Maggie; Or A Man And A Woman Walk Into A Bar by Katie Yee

Wow, just wow. There is an awful lot of emotional baggage to unpack here. First of all the title seems unnecessarily lengthy and obscure. But that is easily explained. A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with delicious food and merriment. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie. A short while after, her chest starts to ache--she initially delays investigating it, even though her mother had breast cancer at a young age. She eventually walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast is indeed cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie. Unfolding in fragments over the course of the ensuing months, the narrator embarks on a journey of grief, healing, and reclamation. She overgenerously creates a “Guide to My Husband: A User’s Manual” for Maggie (the other woman, not her tumor), a somewhat sardonic accounting of her soon-to-be ex-husband’s whims and quirks. She turns her children’s bedtime stories into retellings of Chinese folklore passed down by her own mother, in an attempt to make them fall in love with their shared culture—and to maybe save herself in the process. This is well written, concise, and emotionally laden in a good way--the thing I found irritating is that she does what she can to spare her husband in all ways. She hides her cancer diagnosis and spares him from being the guy who leaves his spouse when she is facing a life threatening diagnosis. She also agrees to stay in their house, which locks her in to being constantly reminded of her previous life rather than getting to start over. So I was irritated throughout.

Remember by Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star’s stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers. Remember your father. He is your life, also. Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth. Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems. Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe. Remember you are all people and all people are you. Remember you are this universe and this universe is you. Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you. Remember language comes from this. Remember the dance language is, that life is. Remember.

Daughters of the Sun and Moon by Lisa See

The depth of racism in America is what is on offer here, as well as the deep and wide exploitation of women. If either of these things are anathema to you, skip this book. I have independent of this book been reading banned books, and this has a lot of elements that lead to getting on those lists—it negates the message that the United States is a country of equality, where all are treated equally, but where white men are superior. This takes place in a frontier town and follow three different women, all from China coming to AMerica hoping for something better and basically not finding it, but on different paths until they land in the same boat. They are: • Dove: The innocent, bound-footed daughter of an imperial scholar who arrives to marry an older merchant. • Petal: A peasant’s daughter with unbound feet who is sold into indentured servitude and sex work. • Moon: An educated, English-speaking beauty married to a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, carrying a limp from a failed childhood foot-binding So they come from wildly different backgrounds but they end up in much the same situation—which they provide support for each other. I like this author and she has a large body of work that is aimed at better understanding cultural backgrounds and what the différences are.

Project Hail Mary (2026)

I really liked the book--which I would never have picked up on my own, but did so on the strength of it being on Obama's reecommended reading list, which is a relable source and often features books that I would otherwise have missed. The movie was more of a stretch for me--and I love Ryan Gosling, but felt that the movie was strongest when it flashed back to before he was rocketing through space trying to save the sun. The story goes that Dr. Ryland Grace travels through space alone toward a distant star that he hopes holds the key to saving life on Earth. Along the way, however, he meets a surprising extraterrestrial being whose world is under threat as well. Their journey makes the expected visual nods to sci-fi classics and attempts to offer some blockbuster spectacle. But the harder the film tries, the more one feels pulled along rather than effortlessly transported. Much like with all space movies, there just isn't a whole lot to do there, and it is less riveting for me (the exception being Apollo 11, where they are doing quite a lot)--but I especially enjoyed seeing Sandrs Huller again--she made quite the showing in films that rose to award level attention a couple years ago and hope we see more of her. This is good but not great in my estimation.

Whistler by Ann Patchett

I am a huge Ann Patchett fan, and since reading her last book I have become a fan of her through her work at Parnassus and her unwavering support for books, authors, and independent bookstores. She is a marvel. So yes, predisposed to love this, and I did. There are some parallels to Patchett's own story in this one. Daphne is much younger than her husband and she has had three fathers--her biological father, a middle stepfather, and her current stepfather. Eddie was the fan favorite, and even though he was the shortest lived, he was the one that loved Daphne best, better than her own parents. When he disappeared from her life when she was a child after a catastrophic car accident, she never found a parent figure that replaced him. Flash forward decades--she and her spouse are at a NYC museum and her husband is convinced they are being followed by a stranger--which it turns out they are. It is Eddie, and the feelings of affection between them are easily revived, and they are both eager to in some way catch up and be part of each other's stories again. They discover that the familiarity between them has not waned with time. They share the intimacy of renewed friendship, bolstered by small revelations: As it turns out, Eddie is gay, and his relationship with Daphne’s mother broke down, in part, because he could not deny that truth. The modern world is complicated and what constitutes family has shifted and permutated in ways that this book very sweetly captures. Do not miss this--it is hopeful and bright.

