The Week In Recommendations 4.16.25

A timely novel, the best "Hacks" cameo, breezy tops, and the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest subscriber podcast was about “White Lotus” S3. An episode about the premiere of “The Valley” S2 is coming soon! Rich Text is a reader-supported project.

Over on Love To See It, we’re talking about the future of the “Bachelor” franchise and recapping the tradwife fever dream dating show, “Farmer Wants A Wife.”

Civic challenge of the week:

• If you live in New York City, get involved with the Democratic mayoral primary! And tell all of your friends to rank five candidates and *leave Cuomo off their ballots altogether.*

• For the rest of us, call your senators and representatives to urge them to take action to ensure the safe return of Maryland father and metal worker Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen has stated that he will travel to El Salvador today, and has requested a meeting with President Nayib Bukele to “to check on his condition and discuss his return.” Other Democratic senators and representatives have made noise about planning trips themselves. As always, intense public attention and pressure is vital.

• Also, show up in person! The next planned protest day is April 19 — you can find local events through 50501.

Claire has been reading…

I started reading “Mỹ Documents” by Kevin Nguyen. I read his first novel “New Waves” when it came out a while back (we also knew each other a little bit when we were both in books media space years ago). His latest is almost shockingly timely, the sort of book that might have been described as “speculative fiction” when it was conceived of, but now fits easily into our dystopian reality. In the novel, the American government responds to a shocking terror attack by forcing Vietnamese-Americans into internment camps. There are protests, but not enough. Many are outraged, but then their lives continue. As one classmate tells Vietnamese-American student Jen while she packs up for her imprisonment, it’s just too depressing to keep worrying about her plight. The novel follows four siblings – Jen and her brother Duncan, who are sent to a camp with their mother, and their half-siblings Ursula and Alvin, who manage to evade internment. Nguyen’s novel highlights our country’s willingness to betray its professed ideals, a willingness that has never gone away but has rarely been more prominent and visible than it is right now.

Emma has been reading… 📖

Something that has been making me truly lose my mind recently is the way that the Trump administration is committing overt human rights abuses under the guise of fighting antisemitism. (Something that he very evidently couldn’t care less about! Just look at the administration’s utter silence in the wake of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s family home being set fire to by a man who intended to beat him with a sledgehammer over Passover.) I’ve been searching for writing that can make sense of or at least eloquently discuss my utter despair and heartbreak, and this week I read two great essays:

The first is by Dave Zirin for The Nation, “This Passover, We Must Examine the Indecent Betrayal by Our Own.” This about sums up my own thoughts: “No shred of decency exists, only a humiliating hypocrisy in calling oneself a Jew and supporting this administration of Christian Zionists, fascism enthusiasts, and enemies of free thought.”

The second is

Elad Nehorai

’s “We Can’t Fight Antisemitism Without Fighting Anti-Palestinian Hate,” published on his Substack. (Also recommend his latest text thread on Instagram.) In it, he explores the way that some Jewish institutions have been complicit in allowing a twisted redefinition of what antisemitism is, which has, in a very dark way, made it much easier for the far-right to coopt it. “This is why the very same people on the right who argue they are standing up for Jews are themselves so often antisemitic,” Nehorai argues. “Their bigotry against Palestinians, Muslims, and so many others is informed by antisemitic conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement. They can get away with this precisely because antisemitism has been redefined. People often are no longer looking for antisemitism within tropes and conspiracy theories since they no longer define it that way. Which means it goes undetected. Spreads. Normalizes. And eventually, leads to mass shootings and other horrors.”

Claire has been watching… 📺

“North of North,” a sweet CBC sitcom released on Netflix last week. The show features Siaja (Anna Lambe), a young Inuk woman who married the town’s golden boy and had a child right out of high school. Now that her daughter Bun (Keira Cooper) is in school, Siaja is ready for a life of her own, and hopes to find a job that she’s passionate about and make her world larger. But she finds herself running up against the low expectations others have of her – especially her narcissistic and belittling husband, Ting (Kelly William), who has his own plans for Siaja’s future as a subservient helpmeet to him. I’m a couple episodes in, and the performances and scripts are a little uneven, but any flaws are overwhelmed by how warm and likeable the show is. From the central cast to the sunny pop soundtrack and stunning visuals, “North of North” is charming and feel-good, the ideal show to watch curled up in bed with a mug of cocoa. And, less than three months into the Trump administration, my ravenous hunger for escapist TV is hitting right on schedule.

I’ve also been watching “Hacks” S 3 and fully agree with Emma’s thoughts (see below).

