Sunday Paper Recommends—Week of August 2, 2026
This week at The Sunday Paper, we’re sharing books, a podcast, and a show that we believe will add inspiration to your days. We hope these suggestions open your heart and mind and encourage you to come together for meaningful conversations.
What We’re Watching
What do you do when the system that was supposed to protect you never did? Furious answers that question through Catherine, a trafficking survivor who spends her days going by different names and her nights working down a list of the powerful men who trafficked her as a teenager. Lola Petticrew plays her with an unnerving stillness, charming her targets right up until she isn’t. On her trail is FBI agent Alice Black, played by Emmy Rossum, who knows better than most what it costs to be failed by the people meant to help—and finds herself less certain with every episode about who actually deserves to be caught. Elizabeth Meriwether’s new crime drama, loosely inspired by the 1987 film Black Widow, swaps its predecessor’s money motive for something far more urgent: a reckoning with what happens when justice never comes. Stream new episodes weekly on Hulu and Disney+.
What We’re Reading
This week, we’re recommending books that hand the classics back to the women who lived them. It’s a fitting moment: following the release of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, we wanted to spotlight the text that shaped it, Emily Wilson’s 2017 publication of the story—the first ever translated by a woman. Wilson stripped away centuries of bias baked in by the male translators who came before her, dating all the way back to the epic’s origins in the 8th century B.C.
Begin your reading journey with Wilson’s translation of Homer’s tale, which follows Odysseus’s ten-year struggle to sail home after the Trojan War, battling monsters, gods, and his own hubris while his wife Penelope waits.
Odysseus isn’t alone for long. Early in his journey home, he lands on the island of a witch powerful enough to turn his men into pigs—and in Madeline Miller’s Circe, we finally get her side of it. Long before Odysseus washes ashore, Circe is just Helios’s least powerful daughter, overlooked by her own family and banished the moment her magic reveals itself. Miller gives her the space Homer never did: exile, motherhood, a standoff with the gods, and a hard-won claim to her own power.
Circe isn’t the only woman in her family with a story worth telling. In Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne, we meet her niece—the princess who falls for the hero Theseus and helps him survive her family’s most dangerous secret: a labyrinth built to hide her half-brother, the Minotaur. What Saint gives us next is the part the myth skips over: what happens to the woman who saves the hero, and gets left behind on an island for it.
Not every monster in these stories was born one. Natalie Haynes’s Stone Blind takes us back to Medusa, long before she was something to be feared. Haynes asks the question the old myths never bothered to: what does it look like when a girl is assaulted by a god, punished for it, and hunted down by a man chasing glory?
And underneath all of it is the war that sent Odysseus sailing in the first place. Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls brings us Briseis, a queen until Achilles’s army burns her city to the ground in a single day and makes her his slave. Barker gives her what Homer never did: a voice of her own, and a firsthand account of what war does to the women left to survive it.
What We’re Listening To
Kamau Bell has spent his career walking straight into the conversations most people avoid—the kind that leave everyone in the room a little more honest than when they started. His new weekly podcast, Who’s With Me?, turns that instinct into an open invitation: each episode, Kamau riffs on whatever’s rattling around the cultural or political moment, then sits down with someone he genuinely admires—from Ted Danson to Congresswoman Lateefah Simon—for a conversation that’s equal parts humor, honesty, and genuine curiosity. Every episode ends with Kamau asking his guest for homework: one small, doable way to make the world better. New episodes land every Wednesday—so, who’s with Kamau?
What We're Making
Lemon Parmesan Chicken Meatballs with Garlicky Lemon Pasta
This one goes out to my mother-in-law, who is truly like a second mother to me. I lived with my (then-future) in-laws before Jordan and I were even engaged so we could save money after college, and it really brought us so close. She is so warm and inviting, and has treated me like a daughter since day one. She makes the best-ever chicken meatballs, and I feel like sharing this recipe with you means you can experience some of her warmth, love, and amazing cooking! She has always worked seven days a week, and still somehow made dinner for her family. Her cooking is all about convenience that’s still delicious. This is my personal favorite way to do “spaghetti and meatballs,” because it’s light yet cozy and packs in veggies and protein in one beautiful dish.
Serves: 4
Makes freezer friendly meatballs!
Ingredients:
Meatballs
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/3 cup DIY Breadcrumbs (page 223), almond flour, or store-bought breadcrumbs
- 1 large egg
- 1 large shallot, minced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil leaves
- 1 tablespoon avocado or extra-virgin olive oil
- Grated zest of 1/2 lemon (or the whole lemon if you really love lemon flavor!)
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
Garlicky Lemon Pasta
- 8 ounces spaghetti or linguine
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 large shallot, minced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon, plus more for serving
- 1/2 cup chopped Tuscan or curly kale
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
- Chicken or vegetable stock, or water, as needed
- Lemon wedges, for serving (optional)
Directions:
Make the Meatballs
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a large bowl, add the ground chicken, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, egg, shallot, garlic, basil, avocado oil, lemon zest, salt, and pepper to taste. Using your hands (I like using food-handling gloves for this), gently combine until the mixture is uniform.
- Using a portioning scoop or your hands, roll the mixture into about 20 meatballs and place them on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake until the meatballs are lightly golden and reach an internal temperature of 165°F, 20–25 minutes.
Make the Pasta
- In a large pot, cook the pasta in well-salted boiling water according to the package directions. Remove the pot from the heat, drain the pasta, and set aside.
- Return the pot to medium heat and add the butter. When melted, add the shallot, garlic, and lemon zest and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Add the kale and cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly wilted, 3–5 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat.
- Add the drained pasta and lemon juice to the pot and toss to combine. Add the Parmesan and toss again to coat. If you’d like to loosen the pasta or make it a little saucier, add a splash or two of stock or water and toss again.
- Divide the pasta among bowls and top with the meatballs, extra Parmesan, and a squeeze of lemon, if desired.
Excerpted from More, Please!: Feel-Good Meals for Busy Families and Their Picky Eaters. Copyright © 2026, Rachel Mansfield. Photography Copyright © 2026 by Lauren Volo. Reproduced by permission of Simon Element, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.
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