Tavern 19, Shakopee, Minnesota

I am mostly unfamiliar with the western suburbs of Minneapolis, so when my clinic there had the need for a lunch I let the locals pick a location. I was initially hesitant when we entered, as it is on a golf course, and my bias was that there would be less of a focus on food and more of a focus on things like course conditions and beer on tap. The restaurant was very accomodating of our large crowd, which arrived unannounced, and the menu was varied enough to accomodate a wide range of dietary desires and restrictions, and at a reasonable price. This is particularly important when you are requiring co-workers to both eat together and pay their own way. The most amazing thing about my lunch there was that I was facing a big picture window that overlooked a flower garden aimed at pollinators and there were literally dozens of Monarch butterflies flitting about, maybe hundreds, but certainly more than I had ever seen before.

Go Gentle by Maria Semple

This is part cozy, part romance and I very much enjoyed the result. The main character is Adora Hazzard, Stoic philosopher and divorcee. She lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side, spending her days tutoring the twin sons of an old-money family in philosophy and seeking to live according to Stoic virtues, without recourse to destabilising “externals”. But her settled life is soon disrupted when a handsome stranger approaches her. Long before she was a philosoper, Adora was an aspiring writer with a Hollywood past--she was the victim of a Me Too incident that ended with an NDA, a sizable pay off, and she took it as a sign to quit the now unglamorous life of Southern California to go to grad shool and then got a seemingly cushy and cloistered life in New York. As is so often the case, in real life as well as in fiction, all is not as it appears and Adora has a few rude awakenings before she gets a pretty perfect storybook ending. This is charming, and while Stoicism is not traditionally very sexy, Adora makes it feel fresh and exciting.

500 Miles (2026)

This is based on a book written for Young Adults that shares some emotional baggage with The Fault In Our Stars. The story is told in flashbacks and in the present. The story behind the title is that Finn overhears his father telling his mother that he is leaving and that he is taking Charlie with him. Finn decides to go on the run rather than let that happen, so with little money and fewer plans they hit the road to get to their granfather's home in Dingle Ireland, which is more or less 500 miles from where they start in Sheffield, England. The flashbacks demonstrate that life was the best for them as a family when they were there. In the present day, Finn and Charlie no longer have a relationship with their grandfather. Their grandmother has passed away, and their parents are constantly bickering. Sneaking out of their home, the brothers decide to embark on an ill-advised road trip, from Sheffield to the west coast of Ireland, to track down their grandfather and reunite the family. Their journey won’t be an easy one, as they’re too young to travel without adult supervision, and Matthews’ clever framing reminds us how vast the countryside is, hills and mountains dwarfing their small frames. Their journey gets a surprise assist from Kait (a lovely Maisie Williams), who they meet on a train while she is busking. It is admittedly overly sentimental but speaking as a family that have weathered severe childhood illness let me just say it is an overly sentimental experience and I appreciated this rendition.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

On the one hand this is a spoof, a book that is poking fun at the over wrought darkness of books by the likes of DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy--I myself did not get that, and reading a review from The Guardian, neither do a lot of 21st century readers. So luckily, this works quite well in its own right. When 19-year-old London socialite Flora Poste is orphaned and destitute, so rather than work she decides to impose upon her eccentric, miserable relatives rather than get a job. She moves to Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex, home of the wretched Starkadder family. Flora's essential talent is to stop people being ridiculous and the Starkadder famility deperately need this. She at least stops them being ridiculous in situations where they can do any harm. She never displays contempt. She's even polite to Amos Starkadder about the Church of the Quivering Brethren and his opinion that "ye're all damned." Nor does she indulge the emotional excesses or strange beliefs of the Starkadder clan. She doesn't take herself too seriously – and doesn't make that mistake with other people, either, except in that she is loyal to her friends and kind to others. Flora has come along and tamed the wild Starkadders and sanitized their farm. She's interfered. She is like Jane Austen's Emma, only she never gets her comeuppance and she never learns not to meddle. The essential question is whether we see this as part of the joke or part of the message. I tend to think the later, given how it all ends up, but it is a very witty tale, and the Roz Chast cover beautifully sums up the cast of characters. Do not miss this one--another worthy Parnassus recommendation.

Whistlepig Tasting Room, Quechee, Vermont

You should really only go here if you are prepared to spend a fair amount of cash to taste a small amount of whiskey. It is located in the Parker House, which has a long history. It had until recently been an inn and restaurant located adjacent to Simon Pearce — the Vermont glassware and pottery maker and restaurateur in Quechee, Vermont. Simon Pearce recently bought the property and the acquisition brings together under common ownership two historic properties in the heart of the village: the former textile mill operated by 19th-century manufacturer and Vermont lawmaker J.C. Parker and Parker’s adjacent brick residence, which was built in 1857. What they intend to do in the future remains to be seen--Pearce has been buying up Quechee property over time and this is their sixth. In the meantime, the Whistlepig Tasting Room has taken up residence on the second floor, offering modest tastings at relatively high prices. It is an opportunity to try some of the products that can only be bought throught he tasting room, or in Vermont, and that is enough of a draw to bring in a crowd. The afternoon we were there the place was packed, and yes, we left with a bottle ourselves.