10 Things: Chemistry, Biology, Botany
My recommendations for what to read, listen to, watch, learn, buy, give, and consider this week.
Quite a variety this week, my friends! I hope you’re seeing flowers where you are. Are you?
The first three are free — below the paywall are some reviews of my favorite new Trader Joe’s products, a recipe for surprising muffins, and a new suggestion for the perfect gift to buy anyone for any occasion. (Plus four other great things that you’ll just have to read to find out about.)
I chose this book because, having finished Big Swiss, I realized I was really enjoying novels. (Then I wrote about that last week, in case you missed it.) I looked at the New York Times Book Review and scanned the best-sellers list for a title that seemed to not be about murder or mono-herero-normative romance, and the number one title, Lessons In Chemistry, sounded great. I thought about how Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow had hit number one on that list, and how many people I’d recommended that book to, and decided that, although I am usually snobby about the books I read, why not choose something that a ton of people evidently liked? I listened to the audiobook version (having a toddler is the same as having the opportunity to get a symbolic Ph.D. In audiobook listening), and I devoured all twelve of its hours in two days. I cried thirteen times. It’s one of those plotty, page-turny books, where you want to know what’s going to happen next. (Like, a little girl whispers a secret into the ear of the minister. The minister is taken aback by the secret. But that’s all you get to know about the secret, until twelve chapters later, by which point you’ve forgotten that the secret was one of the things you wanted to find out.)
The New York Times said that this book is about how far women have come since the 1960s, and also how far we still have to go. It is an infuriating book in that regard. The characters are sort of one-dimensional, but that’s OK: they’re likable, and you root for them. And it has a happy ending. Also, the dog DOES NOT DIE. I spent a lot of time worrying that this dog was going to die, but he did not.
If this hasn’t been advertised to you yet, then good job not listening to any podcasts or streaming anything anywhere or reading The New York Times online, ever. On the surface, Shrinking has an appealing premise: a grieving therapist behaves badly, to hilarious end. To make it even more appealing, the therapist is played by Jason Siegel, and his therapist friends are played by Jessica Williams and Harrison Ford. In practice, it’s even more appealing; like, unthinkably appealing: each character is dealing with an impossible problem that therapy can’t easily solve, feeding the narrative that the only real balm for the big conflicts life likes to hurl is time. And what a good balm for a TV show, huh? Divorce, terminal illness, dead spouses: none of these will ever wrap up neatly in a forty-minute script, so there’s tons of room to play around and go deep. It is also a laugh out loud comedy, owing mostly to Ford, whom I have never cared much about, but who is perfect here. Christa Miller is also hilarious and relatable; and Luke Tenny and Lukita Maxwell are impossible to look away from.
This is a good show. It will run for at least a Ted Lasso amount of time. You’d be wise to jump on the bandwagon of this one so that when it explodes you can be like, “Oh yeah, I liked that early-on.”
LISTEN: Multitudes by Feist
I was not a Feist fan until I met Luke, who listened to her nonstop when he worked a desk job for Americorps. He loved her more than he loved anyone else (I’m not just talking about musicians), and that’s he kind of thing you take notice of when you’re trying to make someone fall in love with YOU. We went to see her perform a few years ago, and she kindly granted the audience a sit-down concert, which her music lends itself beautifully to. She was like a scientist or maybe a ballet dancer — every move she made on stage felt calculated and perfect, and her hair never got messed up the entire time she was up there.
Multitudes is my favorite album she has put out. It’s terrific music for sitting near a good window, on a spring day that’s a little too cold to be outside in. It goes well with tea that has flowers and honey in it. The songs stem into each other and bloom together. It’s a seasonal feat, and a true musical gift.
Feist is coming to Chicago for Luke’s actual birthday next week! Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem like it will be a sit-down show, and this may be her most sit-down album to date. So get cozy and stare at a tree for a while to this. You won’t regret it.
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