Yumiko Higuchi: Embroidery and Applique Artist and Her Books

Wow, wow, wow. This book and this artist are both equal parts amazing! Yumiko Higuchi is a world-acclaimed Japanese embroidery artist renowned for her exquisite needlework masterpieces. Her unique work balances modern and traditional aspects of the art form. Most of her books delve into designs from the natural world, which is true of this one as well, but here in addition to embroidery, she is adding felt and applique as well and the effect is beautiful.

She was initially a handbag designer, and her designs translate well to garments, tea towels, and various flavors of bags. In the past I have made bags, but only in the context of a class, and it would be really cool to pre-embroider and applique material that would then be cut out and sewn into a bag. I got this book out of the library but knew immediately that I had to add it to my own library, and she has quite a few additional books published that I suspect are worthy of hunting down.

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

It surprised me how much I enjoy the Bridgerton televion series. My family is not surprised--I loved Downton Abbey and watched it on my own. We usually watch this sort of light television fare together and therefore it is unusual for me to soldier through a multi-season series without them, so it is notable, but these period drama/soap opera series do have a tendency to hook me in. This is the starting book of the series that the series is based on, and I did a combination of reading and listening to it. I was somewhat hampered by having seen it already, and being pretty sure it had a different ending, at the very least, because it is not the stuff of romance novels, to put it mildly. The series has otherwise stayed pretty close to the novel, albeit with a larger cast of characters and more fleshed out personalities. The inner thoughts in both Daphne and Simon's heads are nice to hear--that doesn't happen much when the book goes to the big screen, and while I would do it in the reverse order as a rule (book first, screen version second), I enjoyed this, and have already started the second book in the series.

The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021)

This is unabashedly romantic and more of a rmoantic drama than a comedy. It is based on a book of the same title by Jo Jo Moyes, and while I do not read much of her work, this seems more sentimental than even she usually goes. There are two times here--which is easier to see than it is to write about, at least here it is. There are also two different love stories here. In the present day, Ellie, a journalist who has no interest in romance, is assigned to write about an editor who has recently died. She has to get past a rather frosty and formal archivist named Rory to get access to the editor’s archive, and there she finds a swooningly That part of the story is set in 1965 London: there’s the wealthy and gorgeous young couple, Jennifer and Lawrence Stirling--he's a bit distant and she's a bit young. Through a series of flashbacks we learn of her passionate affair with a journalist that her husband introduced her to, and the series of near misses that they have at happiness. In the present day Ellie is busy unraveling the story in the present day, hunting down who they were and what happened to them, and then it all comes together in the end. This was surprisingly tense to watch and surprisingly sweet in the end.

The Heir Apparent by Rebecca Armitage

This Reese's Book Club pick is on the lighter side. It is a bit of a mash up of The Princess Diaries with a dash of Hamlet on the side. Princess Alexandrina Villiers is a 29-year-old living in self-imposed exile in Tasmania, working hard as a medical resident. he thought she was free of palace constraints, as her twin brother and father stood ahead of her in the line of succession. She had renounced royal duties to forge a life on her own outside the spotlight that is honed on all things royal, and thought she was out of woods, with a brother to follow in her father's footsteps and a plan for her twin to sire an offspring or two. However, after a tragic avalanche claims the lives of her brother and father, Lexi is suddenly thrust to the front of the line of succession and there is her uncle vying for the crown--much like Princess Margaret, he thinks he is better suited to the job and with Lexi taking herself out of contention, that he will have control of the royal reigns when his mother dies. Lexi has other plans--she comes back for a year into palace life and shifts all the pieces about on the royal chess board, leaving the royal succession looking a bit tossed up in her wake.

Cheryl Arkison: Improv Is My Love Language

I very much enjoyed this talk by a Canadian quilter who spoke to the Sew Squad that is hosted by the incompable Libs Elliot. She talked about the kind of quilter that she is and then went on to explain what it is about Improvisation that really speaks to her. Improv is definitely not my love language, but as she went through the various sorts of quilters it gave me some time to reflect on what kind of quilter I am. The list is as such: 1. Quality Control 2. Replication 3. Artisanal 4. Expressive 5. Improvisational The quality control quilted is all about the control. The seam ripper is always at hand because this quilter is acutely aware of the mistakes and is obsessive about fixing them. They are pinners. They have great pride in the craft of precision quilting. This is decidedly not me--I am attracted to gluing and I do occasionally pin. I also seam rip with more frequency than I would like to admit, but it is needs must, not fixing something that is a tich off. The replication quilter finds kits very appealing. They cannot imporvise even if they run out of fabric. They look for the exact fabric that is pictured in the pattern. While I am a big fan of a pattern, this is decidedly NOT me. I love doing a different color way, and if I run our, or as happened recently, the kit didn't have enough fabric, I just winged it and the other kit I bought I am already planning substitutions for my next one. I am surprised to find that Artisanal is my jam--handwork gets me excited! I love hand dyed and woven fabrics. They warm me. I do have a comfort with wonkiness that is part of improv, and I want more access to that, but I am not there yet, and I am also working on expressive, where I am getting to a point of view and how to tell the story. So her lecture taught me a lot about myself as a quilter.

