Our book of the month for February is "Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir" by @craigmod.com—a superb, closely observed meditation on life, tradition, friendship and loss while hiking the ancient pilgrim trails of Japan's remote Kii peninsula. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur022-cra...

I was delighted to chat with the wonderful Bobbie Johnson of @readcurious.xyz about my years following Alzheimer’s disease in Colombia. Bobbie even took the trouble to transcribe our expansive conversation, bless his ❤️. It’s worth a skim I promise.

We spoke to "Valley of Forgetting" author @jennieerinsmith.bsky.social about a whole lot of stuff: her book, cultivating sources, medical ethics, the influence of big money on medical research, and the latest Alzheimer’s developments. And George Orwell! newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/interview-...

“Valley of Forgetting” succeeds because it does some things that aren’t typical in science books: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/close-read...

Our book of the month for January is "Valley of Forgetting: Alzheimer's Families And The Search For A Cure" by Jennie Erin Smith (@jennieerinsmith.bsky.social) It's a poignant and powerful look at the folks suffering at the hands of this awful disease, and at the scientists seeking a way out.

The Gilded Age was looking offworld for the answers to its very real problems. "People really wanted the Martians to exist because they might save us," says @dhbaron.bsky.social, author of The Martians, our December book of the month. Sound familiar? newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/david-baro...

Our book of the month for December is @dhbaron.bsky.social's THE MARTIANS, a fun, readable history of a wild period in American history when influential people were obsessed with the impending arrival of an alien race. Read more and sign up now: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/announceme...

What makes "Red Memory", our pick of the month for November, tick? It's an unflinching set of portraits of people dealing with what happened during China's brutal, baffling Cultural Revolution—and here are five things that we appreciated about it: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/red-memory...

Our book pick for November is Red Memory by @taniabranigan.bsky.social, a look at what happened during China's Cultural Revolution through the eyes of people who lived it. It's full of powerful, compelling and often harrowing interviews and deep analysis. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur019-ann...

We’ve spoken to so many great authors in the last 18 months. Want to see what they had to say? newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/curious-au...

Dice are a beautiful example of how games connect us through time. "Dice were a Roman obsession. This was a culture intimately acquainted with their heft and bounce, the hollow, toothy rattle of the dice box and the clatter of knucklebones on marble." newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/the-weird-...

Our October book of the month is "Across the Board: How Games Make Us Human" by @timclare.bsky.social — a fascinating, charming history of games and why they matter. Join our club now to get brilliant hand-picked non-fiction every month! newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur018-acr...

"The very era that this book kind of covers is coming to an end... that sense of what American power looks like in Asia. I wish it was a happier end. " A chat with The Pacific Circuit's @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social, about where we are and how we got here. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/the-wheel-...

Our latest book of the month is a real humdinger: "The Pacific Circuit" by @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social — a book focused on a very specific place and people that also reveals truths about everything and everywhere at the same time. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur017-the... Sign up to get a copy!

📣 Our book of the month for August is... STRATA: STORIES FROM DEEP TIME by @laurapoppick.bsky.social We loved this detailed, deliberate overview of geoscience—and its mixture of lyrical prose and detailed profiles of researchers and the things they study. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/announcing...

📢 Our pick of the month for July is "The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog": @biologycarly.bsky.social's fun new book showing how silly science can lead to serious discoveries. Publishers Weekly called it "pop science at its finest" and they're right! newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur015-sal...

Our interview with "Empire of AI" author @karenhao.bsky.social covered everything from the inception of artificial intelligence to OpenAI's voracious business to global journalism and Silicon Valley's "politics of exit". Read more in our newsletter: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/at-the-mom...

The great @laurenmarkham.bsky.social is almost there with her Kickstarter for a new "guerrilla newspaper" on "how to approach—thwart, upend, survive—autocracy" More in our weekly update: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/curious-ne...

Four things we loved about @karenhao.bsky.social's EMPIRE OF AI, our book of the month for June. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/close-read...

Our book of the month for June is @karenhao.bsky.social's astonishing look at the hottest company in tech: "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI" It's a detailed, critical dive into what AI is, where it comes from, and what it costs. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur014-kar...

Our book of the month for May is the fascinating ON MUSCLE by @bonnietsui.bsky.social. It's a perfect blend of science and memoir, social history and technical detail, with some rivetingly beautiful personal stories. Find out more and sign up here: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/bonnie-tsu...

Ok, here’s a feelgood story given the state of everything else Residents of one Michigan town form a human chain to move a bookstore’s stock to its new location: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

"I'm free. I'm free forever!" this was the voice memo I woke up to the other day from Hassan, one of the Moria 6, accused and convicted with zero credible evidence for burning down the Moria refugee camp in Greece. www.bbc.com/news/article...

