Lifestyle
February may be short on days — but it boasts a long list of new books
In the United States, at least, February is a time for remembering — the feats of Black communities in America, the lives of its greatest presidents, the plight of a single large frightened rodent, even love itself (and its various totems that you’re expected to purchase).
Whew, that’s a whole lot of remembering to pack into the shortest month of the year. So, if only for the next few weeks, you have our permission to forget your guilt-inducing backlog of books and just dive right into the new stuff — which includes highly anticipated new releases from Michael Pollan, Tayari Jones and the late Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa.
Autobiography of Cotton, by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney — Feb. 3
Rivera Garza won the Pulitzer Prize for 2023’s Liliana’s Invincible Summer, a “genre-bending account“ of her sister’s life and murder that blends elements of memoir, investigative journalism and history. Autobiography of Cotton is the second book from the Mexican author’s backlist to receive an English translation since her Pulitzer win, and it shares a characteristic disdain for compartmentalization. This time she weaves in enough historical fiction to warrant calling this Autobiography a “novel.” But that label doesn’t fit either, as this hybrid account of ill-starred cotton farmers in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands also contains enough historiography and personal family history — among other disciplines — to again twist its would-be shelvers into pretzels, in a good way.
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race, from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson, by Andrew S. Curran — Feb. 10
There’s a curious thing that happens with ideas. Often it’s the most historically contingent ones — and occasionally the most pernicious — that claim to be eternal, universal or “self-evident.” In this new history, Curran, a scholar of the Enlightenment, offers a fascinating reassessment of that heady era of Western philosophy: how its towering thinkers came to invent the very idea of race as we know it today, and how that biological balkanization of humanity came to be passed down, quite misleadingly, as some sort of eternal truth.
A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, by Michael Pollan — Feb. 24
Few journalists have spent as much time as Pollan thinking about the kinds of stuff we put into our bodies. The author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma has considered food intensively from every angle — how it’s grown, cooked, processed and consumed — as well as substances such as caffeine and mind-altering plants. Now, the “reluctant psychonaut” is training his gaze on thinking itself. His new book probes our understanding of what it means to, well, understand — a concept that’s as crucial to our notion of what it means to be human as it is elusive and downright paradoxical.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
I Give You My Silence, by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated from the Spanish by Adrian Nathan West — Feb. 24
“Each book, for me, has been an adventure,” Vargas Llosa told NPR just hours after he won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. Perhaps it’s fitting that the fruit of his final adventure, I Give You My Silence, reaches English-language readers only after his death last year at age 89. While he was alive, the Peruvian author (and activist, presidential candidate and alleged literary feuder) wasn’t often associated with silence. Vargas Llosa’s last novel centers a professor seeking the soul of his country in music. Published in Spanish in 2023, the book is now being brought to English readers by way of Adrian Nathan West, who also translated 2021’s Harsh Times.
Kin, by Tayari Jones — Feb. 24
“Every true story is in the service of justice. You don’t have to aim at justice; you just aim for the truth,” Jones told me in 2019, just minutes after her previous novel, An American Marriage, won the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Judging just from back-cover synopses, Kin, Jones’ first novel since that portrait of love caught in the grinder of mass incarceration, would seem more concerned with character and the complexities of friendship than Justice with a capital J. But as Jones herself warned, such distinctions can be misleading. Here a single relationship between two black women, rendered with Jones’ care and capabilities as a writer, becomes a prism through which to view a complex generation in the American South.
Brawler, by Lauren Groff — Feb. 24
Groff has previously proposed the idea of a “triptych” of novels, of which Matrix and Vaster Wilds would be the first two parts. “The third one is killing me, actually — I’m dying, it’s murdering me in my sleep at night,” she told NPR’s Andrew Limbong in 2023. To be clear, Brawler is not that third novel; it is instead Groff’s third short story collection, and her first since Florida, a 2018 National Book Award finalist. The new collection’s nine stories paint the world in vivid hues, as seen from the angle of a high school swimmer, a mother, an heir, among others. But also, here’s hoping, at least for Groff’s sake, that her work on that other, unfinished novel has moved past the ol’ “murdering me” phase.
