family acquired additional plots known as Gramolere, which translates to "weed and stones" in Piedmontese dialect. These lands were historically recognized for producing exceptional grapes and wines with remarkable structure and longevity.

The Siren's Call by Chris Hayes

I read this because it was on Obama's Summer 2025 reading list--it was number 8 out of 10, and I did not love this. It is an analysis of a current challenge, which is that we collectively are drowning in an ocean of content designed to capture fragments of our consciousness, and we barely notice the tide pulling us under. It is an in depth look at why we are addicted to our phones. This does not quite resonate with me personally, even though I see it all around me, people who are in the midst of a group, but they are ignoring what is going on around them and are solely concentrated on their phones--the distracting content. It is dangerous, I see that--but again, I see it, and I am looking for something more solution focused. This book is more focused on why it happens. He does make an opening pitch that this is as old as man, that Odysseus was captured by a siren for a decade on his route home, and that we are following in his footsteps.

Quilted Postcards with Sarah Ruiz

Sarah Ruiz is a NASA space engineer by day, quilter by night. She spoke to our guild about her 100 postcards in 100 days project that she did during COVID. First she started with her idea about doing something over and over again for a 100 days as a way to get better at something. You do it every day--which is in itself a commitment. I do it with language acquisition (which I have been doing more or less for seven years), and it definitely has improved my ability to communicate in a couple languages that are not my first language. So I was intrigued by this idea when it comes to crafting skills. I had an inherent avoidance of FPP, even though when I have done it I have been impressed with the precision achieved with it and how compatatively low skilled it need be. So it is basically in my head and I need to do more of it if I am going to get over it. So maybe in 2026 I will figure out a 100 day project for myself. So she had this whole 100 days thing going on when the pandemic kept us all more or less at home (as a health care worker I left the house, but it was home or work, no exceptions, with contactless grocery pick ups and dinners outside at seperate tables per household). She decided she would do a pieced postcard every day and mail it to someone. One of my guild mates was lucky enough to receive one--but it was a way to distract herself, work within a small palate, and to brighten someone else's world. Also on the plus side, they are something you could crank out in an hour--and she has some free patterns on her website to get you started. Check it out!

The Names by Florence Knapp

I very much liked this, but it has a grim underlying message, which is if you are involved with an abuser, get out before it is too late. There are no good exit strategies that develop over time. This is what one reviewer described as a sliding door tale, where three different narratives unfold depending on the choice made in the beginning. Cora is married to Gordon, a respected physician in the community and a man who beats his wife at home. He comes from a long line of Gordons and when Cora sets off to register her son's birth, she is expected to continue that tradition. She doesn't want to, though. She considers naming him Bear, which is what her 9-year old daughter Maia wants, Jordan, which is what she wants, and Gordon, which is what is expected of her. The book unfolds with what happens when she makes each different choice, and no matter what, it doesn't go well--but it goes very differently for the boy depending.

Enoteca Regionale Del Barbaresco, Barbaresco, Italy

Inaugurated on July 5, 1986, the Enoteca Regionale del Barbaresco works for the promotion of Barbaresco DOCG, representing the entire denomination and over 150 of the wineries that produce it. There are three Barbarescos open for tasting, and while we were there is was largely an Italian clientele, buying large bottles of wine, Magnums and larger. The building is spectacular! The Enoteca del Barbaresco was born from an initiative of the Piedmont Region which in 1980 determined the establishment of the circuit of Enoteche Regionali to combine the valorisation of wine culture with the recovery of historical structures, which have become the headquarters of the various wine shops. The need to create a regional institution for the promotion of Barbaresco faced the problem of the lack of adequate space: both the castle of Neive and the fiefdom of Barbaresco were not municipal property and there were no suitable structures in Treiso. The Municipality of Barbaresco then decided to purchase from the Curia the building of the former Confraternity of San Donato, now disused, thus allowing the opening of the wine shop in 1986.

