Issue #12: Only the Best Thanksgiving Tips

Plus 10 entertaining essentials.

Morning Person is a weekly newsletter packed with obsessively-curated recommendations and ideas—let’s get to it!

🎧 “MOONFACE” Podcast: In this fictional podcast, a Korean American twenty-something struggles to find the words to come out to his mother across the divide of their two languages. The affecting story takes place across six carefully-produced short episodes that I rationed out across as many days, so that it wouldn’t end too soon. I haven’t always been crazy about narrative podcasts in the past, but this one was incredibly well done. (Heads-up that there are a lot of sex noises in the first episode, “Moaning.” Do with that information what you will.)

📚 Both/And by Huma Abedin: My heart broke for Huma Abedin on so many levels when her then-husband Anthony Weiner’s, how do I say this?, below-the-belt Tweets threw her into an unwanted media frenzy. I wondered what it must have been like for her—from her relationship to her job as deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton (who she lovingly calls HRC in the book), to her private reeling. This memoir answers those questions, while also providing a unique perspective into some of our country’s highest political positions and events. I listened to the audiobook, to be able to hear the story from her voice.

📺 “The Shrink Next Door” on Apple TV+: I have a feeling this show about a therapist (Paul Rudd) and his client (Will Ferrell) might drive me nuts as I learn about ethics in school—in a flash-forward in the first episode, we see that Rudd has become celebrity-obsessed and ridiculously wealthy, possibly from conning his clients. I enjoyed the first few episodes, released last Friday!