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We at ApEx are great believers in people’s list of favorites. We’re always asking friends and relatives to recommend their favorite books, music, and movies. The thing about reading books, listening to music, and watching movies that come recommended by someone is that we are 100 percent sure that we will love them. We have made up my mind that these will be fantastic experiences and so we always have a good time.

Recently, one of us was talking to a friend about a book ‘Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’ by Gabrielle Zevin that we were reading together and we somehow got on the topic of movies. She mentioned that she isn’t much of a movie person and that she rewatches the same 10 movies, mainly because they provide comfort but also because they have great costume designs.

We asked her to share the list and watched a few of those movies over the weekend. We had a blast. They get your mind off things. For the several hours they lasted, some of us forgot all our worries. We’re sharing five movies from the list hoping the stories will lighten your mood.

Clueless

‘Clueless’ is a timeless PG-13 romance comedy with witty dialogue and many fashion takeaways. Alicia Silverstone, in her role as the protagonist Cher, is endearing. The movie is a feel-good classic that never fails to entertain. The 1995 American coming-of-age film is a loose adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1815 novel ‘Emma’. Our friend apparently knows all the dialogues by heart. They are witty one-liners so we can understand why. Though the movie was primarily aimed at teenagers, we believe it will appeal to everyone with a sense of humor. 

Sabrina

If you were to google you would find that there are several movies titled Sabrina. And we actually like quite a few of them. But our friend recommended the 1954 American romantic comedy directed by Billy Wilder. The movie stars Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and William Holden. In 2002, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’. The movie has a lot of drama and romance and a fair bit of intrigue. The characters are charming, gluing you to the screen. 

Howl’s Moving Castle

Read the book and watch the movie for a wholesome experience. The movie is perhaps one of the best works to come out of Studio Ghibli. The Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki is loosely based on the 1986 novel by British author Diana Wynne Jones. An under-confident young woman is cursed with an old body by a spiteful witch. Her only chance of breaking the spell lies with a self-indulgent yet insecure young wizard and his weird companions in his legged, walking castle. A brilliant execution of a great plot makes it a gripping and entertaining watch.  

Under the Tuscan Sun

Based on Frances Mayes’ 1996 memoir of the same name, the movie is about a recently divorced writer who buys a villa in Tuscany on a whim. Frances Mayes is a writer whose seemingly perfect life takes an unexpected turn when she learns that her husband has been cheating on her and that his young lover is pregnant with his child. Her best friend Patti worries that Frances might never recover from the traumatic divorce and urges her to go on a vacation. At first, Frances refuses. But then later she decides it might be a good idea to get away for a while and goes to Tuscany where she buys a villa on whim hoping it will change her life. Diana Lane received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance in the movie. 

Funny Face

This musical is just what you need on a gloomy day when you don’t feel like doing anything. The 1957 romantic comedy is filled with vibrant performances by Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. Funny Face is fascinating though there are quite a few loopholes in the writing. The movie has a lot of nonsensical elements between the dance numbers which is why it sticks to your mind. It does feel a tad bit misogynistic at times—the male character is the same throughout the movie while the female lead is the one who learns a lesson and changes. But the good thing is you don’t need to invest a lot of mental energy into the film and will definitely be entertained.

There is something about yellow covers that instantly catch my attention. Sometimes I buy books that have yellow covers without even reading the blurb. Maybe my judgment is clouded by my bias but I generally find myself enjoying those books. I bought ‘We All Want Impossible Things’ by Catherine Newman because the cover is a bright yellow one. There is a broken blue plate fixed through Kintsugi—the Japanese art of mending broken objects, mainly glass and ceramic, with gold. The effect is striking.

It’s also a slim volume. I thought I’d be able to read it in a day or two. And I did. Not because it was a light read. It deals with loss and grief. But the story is powerful and gripping. The writing is gorgeous. I couldn’t put the book down. The story is about two childhood friends Edith and Ashley as they grapple with the former’s cancer prognosis. Edi and Ash have shared everything. They have seen each other through heartbreaks, family issues, marriages, divorce, childbirth among other gazillion issues of life. They complete each other.