Neve Campbell in Scream 7.
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The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.
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Abriana Vicioso is the host of the Flower Hour, which takes place monthly.
(Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
Each flower carries a personal history. For Abriana Vicioso, the calla lily was her parents’ wedding flower — a symbol of her mother’s beauty. “She had this big, beautiful white calla lily in her hair,” Vicioso says. “I love my parents. They’re the reason I’m here. I’ll never forget where I came from.”
The Flower Hour begins with Vicioso announcing, with a warm smile: “Today is about touching grass.” The florist-by-trade gestures behind her to hundreds of flowers contained in buckets — blue thistles, ivory anemones and calla lilies painted silver — all twisted and unfurling into the air. “Tonight is going to be so sweet and intimate,” Vicioso says, eyeing the beautiful chaos at her feet. A grin buds across her face.
Moments before the workshop, participants sit at candlelit tables exchanging horoscopes and comparing their favorite flowers. A mention of the illustrious bird-of-paradise flower elicits coos and awe from the women. Izamar Vazquez, who is from Jalisco, Mexico, reveals her fondness for roses, which make her feel connected to her Mexican roots.
Vicioso hosts her flower-themed wellness workshop near the iconic Original Los Angeles Flower Market in downtown L.A. In January, the first Flower Hour event sold out, prompting her to make it a monthly series. Vicioso describes the event as a “three-part journey” where participants are invited to drink herbal tea, smoke rose-petal-rolled cannabis joints and create a floral arrangement. “The guide is to connect with the medicine of flowers,” Vicioso says.
Rose petal joints, tea and flower arranging are all part of The Flower Hour event’s offerings.
The event is hosted at the Art Club, a membership-based co-working space. “The Flower Hour is really beautiful. Everyone gets to explore their creativity while meeting new people,” says Lindsay Williams, the co-owner of the Art Club.
The idea for Flower Hour came to Vicioso during a conversation with her mother. “We joke all the time that flowers were destined to make their way into my life,” she says. She works as a florist and models on the side, even appearing in the pages of Vogue. Vicioso grew up in a Caribbean household, where flowers and offerings were part of daily life. “In my culture and religion, a lot of my family practices — an Afro-Caribbean religion — we build altars.”
Like many cultures, flowers carry sentimental value in her religion. “I’m Caribbean, so a lot of my family practices a Yoruba religion, which comes from Africa. In the Caribbean, it’s well known as Santería.”
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After a difficult year and a breakup, Vicioso wanted to marry her love of flowers with community building. Because Vicioso uses cannabis medicinally, the workshop naturally includes a smoking component. “My family has smoked cannabis for a lot of reasons for a long time. It’s a really healing plant,” she explains.
In the workshop, even the cannabis gets the floral treatment. Vicioso presents her rose-petal-wrapped joints on a silver platter at each table. She rolled each by hand. “If you’ve never smoked a rose-petal-rolled joint, the difference with this is it’s going to have roses that have a slight tobacco effect,” she announces.
During the workshop, Vicioso stresses the importance of buying cannabis from local vendors. The cannabis provided was purchased from a Northern Californian vendor. The wellness workshop aims to reclaim the healing ritual of smoking cannabis. “This is a plant that has been commercialized,” Vicioso says. “There’s a lot of Black and Brown people who are in jail for this plant.”
The resulting workshop is what Vicioso describes as “an immersive wellness experience that is the intersection of wellness, creativity, community and an appreciation of flowers.” The workshop serves as a reminder to enjoy Earth’s innate beauty in the form of flowers — including cannabis. “It’s this gift that the universe gave us for free and that I have this deep connection with,” Vicioso says.
Conversation cards to generate discussion among participants (top, letf). The workshop serves as a “third space” for Angelenos to engage in tactile creativity and community building outside of traditional nightlife settings.