Emma has been watching… 📺

The first episodes of the new season of “Hacks”! Thank goodness this show is back to fill the void that “Severance” and “White Lotus” have left in my TV-viewing schedule. Four seasons in I’d expect any show to drag, but if the first episodes are any indication, “Hacks” is going strong, baby! I was especially delighted to see comedian Robby Hoffman (perhaps better known in our circles as Gabby Windey’s wife) pop up as Randi, the new assistant to Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) and Kayla (Meg Stalter). Robby’s Randi feels very much built around her actual backstory — Randi is a former Hasidic Jew who is now a gay atheist — and every line she delivers made me *truly* laugh out loud. More Randi this season, please!!!!

Photo Credit: Prime Video / HBO Max

Also, I’ve been making my way through screeners of season one of “Etoile,” the newest show from Amy Sherman Palladino and Dan Palladino (the minds behind “Gilmore Girls” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) which follows two ballet companies doing a year-long exchange to reenergize excitement in the art form. The show is shot between Paris and New York, and my bestie Liviya is a producer. (If you’ve been reading the newsletter for awhile, you know that I spent about a month in Paris last year. I was crashing with Liviya while she worked on “Etoile”!) If you love dance and whip-smart, quick-paced dialogue, you’re going to love “Etoile.”

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

Scam Inc., an Economist podcast about crypto scams. We love a scam pod, but what I really appreciate about this series, hosted by Sue-Lin Wong, is that it doesn’t end, as much scam reporting does, with describing how the target was snared or the devastating impact of their financial losses. Instead, Wong also pulls the curtain back on the other victims of scamming operations: the people who are often on the other end of the line, executing the grift. These low-level workers are often victims of human trafficking and subjected to coercive working conditions. Some, confronted with still-worse options for supporting themselves, do choose to work for these operations. But the bosses who are really profiting from the massive takings of a successful scam organization often don’t even make contact with the people doing their dirty work. Wong speaks to several former scammers who tell horrific stories of being moved across state lines and held against their will, being threatened and extorted to seduce their targets into handing over their savings for crypto scams, and continuing to live in fear even after escaping.

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

There’s something about a twisty true crime podcast that allows me to truly disconnect from our hellish present. Is this healthy? Who can say. But listening to “Fatal Beauty,” the latest investigation mini-series from The Binge, has scratched the same itch as “Law & Order: SVU” does. The series takes place in the 1980s, from Texas to California, and looks into Sandra Bridewell, a serial con artist who also had two husbands and a best friend die under questionable circumstances.

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

Madewell has been making some Dôen-esque tops lately, so I tried this cute embroidered ruffle-trim tank. As someone with a flat chest, my usual size felt too billowy to guard against wardrobe malfunctions, so I ended up sizing down. Be warned that it is also pretty sheer; the black was fine, but I sent back the light blue.

I’ve been living in my Kizik Pragues, and it seemed like time to add to my step-in sneaker options. I know not every mom lives like I do, but I rely on slip-on shoes from a child’s birth until he can be trusted on the stairs, because I usually end up putting them on outside our apartment door, about two feet from three flights of steps. The merlot Milan sneakers appealed to me as a step-in version of colorful classic sneakers like Adidas Sambas. This one runs narrow, and there’s no wide option, so I sized up half a size, and they feel great.

Finally, I was in the city last week making returns and couldn’t resist stopping at Hill House to try on the new spring capsule – especially the Margot in the navy trailing fern print, which I adore. It’s a little big in the bust for me (again, I’m exceptionally flat-chested) but it’s so stunning that I’m wracking my brain for an upcoming occasion to wear it so I can justify having it in my closet.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

I pulled the trigger last week on some Shopbop hearted items that had been sitting in my cart for awhile. Everything arrived this week, and out of the whole haul I’m keeping just two items:

1. These La Ligne Marilyn Cargo Pants in Antique Brass. I recommend sizing down one size. They’re super comfortable and lightweight, which is great for the transitional season, and I like that you can optionally cinch them in at the ankle. (The same pants can also be found in black if a light olive isn’t your thing.)

2. This sheer, gauzy Vince top which comes with a cute bralette to wear underneath. I always struggle with a “going out top,” so the fact that this top gives coverage while also being a bit sexy was the selling point for me. It also happens to be heavily discounted currently.

Claire has been making… 🧶

Absolutely perfect chocolate chip cookies, a rainy Sunday project with the preschooler. I landed on this Pinch of Yum recipe for a very practical reason: we only had one egg in the house, and it requires just one egg. In this way, we stumbled into making the best batch of chocolate chip cookies I think I’ve ever made. The recipe prompts you to make pretty big cookies – just twelve or even nine balls from the batch of dough – and emphasizes that you must not take them out while they’re still pale. I got nervous and left them in a little longer, until there were some faint glimmers of golden brown on the top. But they were still perfectly soft, and they stayed as perfectly soft and satisfying as a bakery cookie until we had eaten them all (about two days).

Emma has been making… 🧶

Dinner reservations in London, because my trip is just around the corner! Already dreaming of a meal at Dishoom…

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