Awake by Jen Hatmaker

I picked this up because it is on the New York Times 100 Notable Books from 2025. It is a memoir about the author's public break up of her marriage in 2020 after she discovered that her spouse of 20 years was having an affair. There are some things that made this a bit different. The first is that Meanwhile, both Jen and Brandon Hatmaker were Christian celebrities. Brandon Hatmaker was a pastor, and Jen Hatmaker was a frequent speaker at the church they planted together. They starred in an HGTV show about their home renovation, and spoke publicly about international adoption (two of their five children were adopted from Ethiopia). Jen Hatmaker became a popular speaker and writer in her own right, as well as her podcast, For the Love. She wrote about the Bible, marriage, and parenting in a breezy, humorous voice. Her books attracted a following among Christian women seeking a faith that was honest and authentic rather than rigid and rules-focused. Jen Hatmaker had a loss of confidence in her faith after a marriage that was very much rooted in the church blew up in a spectacular and unexpected way, but it wasn't her first public struggle. She suffered from backlash within the evangelical world in 2016 when she began publicly questioning the policies of the first Trump administration and speaking out about racism among white American Christians like herself. Her reputation took a further hit when she talked about fully affirming LGBTQ people and relationships. But in return for cancelled speaking engagements and books pulled from the shelves of religious bookstores, she attracted a new audience of people open to a broader, more inclusive vision of Christianity. In this memoir she acknowledges she is no longer engaged in formal religion but chronicles all the way she has grown and recovered from what her husband did. It is an interesting and well written read.

The Smashing Machine (2025)

The true story of mixed martial arts and UFC fighter Mark Kerr, whose obsession with greatness drove him to be a legend, and he ehlped create what the sport became. He is also largely unknown, and this is an attempt to rectify that. Let me start off by saying two things--I am not a fan of MMA and I did not like this movie. The two might be related, so I am putting that on the table up front. That said, this is kind of the antithesis of a sports legend movie. It is gritty and it doesn't step away from the hard stuff. A couple of reviews that I read pointed out things that make it different. Whereas most films about sports icons reach for immersion, this film takes an observational approach. Notice that almost every fight scene in this film is shot from outside the ring, the ropes often breaking the image into chunks, or from above, giving us the POV of a camera instead of putting us into the action. The music is either pop/rock tunes or a non-stop jazzy score, both serving to remind you consistently that you’re watching a movie. Dwayne Johnson plays Kerr with some heavy make-up—which both hides The Rock nd draws attention to its setting in the years 1997 to 2000. Fans of the currently robust sport will marvel at the lack of structure and profile it had in its early days, known more for its brutality than its athleticism. The UFC wasn’t popular, and there is what happened, which is that Kerr's coach became a figher again in order to pay the bills and they came close to fighting each other. The film also highlights the steroids, the recreational drugs, the risk of opiate addiction in a sport that invovles a lot of pain, and the chaos both in and out of the ring.

The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

I read this as a fulfillment of one of the 2026 Goodreads reading challenges--it fulfilled a category that was hard for me because I had read about 80% of the books that qualified already. Otherwise I would likely not have found this. It is about looking inwards, building with what you have and being grateful and appreciative for what you have. When you look at a berry, the serviceberry is featured here, but any wild berry will do--what do you see? In her latest book, the US botanist and author views a tiny fruit through all of these that it does--it feeds the wild life around it, who in turn help it to spread when you expel the seeds, all the interconnected ways a berry becomes an integral part of our world. Then she goes on to illuminate the much bigger questions about how we humans relate to plants, to the natural world and to each other. The author is a university professor, a botanist, and a citizen of the Potawatomi nation, and she is becoming one of the best known environmental writers working today.