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

This may be unpopular but I really enjoyed The Help, both the book and the movie that followed. I say that as a white woman from the North, so basically I have no lived experience with the people and events that are depicted in the book, so given that handicap, the depiction of deeply embedded racism in the American South rings true with my experience of traveling there and observing the culture rather than being part of it. This book depicts Mississippi in 1933, and revolves more around poverty, although racism is alive and well in the Depression-era South. There are two narrators: Birdy is a single woman moving past marriagable age (early 20's) and Meg, who is an 11 year old consigned to an orphanage even though both her parents are living. Birdy has a good head on her shoulders, but is under employed with her talents wasted, as many women of the era were. She goes to Oxford to ask her sister's in laws for money, only to discover a slowly unfolding disaster there. The characters in this book are vividly drawn and for the most part sympathetic--there are some notable exceptions to that, and while good and evil are maybe a little too characteristically drawn in places, overall the players are nuanced and human. The novel does a great job capturing the plight of women and the many ways they had to adapt, endure, and fight for their space in a societal model designed to limit them. In light of the present unraveling of civil rights, morality and decency, as well as democracy in the United States, there are some important lessons on how to navigate our way back to a functioning community. There’s also thoughtful attention to racial divisions and social hierarchies, and how those systems shaped everyday life.

Hoppers (2026)

This is a good one--maybe even nomination worthy. It is a story with warmth, humor, exciting action, endearing characters, and a reassuringly expansive notion of community. It has charm and a touch of magic, but it is grounded—literally. The conflict at the center of the story is between Mabel Tanaka, who loves a stretch of pristine land populated by wildlife, and Jerry Generazzo, the town’s energetic and glad-handing mayor, who wants to build a Beaverton Beltway through the property. There is an equally compelling conflict within Mabel. This is where Pixar’s signature compassion for our most human vulnerabilities really shines. They understand that anger tries to fool us into thinking it comes from a place of strength and will help get us what we want. But more often, it comes from fear, and it doesn’t help at all, this time at Mayor Jerry and the planned destruction of the glade. He says he can proceed because it is no longer an animal habitat. All the animals are gone. Which is true--Mabel needs a bewver to return to the glade to make a healthy water source and a place for the animals to come back to--through a series of events Mabel herself becomes that beaver--literally--and fights the good fight against cheating politicians. Heart warming eco-animation for the whole family .

Latinísimo by Sandra Gutierrez

My on line cookbook group is cooking out of this book this month, and I am surprised by a number of things about it. The first is that I did not know this book had been published--it is a relatively comprehensive cookbook covering all 21 Latin countries in the Americas. That is both its strength and its weakness. Do you need to own it? I would say yes--I have been going to Central and South America since I was a child, and I have been an avid home cook for almost 50 years and there were many things that I learned about the region and the cuisine from reading this book. There is a lot of information about the differences in cuisine across the region, including the kinds of peppers and what you can do with them that are worth the price of admission. The downside is that while it is almost unliftable in weight, it lacks depth into any particular cuisine--that it unsurprising, but this is not the be all and end all of Latin American cooking--rather it is an excellent starting point and one that should be explored. It is available on used book sites for under $10 and well worth it.

Libs Elliott and Rebel Tech Quilting

What an amazing quilter, and I recently heard her speak about her process for design. Libs Elliott is a quilt artist renowned for blending computer algorithms with traditional crafts. Her random generator design uses Processing—an open-source coding language—to algorithmically randomize geometric shapes, block rotations, and color palettes.

The Generative Process that she uses, which is open source code, is something that she took our guild behind the curtain and showed how it could work for us. First there are Algorithmic Layouts: The code randomizes variables like block orientation, color distribution, and scale. It outputs endless unique compositions, which she then filters and selects for her designs. Each design is unique--it can be saved as a PDF (which she does, thousands of times over), but once you click on it again, it is not coming back. You can add a lot of elements, like how much of each color you want represented, and and what elements to add, and how much rotation you want, but then it is randome. Then comes the Human Element: Once a digital pattern is finalized, she uses it as a precise map to cut and sew fabric, introducing beautiful "human" imperfections into the mathematically driven design. She may use only a small portion of the pattern to make a quilt, and she may change things, it is really more of a starting place than the destination, but it is so cool. Now I have to get this pattern and see for myself.

Say You'll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez

I have read several of this author's romance novels and have very much enjoyed them. This one less so. It is not because of the serious content, which is family members dealing with early dementia. It is more the 'love at second sight' aspect that seems off. Samantha meets Xavier when she takes her rescue kitten in for veterinary care. is bedside manner puts her off, but when she raises an impossible amount of money for the surgery her kitten requires, she does warm to him. Unfortunately, even though they shared a perfect first date, it’s obvious to Samantha that she can’t pursue a relationship as she’s bound for home to help take care of her ailing mother. Xavier refuses to let any obstacles get in the way of their happiness, try as he might. He isn’t ready to let go of her just yet. The thing that seems off is that he has had a childhood that lacks support and affection, and yet he dives into the relationship with Samantha with both feet. The build up to change and a traditional romance ending was enough to convince me to try the second book in the series, so I would give this a one thumb up.

A Private Life (2026)

I watched this on a plane en rout home from a very restful vacation. I had just had a joint replacement in my dominant arm, which was boring and painful and a little scary because there was so much I could not do that is important to me. I could not cook, write, or sew, and it was hard to type. While I love to read and watch movies, when that is all you can do it quickly wears thin. So the trip was as much about getting out of my house as it was about exploring a new place, and it was very successful indeed. This is is a 2025 French mystery thriller Jodie Foster in her first French-language acting role. She plays renowned and vaguely arrogant psychiatrist Lilian Steiner, who has an old school psychoanalytic approach to the profession, complete with the couch. When she is informed that her patient Paula has taken her own life, she refuses to accept the official ruling. Convinced that foul play is involved, Lilian launches her own quirky, private investigation into the circumstances of Paula's death. Along the way, she enlists the reluctant help of her affectionate ex-husband, Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), and navigates the absurdities of her own unraveling personal and professional life. It is odd, slightly bizarre and completely out of step with modern psychiatry but in the end, I enjoyed it.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

This is a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection, and I am slowly but surely reading quite a few of them--she has a penchant for thrillers, which I do not share, but this one is sort of borderline in that category. It is set in the near future in a remote place that is largely uninhabited. As a result the characters only interact with each other, because there is no one else there. Dominic Salt and his three children live at Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica that is disappearing because of climate change and rising oceans. Here is the world’s largest seed bank, and while Shearwater was once full of researchers, it’s now just the Salts. And soon they will be leaving as well--largely abandoing the seeds they put there to preserve them for the future. But everything changes when, after a terrible storm, a woman mysteriously washes ashore. The Salts help nurse the woman, Rowan, back to health. And while the family is used to being on their own, they start to form a connection with Rowen. They all have secrets that gradually reveal themselves, and while this sort of literary thriller is not my usual fare, I enjoyed this.

