A Nice Indian Boy (2025)

This is a nice boy meets boy love story. Naveen and Jay are perfect for each other. There are hiccups but it is a straight up romantic comedy other than the couple aren't straight. The movie opens with Naveen's sister's semi-arranged marriage--his parents, who are themselves in an arranged marriage are over hte moon--the groom is a doctor! All eyes are on Naveem--you are next is oft heard, and it is painful for him, because not only is he not dating, he is exceedingly awkward and he is gay, which his paretns know but are a bit prickly about. They don't quite get him. Then miracle of miracles he meets Jay. At temple no less. They are big fans of Ganesh. Yes, Jay is white, but he was raised by an Indian foster family who he adored, and he speaks Hindi. There are some ups and downs, as you would expect in a romantic comedy--one must have comedy, after all, and a lot of things are said out loud that are well worth hearing so if you have some gay averse family members this is a pretty G-rated way to normalize what is altogether normal for them. And there is some light weight Bollywood love at the end that is fun.

Run For The Hills by Kevin Wilson

I have only read one other book by this author but it shared characteristics with this one, making me think that it might be how this author rolls. It’s wacky and full of heart, but in between each laugh I felt the very sad back beat of who is family and why do they so often fail their children in the most basic of ways. It is also a story of family and the many shapes it can take, but it is also much more, asking why the ones who leave and the ones who lie are always the epicenter, always the focal point. The book opens with Mad, an organic farmer in her thirties, is resigned to her solitary lifestyle on her farm that her father left behind. One day her quiet and predictable life is interrupted by her newly discovered half brother, Rube, showing up at her farm. Rube is at once soft and jagged, desperate and pleading, reaching out a hand for Mad to reluctantly take. He shows up with stories of his father, same name as Mad’s dad but an entirely different man—a writer from Boston, whereas the only father Mad ever knew was a farmer in Tennessee. He convinces her to go on a road trip to find their other half siblings and their disappearing father, and what they learn along the way is a lesson for all of us. Really enjoyable and not nearly as light and fluffy as it appears.

Rhetoric On The Right: The Embracing of Opposite Day

Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a speaking event on September 11th. Would he be okay with that? In 2023, following a mass shooting at the Christian Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, Kirk stated, per Newsweek, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.” The trade off for gun access and gun deaths is that people will die--and it can't always be other people, can it? In the US about 50,000 people die by guns every year, so "some" is a pretty big number. He was not advocating for the shooting of children, who are more likely to die from gun violence than any other cause, so it seems he accepted the risk, maybe better than those who advocate for more controls on guns. In the aftermath of the shooting death of a man who was known as a spokesman for widespread gun ownership in this country, there is a focus on the politics of advocating violence. The right wants to advocate violence against anyone who disagrees with them, and to vilify those who speak out against them. The current President uses a lot of violent rhetoric when talking about his opponents, and the very same week that Mr. Kirk was killed at a public event, he was threatening war on the city of Chicago. That is violent speech and imagery. Then I hear GOP politicians calling out the left--without attribution of source--for inciting violence. "Some on the American left are undoubtedly well-meaning people, but their ideology is pure evil,” Representative Bob Onder, Republican of Missouri, said on Thursday in a speech on the House floor. “They hate the good, the truth, and the beautiful, and embrace the evil, the false, and the ugly.” Calling people well-meaning but evil none-the-less because they disagree with you is what is bad, false, and ugly. Half of America doesn't agree with you, afterall, and that alone does not make them evil. It is that rhetoric, which incites strong feelings, which can lead to violence. So who is it inciting violence in acutality? Seems like the right--look in the mirror if you want to see the problem, Congressman Onder.

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

This is another of the Parnassus Book recommendations that I have followed (spoiler alert--I have become fairly addicted to watching these, and have folded a number of their recommendations in to my reading rotation. The book is dedicated to Gore Vidal and is set in 1962, just after the Cuban missile crisis, and describes a day (with some flashing about in time) in the life of George Falconer, a 58-year-old expat Englishman who is living in Santa Monica and teaching at a university in LA, just as Isherwood did. The narrative is edgy, subtle, and controlled, with chasms of buried rage. George has recently lost his partner, Jim, in a car crash, and is struggling with bereavement. He tries to make a connection to the world around him, while denying his predicament as a widower. We see him go through the motions of everyday life: teaching a class, fighting with his neighbors, working out at the gym, shopping at a supermarket, drinking with an older woman friend, flirting intellectually with a young student – before fading out on the final page. As a study of grief and a portrait of the aftermath of a gay marriage, A Single Man is unique, brilliant, and deeply moving, with not a word wasted, saying so much with so little. There is an autobiographical component to this, and the editor of the author's diaries notes that there is a lot of material lifted almost word for word from them. Published in 1964, it was a window into a world that few straight readers would have been familiar with at the time.

