Favorite books, essays, podcasts episodes, and more that I enjoyed in the month of April, plus recent cultural news that I’m paying attention to…

BOOKS

NOVEL: Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

This novel is my favorite of Strout’s that I’ve read so far, telling the story of very ordinary people living ordinary lives of care and selfishness and love and pain in a lovely but also rather ordinary town in Maine.

MOVIES AND SHOWS

MOVIE: A Complete Unknown

Peter and I both loved this biopic about Bob Dylan’s early years in New York City as he rose to stardom and refused to be boxed in as an artist. I was reminded of the reasons Dylan won the Nobel Prize for literature, and it also made me wonder whether genius comes along with misanthropy by necessity.

PODCAST EPISODES

EPISODE: Lisa Damour: How to Talk to Teenagers

I sent this podcast episode to all my friends who are parents of or work with teenagers.

THE BIBLE PROJECT: The Seven Women Who Rescued Moses—and Israel

If you’ve ever wondered whether the Bible has a subversive message within a patriarchal culture about the significance of women, this podcast episode is for you. Such an amazing and powerful and encouraging exploration of the role of women in the Exodus story and throughout the Bible

ESSAYS

STUDY: Measuring the Good Life

I’m so fascinated by the human flourishing study out of Harvard and Baylor, particularly when it comes to the factors that make up a “good life.” The data suggests that “economically developed countries have high average scores for self-rated financial well-being, access to education, and life evaluation. Yet poorer countries have higher scores for positive emotions, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and social connection and relationships.” In other words, money doesn’t buy happiness, and it certainly doesn’t buy connection. Moreover, the data suggests that

“countries with the greatest wealth and longevity may have achieved these goods at the cost of a fulfilling life… for most people, flourishing is found above all in dense and overlapping networks of loving relationships.”