La Relais de la Poste, La Wantzenau, France

We ate on the patio at this one star Michelin restaurant for my birthday-- the nice thing about it, besides that it was a beautiful day and the patio is spacious, is that we were the only North Americans in the place and all the tables were occupied. They say that the chef and his team offer precise cuisine, elegant presentation, a discerning selection of locally sourced ingredients, and creative, flavorful dishes.

We couldn't agree more. I love the spring foods--aspagagus, spring peas, rhubarb, strawberries are all some of my favorites, and in this land locked region, the fish is from the river or the lake. I never quite got it before, but the terroir is finally something that I can taste--took years, decades really--before I really felt I knew the difference. We in the US have come to that party late, which left us with no sense of it, but as tariffs in the US rise, gas prices rise, and the availability of food that travels becomes less affordable, maybe the silver lining is that we develop the ability to grow and appreciate our own. This is a restaurant well worth going to celebrate, and they will talk about where they source their food, some of it from across the street.

Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

I read this for two reasons--one is that it fullfills a Goodreads challenge, and while I do not knock myself out getting these badges, I have found that I have enjoyed the pursuit of them. I chose this particular book because I have never read anything by this author, and she is a favorite of a number of my friends on Goodreads, especially those who read in this genre more regularly than I do, and I have to say that while I won't be pursuing this authors whole catalogue, I did enjoy it. Here is the story--Lifestyle blogger Hollis Shaw is struggling a bit. She has become a social media phenomenon, but at the expense of her family--both her husband and her teenaged daughter see her prioritizing her number of clicks over either of them, and while she protests this is not a fair characterization of her priorities, where she puts both her time and effort would be contrary to that. She really is pretty impressed with herself. When she tragically loses her husband in a car accident, she finds herself struggling to move forward. He daughter pulls back further, and she has trouble connecting with her friends to get support--she does have a connection with one of her on-line followers, who she pours her heart out to, feels better for it, then gets ghosted by her. Seeking comfort and a fresh start, she decides to host a "Five-Star Weekend" at her Nantucket home--this is defined as a weekend with people from four different periods of your life and yourself--the hook being that no one necessarily knows anyone but you. She invites a diverse group of women representing different eras of her life: her childhood best friend, her college roommate, a close friend from her thirties, and a mysterious blog follower who ghosted her. It is a weekend full of surprises and it ends up someplace very different than wheree it started.

The Choral (2026)

My spouse and I watched this on a transatlantic flight because he is very fond of Ralph Fiennes and we both enjoyed this quiet yet thoughtful movie. It focuses on a choral society that attempts to perform The Dream of Gerontius (which I did not love) for their community against the backdrop of World War I, hits its notes with aplomb. However, it might have benefited from a creative vibrato that would have added more layers to its boilerplate narrative. Still, it’s a tune about the impotence of art making in the midst of crisis that bears repeating, as the world that’s all too eager to sacrifice the arts on the altar of productivity and progress. Sound familiar? Well, while there are echoes of that in our life today, the movie is grounded in thr setting of a different era. Set in the fictional town of Ramsden, Yorkshire, in 1916, the era is brought to life with meticulous detail: schoolboys ride their bikes recklessly throughout the town, aristocrats cover their balding scalps with top hats, while steam from the nearby industrial mills wafts through the cobblestone streets. There’s a veneer of normalcy, although the regularity pokes at a more somber truth: the town is in mourning at the toll of the war, which has taken many of their men and left behind grieving families. The young men of the town wait with bated breath to see whether they’ll receive the call to conscription, leaving the rest of the citizens caught in a sort of limbo. It’s hard to go about one’s daily life when the people you’re in community with can be taken at any moment--it is also easy to see the differences in class at this time, something that WWI took a big bite out of in England.

More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen

Well I have to say that this is more about the people within than the story it tells, which is not to say that there isn't a story here, there is, and the people are largely likeable and good. Polly Goodman is the center of this story. She is an English teacher at a private high school, a job she loves, and she has a group of close friends she has known a long time. After a brief marriage to a charismatic bad man, she’s found love with a good one: a large-animal veterinarian who makes adorable cameos on the Bronx Zoo’s social media platforms. She wants to have a baby but it is not happening for her. Her father is getting more cognitively impaired and her mother, a judge who takes that job quite seriously, is brusque and difficult. Then, added in to the mix she takes a DNA test and finds that she has a match with a relative unknown to her. This starts a slow but interesting thread about who in her nuclear family has a secret, and how to handle it. The best part of this book is the character development. There is a lot going on in a relatively short novel and I really enjoyed wending my way to the end.

Restaurant A L'Etoile, Boersch, France

This is a Michelin noted restaurant, and here is what they have to say about it: Tucked away in a small Alsace village on the Mont Sainte Odile road, this traditional hostelry, opened in 1920, is today run by the fourth generation. A warm welcome and honest, homely recipes, starring market-fresh produce and a slate menu.

