media consumption: articles, video essays, podcasts to make you smarter (vol. 22)

what i’ve been reading, listening to, romanticizing, and treating myself to as i ease into this new chapter

hello.

i moved this week and everything feels slightly rearranged — my routines, my mornings, and even the way light moves across the floor. i keep catching myself reaching for things that aren’t where they used to be. it’s a bit disorienting, but not an unwelcome way. like my life got picked up, gently shaken, and set back down at a new angle.

moving is exhausting and clarifying all at once. you notice what you’ve outgrown, what you’ve been holding onto out of habit, what still feels like you in the most essential sense. i’ve been craving softness — less noise, more intention. slower meals, longer books, fewer tabs open. i’ve been letting myself obsess over small, beautiful things. maybe that’s how we settle in. not by controlling everything, but by learning what we want to reach for.

so here’s this week’s media report — what i’ve been reading, listening to, romanticizing, and treating myself to as i ease into this new chapter.

i’ll be writing a newsletter soon all about home and what it means to make a space feel like yours, even when it’s temporary. i’ll be sharing some of my favorite little home things, the rituals that anchor me, and how i create a space that feels both lived-in and loved. not perfect or curated. just warm, intentional, and real.

weekly report

reading

on being blue by william h. gass
a cult classic that begins with the color blue and spirals into a dazzling, sensual meditation on language, desire, and meaning. cerebral but lush.

a game of hide and seek by elizabeth taylor
a quiet, emotionally charged portrait of missed chances and enduring love. deeply english, beautifully restrained, and quietly devastating.

the juniper tree by barbara comyns
a strange, melancholic fairytale about a single mother drawn into a world of wealth, friendship, and eerie domestic tension. unsettling in the softest way.

i’m about to start my next project book and i’m torn between:

east of eden by john steinbeck
this is steinbeck’s attempt at writing his own book of genesis. it’s a sweeping, generational novel that follows two families in california’s salinas valley, echoing the biblical story of cain and abel across decades. but it’s not just about good and evil. it’s about the in-between. the moral ambiguity of being human. free will, guilt, grace. it’s also deeply psychological and emotionally raw, full of complicated mothers, absent fathers, and sons trying to outrun inherited violence. and yet, there’s something deeply hopeful in it. it asks if we can choose to be better, even when everything in us says we can’t.

or…

paradise lost by john milton
an epic poem about the fall of man, but also, more interestingly, the fall of lucifer. milton reimagines satan as a tragic, almost sympathetic figure: proud, articulate, endlessly quotable. his famous line “better to reign in hell than serve in heaven” has haunted literary history ever since. god, angels, adam, eve. it’s all there, but the beauty of this work lies in how human it feels despite its scale. the language is dense but gorgeous, like gothic architecture in verse. and it’s not just theology. it’s about power, ambition, rebellion, shame, loss.

eating

tomato mayo sandwiches on thick, pillowy bread — the kind that drips down your wrist if you’re not careful. thick slices of peak-season tomatoes, a generous swipe of mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and maybe a few torn basil leaves if you're feeling romantic. it tastes like childhood and like summer, which might be the same thing.

farm-fresh figs eaten standing up in the kitchen. some so soft they barely hold their shape, others still firm with a little bite. sliced open and sprinkled with sea salt, or just eaten whole, sticky fingers and all. nature’s most indecent fruit.

homemade focaccia, golden and dimpled and fragrant with rosemary. i like mine with flake salt, caramelized shallots, and a brush of olive oil while it’s still warm. it makes the apartment smell like someone competent lives here.

pasta kissed with a light coat of marinara — not drowned, just embraced. finished with freshly grated parmesan, toasted pine nuts, and a drizzle of the good olive oil. simple and elegant. the kind of meal that asks nothing of you but to sit, eat, and feel full in the right way.

playing

japanese city pop — the kind that feels like driving through tokyo at night in the 1980s — neon reflections on wet pavement, the soft hum of possibility. plastic love, of course, but also deeper cuts that make you feel like the main character in a forgotten music video. it’s nostalgic for a life you never lived, upbeat but a little lonely in the way all good pop music is.

bossa nova jazz — the soundtrack of slow mornings and even slower afternoons. it makes everything feel a little more romantic: folding laundry, cooking dinner, staring out the window like you’re waiting for a lover who won’t arrive. it's soft, stylish, emotionally reserved but rhythmically rich. the kind of music that doesn’t demand your attention but rewards it anyway.

obsessing

crown affair hair perfume — which smells like the fantasy of being the kind of woman who has her life together in a very understated way. clean, subtle, slightly floral, like you just came from a beautifully minimal apartment with linen curtains and expensive hand soap. it doesn’t announce itself. it lingers.

writer candle from the maker — this somehow manages to smell like solitude in the best possible way. a desk by the window, a mug of tea gone cold, pencil shavings, faint incense. it’s woody and warm, a little smoky, and makes me feel like i’m someone who writes longhand and has opinions about fountain pens.

