5 From Fitch: July 2024
You know those friends you have who always offer great recommendations for books to read, movies to see and places to go? That’s us! Every month, our intrepid writers will share five recommendations based on their current favorite things. Have you read a riveting book lately? Seen a movie or show that deeply affected you? Eaten a new take on an old classic? Check out any interesting art installations? Please drop us a line in the comments!
Maggie Sieger
📺 Watching: “A Murder at the End of the World,” streaming on Hulu
What is it?
An original, 7-episode mystery miniseries.
Why I love it.
It has all the hallmarks of a great Agatha Christie play: A mysterious billionaire lures a group of strangers — or are they?!? — to his remote, frozen hideaway, where they are snowed in and cut off from civilization. And wouldn’t you know it, they start dying, one by one. There are interesting plots about lost love and whether we should integrate artificial intelligence into our lives. But at heart, it’s just an intriguing, twisty whodunit.
Dorothy Pomerantz
📖 Reading: “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett
What is it?
Patchett’s pandemic tale of a family working their cherry orchard in Michigan where over the course of a few weeks, the mother, Lara, tells her three daughters about her relationship many years ago with a now-famous movie star.
Why I love it.
There’s no debating that COVID-19 was a global disaster and a period no one wants to go back to. But at the same time, for some of us, there was a sweetness in being stuck home with our children. Patchett captures that feeling perfectly in this sun-dappled tale that jumps between the idyllic cherry orchard and the even more idyllic Tom Lake summer theater of Lara’s past. A beautiful, optimistic book about different kinds of love and what it takes to make us truly happy.
Stephane Fitch
🎙️Listening: Headline News (HLN), on Sirius XM or podcasts
What is it?
A continuous loop of lowbrow true-crime programming, best enjoyed on Sirius XM.
Why I love it.
Call it an especially guilty pleasure. HLN’s all-true-crime-all-the-time format is unseemly, gritty and yet surprisingly soothing compared to the unceasing maelstrom of political panic that the cable news networks peddle. I especially enjoy listening to HLN’s evening programming, with the late, legendary Peter Thomas hosting old episodes of Forensic Files. Even the advertising feels vaguely felonious.
Christine Gibson
🌷Using: Pl@ntNet
What is it?
An AI app that identifies plants based on photos you upload.
Why I love it.
Every spring my friend, an expert amateur gardener, gives me dozens of dahlia tubers. But for years and years, despite my best efforts, I could get only one or two to grow. I planted them in different spots, watered them more and less, weeded diligently. Nothing worked. Then I downloaded PlantNet. Out on a walk, I can ID any pretty flower that catches my eye, and in the garden I can now distinguish a weed from a dahlia spout.
Chris Noon
📺 Watching: Glastonbury Festival, BBC
What is it?
Rooting out hidden gems from the Glastonbury Festival coverage.
Why I love it.
Glastonbury was a kind of Shangri-La in my early teens. I’d read about the mud and squalor in indie magazines, listened to chaotic live performances on late night radio and gasped at the (possibly apocryphal) stories about the older kids at my school who crashed Rage Against the Machine’s 1994 set. But I didn’t quite believe it existed until the BBC first started televising it in 1997, bringing the Pyramid Stage into my front room.
It’s been a long time since ‘Glasto’ casts have felt like a secret portal to a countercultural universe (Coldplay headlined for the fifth time this year), but I have stumbled on some sets that keep the belly fires burning: Check out PJ Harvey, The Streets and Sleaford Mods here.