One Battle After Another (2025)

This is the movie of the year so far. It opens with the kind of momentum usually reserved for the climax of an action film and barely slows down from there. A revolutionary group known as French 75 is initiating an operation on the Mexico-U.S. border, where they take the officers hostage and release the immigrants awaiting processing. The group is led by Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), a confident force of rageful nature who finds the leader, Colonel Steven J. Lockja, and sexually humiliates him before walking him out of the base. The encounter launches a psychosexual obsession with Perfidia, someone whom he sees as beneath him because he’s a racist monster, but someone who he also wants to sexually control him. He essentially stalks Perfidia as she continues to lead the resistance with her partner Bob Ferguson. When the two eventually have a child named Willa, Bob sees that they have to get out to protect the baby and Perfidia instead stays, gets caught, and burns everybody after Bob is safely put away in a small town. Cut to 16 years later, Willa is a teenager, and Bob is a single father, still doing what he can for the revolution but equally worried about taking care of his daughter. Lockjaw remains obsessed with the pair, initiating a series of raids and operations on French 75 members that forces Perfidia’s former ally Deandra into action, exfiltrating Willa from a high school dance. The end becomes a kind of chase scene, with excellent cinematography and a score to match. There is a lot to unpack here in terms of the culture clashes in present day, which seem remarkably similar to the days of old, and it is very well done.

The Containment by Michelle Adams

This is subtitled: Detroit, The Supreme Court, and The Battle For Racial Justice In The North. I was interested in this topic--when I was in 6th grade in the early 1970's my school district in Pasadena, California desegregated, and not without challenges. There was a lot of negative energy around it, but my parents sat me down and asked me what I wanted to do, and we agreed to give it a try. For three years I was bussed to a school that was majority black and brown students and I had a life changing science teacher who lit a fire under me about just how cool the subject was and changed the course os my life. This book takes place years after Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954 and looks at the effort to change Detroit, the first northern locale to be brought to court. The U.S. Supreme Court remained committed to integration in the face of widespread protests, administrative game playing and other forms of resistance deployed throughout the South. Fed up with the region’s intransigence, it unanimously declared, in 1968, that such delays are no longer tolerable. The court went a step further in 1971. Granting federal judges broad discretion to desegregate schools — including busing, if necessary — the justices unanimously affirmed that their support for desegregating schools. The book’s section on institutional racism is most illuminating and paints a telling picture of why, without judicial intervention, integration was out of reach in many metropolitan areas. In contrast to the easily identifiable Jim Crow mandates prevalent in the South, bigotry in the North occurred largely out of sight, where public and private actors fueled the discriminatory housing practices that underpinned educational segregation. Real estate agents concealed listings in White neighborhoods from Black home buyers. Many houses included racial covenants, and federal housing agencies redlined Black neighborhoods. This dynamic hid in the gray areas of law and politics. And most tellingly, all of this seems very relevant and not that different 50 years on.

Mr. Nobody Against Putin (2025)

This documentary is short listed for the 2026 Oscars and is an easy way to see just how destructive to a society totalitarian regimes are. Putin is putting a generation of Russians at risk, and for what? Much like his American counterpart, it is all about his ego and nothing about his country. This is an easy way to see that. It is a clandestine collaboration between high-school video-maker Pavel “Pasha” Talankin and Copenhagen-based American director David Borenstein. Talankin clearly loves his job as a teacher, events organiser and official videographer at the biggest high school in Karabash, a remote industrial town nestled in the Urals around 1100 miles east of Moscow. Although Karabash is infamous for its toxic climate and short life expectancy, Talankin expresses only deep fondness for his shabby home town and its citizens. Already a compulsive video diarist, Talankin is well-placed to document the official wave of pro-military propaganda that sweeps Russia following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. These Kremlin-imposed changes heavily impact the school routine, where a new “patriotic education” curriculum forces glum-faced students to take part in daily flag-waving ceremonies, study revised pro-Russian history books, join paramilitary youth clubs and even attend lectures by Wagner Group mercenaries. If these methods sound familiar, most are throwbacks to the darkest days of the Soviet Union. Children are once again being brainwashed to blindly obey a ruling party elite. In the case of adolescent boys, they are also being groomed for imminent military conscription. This timely documentary offers a highly personal, emotional charged insider’s view of how Putin’s ongoing imperial aggression is proving corrosive and divisive on the domestic front, destroying young lives and forcing even mild-mannered educators to risk everything by speaking truth to power. Talankin is now living in exile for his own safety.

