Slate critics and columnists often recommend all sorts of useful and fascinating stuff: books, documentaries, Australian wines, ergonomic keyboards, and the like. Sometimes these endorsements appear in obvious spots (like our movie reviews), but just as often they come in unexpected places, as when our advice columnist Dear Prudence recommended a book on communicating with unruly teens. So, starting this month, we’ll be publishing a handy monthly roundup of all the things we like, since we figure you’d like some of these things, too. Take a look at our latest favorites:
Books
Grigoris Balakian’s Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide and Christopher de Bellaigue’s Rebel Land: Travels Among Turkey’s Forgotten Peoples
(Recommended by Christopher Hitchens in “Telling the Truth About the Armenian Genocide“)
Amos Oz’s Rhyming Life and Death
(Recommended by Judith Shulevitz in “Why Write While Israel Burns?“)
Reza Aslan’s How To Win a Cosmic War
(Recommended by Alan Wolfe in “Let’s Fight Wars on Earth, Not in Heaven“)
John Demos’ The Enemy Within and Thomas Robisheaux’s The Last Witch of Langenburg
(Recommended by Johann Hari in “Why the Wicked Witch Isn’t Dead“)
Frank Partnoy’s The Match King
(Recommended by Sam Kean in “Where’s Our Scapegoat?“)
Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish’s How To Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk
(Recommended by Dear Prudence in “Dream Lover“)
Leslie Morgan Steiner’s Crazy Love
(Recommended by Linda Hirshman in “ Crazy Love, Crazy Choices“)
John Harley Warner and James M. Edmonson’s Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine 1880–1930
(Recommended by Barron H. Lerner in “Gather ‘Round the Cadaver“)
Susan Jacoby’s Alger Hiss and the Battle for History
(Recommended by Stephen Metcalf in “The Culture Gabfest, ‘Oh My God, Ugly People Can Sing’ Edition“)
Cook Books
Joan Nathan’s Jewish Cooking in America, Bernard Clayton’s New Book of Breads, Anne Mendelson’s Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages, and The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion
(Recommended by Jennifer Reese in “Scratch That“)
Nancy Baggett’s Kneadlessly Simple
(Recommended by Sara Dickerman in “My Inner Baker“)
Drinks
Penfolds’ St. Henri Shiraz, the Leeuwin Estate Art Series Riesling, and Betts & Scholl’s O.G. and Chronique
(Recommended by Mike Steinberger in “Not Such a G’Day“)
Movies
Sacha Gervasi’s Anvil! The Story of Anvil
(Recommended by Dana Stevens in “This is Anvil!“)
John Cassavetes’ Faces
(Recommended by Dana Stevens in “Essential Cassavetes“)
Albert and David Maysles’ Grey Gardens
(Recommended by Troy Patterson in “Decaying Preppies“)
The films of Jason Statham, especially Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, War, and Crank
(Recommended by Jody Rosen in “The Last Action Hero“)
So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain
(Recommended by Dana Stevens in “The Culture Gabfest, ‘Oh My God, Ugly People Can Sing’ Edition“)
Television
The Golden Girls
(Recommended by Troy Patterson in “Four Old Women Share an Apartment“)
Music
The oeuvre of Run-DMC, especially Raising Hell
(Recommended by Jody Rosen in “Kings of Rock“)
Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water
(Recommended by Jonah Weiner in “Was Limp Bizkit Really That Bad?“)
Morrissey’s Years of Refusal, Viva Hate, Your Arsenal, and Vauxhall and I
(Recommended by Stephen Metcalf in “Bigmouth Strikes Again“)
The Thermals’ Now We Can See
(Recommended by Julia Turner in “The Culture Gabfest, ‘Oh My God, Ugly People Can Sing’ Edition“)
Other
The Kinesis Advantage, an ergonomic keyboard
(Recommended by Laura Moser in “Apple Option Ouch“)
