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This week’s story, “ Between the Shadow and the Soul ,” is about a fifty-year-old woman named Eliza who has
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This week we take our cue from the title of Stephen King’s new story collection, “You Like It Darker,” with books about a honeymoon gone wrong, an artist’s midlife crisis and the appeal of beautiful monsters (in a wild coming-of-age graphic novel) joining King’s own collection on our list of recommendations. It’s not all darkness, though: We also recommend a biography of the groundbreaking Chinese cooking star Fu Pei-mei, a prismatic portrait of five Black ballerinas from the 1960s and ’70s, and Cristina Henriquez’s historical novel set during the construction of the Panama Canal. Happy reading.— Gregory Cowles CHOP FRY WATCH LEARN: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food Michelle T. King In 1971, this newspaper called Fu Pei-mei “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” But, as King’s biography notes, it was really the other way around: The legendary Fu, who taught generations to cook dishes from all over China, preceded Child on TV by several years. King interviews women who learned from Fu’s cookbooks and show, making the case that she was a cultural force. “Studious and wide-ranging. … [Uses] Fu as a jumping-off point to discuss the complicated history of Taiwan, feminism in Taiwanese society, the complexities of Chinese identity in the wake of the Chinese Civil War, Indigenous Taiwanese food and culture and much more.” From Thessaly La Force’s review Norton | $29.99 THE SWANS OF HARLEM: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History Karen Valby For those who believe that the narrative of Black prima ballerinas begins and ends with Misty Copeland, Valby’s rich, prismatic portrait of the five dancers who formed the core of the Dance Theater of Harlem’s inaugural 1969 class offers a joyful and spirited corrective. “The process of reclamation is not only painful, like a dancer’s training, it is never quite complete. … The moral of this important and tear-stained book is actually a reminder: Bare oneself, fly into the grandest of jetés and live free.” From Danyel Smith’s review Pantheon | $29 THE SLEEPWALKERS Scarlett Thomas Thomas’s latest is a gothic […]
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This week’s story, “ Between the Shadow and the Soul ,” is about a fifty-year-old woman named Eliza who has
The British realist director Mike Leigh loves the term “character actor,” which he uses often and with zeal. To him,
