An ode to craft

Plus: The power of empathy and the tragedy of prevention (#531)

Special Books Edition

What's a book you wished you discovered sooner?

Welcome to the deeply bizarre now-now-soon

Plus: The value of moral ambition and why you're more likely to die on your birthday (#530)

Say the word

Plus: Being grateful for grief, Emojis in court and China's falling emissions (#529)

Facts and Egopinions

Plus: Understanding the Iberian blackout, India-Pakistan tensions, and 48 Things Women Hear In A Lifetime (#528)

The voices of 30 survivors

Plus: intensive parenting, global ambitions, and scaffolding for future thinking (#527)

Ready to go out into the big wide world

Also: You should open this newsletter right now, I'll explain why (#526)

What the comfort class doesn't get

State terror and how to find work you love (#525)

Back from the dead 🐺

Plus: borrowed beats, loaned lyrics, and the little hand that is everywhere. (#524)

Manosphere meets atmosphere

AI, DEI and why you shouldn't get surgery today. (#523)

Adolescence

Plus: A great new podcast series on the secret plot to invade Ukraine (#522)

Lonely but beautiful actions

Plus: the hidden power of introverts, and how AI is polluting the web (#221)

Yes, we can (improve lives with money)

Plus: A tour of Disney's secret test lab (#220)

You will not feel pain. We will be okay.

Elections, the authoritarian playbook, and an ode to the hardest working font in Manhattan (#519)

Hope is a performative emotion

Also: Grief, microplastics and a recipe against right-wing populism. (#518)

10 ways to think about these «peace negotiations»

Plus: Dishonest charts, regime change, and what it means to be a gardener. (#517)

Meditations in an Emergency

And why every organisation needs a keeper of the truth. (#516)

What are we seeing?

Plus: Building churches upside-down and humanity's last exam. (#515)

50 lives you haven't lived

Plus the cutest story I've seen on the web in a while. (#514)

How to break the spell of the status quo

Plus some good news from Europe and a new in-depth profile of stuff our modern world runs on (#513)

Hello, Monsters!

Also: Why knowing is hard, and making sense of galaxies by turning them into cereals. (#511)

For Zuck's Sake

Also inside: 100 nice things, not even counting the 52 Lego bricks. (#511)

Update available (for your knowledge)

And some more recommendations to make you go «Huh, I never thought of it this way!» (#510)

Weekly Filet Awards 2024

The best of the best of the year, in the most unglamorous yet heartfelt ceremony of the year.