After enjoying lavender chamomile tea and smoking a joint, Vicioso introduces the flowers to the group before inviting them to pick their own. She emphasizes each flower’s personality traits, describing green dianthus as a “Dr. Seuss” plant. Then, there are calla lilies with their “main character moment.” It gets personal. “Start thinking of a flower in your life that you can discover,” she says. “If you’re feeling like you need inspiration, you can always remember that these flowers have stories.”
Vicioso infuses wisdom into her instruction on floral arrangements: There are no mistakes. Let the flowers tell you where they want to go, she urges. Intuition will be your guide — the wilder, the better.
“Hecho in Mexico” reads a sticker on a bunch of green stems. “Like me,” says Vazquez with a laugh. “They’re all doing their own thing. Like a family,” she says later, arranging stems.
The Flower Hour participants and Vicioso, center, chat as they build their own floral arrangements at the sold-out event.
Two participants — Vazquez and Rebeca Alvarado — are friends who run a floral design company together called Izza Rose. Like Vicioso, the friends have a connection to flowers through their Latin American culture. They met Vicioso in the floral industry and were overjoyed to discover her workshop.
“This is a great way to connect with other people,” says Vazquez.
Alvarado agrees, adding: “You’re getting to know people outside of going to bars. You can connect in different ways when there’s an activity.”
Vazquez uses flowers to stay connected to her Mexican heritage, adding that she prefers to support Mexican vendors. In recent months, the downtown L.A. flower market has struggled to recover from ongoing ICE raids. “Some are scared to come back,” says Vazquez.
Hand-rolled cannabis joints wrapped in rose petals are presented on a silver platter at The ArtClub (top, right). The Flower Hour aims to reclaim the healing rituals of cannabis and flowers.
Another participant, Barbara Rios, was attracted to the workshop for stress relief. “You can hang out with your friends, but it’s nice to do things with your hands,” she says. “I work a stressful job, and it’s nice to have that third space that we’re all craving.”
On this February night, the participants were predominantly women, save for one man. In the future, Vicioso hopes that more men learn to engage with flowers. “There’s a statistic about men receiving flowers for the first time at their funerals, and I think we have changed that,” she says.
To conclude the workshop, Vicioso encourages participants to build lasting friendships and incorporate flower arranging into their daily practice — even if it’s just with a small, inexpensive bouquet.
“Get some flowers together, go to the park, hang out with each other and hang out with me,” she says. Participants leave with flower arrangements in hand. In the darkness of the night air, it briefly looks as though the women carry silver calla lilies that are blooming from their palms.
An underwater view shows US’ Lilly King competing in a heat of the women’s 200m breaststroke swimming event during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, west of Paris, on July 31, 2024. (Photo by François-Xavier MARIT / AFP) (Photo by FRANCOIS-XAVIER MARIT/AFP via Getty Images)
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This week’s show was recorded in Bloomington, Indiana with host Peter Sagal, judge and scorekeeper Bill Kurtis, Not My Job guest Lilly King and panelists Alonzo Bodden, Josh Gondelman, and Faith Salie. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.
Who’s Bill This Time
State of the Union is Hot; The Tribal Council Convenes Again; A Glow Up In the Doll Aisle
Panel Questions
The Toot Tracker
Bluff The Listener
Our panelists tell three stories about a travel hack in the news, only one of which is true.
Not My Job: Olympic Swimmer Lilly King answers our questions about Lil’ Kings
Olympic Swimmer Lilly King plays our game called, “Lilly King meet these Lil’ Kings” Three questions about short kings.
Panel Questions
Cleaning Out The Cabinet; Bedtime Stacking
Limericks
Bill Kurtis reads three news-related limericks: Getting Cozy With Cross Country Skiing; Pickleball’s New Competition; Bees Get Freaky
Lightning Fill In The Blank
All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else
Predictions
Our panelists predict, after American Girls, what’ll be the next toy to get an update.
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