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ

I took this out of the library because I was looking for a travel memoir about Taiwan. My spouse and I are in the early stages of planning a vacation there, and thought this would be perfect--but in fact it is not so much a travelogue as a work of fiction that is set in Taiwan, to be sure, and there is a fair amount of travel and food described, but it is not a memoir. It did, however, win the National Book Award for translated fiction, and was interesting, set in the 50 years when Taiwan was part of Japan. Here is the story: Aoyama Chizuko is a young Japanese writer whose book has been adapted for film and has therefore become relatively successful. She is invited to run a sort of lecture tour, introducing the film for schools and associations throughout Taiwan, known as the Island during Japanese expansionist times, while Japan is referred to as the Mainland. She also has to write some articles about her travels throughout Taiwan, although she does her best not to get coopted into the glorification of Japan’s Southern Expansion policy. She has a reputation as a bit of a glutton, and she soon wants to explore all the sights, smells and tastes that the colourful Island has to offer. After initially being escorted by the rather stiff government official Mishima, she is assigned an interpreter, a former schoolteacher, whom she soon befriends and addresses as Chi-chan. Chi-chan has no qualms about travelling around the island and introducing Chizuko to all the delicacies of the local cuisine, as well as some of the culture and history of Taiwan. And so it goes, each chapter covering a dish and a bit of history of the island.

Homebound (2025)

This movie is short listed for the International film category for the 2026 Oscars, and it is well worth watching--I really loved it. It is a story of friendship and tragedy. Chandan Kuma is a Dalit from what used to be called the “untouchable” caste, and his best friend Mohammed Shoaib Ali is a Muslim. The both come from dirt poor families and are facing few options to improve their lot unless they migrate to a city or go abroad. Indeed, Shoaib has just turned down a chance to work in Dubai. Chandan and Shoaib take the exam to qualify for the police academy on the same day, but bureaucracy being what it is they have nearly a year to wait for their results. They face limited choices for success which is based not on their talents but on their station at birth--the message is very clear that while there has been some movement on that front in India, the chances are still quite slim for success. The two of them part and come back together for a variety of reasons, and then COVID strikes and it all changes quite dramatically. The script is excellent, the cinematography equal to the task, and it is worthy of watching--also it is streaming on Netflix.

The British Are Coming by Rick Atkinson

This book is the first of a trilogy to go step by step through the Revolutionary War, this volume covering 1775-1777. What it does not do is the preambe, what exactly happened over time that led to open defiance of the British, mostly in New England, but also in the Southern states when slavery was threatened. The South couldn't survive without it. What it does do is walk through the decisions made once there was war and what their consequences were. This is not the good part if you are an American, and it doesn't reflect well for the British either. It is a book full of mistakes that were made. The first two years of the Revolutionary War harrowing. New England’s early fights at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill receive fresh attention. But lesser-known engagements at Moore’s Creek, Great Bridge, and Sullivan’s Island were watershed events. Such Patriot victories proved to be crushing setbacks to the King’s cause in the southern colonies, ensuring that the region would remain largely untouched by the war until 1780. Then there is America’s ill-fated attempt to wrest Canada from British control.. This is given lengthy attention here (really, that characterizes much of the book--brace yourself if you are looking for the Cliff Notes version). The entire campaign was a major undertaking during the first critical year of the war, but with the hindsight of over two centuries, it’s apparent that the affair was ill conceived, poorly supplied and, ultimately, badly led. The effort likewise siphoned tremendous resources and manpower from the Continental Army at a time when it could ill afford such diminution of its strength. British efforts would be narrowly focused in the north, and led to a year of disaster for the Patriot cause. From the pages of Atkinson’s book, George Washington clearly emerges as the “indispensable man” of the Revolution, but a commander who nonetheless faced an embarrassing string of battlefield drubbings subsequent to the British invasion of New York during the summer of 1776. After the near collapse of the Continental Army – and the Patriot war effort – during the retreat across New Jersey, Washington gambled big, and won, during his desperate attacks on Crown detachments at Trenton and Princeton. Atkinson’s closing chapters offer a riveting account of the legendary winter campaign that turned the tide of the war.

