Unscientific Survey: Recommendations

Last week we asked for your recommendations on great ways to fill some of the expanses of time many of us seem to have looming in front of us. We’ve assembled some of the responses: the recommendation itself and, for context, how the recommender completed the sentence “You’ll like it if you like…”

Please keep the recommendations coming and the conversation going at the Swarthmorean’s Facebook page.

Streaming TV Series

• “The Great Pottery Throw Down” (YouTube)

  • You’ll like it if you like: “The Great British Baking Show.” (Full disclosure. I love it, but a friend of mine says it’s like watching paint dry.)

• “The Great British Baking Show” (Netflix)

  • You’ll like it if you like: People being nice to each other.

• “Babylon Berlin” (Netflix)

  • You’ll like it if you like: “Cabaret,” “Chinatown.”

• “High Maintenance” (HBO)

  • You’ll like it if you like: Anything by Fellini.

• “Better Things” (Hulu)

  • You’ll like it if you like: Sophisticated sitcoms.

• “Ripper Street” (Netflix)

  • You’ll like it if you like: Dark period mysteries.

• “The Honourable Woman” (Amazon Prime)

  • You’ll like it if you like: Political spy thrillers with stylish cinematography and strong female characters.

• “The Orville” (Fox)

  • You’ll like it if you like: Old school “Star Trek” — just get past the first episode or two until it finds its voice. The last episode of the first season is one that I mentally return to to give me hope.

• “The Stranger” (Netflix)

  • You’ll like it if you like: “Broadchurch” or other British detective series.

• “The Morning Show” (Apple TV +)

  • You’ll like it if you like: HBO’s “The Newsroom.”

• “Black Mirror” (Netflix)

  • You’ll like it if you like: “The Twilight Zone.” (and we’re living through the best episode ever)

• “Kim’s Convenience” (Netflix)

  • You’ll like it if you like: “The Office,” “Schitt’s Creek.”

• “Schitt’s Creek” (Netflix)

  • You’ll like it if you like: “Arrested Development.”

• “The Durrells on Corfu” (PBS)

  • You’ll like it if you like: Visually beautiful family dramas suitable for almost all ages.

• “Doc Martin” (Netflix — the series, not the movie)

  • You’ll like it if you like: The town of Swarthmore.

• “Offspring” (Netflix)

  • You’ll like it if you like: Wacky Australian “This is Us”/”Grey’s Anatomy” mash-up but snarky, hilarious, sexy, with a family that is much more dysfunctional and fun.

• “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon Prime)

  • You’ll like it if you like: “Seinfeld” and “Pride and Prejudice.”

• “Detectorists” (Amazon Prime)

  • You’ll like it if you like: “The Flight of the Conchords” and understated British humor.

• “The Kaminsky Method” (Netflix)

  • You’ll like it if you like: Your cranky Jewish relatives.

Books

• “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” by Anthony Marra

  • You’ll like it if you like: Rich, excellent prose and intricate, deeply moving plots.

• Fred Vargas mysteries (e.g. “The Three Evangelists”)

  • You’ll like it if you like: Smart crime fiction.

• “The Locklear Letters,” by Michael Kun

  • You’ll like it if you like: to laugh.

• “Normal People,” by Sally Rooney

  • You’ll like it if you like: “World War Z”

• “In a Sunburned Country” or any of Bill Bryson’s charming, funny travel books

  • You’ll like it if you like: The idea of being footloose and fancy free again.

• Dickens’s “Little Dorrit”

  • You’ll like it if you like: “The Cider House Rules,” by John Irving.

• Jonathan Coe’s Trotter trilogy: “The Rotters’ Club,” “The Enclosed Circle,” “Middle England”

  • You’ll like it if you like: Anthony Powell’s “A Dance to the Music of Time.”

• “Ducks, Newburyport,” by Lucy Ellman. Don’t let the hideous length deter. Pick any page.

  • You’ll like it if you like: “Ulysses.”

• Any book by P.G. Wodehouse

  • You’ll like it if you like: James Thurber or Evelyn Waugh.

• The Deptford Trilogy, by Robertson Davies

  • You’ll like it if you like: Smart, plot-filled books covering characters over a long span of time.

Podcasts

• “Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara”

  • You’ll like it if you like: The U.S. Constitution.

• “Revolutions” (each season is about a historical revolution)

  • You’ll like it if you like: “Slow Burn.”

• Jonathan Goldstein’s “Heavyweight”

  • You’ll like it if you like: “This American Life,” “The Moth.”

• “The Bowery Boys” (New York City history)

  • You’ll like it if you like: “Crimetown.”

• “Art Detective”

  • You’ll like it if you like: Fascinating excursions into art, culture and history. 

• “How Did This Get Made?”

  • You’ll like it if you like: To relive inexplicable movies in the company of fun people.

• “Reply All”

  • You’ll like it if you like: “This American Life” emphasizing stories on computers and the internet.

• “Dolly Parton’s America”

  • You’ll like it if you like: Greil Marcus’ books on rock and roll.

Board Games

• Telestrations

  • Pictionary for the 21st century.

• Upwords

  • Scrabble on steroids.

• The Godfather: Corleone’s Empire

  • You’ll like it if you like: Throwing your enemies into the East River.

• Chess

  • You’ll like it if you like: Risk

• Risk

  • You’ll like it if you like: Chess