What We're Reading, Listening to, and Watching This Week (1/4/2026)
Linda-Marie Barrett / Executive Director:
Reading: Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson. A multigenerational novel that begins in 1803 with the capture of a pregnant African potter and continues to the present. The potter’s enslaved son made a jug that has stayed in the family for generations; when it shatters in 2000 in a shooting incident that takes the life of a family member, the survivors must reckon with how profoundly changed they all are, and what they need to do to heal.
Listening: Enjoying the peacefulness of our neighborhood and the absence of holiday music.
Watching: Brokenwood on Acorn, Beyond Paradise on Britbox, and awaiting the newest season of All Creatures Great and Small on PBS (starts Sunday!)
Candice Huber / Membership:
Reading: GUESS WHAT Y'ALL? I actually finished TWO books - Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree and Oathbound by Tracy Deonn. I'm currently on a journey to finish series that I've started, and next up is A Power Unbound by Freya Marske to finish up The Last Binding series.
Listening: I'm loving the snow and the peacefulness and silence of the winter.
Watching: I watched the last season of Stranger Things, the newest season of Man on the Inside, finished up Pluribus, and watched season one of Dexter Resurrection, plus countless holiday movies. My favorite holiday movie that I discovered is called Mrs. Claus, a 1990s musical starring Angela Lansbury about Mrs. Claus getting fed up and then joining the suffragette movement in New York. She also leads the factory kids to form a union! It was wildly feminist, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Nicki Leone / Communications:
Reading: Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys. Motherland by Julia Ioffe - which is both amazing and heartbreaking. You'd like it if you like the work of Svetlana Alexievich, of whom I am a huge-bordering-on-rabid fan.
Listening:. Skipping around my favorite podcast show.
Watching: Having watched the John Adams series in a binge, I then rather impulsively ordered a couple of almost-native crabapple trees from the Monticello gardens (I haven't told the folks yet). And then returned to the Ken Burns American Revolution, which I am rewatching, slowly, with the accompanying book to hand for reference.
SP Rankin / Website Administrator:
Reading: Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys for book club. It is almost unbearably sad, but so beautifully written.
Listening: I've been listening to audiobooks lately as I fall asleep, specifically the biggest Victorian doorstop novels I can find. That has led to Anthony Trollope's six gargantuan Palliser novels (currently listening to The Eustace Diamonds), which I haven't read since I was in high school. At that age, I definitely missed his mercilessly acute observation of his world but am enjoying it now as an old lady.
Watching: I spent the last week of 2025 and the first of 2026 bingeing Heated Rivalry, Pluribus, and Stranger Things in addition to watching far too many movies to list.
Andrea Richardson / Sales:
Reading: I just started a Wizard of Oz-inspired horror, Bloody Brick Road. It is DARK but a super fast read so far.
Listening: I got a DRC of Jennette McCurdy's novel that's about to come out and that will be my cleaning soundtrack to keep me motivated.
Watching: We binged a delightful Aussie show called Fisk this weekend - really fun dry humor with the best accents! UPDATE I have started watching Heated Rivalry since I submitted this and it will now be the only thing I watch for the foreseeable future.