In The Shallows

Becca Rothfeld | Yale Review | 18th September 2023

There is a tone of condescension detectable in the writing of many public intellectuals, it is argued here, especially in the fields of self help and philosophy. This makes it less readable, not more. "To write as if your audience is made up of your intellectual inferiors is not to make philosophy 'accessible', but rather to render it, however inadvertently, snobbish and alienating" (1,360 words)

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How To Discover New Music

James Hadfield | Psyche | 15th November 2023

In this age of "absurd musical abundance", it is easy to get trapped in a sonic loop of convenience that stays close to familiar artists and songs. Seeking out sounds that are new to you is worthwhile work. Use radio station playlists and algorithmic recommendations. Follow up film soundtracks that catch your ear. And if in doubt, find a record shop and flip through the racks (4,260 words)

LinkedIn Got Weird

Rob Price | Business Insider | 25th September 2023

LinkedIn, once a social network used for recruitment and professional connection, is undergoing a fundamental change. Remote work has blurred the boundaries between home life and work life, and a younger generation more accustomed to online transparency is rapidly altering its culture. Vulnerability about divorce and bereavement is suddenly the norm, as is high concept satire (2,960 words)

What If Money Expired?

Jacob Baynham | Noema | 14th November 2023

On the work of late 19C German economist Silvio Gesell, who proposed that money should decay over time. The nature of money should better reflect the goods for which it is exchanged, he argued. If crops decay, so should the currency that buys them. Alongside this, private ownership of land would be abolished. He believed that this would bring "natural selection" into the economy (5,060 words)

Julia Child's Culinary Notes

Jillian Hess | Noted | 13th November 2023

Child's notebooks track her transformation from a "secretary to spies" during WW2 to a consummate food writer. Her notes reveal her meticulous process — testing and revising each recipe until it was as simple and effective as possible. "One of the pleasures of cooking is to learn to correct something if it goes awry; and one of the lessons is to grin and bear it if it cannot be fixed" (1,230 words)

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Look, it's a book. It's not like other books. There's no real way to describe it without ruining the surprise, you might have to take a chance.

What’s So Super About Super Glue?

Roy Berendsohn | Popular Mechanics | 13th November 2023

Likely more information about the composition and uses of this familiar household adhesive than you thought you needed, but interesting nonetheless. Especially intriguing is the advice on what not to do. Never start gluing without the "appropriate chemical debonder" on hand in case you stick your fingers together. And don't put super glue on most fabrics, as it will start smoking (1,860 words)

Plant Liberation

Joseph Moore | Practical Ethics | 8th November 2023

Plants are living things. We have a moral duty to treat them well. "Things can be good or bad, better or worse for any kind of living thing and not just the relatively small number of those with mental states. It is straightforwardly good for a typical plant to have access to sunlight, water and soil nutrients. It is bad for a typical mushroom to be placed in a bright, hot, dry environment" (1,500 words)

Frank Ramsey

Fraser MacBride et al | SEP | 23rd October 2023

Definitive account of the life and work of Frank Ramsey, now ranked among the great minds of the 20th century. By the time of his death at just 26, he had made fundamental contributions to philosophy, logic, mathematics, and economics. "Whilst he was acknowledged as a genius by his contemporaries, some of his most important ideas were not appreciated until decades later" (26,000 words)

The Best Books on Urban Fantasy

We tell ourselves fantastical stories to account for all that cannot be explained, says Seanan McGuire, the multi-award winning author of the October Daye, InCryptid, and Indexing series. Here, she selects five of the best urban fantasy books—fabulous novels that help us find the magical in the mundane.

The Best Post-Soviet Spy Thrillers

With the end of the Soviet Union, many thought the spy novel was dead. Within a decade, it was back, with old antagonists back in different guises and a new raft of international flashpoints to keep both fictional and real-life spies busy. Here, British spy novelist Charles Cumming, author of more than ten books, recommends five key post-Soviet spy thrillers and explains how the genre has evolved since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Dinner With A Dictator

Witold Szabłowski | LitHub | 9th November 2023

Stalin could make a good shashlik, but after his second wife died he could not bear the smell of food being cooked. His diet mostly revolved around soup — meat soup with sauerkraut in winter, cabbage in summer. After the revolution, he largely ignored food and ate at the Kremlin canteen, but his "one and only culinary extravagance in those days was a bathtub full of pickled gherkins" (1,880 words)