F1 (2025)

Brad Pitt is not someone that I am hankering to have dinner with, and his love life seems messy at best, but I have enjoyed him as an actor over the years, and this is no exception. Sonny Hayes was a Formula One driver with talent and the right amount of nerves of steel and talent to make it big, until he was in a devestating accident that still haunts him. After that he quit, and while he races often, it is never with an eye to join a team and get back in the game. That is up until he’s recruited by his former rival Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) to make one last run at it. With most of the racing season finished, Ruben’s ramshackle APXGP racing team hasn’t earned a point because their talented but conceited young driver Joshua Pearce lacks the experience necessary to grind out wins. His manager is more of a hindrance than a help to him, and he is irritatingly juvenile about his role in the woes of the team. Even worse, their cars, designed by their technical director Kate McKenna, lack innovation and endurance and can’t compete with the likes of Ferrari and McLaren. Ruben hopes Sonny can shape up APXGP and Joshua enough to eke out one win out of the team’s final nine races, thereby holding off squeamish investors from taking away Ruben’s ownership. Sonny does several things besides driving like a crazy man. He thinks outside the box as a driver and he gets the team to start thinking that way too. He builds teamwork where it didn't exist before he got there, and he gives Kate the driver input on her car that help her to make it better. It is a feel good race movie that even if you have zero interest in Formula One specifically or racing in general, it is enjoyable.

August Lane by Regina Black

This book, another romance that made it to the New York Times Notable Book list, but this one is worthy of that. It is messy and passionate, you know where it is headed from the beginning but all the fun is in getting there. August was abandoned by her superstar mother, Jojo, raised by her grandmother and betrayed by the boy she loved. That boy, Luke Randall, stole a song they’d co-written and became a country music star himself. And now Jojo’s being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and has asked Luke to sing his signature hit as a duet onstage in Arcadia, their hometown. Way to go, Jojo--no nominations for motherof the year for her. She knows the pain she herself has caused, and add on to that brinigng back August's long ago romance who she loved passionately and was abandoned by. As with all good romances, we do not exactly know how the story is going to get over the finish line, but we know where it is going, and this one is not exception. It is a well written and engaging story well told.

Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art, Kanazawa, Japan

The National Craft Museum was moved from Tokyo to Kanazawa, but was closed when we were there—luckily we were able to see the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art, which has an excellent permanent display of Kutani pottery.

Kutani ware is a pottery produced in the Kaga region of Ishikawa Prefecture, with a history spanning over 350 years. It is characterized by the heavy brilliance of the five colors of navy blue, red, purple, green, and yellow that are applied to the bold and daring lines. Its long history has evolved through the tireless efforts and enthusiasm of people who have sought innovation while maintaining tradition. These are Edo era mostly but this type of pottery is still made in this region.

Miracle and Wonder by Malcolm Gladwell

Firstly, this must be listened to. The author, Malcolm Gladwell, is interviewing the singer-song writer Paul Simon about his decades long career, and as you might expect, the music can be talked about, but it should really be listened to. There are numerous points where it is not just better, but more like essential to hear it rather than read it. That said, it is only 5 hours long, so it is not like a traditional biography in terms of length--also, you will be a little sad when it ends because the journey is so enjoyable. Then there is the intimacy of the various interviews--it almost feels like you are eavesdropping on a conversation rather than hearing an interview, the mood feels so warm and cozy. There is talk of his childhood, his musical collaborations, his early success, his parents, and his musical process, and it is all fascinating. He is a guy for whom things marinate over time--he is still stung by things each of his parents said to him 70 years ago, for example. His musical explorations take months if not years to come to fruition, and for a while, he is able to put one to bed before tugging on another thread and following that for a time. All in all, it is just lovely, and I cannot recommend it enough.

K Pop Demon Hunters (2025)

This is the first time that I have watched an animated movie that is widely belowed and really not liked it. The music is cloying, predictable, and ever present, which is possibly one thing that people like about it, but it made it hard for me to watch. Here is the story. The movie opens with a burst of energy, introducing viewers to the hit girl group Huntr/x: Rumi, Mira, and Zoey. The are one of the most popular trios in the world, and their group, Huntr/x, rocks the charts on stage and destroys demon bad guys when they’re off. This may seem like something you have seen before, the Power Puff Girls vibe, but it is grounded in Korean mythology too. Huntr/x maintains something called the Honmoon, a protection against a centuries-old demon ruler known as Gwi-Ma, who has a legion of otherworldly creatures to unleash on humanity, and is working behind the scenes to sabotage them. The excellent opening scenes of the movie features Huntr/x combating demons who try to keep them from performing a show that night—of course, they vanquish their foes and hit the dance choreography too. The story unfolds with a few plot twists, and comes to what is and should be a predictable animated adventure movie ending. I suspect it will be nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, but it would not be my choice.

