Sunday Paper Recommends—Week of August 23, 2026
This week at The Sunday Paper, we’re sharing new books, a playlist, and a film 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
Sophie Birenbaum has just landed the lead in her high school’s production of Waitress, the kind of moment every theater kid dreams about. But right as her spotlight is turning on, her mother Elizabeth’s cancer returns, and Sophie finds herself rehearsing for the biggest role of her life while facing the hardest chapter of it. Sunny Sandler and Melanie Lynskey carry that weight together, matching each other scene for scene, while Max Greenfield, Steve Buscemi, and Bebe Neuwirth round out a family you believe in instantly. It’s that chemistry that turns Don’t Say Good Luck into something rarer than a typical tearjerker. Stream it now on Netflix, and grab the tissues, this one earns every single one of them.
What We’re Reading
More than a decade after losing her younger brother, comedian and writer Harris Wittels, to a heroin overdose, Stephanie Wittels Wachs has spent years turning her grief into a search for answers. In Last Day: How to Stop Losing Our Loved Ones to the Opioid Crisis, she draws on that search—along with conversations with addiction specialists, harm reductionists, and people in long-term recovery—to ask what might have saved her brother’s life. The result is part memoir, part reckoning, tracing how love and heartbreak can coexist inside a crisis this vast. Wittels Wachs writes with the same unflinching honesty that made her podcast of the same name a hit, refusing easy comfort in favor of real understanding.
It’s back to school! Looking for a good book for your backpack? We have the perfect one for you: The Introvert’s Guide to Kissing in Europe. Before she was anyone’s grandmother, Rose was a member of the Flower Sisters, and in 1966 she toured Europe with the group at the height of their fame. Decades later, she hands that same itinerary to her granddaughter Emily—grieving, guarded, and terrified of anything unplanned—and insists she go find out what she’s missing. What Emily discovers along the way is less about the continent and more about herself: who she was before loss reshaped her, and who she might still become. Brenda Janowitz’s YA debut is a coming-of-age journey as much as a love story.
What We’re Listening To
All summer long, The Sunday Paper has been celebrating the friendships that carry us through, and we can’t think of a better way to close it out than with a Summer of Friendship playlist. It’s 26 songs of pure friendship energy, the kind you play on road trips, at reunions, or any time you need reminding of how lucky you are to be loved. Give it a listen, and maybe send it to the friend who deserves it most.
Sunday Paper Recipe
Groundnut Soup (Nkatie Nkwan)
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup 100% natural peanut butter/ groundnut paste
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 11/2 cups (360 ml) hot water
- Large handful of dried mushrooms
- 3 cubes Frozen Soup Base (page 73)
- 2 whole tomatoes
- 1 medium onion, halved
- 1 to 2 Scotch bonnet or habanero peppers, to taste
- 1 vegetable bouillon cube (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon powdered fermented locust beans (dawadawa), optional
- 1 aidan fruit (prakase), optional, toasted (see Note)
- 3 cups packed (about 300g/ 10 ounces) fresh mushrooms, preferably oyster mushrooms
- One 14-ounce (400 g) block firm tofu, cubed
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
- 6 to 8 whole okro/okra pods (optional), tops removed
Directions:
- In a small pot, mix the peanut butter, tomato paste, and hot water until smooth. Cover and bring to a boil over medium heat. Make sure to periodically check the peanut base and stir occasionally. Oil will start to separate to the top. Be careful, as the peanut base tends to splatter.
- In a large pot, combine the dried mushrooms, the frozen soup base cubes, and 4 cups (960 ml) water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Once at a boil, add the whole tomatoes, onion halves, and Scotch bonnet pepper(s). Cook for about 10 minutes, or until the tomato skins start to peel off.
- Scoop out the tomatoes (with the skins), the onion, and Scotch bonnet(s) and transfer to a blender. Add 1 cup (240 ml) water and puree. Strain the mixture back into the large pot. No need to use a fine-mesh sieve; just something that will help remove pieces of unblended tomato skin and seeds.
- Add another 4 cups (960 ml) water and bring the soup to a boil
- At this point, the peanut base should have cooked well. The splattering would have significantly reduced, and the peanut butter should be frying in its own oil. Add the cooked peanut base to the soup base. Mix and let it come to a boil. Once at a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 25 minutes.
- Add the bouillon cube (if using), fermented locust bean powder (if using), aidan fruit (if using), fresh mushrooms, tofu, salt, and 2 cups (480 ml) water. Let the soup cook until the oil starts to pool at the top and the foam has subsided. These are important indicators that the soup is ready. This process can take anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes; please be patient. Undercooked groundnut soup can cause an upset stomach. The final soup should be brothy but creamy, not thick as a sauce. Taste for salt to ensure it is seasoned to your liking.
- If you are pairing the groundnut soup with fufu, in a small pot, combine the whole okro/okra with enough water to fully submerge and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes, until tender.
- Groundnut soup is best served warm. Store in the fridge for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 2 months. As the soup cools down it will get thicker, so make sure to add some water to return it to its brothy, creamy texture when reheating
Note:
To increase the flavor of the aidan fruit, toast it directly on the burner (or it you are using a gas stove, hold it near the flames with tongs) for 5 to 10 seconds on each side to release the aroma.
Excerpted from Eat with Afia: A Celebration of Plant-Based Ghanaian Cooking by Afia Amoako with permission of Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2026.
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