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.