On Death by John Keats (1814)

A country should not set it's military on its people, and certainly not for revenge or vanity. But sadly and very unfortunately, that is where we are right now. On Death 1. Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by? The transient pleasures as a vision seem, And yet we think the greatest pain's to die. 2. How strange it is that man on earth should roam, And lead a life of woe, but not forsake His rugged path; nor dare he view alone His future doom which is but to awake.

Sadler Restaurant, Milan, Italy

This is an elegant place with excellent food--not only did the chef grace our table, he sat and ate with the two women who were about his age who were sitting next to us--we all opted for the tasting menu. For us, it was our last elevated meal in Italy and we wanted it to last. This is a one-Michelin star dining establishment housed in the Casa Baglioni hotel, a beautiful Art Nouveau building dating from 1913, this restaurant has a contemporary feel with an elegant dining room featuring colourful armchairs. The cuisine is precise and distinctive, with a harmonious balance of traditional and innovative flavours thanks to the top-quality ingredients used. This was an easy walk from our hotel, and from here we walked to the Duomo and to an upscale store to buy cheese to bring home.

Endling by Maria Reva

This book was long listed for the 2025 Booker Prize, and it is exactly the sort of book that you should read no matter that it didn't make the short list cut. Set in Ukraine in 2022,, it is is an incredibly unique, thought-provoking ode to love, loss, and identity. In addition, it navigates so many incredibly important themes that are at the forefront of Ukraine’s past and present. An endling: the last creature of a species; the stage before extinction. Yeva, a scientist, has dedicated her life’s work to snails. She is determined that her beloved shelled friends will not reach their end, she travels over land and lake throughout Ukraine. While she is trying to both conduct research and raise the funds to do so, Yeva grapples with expectations from society and from her family to leave the snails to their shells and forge a home of her own. They are unaware she has been roped into another line of work: ‘romance tours’, which are designed to attract foreign men desiring Ukrainian brides. As two sisters join Yeva, determined to break centuries of the misogyny of these tours, an unexpected collision between science and love occurs. The women launch an improbable mission, entering a battle in favor of feminism yet also entering the warzone of rural Ukraine, leading everyone around them to question whether they will become their society’s endling. We look on as the women, and the snails, enter an immense journey for freedom - for women, for science, and for their country--one that for Ukraine continues.

Sewing In The Fog with Radha Weaver

I want to pause briefly to say how much I love my quilt guild, which is the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild. I work remotely in Minneapolis, and I met a coworker (on purpose) at QuiltCon, the modern quilting's annual meeting, and wow wow wow, I fell in love with modern quilting, hook, line, and sinker. It was a crash bing bang all consuming love at first sight, and I joined her local guild, which had switched to an on line format during the pandemic, and now I really cannot get enough of the lectures we hear every month from modern quilters who talk about who they are, where they came from, and what they are doing. Our October speaker was Radha Weaver, who grew up on a commune in the Bay Area, and then after college worked in the garment industry for 15 years. She traveled to places where fabric is produced, like China and Bangladesh, and saw first hand both the process of fabric production and the conditions that the workers experienced and decided it was time for her to bow out of that work. She pivoted to recycling, or what is popularly known as upcycling, fabric. She works primarily in denim, some with leather, and now she not only uses previously used fabric in her work but she helps people connect with each other to exchange or off load fabric they have purchased but no longer want. She is adamantly not opposed to buying or selling fabric--she does want to get away from the fast fashion idea, where you buy something and wear it once or twice, but do not wear it out. That is unsustainable, and she is offering ideas about what to do instead.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

I loved this book, told entirely in what is known as the epistolary format--it is all written communication, a story told entirely through letters and emails. There is some very serious stuff herein, but strangely, the overall tone is light and upbeat. Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter. Through her correspondence the learn about who Sybil is and was--a mother, a lawyer, a wife, a friend--and someone who has suffered great loss and failed to successfully navigate grief. She is wise and funny, she is at once lucky and unlucky, and best of all we really get to know her through her writing. I could not put this down--I stayed up late to finish it, and was quite satisfied with it from start to finish. The best in a long time, simple and yet remarkably deep.