Dark Renaissance by Stephen Greenblatt

The subtitle is a bit melodramatic: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival. On the other hand, the rise of Christopher Marlowe was so improbable and ended so dramatically, it is probably deserved. In this riveting reassessment of the short, turbulent life of the Elizabethan dramatist and poet Christopher “Kit” Marlowe, the author argues that Marlowe, with his dazzling eloquence, “offered poetic liberation” to an English culture that had been stifled by onerous government censorship. He managed to gain his position through his talents, and if this account is to be believed, through reading the room and making politically correct connections that furthered his ability to stay in Oxford without having to join a religious order. This argues not that Shakespeare stole from Marlowe (which has been asserted before, or that that these was a third author who wrote anonymously) but that Marloww was actually more of a trailblazer than a competitor of Shakespeare. In 1587, 23-year-old Marlowe moved to London, where he wrote “Tamburlaine,” the first of the seven plays he would produce in what turned out to be his last six years. He delighted in shocking his audiences with dramas which, like the times in which he lived, were rife with violence. He took stories from history and made them his own, in ways that were both clever and popular. The time of Marlowe and Shakespeare was set against the backdrop of Queen Elizabeth I’s brutally repressive regime. It was a society in which dissent of any kind was met with imprisonment, torture, hanging, or beheading. Punishable offenses included blasphemy, heresy, homosexuality, and any suspicions of Roman Catholic leanings (or a desire to replace Queen Elizabeth with her Catholic cousin, Mary Queen of Scots). In all liklihood Marlowe was caught up in that and probably led to his murder, but we do know the time was ripe for plays that would laast for the ages.

Tōdaiji Temple Complex, Nara, Japan

The Buddhist temple Tōdaiji in Nara Prefecture is a priceless trove of history and culture. Founded some 1,300 years ago, the UNESCO World Heritage site is home to the Great Buddha of Nara and other national treasures. The Great Buddha of Nara stands 15 meters high, making it one of the largest such images in the world. It is a depiction of the Roshana Buddha, also known as Biroshana or Vairochana in Sanskrit, the so-called cosmic Buddha or “great illuminator” who shines mercy upon the earth. The statue is normally hidden from view from the outside, but at certain times of the year a special window overlooking the sandō and central gate is opened to reveal the face of the Buddha.

Tōdaiji’s roots are with the temple Kinshōsanji, which was built in 728 for the repose of the spirit of the son of Emperor Shōmu (701–56). In 743, following several years of natural calamities and political turmoil, Shōmu issued a proclamation for the erection of a great Buddha in the hope of returning peace to the land. The colossal image represented an unprecedented undertaking, but Kinshōsanji’s head priest Gyōki used his influence to solicit money, materials, and labor from around the country. The image was completed in 749, followed by the Daibutsuden Hall in 752. It was around this period that the temple also came to be known as Tōdaiji.

There are some guardians in the temple, as well as outside guarding the Buddha. The Great Buddha that stands today represents reconstruction work spanning four periods of Japanese history. The chest and base are part of the original image cast in the Nara period, while the waist dates from the Kamakura period (1185–1333), the upper body from the Warring States period (1467–1568), and head from the Edo period. A careful observer will notice that the bronze making up the face of the Buddha is in better condition than the chest, which is several centuries older.

