Recommended by HOT PLATE! Print Edition
M. Sarki reminds me that I USED to love poetry, back when it typically had more vigor and economy than it usually does these days. The consistent quality and personality of his writing makes it unsurprising that he’s a disciple of editing legend Gordon Lish.
Joaquin covers a beat that you see a lot of people covering— how to make sense of the ways life bumps and grinds you into a series of tight corners. This is the big theme of many of our finest writers, and it’s tough to be part of that lineage without feeling the anxiety of influence. But he’s doing what writers need to do— he writes and writes, and you can watch him getting sharper every week.
Brent Butt is one of my favorite comedians (mainly because of his comedy). I can’t, in good conscience, recommend any sort of life without him in it.
James is both literate and snappy, a high octane combination that I find I can use, when I’m looking for something to read. He pushes back against the performative and self-righteous aspects of young progressives, and for a reason I love: he’s a theater guy, and he knows a lousy performance when he sees one.
Jules is hard to recommend without slipping into a rant about writers I DON’T love. She gives us a combination I don’t see enough on here: she writes with a conversational tone, but never descends into the cutesy self-indulgence that plagues many self-publishers. She also casts a pretty wide net. When she’s discussing culture rather than politics and society, her tastes run to the stuff that’s smart and entertaining, and that’s a pretty good wheelhouse to pick.
In addition to his sharp and honest fiction and nonfiction, Michael posts more Notes about great writers than anyone I follow. He’s not (thank god) one of the many writing instructors on here, but if he’s on your radar you will learn about writing and how closely it ought to be connected to READING.
Damon Linker is a former conservative, which makes him one of the most valuable dissectors of current right wing toxicity. Another helpful voice for those who want to move beyond the self-congratulatory demonization of chuckleheads, and develop a more sober and sophisticated perspective about chucklehead activity.
Dead space and self-indulgence are writing-killers. They’re everywhere these days. Lauren’s like a bouncer, and if any lousy writing tries to get past her, she tosses it out on its ear. She writes about pain, and fear, and ugliness, but never whines about any of it. I go to Lauren’s work to get away from the insipid tone you get with most writers who are telling us what happened, and how it made them feel. And she can be very funny, but she never gets cute about it. Highly recommended.
Extraordinary commentary about art and sociology. A rare opportunity to enjoy elevated critical language that doesn’t skimp on passion or accessibility. Damn good writing, and damn good thinking.
Saunders is one of our best writers, a master of blending the pitch of high comic spirit with empathy and tragedy. He’s one of the people keeping the always embattled short story form alive, as a commodity about which people give a damn. He talks here about the craft of writing, and we should listen.
These two knuckleheads are indispensable. They provide a constant stream of examples of woke overreach. Their podcast is like a ticker tape of data countering the mainstream liberal canard that cancel culture is not that prevalent, and never heinous. It helps to get this information from serious reporters who are also liberals. If you haven’t listened to a few of their reports, you absolutely don’t know what’s going on with the left.
I first became aware of Ted through his books on jazz, which are among the precious few such books that aren’t insufferable. He doesn’t only write about jazz, though; he’s a reliable commentator on pop culture, and the broader cultural landscape. I never have time to read his stuff, and every time I DO look at his writing, I feel a pang of regret because it’s better than a lot of the crap I DID read recently.
Freddie is highly unusual, in that he’s a serious leftist (more serious than I’ll ever be), but he combines this with a lack of patience for all left-wing disingenuousness, self-indulgence, lack of self-awareness, and so forth. He’s a cold faceful of reality check for the left. He combines intellectual rigor with empathy (not such an easy trick to pull off— it can’t be faked). I wish he didn’t get pilloried for all this, all the time, but better him than me, I suppose. Thanks, Freddie.
It’s useful to see Trump’s GOP from the perspectives of conservatives pundits who think their party has taken crazy pills. They probably wouldn’t put it that quite that way. (Well, Jonathan V. Last might.)
Sullivan is a smart commentator on a host of issues, but what really keeps him in my loop is that it’s hard not to love him. He was an early right wing advocate of gay marriage, and for that reason alone is an historically estimable thinker. It’s lazy, but also tempting, to assume that anyone who doesn’t respect Sullivan (a long list, by the way) is a jackass.
The list of things Alicia Kennedy suggests we avoid is pretty much all stuff I like. 1. Eating meat 2. Trying not to think about the bad things that happen before food gets to my plate Etc. I’ll probably continue to do these things, although I won’t enjoy them as much. But I’ll also be reading Alicia, because I like to see a polemicist who can write. Mostly, they can’t. And I figure I’ll get a little healthier, by eating some of her food and accepting some of her ideas.
