We all deserve to zone out sometimes. Take a break, lounge on the sofa, blink, and realize that two hours have passed. If you are on the hunt for a little self-care time, or even just a good distraction, here are some of our team’s favorite movies, TV shows, podcast, and books of the moment…
TV SHOWS
Shrinking (Apple TV)
A grieving therapist starts to break the rules by telling his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge, tumultuous changes to people’s lives … including his own.
The White Lotus (HBO)
A week in the life of vacationers is unraveled as they relax and rejuvenate in paradise. With each passing day, a darker complexity emerges in these picture-perfect travelers, the hotel’s cheerful employees, and the idyllic locale itself. And another note that isn’t included in the synopsis, but certainly should be, is that Jennifer Coolidge is a national treasure!
Fleischman is in Trouble (Hulu)
When a recently divorced man’s wife goes missing without a trace, he’s thrust into the position of figuring out what happened to her while also grappling with what went down in their own ill-fated marriage and dealing with the kids.
Poker Face (Peacock)
A casino cocktail waitress with an uncanny knack for identifying lies encounters a cast of characters and strange crimes she can’t help but solve.
Yellowstone (Paramount Network & Peacock)
A ranching family in Montana faces off against each other and those encroaching on their land. Does this show even need an introduction? If you haven’t watched seasons 1 – 4, it’s time to catch up to those of us who are already on season 5!
MOVIES
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix)
A tech billionaire invites his friends for a getaway on his private Greek island, but when someone turns up dead, a quirky and observant detective is put on the case.
You People (Netflix)
A new couple and their families reckon with modern love amid culture clashes, societal expectations, and generational differences.
The Menu (HBO)
A young couple travels to a remote island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef has prepared a lavish menu, with some shocking surprises.
Ticket to Paradise (Peacock)
A man and his ex-wife race to Bali, Indonesia, to stop their daughter from marrying a seaweed farmer. As they desperately try to sabotage the wedding, the bickering duo soon find themselves rekindling old feelings that once made them happy together.
Stutz (Netflix)
Actor Jonah Hill and his therapist, renowned psychiatrist Phil Stutz, have a candid discussion about mental health while exploring his early life experiences and a unique, visual model of therapy.
PODCASTS
Pivot
Recode’s Kara Swisher and NYU Professor Scott Galloway offer sharp, unfiltered insights into the biggest stories in tech, business, and politics. They make bold predictions, pick winners and losers, and bicker and banter like no other. After all, with great power comes great scrutiny.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pivot/id1073226719
SmartLess
Actors and comedians Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, & Will Arnett connect and unite people from all walks of life to learn about shared experiences through thoughtful dialogue and organic hilarity.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/smartless/id1521578868
New Heights
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce from the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce from the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-heights-with-jason-and-travis-kelce/id1643745036
The Daily
Twenty minutes of topical and relevant news a day hosted by New York Times journalists Michael Barbaro and Sabrina Tavernise.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736
BOOKS
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.
The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself. Shakespeare and Company is more than a bookstore and lending library. It’s where some of the most important literary friendships of the twentieth century are forged—none more so than the one between Irish writer James Joyce and Sylvia herself. When Joyce’s controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Beach takes a massive risk and publishes it under the auspices of Shakespeare and Company. But the success and notoriety of publishing the most infamous and influential book of the century comes with steep costs. As she faces painful personal and financial crises, Sylvia—a woman who has made it her mission to honor the life-changing impact of books—must decide what Shakespeare and Company truly means to her.
This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it’s her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? In The Midnight Library, Nora Seed finds herself faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
Conversations with Tom Petty by Paul Zollo
Tom Petty has long been considered one of the great songwriters of American rock ‘n’ roll, as well as one of the key standard bearers of integrity in the music business. Conversations With Tom Petty is the first authorized book to focus solely on the life and work of the man responsible for some of the most memorable rock anthems of our generation
We are always on the hunt for new favorites and would love to hear from you! Share what you are currently watching, reading, and generally obsessing over in the comments below.
