A Big, Juicy Round Up of Fall Recommendations

Lorie you took all the words out of me about Succession. Ditto about Season 2 and the torture of waiting for Season 3 all summer. Ditto about Roman, and definitely ditto about Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy (I LOVE his portrayal of Mr. Darcy) although overall it was not a well-made movie and then to see him in this pathetic role is so weird, but good weird. I’ve just started Season 1 all over again just to absorb it all again and realize I am picking up subtleties that I didn’t notice before which is so delicious.

Creative Bug has a lot of really fun classes. We also get a free subscription through our local library. I’ve done a few of Lisa Congdon’s lessons with my daughters and it’s been great.

You may be looking for something more advanced, but Wendy MacNaughton has an online art club/class called Draw Together. May not teach the classic techniques you’re looking for, but it seems like an amazing, loving, creative community that could be fun!

https://club.drawtogether.studio/

Thank you for all the leads! We’re starting with Mari’s skillshare class and will dig through all of these. Mari’s class so far is great for building emotional reflection skills for my tween + lovely artistic projects.

Hi Kiera, I didn’t make the original recommendation but loved loved loved « What I Loved ». IMO her strongest novel, as a lot her novels cover similar themes, but I also really liked « The Blindfold ».
I also really like her essays, eg her collection « A Plea For Eros ».
Enjoy reading!! :-)

Thanks Kay!

I read What I Loved right after I moved to NYC in 2009 and this book has stayed with me ever since. I have a vivid memory of sitting in a small coffee shop near The Bowery (where much of this book is set…if my memory is correct), reading this book and listening to a David Gray song on repeat (Nemesis). I can’t listen to that song without thinking of this heartbreakingly beautiful book.

Ugh – this was supposed to be a reply to A.E. If someone could nest appropriately, I’d be grateful.

I completely disagree that his book sympathized with Nazis and feel he very successfully illustrated how such horrific regimes can grow to power, often with the support of a society. To insist that every WWII story should prioritize a Jewish perspective is a very reductive way of understanding history.

@JJC – I don’t believe I “insisted” that the book should “prioritize a Jewish perspective.” Far from it. I merely said it should include more than one mention of a Jew given that it spends over 500 pages in Nazi-occupied Europe. Could you imagine a story about the Antebellum South that did not include more than a single mention of a Black person? Would we want to lift a book like that up and recommend it to others? Could we even defend it? I find the defense of All the Light We Cannot See baffling.

Aly, I understand your frustration. However, this book is recounting a small group of people’s experience of WWII. While the Holocaust was obviously a HUGE part of WWII, especially when we view it historically, people who lived through the war did not all experience it in the same way, and although it seems incredible, not everyone was super aware at the time of the extent of what was going on with the concentration camps. Some regions of Europe did not have large Jewish populations, therefore a book that doesn’t have many Jewish people is not recounting history “wrong”, rather showing one small experience. I think one of the most interesting things about this book- and history!- is that such terrible, cruel regimes demand so many people’s involvement, with varying degrees of willingness and complicity. There is a lot of nuance here.

I LOVE that show!!! I intentionally rearranged my Saturdays to watch it on TV!

Oh wow thank you so much for this rec. This is the show for meeee! I love dogs but cannot have one right now and I also just love the British civility and social IQ and all around good nature of this show. THX!

Also loved Season 2 of The Morning Show!

I can’t wait for the Deadly Education sequel either! It’s one of the more interesting “magical school” premises I’ve heard of.

Yes! I’m preordered at my local bookshop and cannot WAIT to read it. 9/28 is going to be a reading day.

Hope you’re feeling okay! Isolation is the worst! Your recommendation reminded me of the time I picked up a Siri Hustvedt book at tiny shop in London and wound up sitting next to her nephew on the plane ride home to Minnesota! Book coincidences are the best :)

What is it about them that draws you in? Thanks!

