March Reading | Watching | Listening
March was a long month!
Assembly by Natasha Brown (Fiction): A debut novel that is short and engaging. A Black British woman who has lived her whole life doing the “right” things to succeed and survive, and a weekend spent with her boyfriend’s white posh (upper class) family shapes the novel.
Above Ground by Clint Smith (Poetry). This collection is out today and he is a wonderful and talented writer and poet. One of my favorite poems of recent memory, “When People Say ‘we have made it through worse before’”, is part of this collection - you can read it below. It was released in 2019 and spoke to me so deeply, I continue to return to it in the years since especially the line “I believe there is a better future to fight for, I simply accept that I may not live to see it.” I also highly recommend his non-fiction book How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
Chang Can Dunk (Movie-Disney+): This is a YA movie that I enjoyed and it also subverted my expectations for the genre while also satisfying them all - I think it’s great for kids and families and of course basketball lovers (I guess, I don’t really do sportsball)! The lead was great and supporting cast is also excellent and I hope to see them all in many more movies to come.
Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H (Book): This book is getting a lot of buzz from my trusted culture critics and it was really worth the read. I took my time with it as well. Lamya H is a pseudonym, and did so much I loved in this book from sharing experiences growing up in Middle East as a South Asian family, almost last on the social/human rights ladder there, to coming to the U.S. and learning about the ladder of social and race here. I really loved how Lamya took stories and readings from the Quran throughout to reflect on key moments in life- very moving and thought provoking. Roxane Gay said, “This was beautifully written and deeply introspective. A memoir about a Muslim woman who is butch and grappling with family, displacement, migration, sexuality, and finding her communities. I particularly enjoyed the parallels she drew between her faith and stories from the Quran to her own life. The writing is quite poignant and powerful. The self-examination is pointed and moving. Excellent memoir.”
Gulmohar (Movie-Hulu in the US; Disney/Hotstar in India): This Hindi language movie is reminiscent of Monsoon Wedding (one of my all-time favs) - probably because the director is a protégé of Monsoon Wedding director Mira Nair (one of the best - Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Queen of Katwe). The family in Gulmohar is in a moment of transition where love, conflict and secrets abound. The atmosphere is set by a score and soundtrack from Siddhartha Khosla (notably of the band Goldspot -IYKYK). It was quiet, lovely and short and so great to see the iconic Sharmila Tagore back on screen as the matriarch and Simran as the eldest daughter-in-law.
Also this is how I found out that Hotstar movies and tv shows are now on Hulu - which means even more ways to improve my Hindi vocabulary and divert myself!!
Night Agent (TV Show-Netflix): This dropped a few days ago on Netflix. Will it be a show for the ages? No. Will I watch it again and again? No. Do I remember every detail of the show that I watched just a few days ago? No. But while I was watching it, I was totally engaged in this thriller, and very amused by Hong Chau’s character and gray hair wig (to make her look old enough to be a White House Chief of Staff). So if you like spy/action thrillers and need to be diverted over 10 episodes and not think about too much after, then this is the show for you. Here’s a supercut of Hong Chau from Night Agent that I enjoyed!
Ted Lasso on Hallmark Holiday Movies (CLIP-NO SPOILERS): The final season of Ted Lasso has begun, and this brief scene from the second episode of Ted explaining what Hallmark movies are to Roy Kent…truth.
Unreformed-The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children (Limited Podcast Series): Reporter Josie Duffy Rice, who I follow for her criminal justice reporting especially from her time running The Appeal, investigated and created this short but impactful series about the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, also known as Mt. Meigs. It is a shocking, sad, inspiring and sadly unsurprising. Children were abused and died there, and a famous survivor is baseball player Satchel Paige, who was there while it was still a reform school and learned to pitch there. Reknown artist Lonnie Holley survived it during its worst times and was there in the 1960’s/. And it’s relevant today because the institution still serves as a juvenile corrections facility.
Who Gets Believed by Dina Nayeri (Non Fiction): I loved Nayeri’s novel Refuge so I def wanted to read her new non-fiction book around who gets believed, especially in refugee and asylum cases. I was pretty taken with how McKinsey and Harvard Business School folks are believed in even the most impossible situations (and trained on how to do this to raise money and talk to investors), when refugees and asylum seekers are not. Her stories range from her church and who they believed had spoken to God or not to her family’s struggles with mental health and suicide to her time in business consulting and talking to asylum seekers.
WTF DID I JUST WATCH?
I watched this British series Behind Her Eyes this weekend on Netflix and basically ended almost every episode saying WTF? I liked the three main actors from previous roles, and also Roshan Seth is briefly in it, so of course I’m going to watch it! I am also usually diverted by British mysteries, but this was just WTF? So if WTF is your genre (and the book it was based on was a huge best seller so it has a fan base), then this is for you!