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TV: Legion – A. From the showrunner of TV’s excellent Fargo, an X-Men origin story with shades of Wes Anderson. I’ll review it when I’ve finished the first season.

Movie: Get Out – A

Book: Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift – A.

On Mothering Sunday (the religious precursor of the commercial Mother’s Day) in the English countryside in 1924, 22-year-old housemaid Jane has an assignation with Paul, the son of the owners of the neighboring estate. They’ve been having an affair for seven years. He is getting married in two weeks to the daughter of the owners of another estate. This is the last time they will ever see each other again.

It sounds heart-rending, and it is heart-rending, but that’s just the beginning. Graham Swift’s short, exquisite novel is about the English class system, sex, and loss (Jane never knew her parents; her employer’s sons died in WWI and so did Paul’s two brothers). It’s about the stories we invent about ourselves, the stories we find ourselves in, and how stories can be true even when the pieces are made up. It’s about becoming a writer.

(I especially recommend this novel to readers who love Atonement.)

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New titles:

In George Saunders’ rapturously-reviewed first (Yes, first!) novel, Abraham Lincoln mourns his dead child, who finds himself in an afterlife full of talkative ghosts. (Hardcover, Php1095 at National Bookstores)

Also a first novel, about a Harvard freshman who realizes she knows nothing. (Php755 at National Bookstores)

At last: An edition of The Once and Future King that is worthy of its contents. Though I still think it should be an illuminated manuscript. (Hardcover, Php1,199 at National Bookstores)