Readings for September 17, 2023

I use Pocket to collect all the articles I want to read, and my Kobo e-reader works with the service so years’ worth of reading is now available in e-ink rather than on a brightly lit screen. I’m actually making a dent in the digital TBR pile these days.

This month, I tried something new: I scrolled through the list and picked articles from The New Yorker to read. Most of them are within the last year or two, but there are a few outliers. The magazine gives everybody something like 5 free reads a month, so if you’re not a subscriber (they get the full archive), choose your five carefully. Maybe don’t waste two of them on Elon Musk like I did.

Readings

Like everyone, thanks to Walter Isaacson’s new biography, I now know more about Elon Musk than I ever wanted to. Here’s Jill Lepore’s take on the man, the book, the horror show.

Ugh, I forgot that I also read this in-depth investigation by the excellent Ronan Farrow into the reach of Musk’s global power. This is a vegetables read, not a candy read.

As a palate cleanser for that excellent article on a shitty person, I offer this gem of a flash fiction piece from Haruki Murakami. You can easily read it on a coffee break.

I loved The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiesen, despite all the books (and his) faults. Kathryn Schulz takes this classic piece of nature writing into account in reviewing the new (-ish, I read this late) of Sylvain Tesson’s The Art of Patience. I don’t know that I personally need another book about trekking after an elusive large cat in the snow, but the last section of Schulz’s review is worth reading. She considers the two-centuries-old tradition of nature writing in a world of climate change. “Only the least interested or least trustworthy narrator can have failed to notice by now that nature’s existential condition needs at least as much tending as our own,” she writes. She also considers her own place in and attitude toward “nature,” whatever that may mean on a very busy, congested planet.

In related climate news, here is an absolutely dispiriting article from last month by David Owen about what it really means to have free returns and shipping. Not just, I don’t like this take it back returns, but buy five dresses with the intention of keeping one returns. The amount of waste in this article made me literally nauseous.

A New Yorker two-fer! A piece by John McPhee about Robert Gottlieb, and also Mr. Shawn. And also the precise moment(s) when the gates opened for “fuck” and its variations on the pages of the magazine. Incredibly fun, and a must-read for fans of Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch.

I like Italo Calvino, so I read about him whenever the chance comes up. This one is a review by Katy Waldman of a new (again -ish) collection of his early short stories.

I love reading about art heists, so I’m glad I finally got around to reading this piece from 2019 about one of the best.

Publishing News

My little publishing company, Practical Fox, is issuing a new edition of Beat the Boss, the roleplaying game about union organizing. The project has been in the works for some time, but we’re in the final stages of cleaning up the manuscript now. It’ll be going to the printer ASAP and available to buy on October 17! There’s a special preorder page for anyone who’d like to get a copy hot off the presses next month.

And a quick reminder that Memoirs of a French Courtesan, Vol. 1: Rebellion will be out January 16, 2024. Cover reveal coming soon!

Words of Wisdom