The menu changes daily and is written on a slate board--so it is short and fresh. I am not a fan of offal, but if you are, about 1/3 of the menu consists of that, and but all of it is more French leaning than the traditional Alsatian food we had in some places we ate on this trip. I had a whole trout, very simply prepared by poaching it whole and then serving with browned butter with slivered almonds. My spouse had veal tonnato that was possibly the best version of that dish we have ever had. Overall it was very reasonably priced and deliciously prepared food--the menu is limited but varied, and I would recommend it.

We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara

There is so much going on in this short novel that was long-listed for the International Booker Prize in 2026. The Argentinian author has written a tale that is based on a true story and contains a healthy amount of magical realism that is a good if somewhat disorienting at times read. The book reconstructs the wild, surreal life of Antonio de Erauso, a 17th-century Basque nun who escaped the convent, lived as a man, and became a soldier, conquistador, and outlaw. It opens as Antonio, hiding deep in the rainforest of the New World, writes letters to his aunt, the prioress of the Basque convent he once escaped. Having rescued two young Guaraní girls from enslavement and facing pursuit from the colonial army he deserted, Antonio reflects on his monumental metamorphosis. The setting sharply contrasts the stagnant, rigid conventions of the Spanish Empire with the vibrant, magical "seething" life of the South American jungle. All told, it is a queer positive satire and a powerful subversion of Latin American history as told by Spain. It serves as an understated critique of colonialism, religious tyranny, and the brutal subjugation of Indigenous people. As an example, Antonio goes to Potosí, where historical estimates suggest that up to 8 million indigenous people and enslaved Africans died working in the mines there in Bolivia during the colonial era but that horror is understated at best in this recounting.

The Lost Bus (2025)

I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that this movie was nominated in the area of special effects for the 2026 Academy Awards and it certainly fits that bill. It is a "telling the story of a disaster" movie, which adheres largely to the facts even if some of the people and their circumstances are changed. This is about the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, which went from a small fire to a devestating fire in no time at all, aided and abetted by dry conditions and very high wind. Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaughey) is a relatively new school bus driver, back in Paradise for a number of reasons and struggling. He answers a call from his dispatcher to pick up 23 kids at an elementary school and get them to safety. At first, it doesn’t seem that difficult, but everyone in the area of Paradise, California, underestimated how quickly this blaze would move and how hard it would be to evacuate as it did. Stuck in traffic with enough smoke in the air to block the sun, Kevin and a teacher named Mary Ludwig (America Ferrera) do their best to keep the kids calm, even as their own panic rises. Cutting through traffic, trying shortcuts, and blocking the children from seeing people literally on fire. The actual action of is white-knuckle riveting. It’s powerfully immersive stuff, so much so that while there isn’t a bus of children actually avoiding a deadly blaze, the viewer gets so caught up in the immediacy of what they are facing that it is hard to watch and hard to look away. There’s a scene where Mary actually gets off the bus to find water that will had me wanting to yell at her to get back to the bus--NOW. THe bad news is that the beginning of the movie is completely unnecessary and clunky. We do not need to know Kevin's backstory to care about whether he gets these kids, himslef and the teacher to safety. Instead of glossing over that we spend quite a bit of time learning Kevin recently underwent a bitter divorce, his teenage son hates him, his mother is cognitively declining, and icing on the life stressor cake, his dog died. Ugh, really? Maybe it even describes the real story but wow, not needed. Overall this was a good edge of your seat action movie, and if you haven't seen it, you should watch the short documentary, Campfire, which shows actual footage of the Camp Fire and how it unfolded in real life to see just hoe true to form this rendition is.

Birds and Us by Tim Birkhead

This is an expansive look at man's interactions with birds, written by an academic ornithologist. It opens with a visit to Cueva del Tajo de las Figuras, located in Andalusia, Spain and the Neolithic bird paintings on its walls. This is an 8,000-year old depiction of flamingos, herons, raptors, avocets and many other species. Birkhead recounts the story of how the cave was discovered in the early 20th-century and then Abbé Henri Breuilsummarizes academics’ efforts to identify the 208 birds on the cave wall--I really enjoy these ancient cave paintings, and it was a good place to start from my perspective. Each chapters focuses on a chronological era and sometimes a place, through the details within often jump around in time and space. There’s the Neolithic era; Ancient Egypt; Ancient Greece and Rome (Aristotle liked birds, as did Pliny and Plutarch); Medieval times (mostly falconry); the Renaissance; the groundbreaking classification work of Francis Willughby and John Ray in the late Renaissance; the seabirds of the Faroe Islands (an essay on the interaction between puffins, murres, fulmars and the people who kill and eat them, a delicate balance first observed by a Danish priest in the mid-17th-century); the 19th-century ideological explosion that followed the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species ; the Victorian Era’s obsession with the collecting of bird skins and eggs ; the development of field-based ornithological research in Europe and Great Britain; a quick step back through the history to look at bird protection, conservation, and our precarious future, with a focus on Birkhead’s long-term Common Guillemot research at Skomer Island, Wales (which he has written about a number of times before). It is scattershot but interesting, and he is a reasonable storyteller, so it is a good way to learn more about birds if you are so inclined.

Au Table du Gourmet, Riquewihr, Alsace, France

This was one of the most intensely herbal meals I have ever had and I loved it. They have a massive garden and they are not afraid to use it. The chef, Jean-Luc Brendel, describes himself as a chef, a gardiner, and a poet. All of this is evident in the food on offer at this gorgeous restaurant. From their own website: A chef's total commitment to sustainable and responsible gastronomy, in homage to nature and to his land of Alsace. Because the expression "cultivating one’s own garden" could have taken root here, Jean-Luc Brendel does a lot of the gardening, composts, selects, raises chickens and produces honey. He is the author of a spontaneous, fresh and free cuisine, a cuisine of the essential, of cultivated or wild products, of emotions and travels, and he signs his plates in green. Emotional upheaval and eco-responsibility.