When Edi is diagnosed with ovarian cancer, it upends both their lives. After three years of grueling treatment, the hospital worker tells them to ‘make the most of her remaining days’ while not-so-subtly clarifying that it needs to happen somewhere else and not at the hospital. A social worker recommends in-patient hospice care and Jude, Edi’s husband, and Ash come to the harrowing decision to opt for it. They don’t want Edi’s seven-year-old son to deal with the trauma of having to watch her die. Edi then moves into a hospice that is near Ash’s home.

Ash is recently separated (but too cheap and lazy to get a divorce) and lives with her two grown daughters. Her ex-husband, Honey, drops by every now and then to help them cook, clean, fix things, and take care of many other little things. Despite having a loving husband, Ash has chosen to leave him and have random relationships with different men. She doesn’t know where she’s headed. With Edi’s cancer, she seems to be losing her sense of self. As she puts it, “Edi’s memory is like the backup hard drive for mine.”

We All Want Impossible Things is a book about death, laced with humor. Newman attempts and achieves the impossible—of talking about death without making it seem like a dark, ominous presence. The setting is mostly the hospice and you get glimpses of the other residents there as well. Everybody is kind to one another, perhaps because they all share the same pain of losing someone they love. Despite a painful backdrop, things feel cozy and comforting.

I loved We All Want Impossible Things. It made me think of things I didn’t want to think about, mainly death and grief. But it did so in a way that didn’t make me sad. Rather, it reminded me to value what I have and not be affected by the many minor niggles of life, like my husband leaving his dirty clothes on the bed, or my father nagging me for one of the many minor things he has the tendency to fixate on. Newman’s debut adult novel will make you cry, laugh, and want to hug everybody close to you.

We All Want Impossible Things

Catherine Newman

Published: 2022

Publisher: Doubleday

Pages: 209, paperback

Most readers tend to love books about books, which is probably why there have been so many of those coming out in recent times. I liked them too. Till it all got a bit much. They feel weirdly the same, with different character names and settings. I can probably read one or two every now and then but I’m not like my friends who scoop these books up the moment they come across one.

I didn’t even read the blurb of ‘The Lonely Hearts Book Club’ by Lucy Gilmore. At that time, I wanted nothing to do with book clubs. However, I recently picked up her second novel ‘The Library of Borrowed Hearts’ as nothing else caught my interest and I needed a new book to read. “Two young lovers. Sixty long years. One bookish mystery worth solving” read the blurb. I thought it would be a lighthearted novel that I could DNF if the story didn’t appeal to me. But I devoured the book in two days. It was such a fabulous plot. It alternates between the present day and the 1960, making it charming and intriguing.

Chloe Sampson works at the library. She’s struggling to make ends meet. She has three younger siblings to look after, since their mother has left them. Then she comes across a rare book at the library when they are in the process of culling old books. Her cranky neighbor—who never gives back her brother’s frisbees when they inevitably land up in his yard—offers to buy it for an exorbitant sum. Chloe is surprised and inspects the book only to find notes scribbled in the margins—between two lovers from back in the day when the book was new.

She can’t resist following the clues and, that way, one book leads to another. Soon, Chloe finds herself wondering what happened to the two lovers who corresponded through books. What does it have to do with her curmudgeon old neighbor? Why has he suddenly become friendly with her siblings? Chloe is looking for answers while also trying to navigate life to the best of her ability. She finds herself in the middle of a lot of real-life drama and heartbreak.

The book can be slotted as romance but there’s a lot more to it. It deals with dysfunctional families and its consequences on children, friendship, and aging. The romance isn’t run-of-the-mill either. There’s a subtlety to it that makes it deep and meaningful. Jasper and Catherine were young but their relationship wasn’t frivolous. They truly cared about each other and were willing to make sacrifices if that meant the other would be happy. The writing is gorgeous with a lot of one-liners and impactful dialogues and passages. Though there is a lot of random advice, none of it comes across as preachy. All of it fits seamlessly into the plot.

The Library of Borrowed Hearts, that is set in two different timelines, is a beautiful story that I wished were longer. Don’t get me wrong, the book wraps up nicely but I wanted to know more about Chloe and her siblings. The story ends on a hopeful note but I would have appreciated an epilogue to find out what happens to Chloe, Jasper, and Catherine in the future. I can imagine it would have been nice to know the author’s version of the story. If I were to confess that I’m going to the bookstore this weekend to buy Gilmore’s The Lonely Hearts Book Club, would that tell you just how much I loved The Library of Borrowed Hearts?

