📺 A Thousand Channels of Distraction
Lynn Steger Strong on the long road to her big Florida novel...a Character Studies conversation with a pen and ink artist from Pittsburgh...Brad and Mira try to digest the Bezos-Sanchez wedding...etc.
Twenty-fifth newsletter of 2025.
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▶️ On the podcast: Lynn Steger Strong returns to the program to discuss her “Florida novel,” The Float Test, now available from Mariner Books.
▶️ On the podcast: in the latest ‘Character Studies’ episode, a conversation with Kirsten, 40, Pen and Ink Artist. Kirsten is from Pittsburgh, PA, and we talk about her childhood, the tragic loss of her mother to a heroin overdose, and her recent recovery from a brainstem stroke. (Remember: if you know someone who would be a great guest for this series, please email me here.)
🚨Coming up on Thursday: A new episode of Brad & Mira for the Culture, the podcast’s weekly pop culture assessment. Last week’s episode: ‘Foam Party with My New Stepdad.’
🎧 Listen/subscribe via Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1. In dark times, what is the artist’s role? Jessica Nordell interviews author and journalist Elif Batuman.
2. Check out these cool zines by Beth Pickens. Titles include Making Art During Fascism and On Art and Hopelessness.
3. Katy Waldman on James Frey’s new canceled guy sex novel (and why it’s as bad as it sounds).
4. Lauren Groff on Mansfield Park—Jane Austen’s boldest novel and also her most misunderstood.
5. How do you know what to read? In 1993, a student asked Alexander Chee this question—and he’s still answering it.
6. Philosopher Helen De Cruz has died at age 46. Read their final essay, in which they muse on mortality and how to live a meaningful life.
7. Does the Pulitzer Prize hate Substack? (And should we care?) Ted Gioia investigates.
8. John Higgs on how the history of the internet resembles the history of the Beatles.
9. Benjamin Wallace-Wells on what Zohran Mamdani’s defeat of Andrew Cuomo means for the Democrats.
10. RIP John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America, who died on June 11th at the age of 77.
This month the book club is reading Wanting, the debut novel by Claire Jia. Available from Tin House.
“…mesmerizing exploration of ambition, self-delusion, and the complicated bonds of friendship.” —Alexandra Chang, author of Tomb Sweeping
A searing debut novel of envy, longing, and regret across three lives and two countries that asks how far we’ll go for a friendship, a romance, a dream.
Ye Lian is thriving in Beijing. She has a well-paid job, a nice boyfriend, and plans to marry and move into a luxury high-rise apartment. She’s wanting for nothing–until her childhood best friend, Luo Wenyu, comes whirling back into her life after a decade in California with seemingly everything–a successful career as an influencer, a millionaire American fiancé, and a bespoke mansion in the Beijing suburbs–throwing Lian’s own reliable choices into high relief.
As the two women rekindle their friendship, Wenyu reveals a shocking secret about a past love that pushes Lian to question her own relationship. A few neighborhoods away, aging architect Song Chen is forced to confront his own past and the dissolution of his marriage as he’s tasked with building Wenyu’s dream home. And when the dark side of Wenyu’s enviable life emerges and threatens everything Lian and Wenyu have built for themselves, they must make a choice between the stable known and the frightening unknown that may have devastating and unexpected consequences.
In girlhood memories and karaoke afternoons in Xidan Square, in aspirational YouTube channels and billboard ads, in private hotel rendezvous and secret WeChat messages, Claire Jia’s debut novel is a love letter to friendship; a powder keg of impossible, interwoven desires; a siren song that explores why, even as it destroys us, we always want more.
Bluesky of the Week:
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-Brad
www.otherppl.com
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