I wrote an essay that ran in the New York Times Book Review this past Sunday: “Why Are There So Many Holocaust Books for Kids?” And I discussed it with editor Pamela Paul on her podcast.

We have a couple of new SorryWatch posts; please check them out.

Entirely unrelated: Now that we are, God willing, able to peep out of the darkest dark of the Covid-19 pandemic (I reserve the right to take back this assessment at any time — thanks, science-deniers and those who pander to them!) I wanted to have a record somewhere of all the wonderful TV we’ve watched. There is SO MUCH good TV in the world right now. So: 

The best of what we tuned into: The Wire (which we didn’t see when it came out because I thought it would be too upsetting; it is upsetting! but also fully as brilliant as everyone says! and overall, I think stronger as a series than The Sopranos, Mad Men, or Six Feet Under! fight me!).

Also brilliant: Ted Lasso, Hacks, Girls 5Eva, Lupin, Better Things, High Maintenance.

Really, really good: The Mandalorian, Starstruck, Succession, Dark (wild, knotty, small-town German time-travel/nuclear holocaust thriller/family saga/love story on Netflix), Call My Agent, Derry Girls, The Flight Attendant, Halston, The Boys (so dark!), Easy (a shambling anthology show about dating set in Chicago with a great recurring cast).

Not quite as good, but still delightful: Shrill, Evil, The Crown, The Queen’s Gambit, Pen15.

I also watched some top-notch teenager-y stuff with Kid #2: Teenage Bounty Hunters (Kadeem Hardison, BLOWING MY MIND many years after A Different World), Trinkets (teens in a shoplifting support group!), I Am Not Okay With This (BITTER that it was not renewed), Never Have I Ever, The Half of It. Dash and Lily, based on a delightful YA novel, was honestly meh, but dang, New York City looks glorious in it, and it gets automatic points for setting a romance in the stacks of The Strand bookstore.

My self-soothing TV to semi-watch: Chopped, Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, Schitt’s Creek and The Good Place (again and again), Blown Away, The Great Pottery Throwdown, The Repair Shop, and our family reality TV: LEGO Masters and Top Chef. 

I would say I have no life, but staying home for the last year and a half should be a point of pride, not shame.