Hobbyist Academia #21
I’ve been reading my first fiction book in a long time- The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer. The cover is very colorful, with stripes, and carrying it around my apartment and my life is bringing me a lot of joy. Ingrid Fetell Lee would approve.
This edition of the newsletter is short(er) and sweet, and spans across all the media.
Engage and Interact
Would “Multimedia” be a clearer header here?
Newsletter and podcast company The Slowdown, featured in previous newsletters, has announced a new well-being vertical called The Good Life.
Meredith Lewis announced her new Transversal Creativity Writing Project. It will be a series of interviews and articles about the role of the arts in interdisciplinary work. It doesn’t have a name yet- and I respect that she’s starting anyway instead of procrastinating while looking for one.
Read
A recent edition of The Marginalian by Maria Popova featured an article about philosopher Alain de Botton. It’s about finding comfort in the fact that there are many ways to live a life.
This essay from Griefbacon features a review of The National’s new album- and a thoughtful reflection on the band’s evolving place in society and culture.
Watch
The Creative Mornings newsletter from a couple weeks ago highlighted a talk from a speaker at the Calgary chapter about how public art changes the way you move. It reminds me of a story from Ingrid Fetell Lee’s Joyful about a small town that completely revived itself by investing in public art.
Listen
Whalebone has been sharing playlists lately- specifically a curated Sunday Morning Playlist that gets released on Sunday every week and then works for the rest of the week too.
Save This for Later
I got to browse in person at a bookstore again- this time it was Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, MA on a Sunday afternoon. We’ve got a big haul of additions to the To Read list.
The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work by Simone Stolzoff
Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today by Hal Hershfield
Let Your Heart Be Broken: Life and Music from a Classical Composer by Tina Davidson
House of Joy, a Gestalten coffee table book
The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida
Letters to Milena by Franz Kafka
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About the Great Good Places at the Heart of Our Communities by Ray Oldenburg
Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City by Brad Feld
Eating: A Memoir by Jason Epstein
The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams by Seth Godin
The House by the Sea by May Sarton
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World by Gretchen Rubin
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher
Consider the Lobster and Other Essays by David Foster Wallace
Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World by Vivek H. Murthy
Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck
Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World by Scott Shigeoka