This weekend at the DBR: Rashida Jones rules! All I thought about was how smart her new movie is.

This weekend at the DBR: Early to bed &c. If it feels like a long weekend, that’s because Kathleen has been away for a long time.

This weekend at the DBR: An idea for the NRA.

This weekend at the DBR: Summer hours, a super dinner on the impromptu, and the delights of reading Diana Athill.

This weekend at the DBR: A French salad, a tight spot in a French bistro, and a novel by Colm Tóibín with nothing at all French in it.

This weekend at the DBR: Disc overing Miranda on a spa day.

This weekend at the DBR: Cooking, reading, and playing with Will, who is beginning to get the hang of telephone calls.

This weekend at the DBR: A long weekend, Friday to Monday, and a little bit of everything, including success with a recipe from Elizabeth David, poulet Robert.

This weekend at the DBR: The only thing missing this weekend was Kathleen’s company. I went to the movies (Damsels in Distress), spent a few hours with Will and had a great chat with his parents. I listened to the Ring while tidying the apartment (Karajan), and then had the most extraordinary implant of new information at the Museum, where Marc LeBlanc took me through the Dawn of Egypt show. Sunday was a day for lazing through the Times; by way of hard work, I compiled a new weekend playlist. The best was Kathleen’s coming home from her weekend in North Carolina.

This weekend at the DBR: Well, it wasn’t spent at the computer. The Five-Year Engagement. Housekeeping. A cocktail party, a big dinner out, and a pulverizing hangover. It doesn’t take much to bring on one of those anymore!

This weekend at the DBR: two parties, one here at home, the other straight across the island, on Riverside Drive. In between, a fair amount of reading — Donna Leon and Elizabeth Taylor.

This weekend at the DBR: The royalty rule holds that it is improper for anyone but the sovereign to introduce a topic of conversation. You don’t have to hobnob with royals, though, to find that there are moments in life when the rule makes a lot of sense.

This weekend at the DBR: Somehow I found time, amidst all the cooking and housekeeping, to do a bit of reading (Elizabeth Taylor’s last novel, Blaming — extraordinary, but not to be read first of her books), as well as to watch My Week With Marilyn and the movie that it’s about the making of, The Prince and the Showgirl.

From now on, at least at this site, the weekend begins on Friday. What’s become clear in the past few months is that my schedule falls into two blocs: Monday-Thursday alone and Friday-Sunday in company. I’ve got to dash off right now, in fact, to have lunch with Ray Soleil, after which we’ll drop in at the Museum. I’ll be heading downtown this evening as usual, to see what my grandson is up to. It’s in the interest of mental health that I stop regarding Friday as one the alone days.  

Not that I wouldn’t love one, just to spend it reading. The Righteous Mind is incredibly exciting — I have to put it down from time to time, just to swallow its mounting import — and Elizabeth Taylor’s A View of the Harbour has just taken an unexpected turn. More anon.

Continue reading at The Daily Blague / reader. 

This weekend at the DBR: Onward with Edward St Aubyn: On the Edge, a complicated, often very funny book about Esalen and the search for personal enlightenment.

(Yes, we know it’s Monday. But it’s also Presidents’ Day, however virtually.)

This weekend at the DBR: Out in the cold with Will.

Press & Discuss: Heath Robinson or Rube Goldberg?