The town itself if worth exploring and there are places to try the regional wines just around the corner from the restaurant. Riquewihr is a picturesque medieval village in the Alsace region of northeastern France, famous for its well-preserved 16th-century architecture, colorful half-timbered houses. So very cute, if also remarkably crowded with tourists, at least the older part of the town is pedestrian only. Really lovely, despite not having been discovered by us

In Her Defense by Phillipa Malicka

I am torn about this one. It raises a number of interesting questions about the nature of therapy combined with a hint about the training and regulation of therapists, but it ultimately did not answer the important ones, in my mind at least. The book opens with a court battle between a celebrity and an untrained therapist, but there are underlying mysteries that involve two other women. In London, the center of the trial is a woman named Mary. On one side is Mary’s mother, Anna Finbow, a beloved TV star but also not mother-of-the-year material, and Mary’s charismatic, controlling therapist, Jean Guest, whose unorthodox methods appear to be predatory and cultish. Neither are reliable witnesses, but least reliable of all is the book’s narrator, Augusta Bird, Anna’s former dog walker. She was coming off a bad breakup when she first found employment with Anna, but her loneliness and depression don’t explain some shifty behaviors. The timing was odd as well; the trial was approaching and Anna hadn’t seen Mary in years. Gus, poor and with no family support, is sympathetic and suspicious at the same time. And what does Mary have to do with it? Eventually, chapters go back in time to show these characters’ complex lives and the depths they suffer. But these portraits are keenly observed—and show why they are vulnerable to predation. As the book goes on, more and more questions arise about victimhood, power, perspective. Many are unanswered, and at no point is the issue of the power that therapists can wield and why training and regultion is so important, so as a mental health professional, I was ultimately dissatisfied with the outcome.

Anaconda (2026)

Let's start off by acknowledging that this movie is really awful. I watched it on a Transatlantic flight, which is the ideal setting for slightly less than spectacular movies whose main goal is to pass the time--so even in an ideal detting the end result is that this movie was terrible. It is billed as a meta-reboot of the original Anaconda, and aims to trade earnest horror for goofy self-aware comedy. It stars Jack Black as Doug and Paul Rudd as Griff and with their down-on-their-luck friends who set out to make an indie reboot of the 1997 classic, only to get trapped in the jungle with a real, giant CGI snake. Their partners in this endeavor are film making friends from their high school days, also with star power (Thandie Newton and Steve Zahn) and nothing, not even them, can save this. The original was (reportedly) a silly movie that knew it was silly. This new Anaconda begins life as a silly movie but then turns less silly and more absurd, and that’s when it becomes even less compelling than wehre is started. When the focus is on the scrappy movie within the movie, it’s good for the occasional laugh. However, throughout the movie the dialogue is terrible, and the acting is unable to save it, despite the presense of actors that I usually find entertaining.

Familia by Laura Rico

This was a The Community Reads book for my town, where there are unlimited electronic copies of the book for a period of time, and I was able to listen to it while I was doing (and am doing ) extensive PT after surgery, and I enjoyed it in a light fiction sort of genre. Here's the story: Gabby is an aspiring writer who lives in Brooklyn and works for the feature magazine Flux, where she and other staff members are offered the opportunity to take free familial DNA tests. Gabby’s charming boss, Max, hopes that some of the results will lead to a story of some sort. And they do: though Gabby insists that she is of Italian heritage, her DNA profile indicates European, African, and Taino ancestry. Gabby’s parents are deceased, so she cannot discuss the perplexing results with them; she’s also unnerved by her newfound DNA link to an older sister, Isabella, in Puerto Rico whose sister was kidnapped as a baby. She is so unnerved that even though she insists that it is a mistake, she ends up quitting her job and going to Puerto Rico to look into it further. The book shifts between Gabby and Isabella’s perspectives. Gabby was raised as an adored only child in New York, Gabby attended private school and traveled in Europe--she cannot imagine that her parents would kidnap a child and raise it as their own, and her birth certificate bears that out. In Puerto Rico, Isabella grew up with an alcoholic, heroin-addicted father; she witnessed her mother’s childbirth-related death and endured a violent sexual assault when she was fifteen. Now a talented artist who also works at a tourist shop, streetwise Isabella is thrilled by the possible discovery of a long-lost sibling. Together they untangle the truth.

Domaine Marcel Deiss, Bergheim, Alsace, France

And so we start our education of Alsace wines! We are staying on the edge of the Rue du Vin, and spent the day driving through charming villages. Our first tasting was at Domaine Marcel Deiss. Domaine Marcel Deiss ranks among the great wine estates of Alsace. The Deiss family—a lineage comprising winemakers, ironworkers, and bell founders—has been established in Bergheim since 1744. This was a great introduction to the wines of Alsace--we spent almost 2 hours tasting wine, learning about the wine growing history of Alsace, and how to approach the different wines that are characteristic of the region.

Domaine Marcel Deiss was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, in 1947. The creation of the vineyard was the work of Marcel Deiss who has been joined by his son André, to establish an extensive wine estate based in Bergheim. They scoured the records left by the monks who had been growing grapes for wine for centuries, and discovered there used to be 130 different grape varieties—of which 110 survived to modern times and they grow 60 in their vineyards, bucking the trend of Alsace tradition that one grape from one vineyard makes a wine . His descendants—first Jean-Michel, then Mathieu Deiss—subsequently took over the family operation. Since 1997, every single parcel of the Domaine Marcel Deiss estate has been farmed biodynamically. We had fun, we learned a lot and I love their use of medieval art to label their wine.

