Links
A regularly updated collection of things I find worth reading, watching, or listening to. Subscribe via RSS.
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NPR’s “Books We Love”
№ 111
Great reads, thoughtfully curated by NPR They’ve been doing this for a while, apparently, but I’d never come across it before; NPR added the year of 2025 to their Books We Love directory. You can use the sidebar on the left to filter for a combination of things (e.g. Staff Picks + Seriously Great Writing + Fiction), and then use the navigation up top to skip through the years.
I’m currently into short stories and essays, so this filter will be my go-to for now.
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A still from Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024) Last week, I watched Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu for the first time. I loved his work on The Witch and adored the madness of The Lighthouse, so was keen to see his take on this classic. And, it was breathtaking.
I watched it projected on a wall, sound blasting through a great installation, and the cinematography completely blew me away. The atmosphere they were able to create for this film is nothing short of astonishing. During a few scenes, I noticed I literally sat there with my mouth open. Visuals, audio, acting; everything’s spot-on.
A still from Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024) CineD had a closer look at how they were able to get it done—especially the practical lighting, when seen onscreen, is magical.
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The Quietus, revamped
№ 109
Earlier this year I noticed The Quietus got revamped, and I’ve been reading their work much more since then. The glow-up was done by 11:11, who took on the branding, design and development work.
The revamped The Quietus, all images courtesy of 11:11 I appreciate the tactile nature of the work; the combination of the typography and illustrations makes the site feel ‘reader-first’, if that makes sense—as opposed to most similar sites, where the writing is buried beneath a pile of ads, waiting to be excavated.
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Easy Puddings
№ 108
Cherry Almond Jell-O from “Quick Easy Jell-O Wonder Dishes”, 1930 My friend Iris, with whom I make TRANSCRIPT Magazine, has started a newsletter. It’s called Easy Puddings, and its first issue—On puddings, suns and other circles—is out now.
Easy Puddings is about what goes into making things, borrowing things, mixing things; about reading, writing, and other desk movements.
I chopped the e-mail up into three parts: 1) things I thought about at my desk, 2) things others have thought about at their desks and 3) a diptych as dessert. Easy.
Go ahead and subscribe, if you fancy it.
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Photo by Anna Watts for The New York Times Here’s a place I’d like to visit: Argosy Book Store in Midtown Manhattan celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. Surrounded by skyscrapers, it’s run by three sisters (90, 88 and 84 years old, respectively). Already a couple of decades under their belt, they took over from their father in 1991.
The sisters still go on book-buying trips around the city by cab, sometimes several times a day. Back at the shop, they spread the books over a broad, green table in the middle of the main browsing area on the first floor, just as their father taught them to do. They assess, catalog and shelve their finds, in between assisting customers.
On retiring, Ms. Cohen (84) says:
I’d like to, too, but working here is really interesting,” she said. “Every day, you don’t know who is going to walk in the door or what books are going to come in.
Book stores are fantastic places. Every day presents a chance to make someone’s day, and I dream of having one of my own, sometime.
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Illustration by Pierre Buttin Zadie Smith, on essay writing for The New Yorker, making it sound easy (paywalled once more, I apologise). In-between the lines, her most puzzling admission, for me:
(I still write the opening and last lines of an essay first.)
Fascinating. The meandering form of an essay is difficult enough to master, let alone knowing where you’ll end it before you commence.
“Bob’s your uncle".
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Ben Lerner’s (paywalled) essay on his open-heart surgery for The New York Review is something else. Gruelling, but beautiful.
As she removed the tape and cleaned the tips of the wires where they protruded near my lower sternum, I asked her what kind of pain I should expect. I’d been told the wires were “gently tacked” to the outermost layer of my heart wall. She said that patients rarely reported pain. [...] What people report, the nurse explained, is that it feels like mice scurrying in their chest. Wait, more than one patient has said this thing about mice? I asked. Yes, she said. A lot of people have told me that.
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I very much enjoyed this two-hour mix by Caribou, Floating Points and their intern, Fred Again.., who had me at the drumless version of Earl Sweatshirt’s “Chum”.
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T-shirt design by Andrea Vacovská, photography by Viktorie Macánová Over on The Brand Identity, Daniel Quisek explains how the Prague-based type foundry Displaay has overhauled its licensing and reimagined its website.
The new licensing model strips away the usual complexity. Instead of tracking device counts, managing web traffic metrics, or navigating tiered user structures, it comes down to one question: how many people work at the company? That’s it.
On top of that, they offer individual styles and custom variable packages. They even allow you to take out characters you don’t think you’ll use, and you can test everything for free on their website.
This kind of flexibility is very non-standard in the world of type foundries, but may gain traction from here on out.
Oh, and did I mention their new typeface, Serrif? What a beauty.
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The sketchbook of Rose Wong My friend Ilse, an illustrator herself—for whom I’m designing a new website—pointed me to the sketchbook of Rose Wong. A beautiful collection of photos of her sketchbooks, full of (fineliner?) drawings.
I just wish I could enlarge them to admire them more closely.