🧵🐺🧬 An important point is getting lost in the discussion abt today's "deextinction" news: Colossal is not just claiming to have created something akin to a dire wolf. They claim they've made new/unpublished genetic discoveries that would rewrite our understanding of dire wolf evolution & anatomy 🧪

What Goodreads alternatives are people using? What do you recommend? We've tried a few but none of them really stuck, so still mainly tracking reading lists in the good old notes app.

Announcing our April book of the month - PAVED PARADISE by @henrygrabar.bsky.social, an anger-inducing, funny and very smart look at our relationships with cars and specifically where and how we store them. It's easy to sign up and get your copy! newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/announcing...

This week's newsletter is out, featuring highlights from our live conversation with @ayanaeliza.bsky.social. It was a fun chat: she talks about how her book What If We Get It Right? came together, what surprised her about it and what it doesn't cover. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/trying-not...

This week's newsletter is out, featuring a decades-old beef between Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson that should give you some perspective. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/ansel-adam...

Great book, we highlighted it for club members last September. Copies still available at readcurious.xyz … You don’t *have* to join to get back list titles, but you won’t regret it if you do.

Spring is almost here & the extended Becoming Earth tour continues! So excited to team up with @ericajberry.bsky.social & Lee van der Voo in Portland; @zoeschlanger.bsky.social & more in Tucson; and @edyong209.bsky.social in San Francisco. More details + links on my website www.ferrisjabr.com/events

The attempted mugging of a visiting president was about the world war that Musk, Trump, and Vance have chosen. If we attend to what Vance and Trump said yesterday, we can work our way to the unreason of American policy, and to the chaos that will follow. snyder.substack.com/p/the-war-tr...

ANNOUNCEMENT: It's time for our book of the month for March, and it's a doozy: the inspiring and perspective-shifting WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT? by @ayanaeliza.bsky.social -- a book about imagining a different climate future and working towards it. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur011-wha...

Writing this week’s newsletter with a trio of book recommendations—ones we enjoyed that didn’t quite make the cut for our monthly pick. Any come to mind? Sign up for our weekly emails: newsletter.readcurious.xyz

I just found a bumblebee curled up asleep in one of the crocus blooms in our garden! 😍🥹🥰 I’ve found many sleeping bees over the years, but never one quite so snug. This is why I grow flowers. Not only are they beautiful, they are sustenance and shelter for our wild neighbors.

People who read @adamhigginbotham.bsky.social’s “Challenger” were so immersed that they hoped the disaster would somehow be averted. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/adam-higgi... 2nd part of our interview with Adam is out now!

Last chance to get our February book of the month, Adam Higginbotham's CHALLENGER before we wrap up mailouts. readcurious.xyz/products/cur... Sign up and for just $25 each month, you get a hand-picked work of non-fiction that will entertain, inform and expand your mind.

my @newyorker.com column is back! This week I wrote about Elon Musk's AI coup and the way that for Silicon Valley, AI now must become a governmental, geopolitical force — to justify the technology's (unclear) capabilities and their massive investment. www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...

By The Fire We Carry has been longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for non-fiction! womensprize.com/announcing-t...

In 1973, a brilliant critic named Stuart Hall created a diagram that changed the way we study media, and could help you survive this moment. Just dropped: the second letter in my series about how to analyze the media in a time of crisis. It's all about codes. buttondown.com/thehypothesi...

Newsletter is out! This week features the difficulty of writing books, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Twain's money troubles, and a little bit of Czech storytelling. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/no-i-m-not...

I was on the radio! 💚

Nicola Twilley reports on the latest attempts to mimic blood: the magical fluid that regulates, heals, and protects every human alive.

ANNOUNCEMENT! Our February book is @adamhigginbotham.bsky.social's tremendous telling of the 1986 Space Shuttle tragedy "Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space" Get your beautiful hardback copy for $25 by signing up today. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur010-cha...

Apparently the ebook of Becoming Earth is on sale right now and is ranked #1 in a several categories in the Kindle store! 😲🥹 Thank you, readers! 🙏 💙📚 🧪

I watched all 12 mins of this convinced he was talking about today, right now, while it was recorded in 2017. Worth your time. www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...

Preparing to announce and ship February's book of the month—a real doozy that was rightly praised to the roof in end-of-year lists. Want to get it and other hand-picked non-fiction each month for just $25? Sign up now and fantastic reads will be on their way to you in no time! readcurious.xyz

We chatted with @annaleen.bsky.social, our author of the month... and got a bunch of fascinating lessons on psychological warfare, including how culture wars use the same tactics as the military to sow fear and loathing among Americans. Read more: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/interview-...

A lot of people are throwing the phrase "manifest destiny" around right now. It does not mean what they think it means. In my book "Stories Are Weapons," I talk about the guy who coined the term, and what he was all about. wwnorton.com/books/978039...

I've seen a few people posting about helping out your local library. As your friendly neighborhood Library Director Man, some thoughts so that you help in, well, helpful ways. 1/?