偷拍偷窥

Every week, the ASBMB staff shares what we’ve been reading, listening to, watching and doing. As we all weather the COVID-19 pandemic and our new normal of social distancing, we look for ways to cope, connect and entertain ourselves.

(OverDrive)

This app connects you with your local library’s collection of e-books and audiobooks! It’s wonderful —and free. You’re able to read summaries of books and play samples of audiobooks. I love browsing the collections. If a book I want isn’t available, I just place a hold on it and when it’s available to “check out,” the app sends me an alert. Those alerts always brighten my day.

(Bernardine Evaristo, Black Cat/Grove Atlantic)

Comfort Dorn

I’ve had a hard time concentrating these last couple of months. Not uncommon, right? So I was surprised how quickly I made my way through this 452-page book.  It won the 2019 Booker Prize jointly with Margaret Atwood’s “The Testaments”  — which I also hope to read one day.  I devoured “Girl, Woman, Other” in a little more than a week, probably because it has nothing to do with viruses and lockdowns.  Also because each chapter is the story of one person, and the chapters form a wonderful web of black British women.  There isn’t much plot (it revolves loosely around the opening night of a play about Amazon warrior women in Africa), but memorable stories, scenes and characters abound.

— Comfort Dorn, ASBMB Today managing editor

(Daniels, available on Netflix)

If you're in the mood for a bizarre but heartwarming movie, you should watch "Swiss Army Man" on Netflix. It stars Paul Dano as Hank, a man stranded on a deserted island, and Daniel Radcliffe as Manny, a dead guy with amazing abilities (you read that right) who helps Hank survive. The directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as Daniels), who have also , do a beautiful job of integrating the soundtrack with the action in the movie. It's a really, really, weird movie in all the right ways.

Portraits of New Yorkers in lockdown

I have two recommendations for readers who miss people-watching in the park or just want to reflect on the strange time we’re living through.

This , which ran in print as “Close Quarters,” by Michael Schulman, is an intimate account of how conflict built up among roommates in a home-share in a trendy New York neighborhood as they chafed against each other’s adherence to lockdown rules, argued over a rent strike, and tried to stay safe at work and home.

And from relationship therapist Esther Perel’s podcast, “Where Should We Begin,” tells the story of a couple who were on the brink of divorce — and then forced into lockdown together. It did not go well.

Stay safe, be kind, and try not to steal all of your household’s lockdown snacks.

— Laurel Oldach, science communicator