1980s hong kong wedding photography — glossy, dramatic, softly surreal. the lighting is theatrical, the poses are heightened, and there’s something strangely beautiful in the artifice. i’ve been falling down rabbit holes of old wedding portrait scans, tulle veils, foggy backdrops, rigid embraces, and they feel like stills from a forgotten romance film. it’s all so staged, but emotionally real. like love pretending to be love.

recommending

the calm app or headspace — not revolutionary, but dependable. i've been using them in the quiet moments before bed or while walking, just to soften the edges of the day. there's something oddly intimate about someone guiding your breath, reminding you to unclench your jaw. like being mothered by an app.

reading qualitatively, not quantitatively — this has been a quiet rebellion for me. less about hitting goals, more about lingering. rereading sentences. stopping mid-page just to think. letting a book stretch out over days, even weeks. i don’t want to speed through 100 books. i want a hand full that rearrange something in me.

olibanum deodorant by nécessaire — smells like a minimalist incense altar. soft, resinous, a little churchy in a good way. it’s not trying to mask anything; it just makes your body smell good. i’ve tried all the trendy deodorants and many of them made me break out in a rash. this one is perfect.

treating

i haven’t hit purchase yet, but the freewrite typewriter is calling to me like a siren. distraction-free, analog-adjacent, and romantic in a digital kind of way. i imagine myself clicking away on it somewhere silent, dramatic, and dimly lit. probably with tea, probably in a mood. they also make a traveler version!

also, i deserve jail time for the absolutely unhinged damage i did at the nyrb book sale. no self-control, just pure literary lust. please don’t judge me when you see the stack — or do, but know i’d do it all again…

the hearing trumpet by leonora carrington
a 92-year-old woman with a hearing trumpet is sent to a peculiar old folks’ home, where reality begins to unravel into surreal feminist myth. weird and wild in the best way.

abigail by magda szabó
a teenage girl is exiled to a strict boarding school during the war and ends up tangled in secrets, codes, and quiet acts of rebellion. one of szabó’s most accessible but still emotionally layered.

the fawn by magda szabó
a cool, cerebral actress navigates social games, political shifts, and emotional detachment in postwar hungary. sharp, chilly, and painfully intimate.

other worlds by teffi
teffi dips into mysticism, memory, and exile in this collection of essays that feel both esoteric and deeply human. philosophical but funny in that russian way.

peach blossom paradise by ge fei
a young girl is swept into revolution in 1890s china, where personal coming-of-age collides with political unrest. beautifully written and quietly radical.

we always treat women too well by raymond queneau
this one's unhinged in the best way: a satirical hostage situation during the 1916 easter rising, full of manipulations, mistaken identities, and chaotic gender politics.

written on water by eileen chang
stories that move like water—melancholic, ephemeral, and tender. quiet observations on postwar life, longing, and loss.

the new york stories of edith wharton
all the snobbery, yearning, and moral failure of gilded age new york, wrapped in wharton’s perfect sentences. betrayal never looked so good.

don’t look now by daphne du maurier
spooky, psychological stories that build dread through the tiniest shifts in atmosphere. if you liked the film, the original story is even weirder.

my death by lisa tuttle
a slim, haunting novel about an academic who becomes obsessed with a mysterious artist. meditative and slow-burning, like a fever dream.

my phantoms by gwendoline riley
a brutally sharp novel about mothers, daughters, and the cold clarity of adulthood. funny in a mean way, devastating in an honest way.

the unforgivable by cristina campo
fragmented and lyrical, this one reads like grief translated into light. memory, exile, family—told in the form of impressions and absences.

thus were their faces by silvina ocampo
short stories that feel like nightmares you can’t explain the next morning. surreal, childlike, and deeply uncanny.

once and forever by kenji miyazawa
magical realism meets buddhist philosophy in these fairy tale-like stories full of warmth, wonder, and existential ache.

on being blue by william h. glass
a strange, wandering meditation on the color blue that becomes about everything—desire, language, melancholy. a cult favorite for a reason.

a game of hide and seek by elizabeth taylor
a quietly devastating love story about missed chances, social class, and the kinds of intimacy that stretch across decades.

mrs. palfrey at the claremont by elizabeth taylor
an elderly woman befriends a young man in a boarding house for the semi-forgotten. gentle, funny, and sad in equal measure.

angel by elizabeth taylor
the story of a delusional romance novelist who becomes a literary sensation despite (or because of) her complete detachment from reality.

the juniper tree by barbara comyns
a strange and sad reworking of the fairytale, complete with spectral tension and quiet domestic eeriness.

our spoons came from woolworths by barbara comyns
a young artist marries the wrong man and struggles to survive in bohemian poverty. told with comyns’ signature off-kilter charm.

the vet’s daughter by barbara comyns
a gothic girl novel about a girl who may or may not have telekinetic powers, trapped in a brutal household and dreaming of something more.

the invention of morel by adolfo bioy casares
a fugitive hides on a mysterious island where people appear but never interact. philosophical sci-fi at its best—existential, eerie, unforgettable.

the door by magda szabó
an emotionally intense portrait of the complicated bond between a writer and her housekeeper. withholding, loyal, cruel, tender—like all the best relationships in fiction.

notes of a crocodile by qiu miaojin
queer, chaotic, intellectual, and raw. set in 1990s taipei, this novel follows a group of students trying to survive love, loneliness, and themselves.

last words from montmartre by qiu miaojin
a series of letters written in the aftermath of a breakup, full of longing, reflection, and philosophical intimacy. feels like reading someone’s soul.

beware of pity by stefan zweig
a soldier offers kindness to a disabled girl, only to entangle himself in guilt, obligation, and emotional disaster. a devastating study of cowardice and compassion.

the post-office girl by stefan zweig
a poor postal worker is briefly lifted into high society, only to crash into the weight of poverty and disillusionment. postwar nihilism in its finest form.

this next section is for paid subscribers where i share a sizable list of interesting articles, video essays, and podcast recommendations that i’ve curated throughout the week(s). today’s media consumption roundup includes how multitasking drains your brain, why people hate philosophers, the age gap romance in hollywood, how to read hard books, why we turn grief into art, how to waste time, and so much more…

i remove the paywalls on the majority of my posts, so your support for this newsletter means the world to me.

i remove the paywalls on the majority of my posts, so your support for this newsletter means the world to me.