PS: is it possible to subscribe only to responses to one’s own comment instead of the entire post? It’s so hard to keep a thread going otherwise. Thanks, COJ!

I watched the Good Morning America interview with the SK President and now I get it. So, so amazing if they can stay on top of it. And now I’m in their army too : )

Well, it definitely started with fun music and dancing. I made workout playlists to help cope with my mother-in-law’s cancer in 2015, so when I got sick in 2020 I started making playlists to help me look forward to being well enough dance again. So, that got me to Dynamite. But as I started to watch more videos and read the translated lyrics, all of a sudden I’m reading all this stuff about wealth inequality, generational expectations, mental health issues, work ethic, the disorientation that comes with success, etc., etc. By the time I got to Baepsae — which might as well be the anthem of the early 20th century — I was sunk.

Also, as a woman working in a demanding, male-dominated field, there was so much in their lyrics I identified with in terms of devoting my teens and twenties exclusively to pursuing a big professional dream, then having a weird mixture of extreme gratitude, fear of new failure, and disorientation after basically achieving the dream.

I could go on and on with this topic, but the other thing that is so appealing about BTS is that overriding philosophy that everyone succeeds better together. No one show boats. No one competes. They all praise and support each other, so every one of them can do their best. It reminds me of the physics department at Smith College in the best possible way.

Again, I could go on and on, so I’ll stop here. :-)

PS for Rose: I meant to say that Baepsae was the anthem of the *21st* century.

PS for Cup of Jo: I’m also having some trouble with keeping track of comment threads.

My 68 year old mother is obsessed with BTS. It all started for her with watching Crash Landing on You in Spring 2020. She then started binge watching korean dramas. And then doing Korean dance workout videos. And then BTS. She loves to wear her “K-Drama Addict” tee shirt and her BTS socks and has taken to signing her emails “K-Grandma.” It’s pretty great.

Hanna! Sending you so much love and support for your healing! Thank you for the thorough explanation. Korean dramas are a deep rabbit hole. I found the first ones I watched here in the COJ comments so thank you to those who suggest the really great ones. (So far I’ve LOVED: Itawon Class/rags to riches, Sungkyunkwan Scandal/18th century girl masquerades as boy to go to uni, and Sky Castle/wealthy parents and brilliant kids vs high-end shady admissions coach). Any other exceptional rec’s?

Oh I have to jump on this Kdrama/Kpop thread as I’m watching maybe my 4th consecutive Kdrama (always been a fan but usually watch other shows in between
It’s my way of traveling there since it’s hard to these days. Miss family there…). Some fun ones I’ve seen lately on Netflix are Hospital Playlist (TWO seasons!), Start Up, the Reply series (1998, 1994, and 1988)…and I really loved Dear My Friends about a group of childhood girlfriends who are now in their 60s and 70s. Sky Castle was so good!

Former Kpop addict from the 90s and early 2000s, and I didn’t understand the love for BTS until I saw them on SNL and was like, ohhh I get it now.

@Heather I love that!! I need to get a K-drama addict t-shirt! Thank you for telling me they exist!! :)))

Me too, Hanna. Doctors think I have long covid, contracted on a Hawaii vacation in early December 2019…. long before we knew covid was a thing. I had mild symptoms in Hawaii, but have been struggling ever since. Please be careful, everyone. Long covid is dreadful… and never- ending.

Ah, I feel seen! Much like you, Hannah, I’m a forty-something who stumbled across BTS during the pandemic. I’ve never listened to a boyband in my life…but they are not like any other musical act in the world. Their lyrics are incredible and Run BTS!/BTS In the Soop is getting me through this time. Let’s be friends.

I have a thing for great title sequences and I LOVE theirs – the music and little animated vignettes feels SO Steve Martin to me – pure art. Same for the gorgeous intro for Nine Perfect Strangers – sublime.

YES!!! I am so hooked and have been recommending it to everyone I know. It really does scratch every itch. It’s so good.