Death Due To Misinformation

We have been here before, and apparently we the people are easily misled, and we will be here again. During the COVID pandemic I was surprised and at time shocked by the lack of understanding about what was happening. It seemed like very basic biology--understanidng why a messanger RNA vaccine would be a novel approach is harder to follow, but what a novel virus brought with it in terms of risks and challenges is a foundational block in a high school education. The move towards making vaccines optinal--and not covered by insurance--is going to kill people, mostly children and elderly people. It will also, very importantly, maim people. The ravages of surviving the damage from high fever have been largely forgotten by most, but will become very real. And not vaccinating against COVID, a virus that we do not yet fully understand but know that fully a third of people recovering from COVID have cognitive impairment and longer term damage that we do not yet know how to treat, and given the support for science in this administration, are unlikely to learn more about in the short term. I encourage you to stroll through some pre-vaccination era cemetaries and note how many children are buried there--I have started collecting photos of just this--because sadly, if the anti-vaccination trend continues, we will have children populating them once again.

Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga

I read this because it was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, and while it did not make it to the short list, a lot of the books that fall into that category are among my favorite nominees--this book was good, but will not make my top 5 of the nominees this year. I read a review that I think nicely summarizes the course of events in this book, which is that it subtly blurs the distinction between help and harm. Yes, that is the best of the messages to take home from this, that your intentions are not always the end result. The protagonist is an Albanian woman married to a New Yorker who works as an interpreter--which is almost always a complex job as well as an emotional one. She has trouble creating and maintaining boundaries, both with her clients as well as in the world in general, and she is slowly but surely careening from one mishap to another, leaving the reader to worry about what will happen to her next--I listened to part of it and had to stop when she got herself into a dangerous situation, I just couldn't be driving and giving the story the attention it deserved. She is generous and good hearted but she also has blinders on when it comes to danger and she has trouble seeing beyond herself when she acts. There are lots of subtexts here, about immigration, the lasting effects of trauma, and the limitations of what what dreams for and what is realistic.

Ristorante Borgo Sant'Anna, Monforte d'Alba, Piedmont, Italy

The restaurant is housed on a vineyard, so the dining room has spectacular 180 degree views of the UNESCO World Heritage wine growing region that are breath taking all on their own. The chef here, Pasquale Laera, is originally from Puglia but has long made Piedmont his home, embracing the traditions and codes of its regional cuisine while enriching them with his own vision. His offering includes tasting menus (one dedicated to game in season) and an à la carte selection that reflects a colorful, generous style, where the choice of ingredients clearly sets flavor above appearance. Special care is given to vegetables, which Pasquale, true to his southern roots, knows how to elevate to their best, carefully sourcing them not only from his own garden but also from trusted suppliers.

The game menu was on offer, but we opted for one that was more vegetable and seafood forward, and while the meal over all was perfect, we loved each dish and there were a number of highlights, this one stood out. This was the BEST zucchini I have ever had. The broth is olive oil and lemon, the fresh zucchini floating it it picked up this sauce, which was flavorful and coated them. On the bottom of the pile in the middle was grilled zucchini, topped with a packet of ground zucchini and ricotta, and atop that some vert small poached zucchini and a fried zucchini flower. The small side dish had a pickled. tiny pan patty. Amazing!!!

The Science Is Clear

Let me start off by saying that it baffles me why only 59% of people think that RFK Jr. is doing a bad job. He and the current administration are breaking everything. The ends to the means is to have Republicans make it true what they have always stood by--don't trust the government. Why you would trust the wealthy, the ones who want to keep all the money to themselves, is beyond me. The problem is that people are also inclined to believe them, and thereby not trust the science. Science doesn't care who you voted for or what you believe. The GOP, on the other hand, wants you to blame women. It is both the text and the subtext of this administration. The attack on women's health and a woman's ability to make reproductive health care decisions is about the subjugation of women. Taking away equality in the work place is affirmative action for mediocre white men at the expense of competent women. The current president, a convicted sex offender, complaining that beating your wife should not be considered a crime is about devaluing women. I get it--if you are an incompetent underperforming man, then not being able to be the dictator at home feels like a loss, but it is a loss that is deserved. Women who choose to cede their power have the right to do so--what nobody has the right to do is make that choice for all women.