5 From Fitch: October 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!
Dorothy Pomerantz
📺 Watching: “Veep” (Streaming on HBO Max)
What is it?
Award-winning HBO series that ran from 2012-2019 starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, the vice president in a Washington where the insults fly fast and furious, and everyone is just trying to get out of the latest pile of s**t they stepped in.
Why I love it.
With the election around the corner, politics right now are extremely stressful. What better way to unwind than by watching this hilarious series from Scottish creator Armando Iannucci where there are no grand schemes and plans — just entertaining incompetence. It doesn’t hurt that the show seems to have anticipated this moment in America. In one season Selina is suddenly elevated to the party’s candidate for president when her boss steps down. Come for the relevance, stay for the most creative insult humor in the history of TV.
Stephane Fitch
📚 Reading: “John Adams” by David McCullough
What is it?
A biography of the Founding Father and second president of the United States by the late, masterful pop historian David McCullough.
Why I love it.
Does the current election season make you wonder if our country is doomed? McCullough’s biography of John Adams has given me some perspective. Adams led the First Continental Congress, wrote Massachusetts’ constitution, negotiated our first treaties, succeeded George Washington as president and led us out of war with France. Yet he — and his equally brilliant wife, Abigail — had acrid disputes with fellow Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. After Jefferson defeated Adams in his second presidential run, he accepted his loss and returned to his farm, later watching his son John Quincy Adams rise to the presidency. McCullough’s biography reminds us that America has always been a cruel and glorious mess, both beautiful and doomed.
Christine Gibson
🎙️ Listening to: “Comedy Bang Bang” (Streaming on Earwolf, Spotify and Apple podcasts)
What is it?
An improvised comedy podcast. The host, former “Mr. Show” writer Scott Aukerman, interviews — or, more truthfully, riffs with — a real guest before being joined by two or three comedians playing eccentric characters.
Why I love it.
Aukerman often steers the faux interviews into unexpected, surreal twists, but his colleagues are such expert improvisers that the results are funnier than most scripted comedies. Informal and at times ridiculous, sarcastic, witty, bawdy and goofy, it feels like being at a party with some of the most hilarious people in America.
Maggie Sieger
📺 Watching: “Bad Monkey” (Streaming on Apple TV+)
What is it?
A crime drama based on Carl Hiaasen’s novel by the same name.
Why I love it.
Vince Vaughn is a former homicide detective who’s forced to become a restaurant inspector in the Florida Keys. He starts investigating a murder involving a severed arm, a sketchy developer and a Caribbean voodoo priestess, along with a whole bunch of other odd, and hilariously funny, characters — even when it puts his promising new relationship and his life in danger. There are multiple twists I didn’t see coming and a very satisfying ending, which includes plenty of loose threads for a second series. Fingers crossed!
Katie Gustafson
📚 Reading: “Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine” by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
What is it?
An engrossing nonfiction account of how the surgeon Thomas Dent Mütter transformed medical practice by pioneering new approaches — in the face of strenuous resistance — in 19th century Philadelphia, a place and time in which surgery was performed without anesthesia and surgeons never sterilized their instruments.
Why I love it.
The book takes a gruesome topic and makes it into a narrative I couldn’t put down. Everything from the details of surgical practice to the political maneuvering of medical men becomes fascinating in this author’s capable hands. This book is the best I’ve read on the history of medicine (and I’ve read a few!).