Catherine and Terri overcame killer deadlines and risky audio problems (which drove Terri away from her microphone and onto the phone) to bring you our weekly entertainment-themed mini-podcast. We started with Catherine’s violent book-group pick, Karin Slaughter’s Criminal, which she wouldn’t have traumatized herself with if she’d had a choice but was interested to discuss with other readers. She mentions another group pick, The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade, and the value of talking about books with other people with other life experiences, even if they do occasionally peer-pressure you into something icky. If there's not a book group available to you but you like the idea, Terri again recommends the book-and-a-movie discussion podcast Try It, You’ll Like it. (The latest episode is on the Jhumpa Lahiri novel The Namesake and Amanda's favorite '80s movie, Sixteen Candles.)
On the TV side, Terri chats about last night’s elimination on Dancing With the Stars, and the fact that it’s not just kids in the schoolyard and trolls online that bully; reality shows and institutions can bully quite well through misrepresentation and selective editing and outright mean talk and even just putting someone in a position to fail without appropriate support. Terri also checked in on the newest late-night host, James Corden of CBS’s Late Late Show, and had a favorable first impression, though she’ll likely be sleeping through it from now on. (You can watch the Tom Hanks clip Catherine mentioned on YouTube.)
Tell us about the pop culture you've been taking in this week in the comments, and if you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.