Three Book/Movie/Comedy Reviews

For those who loved Shuggie Bain please
read Young Mungo – same author ! I often think of this book over a year later. Was absolutely mad for Shuggie but Mungo may have a tiny edge !

Anyone else read American Girl magazine in the mid-90s? This post’s artwork made me think of the illustrations in that magazine, such a fun flashback! I love it.

Omg the preview for Good One looks amazing, but I need to have a tiny bit more info about this twist! Is it violent? Is it going to upset me profoundly?

Three Reviews (post on coj)
Phoebe Ward gives 3 reviews of different media- movie,book,album. The reviews offer enough critique to interest you. Along with each review is an adorable cartoon drawing. All in all this 5 star post is (probably) better than all the comments that accompany it, but don’t take my word for it, check it out yourself. Note to reader: coj comments are highly rated so apologies if previous sentence is offensive

Agree, love this post! I just read Tell Me Everything and of course loved it and being with familiar characters was comforting. My daughter and I have been watching Wednesday again and loving it and my other daughter and I have been watching 90s, mid 2000 movies and watched Under The Tuscan Sun and that was fun to rewatch. Plus we could also watch Eras tour live steam and still follow the plot. Ok, one of the greatest movies of all time – Father of the Bride. It’s just perfect.

I’ve just finished The Housekeeper and the Professor by Joy Ogawa, recommended by a CoJ commenter a while back (whoever you are, thank you!). A simple, gentle, poignant novel, restful to read.
Agree with other comments: the format of this post was fun!

Great post! Fresh take Phoebe! I’m a stay at home mum who moonlights as a holiday window painter in my little town on the Prairie after my children go to bed. While I work, I’ve been listening to Maggie O’Farrell’s “Hamnet” via Libby listening library. I read it a few years ago (one of those novels I like to reread every winter) but listening to the story has been fantastic. Maybe it’s the meditative work of drawing on glass after-hours in the shops and businesses of women I admire, or the shift in seasons, or simply the gift of being *alone* and delighting in the creative work flowing out of me—perhaps the combination of these things have enriched and elevated O’Farrell’s beautiful story even more. Read it! I am also pumped to dive back into the second season of The Empress on Netflix tonight!! Incredible costuming!!!! Xo

I am reading Illyrian Spring after reading a rec in the comments here…It is SO INTELLIGENTly written that I am really enjoying it. It was published in 1934. The author introspects the way I do, which I’ve never seen in a book before so it is very insightful to read!

I am currently reading Big Swiss and I love it. It’s so unusual and funny. Watching the third season of Somebody, somewhere and I am once again so touched by the characters. Wish it wasn’t ending!

Loved reading this post!! I just re-watched Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery which I think is SO well-done and overall really fun!

Love this format, love Phoebe’s style!!

I cannot recommend the documentary Yintah enough. It’s about indigenous women in Canada defending their land, and it’s so incredibly powerful. I saw it earlier this year at a film festival and it’s streaming now on Netflix!

I just finished Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy, which is set in medieval Russia and folds the region’s actual history in with the clash between belief in the fairy-tale spirits of ancient Slavic paganism and the advent (no pun intended) of the Orthodox church, and it was just the fantasy I needed when I needed to retreat into atmospheric fiction over the past month. (It’s also very well researched; Arden lived in Moscow for a year and got her undergraduate degree in French and Russian.) Think Baba Yaga + Joan of Arc meets Dream from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman cycle, beautifully written and surprisingly executed. A twist in the last book had me crying on the plane coming home from CA last week, and I am NOT a crier.

I recently finished Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton and loved it so much! I liked that it was a political novel that was so relevant to American politics and the progressive movement but about New Zealand, so it was still escapist enough.

Is this Jenny’s Phoebe?!

Love this format!!
I have been playing copious amounts of Stardew Valley on my Switch and listening to historical romances on audio to try and curb my doomscrolling. Just finished A SHORE THING by Joanna Lowell and absolutely looooved it.

1. Books by Stanley Tucci and Leslie Jordan.
2. Taskmaster Jr.
3. The Amazon Prime movie–Your Christmas or Mine?

Wooo is this a new friday rendez vous? I completely love it Phoebe and Cupofjo team. I wish you could write without worrying about spoiling. I want to read more! I have only french recommendations lately, so I don t think it would intrrest you…

I’m slowly reading The Overstory by Richard Powers, in between grading papers and reading for work (end of semester crazy busy time fast approaching over here). I hope Phoebe’s posts become a recurring feature; I love the content and the style.

I watched My Old Ass [forgive the terrible name] over the weekend and loooooved it! I’m 40, so I think I was the target demo for sure. I may or may not have spent 20 minutes talking about the movie in my therapy sesh this week lol.

I’m watching every Hallmark Christmas movie that crosses my path. It’s the only thing keeping me sane. That, and my stupid paint by numbers coloring app. My mom and I compare our favorites and then make fun of ourselves for being dorks.

Just wanted to say – great post Phoebe! Concept, format, and execution are delightful.

Shuggie Bain is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Currently reading The Real Americans by Rachel Khong.

I adored Shuggie Bain. It’s heartbreaking, but a stunning novel. Highly recommend!

I’m reading Pride and Prejudice in Space by Alexis Lampley right now. I’ve never read Pride and Prejudice and this is my first foray into science fiction, but it’s a very fun read. Life is really heavy right now, personally and professionally, and this has been a nice break in the evening.

I’ve been reading Rebecca Solnit (Hope in the Dark was backordered everywhere in the election aftermath!), but before that I read Margo’s Got Money Troubles and adored it. The synopsis didn’t sound like it would be for me but I’m so glad I gave it a chance.

My two favorite things I enjoyed lately are the documentary Fire of Love, which was insanely gripping and visually stunning, and the book Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black by Cookie Mueller (tonight my husband and I are going to a midnight viewing of Female Trouble, one of the John Waters movies she was in).

I just finished Voltaire in Love, by Nancy Mitford. It’s nonfiction, and is about a long love affair and scientific friendship that Voltaire carried on with Emilie du Chatelet, a mathematician and philosopher. Together they brought Newton’s ideas about gravity to France. It’s the most chatty, hilarious and scandalous version of French pre-revolutionary history you can imagine and I highly recommend it.

I love stuff like this on cup of Jo. I love all the gift guides and recipes too, but pieces that are intentional about thinking are so nice. Short but slows me down and feels like I need to pay attention for a sec, in a good way. A balm in a hurried and short attention span world (even though it’s short!), etc