Usually, my “Buy this book/CD/whatever” marching orders seem to come from NPR’s Fresh Air, but the latest issue of Newsweek jumps into that niche.
First is the review of the new book by Alexander McCall Smith, who writes the very appealing No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. McCall Smith has finished the first installment of a new series, The Sunday Philosophy Club, starring ethics journal editor Isabel Dalhousie. One of my favorite aspects of the No. 1 series is its depiction of Botswana. Isabel does her meddling in Edinburgh, offering me more armchair travel.
Next is a new CD of old standards by Dana Owens, better known as Queen Latifah, imaginatively titled the Dana Owens Album. Many might think that Chicago was her first step away from rap and into crooning, but the six or seven of us who’ve seen Living Out Loud know better. In Living, Latifah gives a sharp, appealing performance as a lounge singer who torches with the best of them. The movie itself is an undervalued gem, with Holly Hunter as a woman of a certain age (by Hollywood standards, obviously) trying to carve out a new life for herself after her husband leaves her. You can hear bits of her Living numbers, like “Lush Life,” here.
Of course, Newsweek can’t seem to get through a piece of twaddle on Martha Stewart and Mark Burnett without a typo, and Brittany Spears rears her empty head, so my gratitude is conditional.