Things to Read That Are Not the News
I've been saving a bunch of essays that I've read in the past month to share with you all, and while they are timely and thoughtful, they are not The News. They are definitely not Hot Takes. They're not even always about new books. They will require a little time and thought to read, but they're worth it. Promise.
- Start with the funniest review I've read in ages: Lauren Collins on former French president Nicolas Sarkozy's account of his several days in prison. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/critics-notebook/how-nicolas-sarkozy-survived-twenty-days-behind-bars
- Only read this long, considered, and funny essay on Knives Out: Wake Up, Dead Man if you have already seen the movie or if you do not mind spoilers. The movie is worth watching (better than the second in the series, in my opinion), and Leah Schnelbach's deep dive is one of the best. https://reactormag.com/entirely-too-many-thoughts-about-wake-up-dead-man/
- Rachel Aviv had access to the Oliver Sacks archive of personal papers, and she asks very insightful questions about his blending of fact and fiction to create his best-known works. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/12/15/oliver-sacks-put-himself-into-his-case-studies-what-was-the-cost Set aside the time to pair that with the equally insightful essay by Sacks's biographer, Lawrence Weschler, who uses his own published work, his friendship with Sacks, and Aviv's recent revelations to reexamine Sacks's literary legacy as opposed to his clinical legacy. https://www.instapaper.com/read/1956150200
- Do you love Sigrid Nunez's work? I do. So when I was poking around on the Brick magazine website a while ago, I was happy to come across this interview from 2021. https://brickmag.com/an-interview-with-sigrid-nunez/
- I have been a freelance writer and editor since 2006. I work at home. I have no coworkers at all. I love to read about workplace culture. I think it's the same impulse that people who eat a lot of takeout collect cool cookbooks, or the way people who live in apartments where they can't paint the walls watch home improvement shows. So I was of course very into this take on RTO (that's return to office, for my fellow freelancers) by Kathy Chow. Side note: The Walrus is a really great magazine across the board...from across the border. It's Canadian. That pun just came to me as I was writing, and it was far too good to pass up. https://thewalrus.ca/return-to-office-mandates/
- This one might be approaching a hot take: the growing trend toward acknowledging translators rather than shoving them into the background where they were to remain invisible. In related news, I'll be writing reviews of translated novels this spring for a new-to-me outlet, so I'll let you know when those are published. https://lithub.com/spokesperson-intellectual-and-more-on-the-new-and-shifting-role-of-the-translator/