World Wide Work: Films, Books, Music You May Have Missed
FILMS
Exhibiting Forgiveness. An African-American artist paints painful scenes from a childhood marked by abuse by his father that was tolerated by his mother. When his father reappears in his life, his mother urges him to forgive them both, but it’s not so simple.
Lyd. A dramatic documentary made by a Palestinian and a Jewish American focuses on the city of Lyd that was founded nearly 5,000 years ago. In 1948, tens of thousands of Palestinian residents of Lyd were forcibly driven out by the Israeli army so Jewish refugees could move into their homes. The film includes powerful interview footage of former Israeli soldiers describing the atrocities they witnessed, as well as of Palestinian survivors and their descendants. It also shows that the oppression of Palestinians in and near Lyd continues to the present day.
Touch. A young woman and man meet in London and fall in love. He is from Iceland. She is from Hiroshima and is the daughter of parents who survived the atomic bomb dropped by the U.S. She suddenly returns to Japan without even saying goodbye. Fifty years later, he searches for her and finds out what happened.
Panchayat. A TV series with some appealing characters sheds a light on village dynamics in rural India.
Toni. A 42-year-old woman has raised five kids. Now she has to decide what to do with the rest of her life. With skilled acting and directing, this feature film shows what it’s like to be a teenager, a parent of teenagers, and a single mom.
On the Count of Three. As this dark and sensitive film begins, two young men are about to help each other commit suicide but they decide to wait a day and to use the time revisiting key people in their respective pasts.
Three Monkeys. A chauffeur, a kitchen aide, and their son live in a poor neighborhood in istanbul. When the rich politician the chauffeur works for accidentally kills a pedestrian while driving drunk, he asks the chauffeur to take the fall for him.
Songs of Earth. This documentary by a Norwegian filmmaker, shot in all seasons of the year in the fjord where her family has lived since the 1600s, features breathtaking nature footage.
BOOKS
Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine (One World). An ambitious novel follows multiple generations of working class Latinx and indigenous women in Colorado trying to survive against the odds.
Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj (HarperVia). Stories about three Palestinian families of different economic circumstances who immigrated to the U.S. are woven together in this nuanced novel.
Mirage by Nahid Rachlin (Red Hen). Identical twin sisters in Iran are thrilled when they both get pregnant at the same time, but all does not go as planned.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Scribner). An entertaining novel follows the author’s musings about the origin of humans intertwined with a story about a female undercover operative hired to try to entrap members of an anarchist commune in France in violent crime.
Entitlement by Rumaan Alam (Riverhead). A young Black woman gets a job at a new foundation established by an elderly white multi-billionaire. A relationship develops between them, but what is it exactly, and where is it leading?
Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha (Knopf). A Palestinian librarian and scholar wrote powerful poems after his home and a community library in Gaza were destroyed by Israeli bombs.
Clean by Alia Trabucco Zeran (Riverhead). In this intense novel, a woman leaves rural Chile to work as a maid and nanny for a professional couple in Santiago. She is in jail and being interrogated, but for what?
Undivided by Hahrie Han (Knopf). A huge mega-church in Ohio with an 80-20 ratio of white to Black members started a program of small groups meeting to talk about race. Some of the participants progressed beyond sharing individual stories to taking collective political action for systemic social justice. Han tells what happened by focusing on four unlikely participants – two Black, two white.
The Politics of Hate by Angelia R. Wilson (Temple). How did an overwhelming majority of white evangelicals come to support a presidential candidate who had consistently violated their professed Christian values? A political science professor describes decades of highly sophisticated and coordinated strategy by the Christian Right that may not have been obvious even to the average church goer who has been impacted.
The War Below by Ernest Scheyder (One Signal). Many new technologies, from smart phones to electric cars, require massive supplies of lithium and copper. The author spent time with wealthy speculators hoping to make a fortune meeting this need. He also visited communities and ecological systems whose future is threatened by huge new mines these speculators and some government agencies are planning.
The Light Eaters by Zoe Schlanger (Harper). A science writer describes recent research that demonstrates remarkable ways that plants survive and thrive.
The Apothecary’s Wife by Karen Bloom Gevirtz (University of California). At one time, illnesses were usually treated by women for free using home remedies. An historian chronicles the systematic shift to a male-dominated medical and pharmaceutical industry that often prioritizes profit over health.
Crimes Against Nature by Jeff Sparrow (Scribe). Big corporations and their political allies encourage us to think that the way to address climate change is for each of us to change our individual behavior. But the capitalist drive for profits created climate change and must be addressed in order to prevent further catastrophe.
MUSIC
Orchestras by Bill Frisell. The jazz guitarist collaborated with two orchestras on a calming but not soporific double album.