When I settled in for an evening with my youngest son, he chose a film that was far from our usual picks. He wanted to watch something “bougie” and challenging, a nod to the sophisticated tastes he’s developed with his wife.
The movie turned out to be Anatomy of a Fall, a French courtroom drama that checked the bougie box and reminded me of the kind of feature that might appear in Town and Country. The film’s complex storyline, multilingual characters, and the contrast between French legal procedures and the dramatized U.S. courtroom scenes caught my attention.
That cinematic experience set the tone for a summer of reading. I found myself drawn to Kristin Hannah’s novels, which I described as escapist yet relatable, well‑written, and, when based on history, factually accurate. Alongside those titles, I kept up with my daily intake of newspapers, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.
There’s an ongoing family debate about whether listening to audiobooks counts as reading. I’ve embraced the format, downloading 61 titles to my Audible library and listening to 37 of them since 2020. Some books, however, I still prefer in print. After listening to The Correspondent, I purchased the hardcover to savor the details in a different way.
Our family book club, which I consider a bit bougie, continues to be a restorative space. This month’s selection is Culpability, a work I describe as a “hard book” that offers plenty of material for thoughtful discussion and mental nourishment.
Whether through film, audiobooks, or printed pages, the summer has been a reminder of how stories can enrich our minds and bring families together.
Original reporting: Positively Naperville (Aurora area) — read the source article.
