New York Times - Top Stories

Emma and Dexter meet on their last night of college and have a fling before going on with their postgraduate lives. This Netflix mini-series, adapted from a novel, follows them on the same day of the year for more than two decades as they grapple with the meaning of it all. Nostalgic tear-jerkers always get me.

When we told friends we were seeing a ventriloquist, they thought we were nuts. They were nuts for missing it. Conti uses a stuffed monkey to hilarious effect, but the most fun comes when she treats volunteers from the audience as puppets. At one point she was manipulating three people at once, laughing as she bounced between them.

This show, which just finished its 21st season, still holds its simple charm. The new host, Kristen Kish, the Season 10 winner, has a way of encouraging competition to bring out both skills and joy from the chefs. Sometimes I think: Maybe I should try this at home.

Reading this novel by Elizabeth Graver felt like a portal into many different worlds: the Ottoman Empire, Barcelona, Havana and early 20th-century New York. Graver uses her grandmother’s Sephardic Jewish history to weave a story about religion, identity, motherhood and disability over nearly 50 years.