#MayIRecommend: Explore This Month’s Top Book and Entertainment Picks

As promised last week, here is the speedrun of a monthly recommendations post. This is a years-old challenge, posted by a now-dormant account (find Isabella Streffen here and here now). This was the collaborative spirit of social media, the ‘tagging yourself’ in star sign memes, the sharing of work and interest and jokes. I suspect it, too, is dormant, rather than dead, as we all scramble back to the fox-holes of private blogs and try to work out how we can healthily engage in online behaviours, and ideally do so without enabling fascists; in the interim, please consider my May recommendations, then join me in logging off.

Week One: Faves

Book (any genre) – How does one recommend a book without knowing the audience and what they’re seeking? It being my profession to recommend books, I take it rather seriously. For lack of a prompt, please consider my recommendation White Is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi, as I don’t think it got the credit it deserved either in a literary or a zeitgeisty way. It’s a dark academia character study of mental health and legacy, and whilst it’s a little challenging I found it quite easy once I was in the flow of the prose.

Song, singer, album, or band – You can even see Joy Oladokun live at Somerset House this year. Again, I think she’s an underrated songwriter and the perfect listen in this current country-pop scene if you prefer folk. She’s emotionally open with a fun sense of humour and has worked with other favourites of mine, Aly & AJ and Jack Antonoff.

TV Show – I actually don’t super enjoy watching TV shows, and tend to avoid their conclusion for some pathological reason that drives my husband crackers. Recently, though, we’ve been watching Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, and I’m loving the pacing and artistic shots. I really enjoy how it moves fluidly between the present and the past, and at least once an episode I’m awed by how beautiful it looks.

Star Wars Related – I’ve been playing far too much Disney Dreamlight Valley, so I need to credit not only the official update giving me my first Padmé look, but also the fan creator working on Padmé’s wardrobe to thunderous applause.

Film (any genre) – the only films I know more about than other people are old ones, so here’s a pick starring my favourite actor Anton Walbrook – La Ronde. Directed by German antifascist with a Late Romantic attitude Max Ophüls, this film ties together music and visual image in a way that is informed by Welles, Hitchcock, and Fritz Lang, but with a much less aggressive tone. A true descendent of Heine.

Beer – Is this where I announce my probable gluten intolerance? I regret, I have been avoiding wheat products for some time now. I have always liked Sam Smith’s fruit beer, though – I heartily recommend cherry and apricot, even if I can have one max these days.

Cake – happy birthday to our challenge setter!! May I recommend tea at the Ritz? Cake which looks so pretty it requires you, also, to look pretty, is my favourite.

Week Two: Poetry

In the spirit of why I’m doing this, I will be filling the poetry section with screenshots from social media, because I have hoarded poetry like nothing else.

Poem –

Line of poetry – “a glimpse of your ankle / just kills me”

Poet – Plath (this is her skirt, and an album of her reading her poetry on the right)

Book of poems – art of Eliot’s The Waste Land by Jacqueline Nicholls

Translated poem (or prose, I suppose) – Goethe, Elective Affinities

A singer or song who in your opinion is as good as poetry

Work of art – I like pictures of women, mainly.

Week Three: Staying In

Recipe – Make a pide! I can’t remember which recipe I used, but my husband still raves about it and requests me to make it again.

Rom Com – are we at a point yet where we can reclaim Amy Schumer? I enjoyed Trainwreck immensely and wish for more people to watch it. It’s nice for a chick flick to acknowledge the piecing-yourself-back-together work of your late 20s, and nice for the hero to be goofy and charming.

Podcast – There are only three podcasts: YMRT, In Our Time, and Myths and Legends. There may be others on podcast servers, but they do not exist. For lack of a podcast I have not recommended before, try the content I use like a podcast: people reading YA novels so I don’t have to (and I’m a teen librarian, so this really is a public service as far as I’m concerned) by people like Crow Caller and Cari Can Read.

Audiobook – I’m not much of an audiobook fan but I’ve really enjoyed Bernadine Evaristo’s Mr Loverman read by James Goode. It’s not overly acted, which allows the prose to shine, but it is accented, which is ideal.

Person to follow on Twitter – allow me to recommend my best Twitter-to-IRL-friend’s blog, Dr Dorka Tamas https://theplathwitchcraft.wordpress.com/about/ as she talks about things everybody surely wants to hear, like Taylor Swift and Sylvia Plath.

New Author – She’s not new, but she has only had one book translated into English and I’m aching for more. Everybody who knows me IRL will be sick of me recommending Kikuko Tsumura‘s There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job, but I really would like to read more of her books myself so she definitely belongs here.

Stationer – If you like literary stationary, it simply must be Wearingeul Ink. When I finally finish Fantôme, I will be using their Phantom of the Opera shade to sign some print copies.

Week Four: Going Out

Museum – I recently went to the Shoeseum at the Art Gallery in Northampton and had a whale of a time. Definitely worth a trip! We loved it so much we missed our train.

Café – Please keep Matris, my local independent coffee place, alive. It is delicious, they are kind, and I would like to see it succeed.

Restaurant – Kayal, Leicester is nationally renowned as the home of South Indian food in the UK and I can confirm it is delicious. If you order the crab curry, ensure nobody is in a hurry because you will want to crack every tiny leg for that flavoursome meat. Also a venue for Leicester comedy festival.

Bar – The Rotunda Bar at the Four Seasons is a lovely place to be – the seats are comfy, the drinks are good, and you can hear only your own group’s conversation.

Cinema – There is only the BFI. I used to go to the Birkbeck cinema and the Science Museum, but now I am only Vue Leicester Square and the BFI.

New Film – help I’m out of touch!! I’ve been all books and no (new) films recently, though I AM looking forward to David Lowery’s Mother Mary

Open Air Attraction – I tend not to do these in the summer. Try Ginkaku-ji Temple in Kyoto? In all seriousness, I would try some kind of architecture tour, because I love the juxtaposition this city affords of old / new and I think architecture represents what we choose to make of the city and the space.

City – Longyearbyen. I desperately want to go, and I want to go whilst the arctic still has snow. Catch me investing in property here if I choose to have children.

Hidden Gem – the library at The Wellcome Collection. Ignore the collection itself, it’s gruesome, but the library is gorgeous.

Free Choice – Rahi at Lisa Eldridge, Liberty’s, did a wonderful job on my face and they deserve all the commission. Head to them for a lewk, or to buy surprisingly nice makeup (I cannot stop raving about my LE lipstick – colour Velvet Pompadour, for the interested).

I am pretty sure I know who posted this on Twitter a blue moon ago, but please allow me an error if I have credited it wrong.