Hi all, are we ready for February? Yes, let’s move on from January. We are now beyond the hyped start of the new year. Meanwhile we’ve had some crazy warm temperatures up here that have been melting away the snow. It’s a bit of a mess between mud and ice. These conditions are usually seen in late March and April, argh. Oh well, let’s plow on.
What do you have going on in February? As usual this month there’s the upcoming Grammys this Sunday Feb. 4 and then the Super Bowl the following Sunday Feb. 11, so get your treats and fiesta dip in order, lol. And I hear that folk legend Joni Mitchell will be performing at her first Grammys at age 80. Wow that’ll be amazing and moving, since she had to relearn how to play and sing her music after suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015. Also U2 will perform as well as others, so tune in if you’re interested.
Lately we’ve been watching some of the Oscar nominated films. We just watched Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese. I don’t know what I was thinking — listening to much criticism of it — but the film was good, though the real-life story is sad and disturbing. We watched it over two nights since it’s three and a half hours long.
It’s sensitive I think to the Osage Nation and how it depicts the true case in which members of the tribe were murdered in Oklahoma in the 1920s over their wealth and oil money. Indigenous actress Lily Gladstone gives a subtle and knockout performance as Mollie Burkhart whose Osage family members were being targeted and exploited from a plot conceived by a terrible white rancher named William Hale. The actress is of Blackfoot heritage and grew up on a reservation near Seattle. She won the Golden Globe for her part in the movie and I wonder if she will win the Oscar too. Though everyone in the Best Actress category is very strong this year.
Now let’s dive into what’s coming out this month. In novels, there’s new books from such well-known authors as Anna Quindlen, Paul Theroux, Tommy Orange, A.J. Finn, and Roxana Robinson among others. I’m considering these and several more, including likely the most highly anticipated novel, Kristin Hannah’s The Women (due out Feb. 6), which Kirkus Reviews says is about: a young woman whose “experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.” The nurses in the Vietnam War have long been overlooked, but now Hannah is back to give them their due. If you liked her historical fiction, like The Nightingale, then you’ll be interested as I am to check this one out.
I’m also keen on Michael Crummey’s novel The Adversary, which came out in Canada back in September and is now due out Feb. 6 in the States. Kirkus explains: it’s set in a remote town on the northern coast of Newfoundland in the early 19th century and is about “a mutually despising brother and sister who fight dirty for control of the area’s fishing and mercantile concerns.” Hmm.
I have loved Crummey’s earlier novels Sweetland (2014) and The Innocents (2019) and sort of consider him my current favorite Canadian author, so I need to check out the novel no matter what it entails. I saw Crummey speak back in October at the book festival here, and I was a fool not to get an autographed copy.
Next I’m curious about Amitava Kumar’s novel called My Beloved Life (due out Feb. 27), that’s said to be an ambitious Indian family saga that follows the narratives of a father from 1935 to 2020 —his life’s journey— and his daughter, who is television journalist in the U.S. Along the way it provides an indelible portrait of India over 85 years and its citizens abroad. The story of the father and daughter covers right up to the Covid pandemic.
I’m not familiar with this author, but he grew up in India and lives in New York, teaching at Vassar College, where he’s written several other books. This novel sounds good to me and has received some starred reviews by PW and Kirkus among other publications.
Also I’m keeping an eye out for two crime suspense novels, first: Iris Yamashita’s novel Village in the Dark (due out Feb. 13), which is her second novel set in rural Alaska featuring police Det. Cara Kennedy. I liked her first book City Under One Roof so I’ll venture out for this one too. There’s also indigenous author Waubgeshig Rice’s latest called Moon of the Turning Leaves (due out Feb. 27), which is a sequel to his bestselling 2018 post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow. I need to read book one first. I just heard about these novels set in northern Ontario, which are said to be powerful stories of survival and might be illuminating to me.
Moving on to screen releases in February, there’s not a lot of new things I’m dying to see, but that’s good since I’m still trying to catch up on several Oscar-nominated films before the Academy Awards on March 10. But I would like to see the final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which begins airing this Sunday Feb. 4 on HBO Max.
Oh yeah. My husband and I love the show, now in its twelfth season! And similar to Larry David’s show Seinfeld, we still enjoy watching reruns of Curb. Larry’s a cranky obnoxious guy in Curb, but many episodes crack us up.
If you’re still in need of humor, you might want to check out Season 2 of the comedy-drama Life & Beth (starting on Feb. 16 on Hulu), starring Amy Schumer and Michael Cera as a hapless couple edging towards marriage. Schumer is quirky, and her humor in this seems more PG than her standup monologues, which are pretty rough. I have yet to see the show since in Canada it’s on Disney+, which we don’t get, but the trailers look funny. Someday maybe we’ll break down and rent the show. It could even be a night in February when we’re looking for a laugh, or if the whole world goes to seed.
In music for February, there’s new albums by Madi Diaz, the Strumbellas, and Brittany Howard formerly of the band Alabama Shakes. I’ll pick Madi Diaz’s new album Weird Faith due out Feb. 9 as my pick this month. I don’t really know her music, but she seems a singer-songwriter based in Nashville who toured a bit with Harry Styles last year and will open a few dates for My Morning Jacket this year. Here’s a song she sings with Kacey Musgraves called “Don’t Do Me Good.”
That’s all for now. What about you — which releases are you looking forward to this month? Happy February.