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

I think this is a book that you either love or hate, and when you look at the reviews on line, you will see that it strikes hard but it is not always well received. I really enjoyed this, although I sympathize with those who do not. Theo is an elderly man who is quietly and smartly friendly, who notices things around him, and is prone to random acts of kindness in the town of Golden. He pretty quickly finds himself with a close group of friends who are as excentric as they are likable. He has an eye for art, and one of the things he sets about doing is buying portraits that have been drawn by a local artist and currently hang in a high quality coffee shop in town. He decides to buy them, a few at a time, and gift them to the subjects, who he feels should rightfully own them. They are modestly priced, and he starts with just a few, inviting the person to a mysterious but entirely public meeting to bestow them. Throughout the story we catch glimpses of who Theo was before he moved to Golden, but less about why he is there. All is revealed in the end, and I found the whole package to be enjoyable. I listened to the book, which is perhaps part of why it held my attention, but overall, I found it uplifting despite the sometimes very sad things that happen.

Solo Mio (2026)

We watched this romantic comedy on a Transatlantic flight, and if for no other reason, it should be seen because Andrea Bocelli, the celebrated Italian tenor, performs in it. As far as I can tell, this is his first appearance in a movie that is not about him or his life. Matt, played by Kevin James, is left at the alter at his destination wedding in Rome. As so often happens in a romantic comedy, even one that involves middle aged heartbreak, he goes on the honeymoon solo mio, and as luck would have it, one of the locals who is determined to salvage it for him is a relative of the famous opera singer. This is a kind of run of the mill movie for this genre, but like another movie I watched this year, the appearance of a world class musical performer helps to transform the story to another level.

Cleopatra by Saara Al-Arifi

I really enjoyed this book, which closely adheres to what is known about Cleopatra's life. I did not realize until I was halfway throught he book that the author did her thesis on Cleopatra and the impact she has had on black women. She came to rule at a precarious time in the region. Caesar was upending the order of things in the Roman Republic, and while he was initially successful as a soldier, he had trouble establishing himself as the undisputed leader under a newly established system. Egypt is in the thick of it because of their long established relationship with Rome, and it all goes wrong for Cleopatra. She was a talented leader at a time when women were not given the reigns of power, she was the beloved of both Caesar and after him Marc Anthony, her child with Caesar made her a threat to the new regime, which therefore put them both in danger, and this is a fascinating take on a well known historical figure.

Chez Yvonne, Strasbourg, France

This was the meal that my spouse wanted to have the first day but we couldn't quite swing, because for one, we were not quite in Alsace--we had a bit of a reboot on our travel plans because of my shoulder replacement surgery eight weeks before leaving me sore, winged, and uneasy of being joustled. The menu is written on a chalk board, it was heavy on tradition, and we really got a taste of regional food. In the restaurant's own words: Chez Yvonne is an iconic Winstub in the history of Strasbourg, where you can enjoy generous and traditional Alsatian cuisine in a friendly setting just steps from Strasbourg Cathedral. The establishment, founded by Eugène Jacquemet, first opened its doors in 1873 under the name "S'Burjerstuewel." In 1956, the restaurant adopted the name "Chez Yvonne," in honor of its new owner, Yvonne Haller. A prominent figure in the Alsatian capital, she gradually built the restaurant's reputation. The establishment is also renowned for the quality of its traditional dishes, appreciated by all gourmets. It has even been awarded a Bib Gourmand by the Michelin Guide. Even today, this historic restaurant of the Franco-German agreement seduces with its Alsatian dishes and its authentic atmosphere, a living reflection of the Alsatian gastronomic heritage.

All Consuming by Ruby Tandoh

I picked this book out because the New York Times put it on their Notable Books of 2025 list, and I try to read somewhere between a 1/3 and a 1/2 of their picks over the course of the following year (if I didn't manage to read them before the list came out, that is), and this was both on the list, and an intriguing idea. The author was a contestant in the Great British Bake Off and is a food writer. In this book she examines the forces shaping our appetites. What unseen cultural baggage do we bring to the table when we choose what to eat? In the 17th century eating was understood to have a transformative power on one’s character, with the constituents of food able to define and alter an individual’s constitution, an association that persisted even as its scientific underpinning faded away. Eating beef, for instance, was believed to make one strong and honest, but also violent and stupid, and was particularly associated with Englishmen. A series of 17th- and 18th-century satires contrasted the solid vigor of English beefeaters with the frog-and-soup-eating French. Food, the satires suggest, has always been about more than just taste, touching on issues of nationhood, ideology, and collective identity, and we have yet to escape that in modern times. Now we are influenced by Tik Tok and Instagram. The author contends that your great-grandmother would likely not recognize your lunch, but she certainly wouldn’t recognize the Instagram Reels recipe you followed to make it, or the multinational megacorp delivery service you ordered the ingredients from, or perhaps even the ingredients themselves, imported out of season from across the globe and repackaged by savvy marketers. She is putting a fine point on what has changed in the last 20 years, and while I still rely on cookbooks form my recipes, the breadth of those has also exploded, and the food we eat has changed in many ways worth thinking about.