One Day In December by Josie Silver

I read a lot of lists, and am not often at a loss for what to read next. That said, it is nice to have a list that is less brainiac and more enjoyable, and I find the Reese Witherspoon book club picks to to be a nice balance of that--some of them are amongst the best books I read all year, and some are romantic fluff. This is the later. Laurie and Sarah are roommates and friends going back to college. Laurie lost her sister when she was young and Sarah fills the role of sibling and BFF. They share everything up until something life changing happens. It goes (improbably) like this: Laurie has a "love at first sight" moment one December with a guy at a bus stop. She spends a year scouring the city looking for him with no luck, until one day Sarah brings the very same guy home as her boyfriend. It goes about how you would predict it would, but the story winds around long enough to have all sorts of options come up and overall I would say the Reese Witherspoon romance selections are above average for the genre.

Sirāt (2025)

This movie is a wild ride from start to Finish. It opens at a rave. An array of battered speakers is being assembled in the Moroccan desert by people who look practiced at it, but why here? It has a Burning Man vibe. They are dwarfed by the spectacular dusty canyon walls nearby, and between the two, the sound they produce, with a growling bassline that grinds like tectonic plates massing against each other — matches them in grandeur. against this backdrop, htere is this subwoofer language of pulsing beats and techno drones. Suddenly the empty desert is filled with people, all of them writhing, gyrating bodies, their old tattoos and sunburnt scars, their braids and studs and ragged tees emphasizing that these are no Coachella selfie-takers, they are seasoned, esperienced. These are not kids eitherm and there is a blissed-out, drugged-up vibe of acceptance and bacchanalian euphoria reigns. The only thing you could do to stick out here would be to show up looking normal--which is what happens. A father brings his young son to look for his missing daughter, and when they don't find her, they decide to join the parade to the next rave spot. The whole thing is a slowly but steadily unraveling disaster right up to the very end.

The Improbable Victoria Woodhull by Eden Collinsworth

The subtitle is more revealing as well as more sensational: Suffrage, Free Love, and The First Woman To Run For President. Here's what I have to say about this: It is a great story about a woman that I never heard of, and fills out some of the mid-19th century American history that I am fuzzy on. Victoria Woodhull was a contemporary of Mark Twain, even had some overlap with him when they both lived in England, and I had just finished that highly detailed and voluminous biography earlier this fall, so even though up on some things, there was a lot to learn here. Woodhull pushed the limits in everything she did, from her hardscrabble upbringing in Ohio to her death in 1927 at age 88 as a wealthy widow on an inherited estate in England. Her father, Buck Claflin, was a classic con man, a swindler, and a cheat--he used his children, and everyone else he could, for personal gain, and they learned those skills well. Victoria and her sister were raised to perform as child clairvoyants, and between their beauty and their charm they were able to scam Cornelius Vanderbilt, and with his backing, the two women parlayed their connection to him and opened the first women-owned stock brokerage in America. Victoria managed to accumulate great wealth and unlike her father, she managed to hang on to it. She also sought fame in addition to fortune and allied herself with high profile causes in pursuit of that. She became, in 1871, the first woman to speak before a House of Representatives committee to promote women’s suffrage and she improbably also ran for president as a candidate when she herself could not vote. This is a pretty quick one and quite interesting, if not riveting, to read.

Yoshikien Garden, Nara, Japan

May the New Year bring new beginnings. Last year was a very rocky ride, but here is to new beginnings. Here is a bit of history of gardens in Japan (spoiler alert--they were influenced by China, which is very clear to see ). During the Asuka period (538–710), Japanese merchants were inspired by gardens in the imperial courts of China. The first gardens in Japan were created using Chinese building methods and designed to channel Buddhist beliefs through an appreciation of the natural world. Few gardens still exist from this time, but many modern versions echo Buddhist principles. Each following period has influenced garden design in its own way, reflecting the society of that time. Some of the best-known gardens are for strolling, made popular by the nobility of the Edo period (1603–1868), where society’s elaborate social structure encouraged a patronage of the arts.

Here is what they say about the garden’s history: An old illustration of Kohfukuji Temple reveals that the "Manishuin," a branch temple of Kohfukuji used to be on the Yoshikien premise. This site was privately owned during the Meiji period (1868-1912) and then its current structures and garden were designed and built in 1919 during the Taisho period. At the end of the Showa period (1926-1989) ownership of the property was transferred from a corporate guest house to Nara Prefecture. With the intent of having it be widely used for viewing the garden and tea ceremony, it was opened to the public on April Ist, 1989.