April Reading | Watching Recommendations
April brought spring and some great things to consume!
A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung (Book): Chung’s first memoir All You Can Ever Know is one of my favorite books, written about her experience as a Korean adoptee of white parents and searching for her bio-family as she started her own family. A Living Remedy was originally supposed to be about the death of her father - and the systems of economy, health care, and the United States’ singular approach to all of it, that led to his death at 67. But while writing it, her mom got sick and died and pandemic happened. This book is honest, raw, sweet and so much more. The title of the book comes from a Marie Howe poem, For Three Days, “because even grief provides a living remedy,” and I think about the truth of this everyday when dealing with grief. At her book launch in NYC she said she wanted to write a book that folks could “keep company with.” She succeeded.
Rye Lane (Hulu-Movie): This wonderful British movie is now added to my personal list of romantic-comedy faves. I watched it twice this month alone because it was such a high quality romcom - the banter is A+ (why do the British do it so well?), and the ridiculous situations the two leads put themselves in give laughter and opportunities for vulnerability. There is a special cameo to pay homage to another British RomCom Love Actually, and the movie itself is reminiscent of Before Sunrise (in good ways) and Notting Hill. The debut director Raine Allen-Miller said she wanted to do a movie like this but in parts of London she actually hung out in, and the Brixton-Peckham locations are fantastic.
Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America by Julia Lee (Book): This book came out last week and I devoured the audio book. I was both taken aback by and related to the anger and rage in the first part of the book. I appreciated the history I learned in the book AND that Lee chose to connect the Asian American experience not only to Asian American thinkers, writers and activists but Black and Indigenous thinkers, writers and activists as well. The author’s parents, ”survivors of the Korean War, owned a liquor store in Inglewood, Calif., and then a fast-food chicken joint in nearby Hawthorne. The latter business was heavily damaged in the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, when Lee was 15.”
Prom Pact (Disney+ - Movie): A teen movie that was good good (not bad good!) with one my favorite Disney actresses, Elizabeth Peyton Lee, formerly of Disney Junior’s Andi Mack tv show and now of Disney+ TV Show Doogie Kamealoha MD (yes a remake!). She’s got star power, and I hope has a long career ahead. I fear there might be a “scandal” soon where she does something more adult to break away from her Disney life and get adult roles, but either way, I think she’s talented! Prom Pact was everything I wanted and needed it to be - fun, cute, some good lessons learned, and a great soundtrack for a prom theme of the 1980s!
Tetris Movie (Apple TV - Movie): This is not a movie inspired by a video game like Mario Bros. This is the actual true story of the game Tetris and how it took over the world! It was entertaining, funny and a time capsule of the very end of the Soviet Union in the late 1980’s and the conflict between Communism and Capitalism with the sale of Tetris rights as the prism. The movie was made in collaboration with the actual inventor of the game and the man who got the rights that made it a worldwide phenomenon. I also want to note that Taron Egerton, the lead, is really good, as he was in the Apple TV series Black Bird, and I think I might now watch everything he is in (except for that Rocketman movie).
Unprisoned (Hulu - Series): This half-hour comedy tv series, starring the great Delroy Lindo and Kerry Washington as father and daughter, was created by Tracy McMillan, and is based McMillan’s relationship with her father, Willie Harold McMillan, who was in and out of prison over the course of her life, and the trauma that resulted. Doesn’t sound that funny I know, but the show IS FUNNY and in situations, both with family and friends, and the external situations that formerly incarcerated folks experience, the show gives a real window to what it’s like to truly come back from incarceration into this society and its systems and live a life. I watch everything that Delroy Lindo does so for him alone, it’s 5 stars. Full disclosure: I am often annoyed by Kerry Washington’s acting style, so I’ll say this, her style fits the character she plays well, and the cast is so excellent that I wasn’t focused on it! It’s Hulu’s most watched scripted series of 2023 and I wish more people I knew were watching it.
Coming in May
Management in a Changing World by Jakada Imani, Monna Wong and Bex Ahuja (Book): One of my favorite clients, The Management Center, has their new book Management in a Changing World coming out in May and available for pre-order, written by my colleagues Jakada Imani, Monna Wong, and Bex Ahuja. This book is for people who agree that effective management is and should be equitable, sustainable, and results-driven and want tools to do this for themselves and their teams.