The Accountant (2016)

My spouse and I watched the most recent interation of this character, a combination wizard of an accountant combined with a highly skilled killer. Luckily you do not need to see this one first, but we were on a Transatlantic flight and watched it with dinner and before trying to get a few winks in before landing. There are quite a few threads at work here, one of which is the back story on why a combination of autism and a pretty sadistic father might have combined to bring him to who he is today, and why his brother, who had to both suffer with the same parent and watch his brother struggle might have gone into security work for the bad guys. As alluded to, there’s quite a bit of stuff going on here, and for a good while the moviepercolates on its multiplicity of plot threads even as it keeps adding to them. As it happens, the “accountant” that Treasury agents are looking for is up to quite a bit more than providing tax relief for rural dwellers (which is the opening scene). He uncooks the books for a slew of deadly bad guys. Deadly bad guys who aresubsequently busted by the Treasury Department. Despite his proximity to some of the most dangerous criminals in the known universe, this man of dozens of aliases stays alive. How? Part of the answer is provided by the recurring flashbacks, in whichhis father provides young Christian with his more militaristic cure, which later manifests itself in sharpshooting and martial arts skills. While some of the material seems a bit insensitive and not altogether in keeping with mental health awareness, and does not characterize autism as an illness in any way accurately, it is a very decent action movie.

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Daves

This is what I would call a deversionary novel. It is certainly not cut from the typical murder mystery cloth--and no one dies--but it is close to that in terms of not too much going on beneath the surface of the story. I enjoyed it, I read it quickly in a "hard to put it down" kind of way, but it is light and fluffy. The story and how it rolls out is a little unusual, and held my interest. Hannah Hall’s adoring husband, coding genius Owen Michaels, vanishes on the same day that his company is raided by the FBI for massive securities fraud. He leaves behind a suspiciously large duffel bag full of cash for his 16-year-old daughter, Bailey. And for his bewildered wife, who is Bailey’s stepmother, he leaves a cryptic note with a single directive: “Protect her.” Hannah desperately wants to fulfill his request, but she also wants answers. As she searches for the truth about her missing husband and contends with the legal troubles caused by his disappearance, she also tries to nurture a stepdaughter who barely wants anything to do with her. As these events unfold in the present, flashbacks show how Hannah’s relationships have developed and offer clues about her husband’s story. Along the way, her own history also comes into play. Deep-rooted abandonment issues shape her choices in the present, and the attorney she reaches out to for help navigating these treacherous waters is her ex-fiancé. It all comes to a somewhat unexpected ending, which is a nice twist--and possibly done to set up a sequel, but that did not detract from my experience.

La Grand Georgette, Reims, France

This was our first stop after landing in Paris. Originally we had planned to take the train to Alsace and rent a car from there, taking advantage of both the high speed nature of train travel in France as well as having an opportunity to nap a bit after a relatively sleepless night. Unexpectedly, between buying the airplane tickets and the actual trip I had a shoulder replacement surgery. It was perhaps both equal parts optimism and naïveté to follow through with with long ago planned travel to France when I was 7 weeks post-op, but after 5 weeks of doing not much but nurse my bum shoulder followed by 3 weeks of struggling to be back at work, I was ready for a bit of a vacation. Concessions were made and instead of taking a train to Alsace we opted instead to drive to Champagne (less chance of jostling on public transport) and we chose Reims! All I knew of the town is the 30 or so paintings Monet did of the cathedral here—I had postcards of 2 of them in my office forever after seeing them in a Monet exhibit long ago. What I did not know was that he was commissioned to paint them after it was bombed in WWI. The cathedral dates back to the 5th century and the current restored is a great example of Gothic architecture —with over 2,000 statues.

So it is all about the church--we stayed a block away and we ate in a restaurant in view of it. The meal was a bit fussier than what we usually aim for on the first day, and it was slow going between courses--a blessing and a curse when you are trying to stay awake, but this was a very good meal, well prepared, and with a glass of champagne each, of course. We were definitely not up for a bottle and what they had by the glass was less unique than their bottle selections, but overall I would recommend this.

John and Paul by Ian Leslie

This is an iconic duo in an epically iconic band. The Beatles created music you have had in your head since childhood reveal new and unsuspected shades of meaning 50 years later. Beatles songs aren’t like most pop songs; instead of fading, they take on a richer color and nuance with time, not least because new generations of fans inquire more deeply into what previous listeners might have overlooked or simply misunderstood. One twist of the kaleidoscope and a song we thought we knew suddenly sounds even better than it did the first 100 times we heard it. The author argues that there was “no John without Paul, and vice versa”. This is about the songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and the unprecedented peaks the two of them scaled in remaking English popular music. This is about going deeper than the myth about the pair--he tries to figure out what their chemistry was and why it fell apart. After the Beatles finally disbanded, the author challenges the consensus that formed that Paul was the straight man to John’s rebel bohemian – vanilla against brimstone – which hardened into holy writ on Lennon’s murder in 1980. Their collaboration was as tight and co-dependent as two climbers roped together on a mountain face. They each went on to do more but there was never the same magic, and this is an interesting take on what that was all about.

You, Always (2026)

This is pretty straight ahead fare in the romantic comedy genre. A reviewer described it as disposable, which I guess I agree with, in that it is very light, very predctable, and there is nothing to strain your brain here. It is also completely unrealistic, but this is not a genre where the brain is much engaged, and I like it for that. It is a sun-drenched, predictable "friends-to-lovers" story set in Far North Queensland, Australia--so undeniably gorgeous, and not your standard back drop. The film follows Dr. Jen Bell, a local doctor and marine rescue volunteer who has come home after some time away, amarriage that ended acrimoniously, and a daughter, and her high-school best friend Ethan, who has inherited a house in his part time home town after his fahter's death. They work together on marine rescues as well as a lot of co-parenting of Jen's daughter, who they are both quite attached to--this is the point at which any parent sees where this is going. Finding someone who can care for your child at approximately the same level of commitment that you have is a winning hand. Both have sworn off dating following rough divorces. Just as Ethan realizes he has been in love with Jen all along, her life is upended by the arrival of Patrick, a charismatic romance novelist who literally sweeps Jen off her feet--but notably more or less ignores her daughter. He is not weird or difficult about it, and definitely not creepy, but, well, they are a package deal and he is placing Jen in a romance novel and wants to close the deal on it. Nothing surprising happens-- It offers a comforting, feel-good escape with beautiful coastal scenery.