Podcast: The Six-Week Cure | 99% Invisible

Entertaining look at how in the mid 20C Reno, Nevada became the divorce capital of the world, thanks to a short residency requirement of just six weeks and liberal grounds for ending a marriage (34m 55s)

The Golden Age Of Gadget Catalogues

Cabel Sasser | 6th November 2023

Blog post ten years in the making, as the author slowly collected archive copies of the DAK Catalog. This esoteric digest of curious pieces of technology published by a mail order electronics firm was all written by one man — Drew Alan Kaplan. He began in the 1970s by just reviewing and selling reel-to-reel tapes. His copywriting is masterful, but the man himself remains utterly reclusive (3,000 words)

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How To Light The Dark Months

Katherine May | The Clearing | 6th October 2023

Prioritise going outside when it is still light. Don't resist the change of lifestyle or live as if it is summer. Notice the transition points from day into night. Co-exist with darkness rather than trying to eradicate it. Revel in "apricity", the juicy warmth of the winter sun, even if you feel it through a car windscreen. Make the use of candles ordinary, to contrast with harsh winter daylight (1,380 words)

A Child On Death Row

Alex Mar | Guardian | 7th November 2023

Extract from a book about the 1985 murder of Ruth Pelke by Paula Cooper, who at 15 became the US's youngest person on death row. Millions, including Pope John Paul II, opposed her sentence. The victim's family initially supported the prosecution's pursuit of the death penalty — as was typical for cases of this type — but very unusually one member later changed his mind (4,790 words)

China's Best Province

Scott Sumner | EconLib | 6th November 2023

Taiwan has a superior economy, democracy, culture and standard of living compared to mainland China. There are three possibilities for its future. One: Beijing pivots towards "a Taiwanese system" — highly unlikely. Two: the status quo continues unaltered — possible. Three: an invasion — highly undesirable. The best outcome would be if the CCP began to imitate Taiwan by stealth (840 words)

Life Of A Corn Maze Designer

J. Bryan Lowder | Slate | 28th October 2023

The "agritainment" business is booming. Farmers make more money putting on events than actually farming. Corn mazes, pumpkin patches, pig races — these are the high yield crops. The corn maze designer interviewed here thinks of each plant as a pixel, from which he then constructs a pattern for planting. American flags, the Statue of Liberty and the odd country singer are popular motifs (2,500 words)

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A History Of Moquette

Anonymous | London Transport Museum | 31st October 2020

Moquette, a velvet-like material, is favoured by upholsterers for its durability. In the 1920s, it became the fabric of choice for London transport. Artists like Paul Nash and Enid Marx were commissioned to create intricate designs that gave trains and buses a modish visual identity. And the tradition continues: new moquette can still be found on the seats that zoom beneath the city (700 words)

When Gravity Sucked

Matthew Wills | JSTOR | 3rd November 2023

Einstein's theory of general relativity was admired but otherwise neglected for decades in America. Although it explained gravitation, it had no obvious strategic applications. Serious research began only in the 1950s thanks to funding from two businessmen, Robert Babson and Agnew Bahnson, who thought that gravity was a threat to humanity and wanted to find a way of getting rid of it (820 words)

What Would Herzog Do?

Caterina Fake | 2nd November 2023

When all the world is against you, ask yourself: What Would Werner Herzog Do? Herzog's new memoir recommends an approach to life something like this: "Don’t get distracted by meaningless tripe. Don’t fight for prizes not worth winning. Follow through, get it done, learn to pick locks and walk long distances. Be strong, be smart, bring your toothbrush, be kind, work hard, be beautiful" (1,055 words)

Extracting Knowledge

Markus Strasser | Seeds Of Science | 31st October 2023

Machine learning is of relatively little value to scientific researchers because the newest and most sought-after knowledge usually isn't there in the searchable literature; innovators have strong commercial incentives to withhold detailed information about their discoveries. Recently-published knowledge is usually behind paywalls. Machines still struggle with charts and graphs (5,200 words)

Audio: Siblings Of Chaos | Allusionist

Helen Zaltzman talks to lexicographer Susie Dent about the histories and origins of a mubblefubble of English words, some of which are in common use, such as gas, chaos, and dismal; others of which are in less common use, such as latibulate, bellycheer, and hibernacle (36m 21s)