The Library of Borrowed Hearts

Lucy Gilmore

Published: 2024

Publisher: Sourcebooks

Pages: 358, Paperback

“Never Never Land” is an account of Iti, a middle-aged woman, who retreats to live with her elderly relatives in the distant mountainous region of Kumaon, seeking respite from her monotonous life as an editor in the city. She intentionally escapes the hustle and bustle of a cosmopolitan life to an aloof mountain village where she had sweet childhood memories. Iti finds pleasure while going back to her childhood place where she pleases her spirit with mountains, flowers found there, greenery, pasture, and nature.

The novel, narrated primarily in the first person by Iti, starts with her recounting the stories and folktales native to the mountainous Kumaon. For instance, ‘The Sun has his own stories, and his own way of telling them. You can hear him best at mid-day when he casts no shadows.’ The novel also depicts the bond and affection between grandparent and grandchild, here through Badi Amma and Iti. Grandparents do not have a sense of fear while they love, their affection and love outweighs any sort of suspicion, fear and reluctance. The affection is so immense that Iti has no sentiments towards her mother but the bond between her grandmother is highly revered.

The relation between landlord Rosinka and her maid, Badi Amma or Lily is outstanding and asks for special attention from the readers. The carefully carried out duty that Lily performs in the house of Rosinka even in her nonagenarian days proves her faith, love and friendship with Rosinka, the 102 year old woman who led an active life herself. 

In one of the chapters, the story is narrated by Rosinka where she mentions that she had urinated on her bed. Badi Amma soon cleaned up, removed the sheet and under-sheet and laid out a large pink bath towel on the bed. Then she said, ‘You can lie down again. The quilt isn’t wet. I will get you some tea.’ Such tremendous love and affection is noted well by Rosinka in spite of her old age. Instead of saying that she wetted the quilt or she hasn’t, she said, ‘the quilt isn’t wet’.

Despite Rosinka’s rude behavior in her heyday, once narrated to Iti by her grandmother Badi Amma, she continued to work as her maid, a confident person throughout her life. And Rosinka too, along with her husband, had apologized to her maid and insisted on returning back. This further confirms the special and ideal relation between the two elderlies.

The narration on natural objects, mountains, flowers, nettle cooking etc. is poetic and detailed. It is the writer’s extraordinary talent to weave words so meticulously on trivial or ordinary things and events. The projection of celebration of life and merry making by the 90 year old and 102 year old women is astounding motivation. They enjoy doing household errands, drinking tea, wine, being quite satisfied in their lives.

Similarly, the use of poems and poetic lines in between the narratives add literariness to the novel. For e.g. the verses of William Blake’s O Rose thou art sick is placed justifiably, which added literary flavor to the plots.

The book does not gloss over the terror that seizes the Himalayan landscape when it is caught in the midst of adverse natural calamities, much worsened by human encroachment. Iti’s once-idyllic repose loses electricity and water, and she writes that the narrators were comparatively safer, for they were near the top of the hill. They were saved from the collapse of rocks and boulders on their roof, even as down below in the village, the monsoon went on, with landslides and floods taking place everywhere. 

As the book progresses and Iti realizes that dreams can also turn into nightmares, the stories of Badi amma’s and Rosinka’s pasts unfold. Nettle soup, called ‘witches’ brew’ or ‘dayan ki chai’ in the hills, must be made carefully, lest the nettles burn you. If held as tightly as possible, they do not hurt. Badi amma makes this soup to comfort Iti in her sickness, even as she tells a tale of its boiling, stinging past. Like palak leaves, the antidote to nettle, always grow nearby in nature, the book presents at once a whirlwind of hurt and love, betrayal and friendship. Thrust together, they present a balance. Never Never Land is a tale of wisdom, on what it means to be old and young. As the mountains speak and the sun tells its stories, Iti finds her way towards their lessons of love and resilience. 

Never Never Land

Namita Gokhale

Published Year: 2024

Page: 167

Publisher: Speaking Tiger