You Think It I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld

I do not like short stories as a rule, but I have been a long term fan of this author, and it is a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, so I traded in the print version for an audio version, and listened to it while I was recovering from shoulder replacement surgery. One of the things I do not care for about short stories is that there just isn't enough time to get to know people. The social and domestic relationships of the characters, figuratively speaking, all sound the same because of time constraints. They are of a type, cut from the same piece of cloth – not genuinely reflective of that real frisson of weirdness and fear that can ensue when you realise you have no comprehension either of what someone else is thinking or what they are capable of thinking. This author's stories and their inhabitants don’t feel like that: they are much less tidy and, consequently, riskier. They explore what are frequently unresolvable tensions, especially between women: the journalist (another) who leaves her breastfeeding baby with a sitter in order to interview an actress, only for the interviewee to reveal her traumatic miscarriage. The tragicomic setup – the writer conceals her motherhood but is then exposed by her leaking breasts and the sitter’s panicked calls – leads to an impossible complex of competing empathies and sympathies. The situations of your past catching up with you run through this collection, and there is a lot to think about here.

Swapped (2026)

My youngest son and I watched this one evening when my spouse was on call and we both really enjoyed it. To be fair, we like animation, even when the story is a bit weak, so long as the animation is strong, but with this one, we enjoyed it as a whole. The animation is lush and gorgeous, and since it is an action movie that spans a whole magical environment, with one of the main characters able to fly, there is a lot to be awed by when it comes to that. The story takes place in an imaginary place called the Valley, where different types of woodland creatures don’t live together harmoniously. Ollie is a Pookoo, who looks like a sea otter, and is afraid of Javans. They are a hybrid version of owls and parrots. Ollie has always been a curious Pookoo, willing to help others and see beyond what the Valley offers. Things take a turn for the worse for Pookoos when Ollie helpsIvy, a tired, young Javan find food, which happens to be Pookoo’s only source of food. Ollie teaches the young Javan to open a seed. This puts the Pookoo’s in danger as the Javans take the seeds, leaving the Pookoo’s with very little for their survival and they go underground for safety. Fast forward and Ollie gets changed in a Java when he stumbles upon some miracle pods, and he gets taken in by Ivy and her sisters, who team up to restore him to his original Pookoo self. This is a movie about perspective and empathy, most importantly, the latter. It’s a story that revolves around two beings and learning to understand their worlds when the roles are switched. But the twist is that the two central characters swap bodies and team up to save their homes before an evil creature destroys them. It’s not just about empathy; it’s also about survival.

The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan

This is a bit of a story within a story, which seems to be cloaked in some kind of back story related to the author. As the title states, Cate Kay has lived three lives. Now it’s time for her to open up and reveal the truth--at least some of it. We never quite see what makes Cate tick, just the things that drive her to change her identity. The book starts in 1991, in her early youth. Gradually, we learn more about her and why she adopted three different identities and how now, in 2013, she lives a reclusive life. The book goes on to more or less unravel the layers of Cate’s life, revealing the aspirations of a young dreamer who once envisioned Hollywood stardom alongside her best friend and the love of her life, Amanda. Their plans, brimming with hope and ambition, are derailed by an unnamed tragedy that sends our protagonist fleeing into a life of aliases and secrets. Throughout Cate’s life, she experiences several relationships, maybe love and definitely manipulation, yet her one true love remains elusive. I would also say that the deceptions also leave Cate Kay as more two dimentional than is ideal in a character we are meant to at least sympathize with if not identify with--she doesn't come out of it with much in the way of depth, and it was a disappointing read from the Reese Book club oeuvre for me.

Love, Again (2023)

This is an old school romance story that is elevated by the presence of Celine Dion--both her person and her songs. The story is that both sides of this romance have had love and lost. Mira lost the lost of her life in a horrific pedestrian vs. car accident that happened in her presence and she has not been able to move on. Her family is urging her to at least try to date, and so she dips a toe into the dating app morass but oddly, also starts texting her dead love's old phone number. Thing is, unbeknownst to her, it has been reassigned to someone else. That someone is Rob. Rob’s a (severely underworked) music critic, heartbroken in his own way, who’s still getting over being dumped by his fiancée on the eve of their wedding. Instead of being annoyed by the messages, he’s touched by their sincerity, to the extent that he may even be falling for whoever’s sending them. He then goes about trying to figure out who she is based on clues in her texts, and meets success when he attends every performance of an opera in hopes of a chance encounter. All of which would have a creepy stalker quality except for Celine Dion's presence in the story. Eighteen years after “Titanic” made her a mega-star, Dion lost her husband and manager, René Angélil, and the singer has made no secret of her struggle to move on since. She helps bridge the gap between the two, and with a few bumps along the road, the inevitable happens. If you like this sort of unrealistic genre of romantic comedy--and in small doses, I most certainly do--this is a fine option, streaming on Netflix.

Kin by Tayari Jones

Two motherless children grow up as close as siblings. Vernice and Annie have been friends since they were babes in the same cradle, growing up in Honeysuckle, Louisiana. When Annie was only three days old, her mother, Hattie Lee, nursed her one last time before handing her over to her grandmother and leaving town. Meanwhile, when Vernice was only a couple of months old, her father killed her mother and her very reluctant aun raised her. It is with these losses that Niecy and Annie are bound together, yet they are total opposites in almost every other way. Annie is the stormier of the two and headstrong in finding her mother one day, while Vernice is always more careful and guarded. The former heads off in search of her mother--and in ways, in search of herself as well, while Vernice goes to college--they struggle with identity, racism, and what it means to have and be a family. This is another great book from this author.