You Love a Dark and Stormy Night

Need dinner inspiration or are watching a romcom this week

Hi friends,

Greetings from someone who’s listened to Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs sing Fast Car roughly 100 times in the past week. (We don’t need to talk about how many times it made me tear up.)

I’ve had a bunch of new subscribers lately, so I want to take a second to say welcome and introduce myself. I’m Elizabeth, an upstate New York native now living in Washington, D.C. with my dog Ellie. My goal with this newsletter is to help people find the books they actually want to read. If you need a personal rec, you can always respond to one of these emails or reach out on Instagram.

Quick programming note: Next week’s newsletter will come out on Tuesday due to President’s Day.

And, now, what to read if ….

You Want a Fresh Take on the “Dark and Stormy Night”

The Night of the Storm by Nishita Parekh

Debut novelist Nishita Parekh turns the “dark and stormy night” trope up to 11 in The Night of the Storm, a locked-room mystery set during Hurricane Harvey’s 2017 landfall in Texas.

As the book opens, single mom Jia Shah and her 11-year-old-son Ishaan take cover from the storm at Jia’s sister and brother-in-law’s lavish home in Houston’s Sugar Land suburb. Jia is apprehensive about sheltering at the mansion — her brother-in-law Vipul has been overly friendly lately — but with few other options and her ex-husband looking for a reason to take custody from her, she settles in for the night. They’re joined by Vipul’s mother, brother and sister-in-law, as well as a neighbor he’s been feuding with. As the rain grows heavier, the tension in the house grows thicker, and each character attempts to keep long-held secrets from coming free. When one of their party dies mysteriously, they realize that the storm isn’t the only danger.

The Night of the Storm is a taut, claustrophobic locked-room thriller, but it’s also a compelling family saga exploring the immigrant experience, motherhood and life after divorce. I think book clubs will find a lot to talk about with this one. (If you’ve read it, let me know? I have THOUGHTS.)

The Question ‘What’s For Dinner’ Fills You With Dread

Time for Dinner by Pilar Guzman, Jenny Rosenstrach and Alanna Stanguntil

I fell into a bit of cooking rut at the end of last year, struggling to come up with ideas of what to eat for dinner beyond pasta with butter and cheese. As always, I turned to a book. I borrowed Time For Dinner from the library, knowing that

Jenny Rosenstrach

, author of my beloved Dinner: A Love Story, was one of its writers. I’m happy to report that in the few weeks I’ve had it, Time For Dinner has already helped me mix in some new options.

Time For Dinner is designed for parents with young kids, but as I can attest, it’s super helpful for everyone. It’s filled with easy and delicious recipes, as well as strategies on how to make feeding yourself and your family simpler. I’ve been particularly enjoying the sections with Sunday dinner recipes that include follow ups on how to reuse dishes later in the week (i.e. roast pork with baked apples, followed by baked apple pancakes later in the week) and 30-minute-or-less meals that include a protein, starch and vegetable.

For me, the best chapter is “I Want to Cook With What I Already Have.” Each two-page spread starts with an ingredient such as butternut squash, canned tomatoes or rotisserie chicken, and then offers three meals you can make with it. 

I appreciate the non-judgmental, straightforward tone the writers take. They’re committed to offering strategies to make cooking easier, instead of making readers feel guilty for finding cooking every night a chore.

You’re Hitting Play on a RomCom This Week

From Hollywood, With Love by Scott Meslow

Between Galentine’s and Valentine’s Day this week, it’s prime romantic comedy viewing time. Who can resist the dopamine hits of watching two people fall in love in 90-120 minutes? If you have “Notting Hill” queued up, grab From Hollywood, With Love, Scott Melsow’s celebration of ‘90s and 2000s romcoms.

From Hollywood, With Love technically opens in 1989, with a chapter devoted to Nora Ephron’s ur-romcom “When Harry Met Sally.” From there, Meslow documents trends in the oft-maligned and under-appreciated genre by examining the making of movies, such as “Pretty Woman,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” and the reactions to them. Interspersed are essays about romcom stars Hugh Grant, Katherine Heigl and Jennifer Lopez, among others.

As a romcom fan, I find that reviews of them are often written by people who disdain the genre. Meslow instead comes at these movies with an appreciative lens. He takes these films — and the people who create them — seriously, even as he shares delicious behind-the-scenes morsels. (Diane Keaton was so convincing during a “Something’s Gotta Give” rehearsal Jack Nicolson really thought that she was in love with him). If you’re like me, you’ll walk away from this book feeling like you need to watch, or rewatch, every movie mentioned.

What’s your favorite romcom? Let me know in the comments.

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Thanks, as always, for reading. If you’re curious to know what else I’ve been up to lately, you can check out a review I wrote for the Washington Post of Shannon Reed’s delightful Why We Read. an interview I gave my pal

Catherine Baab-Muguira

about the Colleen Hoover phenomenon for Quartz and a story Axios did on my book club.

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