What Writers and Editors Are Reading: February 2023

Recommended by Rebecca Seal: “You should read this even if you think you don’t care about Madonna’s face (tbh, I don’t care about Madonna’s face). Because the thing about Madonna’s face—as Jessica De Fino so brilliantly explains here—is that it’s not about Madonna’s face. It’s about the socially constructed morality of beauty. It’s about the ethics of ageing so-called ‘well.’ It’s about how we control women and how we are set up to fail regardless of what we do, or how we look or choose to look.”

Recommended by Jesse Barron: “After reading approximately ninety-thousand stories about the fictional conductor Lydia Tar, I got curious about the working methods and inner lives of people who wield the baton in real life, so this graceful piece on the German-Argentine conductor Carlos Kleiber was an intriguing find. I’m the kind of person who couldn’t tell his mass from his oratorio (I had to google those terms even to write this sentence), but Matthew Aucoin is such a welcoming writer, my ignorance doesn’t matter.”

Recommended by Justin Heckert: “A look into the life and legacy of either the greatest quarterback of all time, or now just a ‘fading football star….’”

Recommended by Jaime Stathis: “Menopause shouldn’t be a mystery, and yet it is. I’m so glad this important part of life is finally seeing some press. And this: ‘Menopause could represent a time when women feel maximum control of our bodies, free at last from the risk of being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy. And yet for many women, menopause becomes a new struggle to control our bodies, not because of legislation or religion but because of a lack of knowledge on our part, and also on the part of our doctors. Menopause presents not just a new stage of life but also a state of confusion. At a time when we have the right to feel seasoned, women are thrust into the role of newbie, or worse, medical detective, in charge of solving our own problems.’”

Recommended by Wolfgang Ruth: “Vulture critic Bilge Ebiri’s review of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has a headline that says it all: This is Marvel’s cry for help. Read for great analysis of the film, as well as the MCU franchise at large.”

Recommended by Michelle Drouin: “Some leaders in tech have proclaimed AI to be the most important invention of our time, but is there peril looming? The author suggests that in order to fix the problems of chatbots threatening humans, AI needs to be aligned with ‘human values.’ But isn’t open source AI doing just that—unearthing human values? This is an important thought piece for anyone who will ever be touched by the internet.”

Recommended by Kari Paul: “A compelling piece from Leslie Jamison offering some cultural context on the concept of imposter syndrome, questioning whether it has become means of shifting the blame of systemic discrimination onto those who experience it and asking ‘if everyone has it, does it exist at all?’”

Recommended by Mark Dent: “This piece offers rich details about Nikki Finke, one of the most controversial and influential chroniclers of Hollywood and whose story could easily be turned into a movie.”

Recommended by Dan Moore: “I’m thoroughly addicted to Tom Breihan’s ‘Number Ones’ column on Stereogum, in which he breaks down, in delightful prose and precise history, the making and impact of Billboard #1s. Really you could pick any entry, but recently I was taken by his write-up on ‘Hey Ya,’ by Outkast. Come for his incisive take on an important piece of music history. Stay for his just fantastic writing.”

Recommended by Derek Robertson: “In this essay the political historian Anton Jäger proposes we’re living in an era of ‘hyper-politics,’ in which the superficial, self-obsessed ‘post-politics’ of the 1990s and 2000s have been replaced with...a superficial, self-obsessed fixation on political issues, using a handful of French novelists as his guides. Heady stuff, but worth it.”

Recommended by the author: “I’ve written about health and nutrition for years, but when I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, staying healthy took on a new meaning. This piece is about what wellness means when you’re living with an incurable disease.”

Recommended by Hope Reese: “It was so refreshing to read something about the incredibly common—yet highly stigmatized and misunderstood—condition of living with herpes. There are few pieces that address the psychological affects of this particular diagnosis, and it was a brave to tackle this subject from this perspective.”

Recommended by the author: “With a change to federal financial aid eligibility policy, a wave of formerly incarcerated students is likely to arrive on college campuses across the U.S. A significant percentage of them will face such substantial barriers that they won’t return for a second semester. That’s a loss for society, for formerly incarcerated individuals, and for the college communities to which they would otherwise have made valuable contributions.”