Last Christmas (2022)

In the genre of classic Christmas movies, this fails miserably--however it is still worth watching if you need a line up of slightly quirky romantic comedies with the holiday aura about them. I was lured in by Emma Thompson and Michele Yeoh being in it to think it might be elevated above that but it was not. It was appealing in the cookie cutter British light fare sort of way. Based on the song by Wham! the movie tells the story of George Michael-obsessed, former Yugoslavian 26-year-old Kate, a a screw up whose foibles are more annoying than catastrophic. She works in an an all-year-round Christmas store in Covent Garden dressed as an elf, even when she is off the clock sometimes. This minimum wage job is not her dream--she really wants to be a professional singer, without training and while she is sort of homeless and lives on whatever couch she can find. She avoids her concerned mother, exhausts her beleaguered boss, frustrates her ever-decreasing circle of friends and drifts about while struggling to make anything substantial last. We do find out why that might be in the gradual reveal. But then while dusting Christmas decorations, she spots a handsome stranger (Henry Golding) staring at a bird. After the pair start to fall for each other and go on a number of saunters around the city, Kate is feeling a bit hooked but he is giving off a differenct vibe.Why? An why does he keep disappearing on her? All will be revealed.

Audition by Katie Kitamura

I put this on my library hold list because it was longlisted for the Booker Prize, but I also would have been intrigued because the other book by her that I have read is Intimacies, which tells the story of an interpreter at the Hague who comes to feel that she is the mouth piece for a war criminal that she is interpreting for. in this one, an aging an actress is confronted by a young man who claims to be her son, and though this cannot possibly be the case or can it, we never quite can figure it out. She invites him to live with her and her husband in their apartment as their child, which is bit shocking. If it were my child I would help them with the rend some place, not put them under my roof. But then we wouldn't have the crucial irritant to work with in the story. What could go wrong? Just about everything. These narrators take the most dramatic events in stride and devote most of their attention to minute observation of the people around them, noting the smallest gestures and contemplating their possible meanings. They are not given to outbursts of emotion, and in conversation they tend to listen more than talk. This leaves room for the reader to internally reflect as well, and the result for me was intense and a little startling.

Puerto 511, Baltimore, Maryland

This is a restaurant that you would not find if you were not looking for it. There is almost no curbside appeal and less signage--but it is a special place rather than something deserving of it's hiding spot. We were introduced to it by my SIL who picked it for our son's birthday dinner. It turns out that Little Donna's the night before was a better fit for him, but the rest of us loved this.

It is a fixed price menu of Peruvian food. They do not have a liquor license, so it is BYOB and they will open your wine and give you glasses for a corkage fee per person, but even better, bring your own pisco and they will make you excellent pisco sours. The food is surf and turf--but if you on;y eat seafood, they will sub that in for you. My spouse rhapsodized on the merits of the veal heart dish, but I was just as happy to skip that in favor of a tuna dish. I would definitely recommend this and go back on a return trip to Baltmore.

So We Read On by Maureen Corrigan

I picked this up because it was a Friday "If You Haven't Read This It Is New To You" series recommendation from Parnassus Books (if you are unfamiliar with these short format videos about books that are worthy, not current but in print, and that you might have missed but shouldn't have, they are well worth watching--try not to get overwhelmed though because I am a pretty intense reader and I can not keep up with these and I have not read most of them). Ann Patchett encourages everyone to read The Great Gatsby again if you have not read it since high school, and then read this as a companion. The author teaches a class at the college level about Gatsby, and this is a great reflection on both Fitzgerald as well as his classic novel and I would definitely recommend this, especially if you are interested in how we look at our country and our history.

Persuation (2022)

Ok, there are so many interpretations of this book specifically and Jane Austen in general that it is hard to know which I like best--the Regency steeped ones or the modern versions. This one is kind of a mash up of the two. Set in the original times period, but with decidedly modern asides. This is a thoroughly charming portrayal of Anne Elliot.She drinks red wine straight from the bottle, is seen crying in the tub and lying around in bed, narrating her romantic woes with a familiar, self-effacing wit. She also repeatedly breaks the fourth wall with an amusingly dry aside or a well-timed eye roll. Anne jokes that she’s “thriving,” and clearly she is anything but, but she’s so winning in her state of loss that we can’t help but root for her. Her plight is that the love of her life, Frederick Wentworth, was penniless when they first met, about to set sail on a Navy ship, and Ann's up tight, society obsessed family convinced her that she should give him up--which she did and eight years later she regrets that choice every single day. Then, as luck would have it, they meet up again, and now he is a rich man, all while her own family's fortune is waning--but does she tell him how she feels? Does he tell her he carries a torch for her? No, of course not, so we all have to watch them miss each other time and time again. Not terribly satisfying, but Ann is great and so in the end, I recommend this.

Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang

I started this because it is a debut novel, and to get my Goodreads ribbon in this category, I chose this one. This book is a somewhat jaded look at what it is to be an influencer--I think it is well written and insightful--my rating is more related to my profound lack of interest in that dimension of the modern world rather than a reflection on the writing or story telling. The story follows Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier, as she assumes the influencer lifestyle of her deceased identical twin sister, Chloe Van Huusen. Though twins, the two were separated at a young age as their birth parents died in a car crash; Chloe was adopted by wealthy white parents from New York City, leaving Julie to be raised by her aunt who is straight out of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Since their parents’ death, the twins have only met once in person. Given Chloe’s soaring popularity online, it is unsurprising that their reunion was completely staged for a YouTube video, earning Chloe tens of thousands of dollars. For Julie, who comes from more modest circumstances, this day was more about being used than loved and did not serve to make them friends much less siblings. Then Julie cannot reach Chloe for quite some time and ends up going to her apartment and finding her dead. Julie sees an opportunity to ditch her hum drum and financially unrewarding life to assume Chloe's and she gets to see how the influencer lives--which is not as glamorous as it might first appear.