Word of Mouth: Really, Truly, Almost Spring

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Musical: A Sign of the Times Lindsay Hope Pearlman, Richard J. Robin, Gabriel Barre, JoAnne M. Hunter, Joseph Church.

Extrauterine Children: The IVF Ruling Is About Who Gets to Raise Your Children — Dahlia Lithwick in SLATE.

Novel: Lady in the Lake — Laura Lippman

Podcast: The Wars in Ukraine and Gaza Have Changed. America’s Policy Hasn’t — Richard Haass on the Ezra Klein Show.

Podcast: Trump and the Age of Disinformation — Barb McQuade on Stay Tuned with Preet.

Double Standards: Israel, Gaza and Double Standards, Including Our Own — Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times.

TV: Avatar: the Last Air Bender — Albert Kim.

Movie: Shortcomings — Randall Park.

Idea: Dobbs was never self-limiting to abortion—it was a save-the-date card for the religious right’s plan to come for the rest of our reproductive freedoms. …

This is the two-step wherein the state forces women to have babies they cannot raise, does nothing to help support them, then swoops in to seize the babies when their parents are seen as endangering them—a phenomenon that of course predominantly hurts poor women and women of color. The state also ensures that adoptions flow in the direction of more “worthy” parents, which means heterosexual and Christian parents, a regime also built into the legal framework. The list of people who cannot assert autonomy and control over their potential children has, in the course of a few weeks, now expanded from LGBTQ+ parents, single parents, poor parents, and parents of color to anyone who has started the process of IVF in Alabama.” —The IVF Ruling Is About Who Gets to Raise Your Children — Dahlia Lithwick in SLATE.

Word of Mouth: Almost Spring Edition

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Memoir: Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Healing — Dionne Ford

Non-Fiction: Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters — Brian Klaas

Movie: American Fiction — Cord Jefferson

Movie: The Meyerowitz Stories(new and selected) — Noah Baumbach

TV: Mr and Mrs Smith — Donald Glover, Francesca Sloane

TV: Magpie Murders — Anthony Horowitz, Peter Cattaneo

Idea: “President Biden has thus far declined to impose consequences on Netanyahu for his repeated disregard of U.S. positions and interests. Ending the double standard which sets a lower bar for Israel, and requiring the mutual recognition of the right to statehood and compliance with the other Quartet Principles, would be an even-handed place to start. It is essential for the U.S. to enforce this mutual recognition, as it seeks to not merely end the current war, but set a course to finally resolve the underlying conflict, and ensure that the horrors suffered by Israelis and Palestinians never happen again.”

Both the Israeli and Palestinian governments should be obligated to recognize the other’s right to statehoodDylan Williams in the Forward

Idea: “It’s tempting to see Navalny’s apparent murder, as some American analysts have, as a sign of weakness on the part of Putin. But a dictator’s ability to annihilate what he fears is a measure of his hold on power, as is his ability to choose the time to strike.”

The Death of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Formidable Opponent — Masha Gessen in the New Yorker

WORD OF MOUTH: Mid-Winter

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NONFICTION: DOPPELGANGER: A Trip into the Mirror World — Naomi Klein

YES! A Handy Manual for Republicans Commenting on Mass Shootings — Jamie Raskin

TV: Schmigadoon! Season 2 — Ken Daurio, Cinco Paul

TV: The Brothers Sun —Brad Falchuk, Amy Wang, Brian Wu

MOVIE: The Woman King — Gina Prince-Bythewood

PODCAST: “Chaos Theory Explains It.” Brian Klaas, author of  Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters, on the Brian Lehrer Show.

SPIRITUAL REWIRING: Train Yourself to Always Show Up — Rabbi Sharon Brous

IDEA: “The spread of lies and conspiracies online is now so rampant that it threatens public health and, quite possibly, the survival of representative democracy. The solution to this informational crisis, however, is not to look to tech oligarchs to disappear people we don’t like; it’s to get serious about demanding an information commons that can be counted upon as a basic civic right.” Naomi Klein

IDEA: “It’s time to pass the universal background check and restore the expired ban on military-style assault rifles, which was constitutional and effective. Weapons of war are unnecessary for hunting, recreation or self-defense in the home, which are the purposes of individual gun ownership outside of military service protected by the Second Amendment.” — Jamie Raskin

WORD OF MOUTH: Early Winter

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Novel: The Bandit Queens — Parini Shroff

Non-Fiction: Your Face Belongs To Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest To End Privacy as We Know It — Kashmir Hill

Psychology: Spite: The Upside of Your Dark Side — Simon McCarthy-Jones

Memoir: Foolish: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation — Sarah Cooper

Memoir: Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the ’80s — Gary Gulman

Movie: Nyad – Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

Novel: The Thursday Murder Club — Richard Osman

Podcast: What Now? –– Trevor Noah

WORD OF MOUTH: FALL

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Short Stories: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies — Deesha Philyaw

Novel: How To Love Your Daughter — Hila Blum, translated by Daniella Zamir

Non-Fiction: Kill’em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul — James McBride

TV: Never Have I Ever — Lang Fisher, Mindy Kaling

Novel: The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac — Sharma Shields

Podcast: How to Think About AI — Freakonomics, Steven Dubner

Word of Mouth: Spring

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Novel: Take What You Need — Idra Novey

Novel: Vera Kelly: Lost and Found — Rosalie Knecht

Novel: The Talented Miss Farwell — Emily Gray Tedrowe

Middle Grade: Cuba in My Pocket — Adrianna Cuevas

Middle Grade, in Spanish: Con Cuba el bolsillo — Adrianna Cuevas, traducción por Alexis Romay

Illumination: Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World — Maryanne Wolf

Podcast: “The Great Vaccinator” — RadioLab

Movie: The Bad Guys — Pierre Perifel

TV: Not Dead Yet — David Windsor and Casey Johnson