My favorite newsletters (what are yours?)

Newsletters seem to be A Thing these days. To me they are a strange hybrid of public and private discourse, like a corner booth at a restaurant. You can subscribe and interact with the writer privately, as if you’re in the booth together. Or you can just eavesdrop from the next booth, so to speak, following their recommendations and links as desired without needing to interact.

Personally I prefer blogs (or anything that I can throw into my RSS reader). They’re easily accessible, don’t require subscriptions, and have space for other pages. But I get the appeal of newsletters and why people would start one.

Which got me thinking about how many I subscribe to. There’s not a great way to figure that out besides looking in my email trash folder, which is limited to the last 30 days. Based on a quick perusal, I was able to nail down the ones I like and have stuck with. (With email in general, I am merciless about unsubscribing.) Some are daily, many weekly or occasional. Some merely supplement a blog, podcast, or other endeavor. All of them I’ve found enriching in some way:

Books

Prufrock, Ryan Holiday, Mark Athitakis, The Atlantic Books Briefing

Culture/General

Jocelyn K. Glei, Dense Discovery, Chris Bowler, The Art of Noticing, Austin Kleon, Robin Rendle, CJ Chilvers, John August, Alan Jacobs

Libraries

Jessamyn West, Read for Later, Shelf Awareness, PW Preview for Librarians, Top Shelf Reference

Events

Music Box Theatre, my local movie theater showtimes, my local library

Podcasts

Pop Culture Happy Hour, Filmspotting

Not included are mailing lists for several bands and the newsletters that publish too infrequently to be in my trash folder.

Subscribe to a newsletter you think I’d like? Let me know.