Reading

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Reading

Books were my university, my best friend, and my saviors time and again. There’s fiction too — the novels that shaped me are their own list, for another day.

Each of these grew my brain and made the world bigger than I’d understood it to be. Several of these writers turn up elsewhere on this page — some on podcasts I recommend, some writing newsletters of their own.

These days I listen as often as I read. On the treadmill, in the kitchen, at three in the morning when sleep won’t come. Neuroscientists at Berkeley mapped what happens in the brain during both, and found that whether the words come through your eyes or your ears, your brain builds meaning in almost exactly the same places. So I’ve stopped treating it as the lesser option — especially when the author narrates.

Substacks

Independent writers doing the work no algorithm would have assigned them. This is my App/source for reading about current events, hearing directly from voices I trust and paying for a subscription for some of them to support this kind of platform when the media is so often biased and we don’t know whom to trust.

Aging Boldly

The Queenager — Eleanor Mills
The Queenager — Eleanor Mills

Eleanor is a badass journalist who coined the term Queenager and shows us all how it’s done. She runs NOON, a platform for women in midlife reshaping their identity, supporting each other and making things happen!

Maria Shriver
I’ve Been Thinking / The Sunday Paper — Maria Shriver

Maria is bold and addresses all kinds of issues from how we can use rage for positive outcomes, dementia prevention and care-giving, to rebuilding your sex life in midlife. I’m in!

Dr. Marie-Claire
Dr. Marie-Claire

There’s a quiet fury in Haver’s writing on how little women have been told about their own bodies, and she’s channeled it into becoming one of the clearest voices on menopause working today. She’s an OB/GYN who shifted her practice after living it herself. The science is solid and the tone never once suggests you should be handling this better.

Displaced Peoples

Walking the World with Chris Arnade

This is a new voice I am reading, brought about by my feeling for displaced people. He doesn’t focus on refugees or immigrants, rather the poverty and desperation in today’s public disorder of society that forces people to turn to drugs and crime.

Walking the World with Chris Arnade

Democracy & Current Events

Passionate experts and thought leaders who help me think, not the ones who tell me what to think.

The Little Law School with Kim Wehle
The Little Law School with Kim Wehle

Kim is not only a dear and trusted friend, she inspires me every time I listen to her speak about democracy, love, gaining perspective and what we can do to make the world a better place. Her pieces on the politics of today make it easy to talk to my friends and family and try to make a positive difference myself.

News Items — John Ellis
News Items — John Ellis

News Items was referred by a friend I trust — to read the news in shorter form, compiled from respected sources and web sites, checked for authenticity and fact based not opinion based. The articles are short but succinct.

Letters from an American — Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American — Heather Cox Richardson

Heather Cox Richardson is a history professor interested in the contrast between image and reality in American politics. I hope she is not a list somewhere in the Whitehouse, there would be a huge uproar if this modest American treasure were to disappear.

Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

Knowing Joyce has a real southern drawl endears me to her and her knowledge as a law professor and former US District Attorney helps me know what’s going on and what I can do as a citizen who loves her country.

American Woman — Dina Honour
American Woman — Dina Honour

Dina is a talented and fearless writer — an unsung hero! She discusses feminism, politics, world events combined with wit, fun and wise compassion. She writes an essay a week and gives me hope.

Melissa Dalton-Bradford
Melissa Dalton-Bradford

Melissa is a fellow expat who lives about 2 hours from me. She studied and has expertise on WWII Germany, what and why it happened and draws comparisons to what is happening today in the US and worldwide. She has BALLS!

Scott Galloway
Scott Galloway

Scott Galloway shows men what it’s like to be masculine and vulnerable — the STRENGTH of that. He advises men on how to live in today’s world full of strong women (and yes, he sees that as a good thing) rather than the toxic masculinity going around. He philosophizes on AI, democracy and current events and is a finance expert. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I learn from him, and feel he is a voice to be heard today.

Stories From The Kitchen Table

Longer Tables with José Andrés
Longer Tables with José Andrés

Another hero of mine, the founder of World Central Kitchen, a non-profit that goes to places of conflict or tragedies and feeds tons of people. His enthusiasm is contagious; the recipes and anecdotes are fun and easy.

Learning to Live Well with Ella Mills
Learning to Live Well with Ella Mills

I’ve been a fan of “Deliciously Ella” since her first cookbook came out, when she solved her myriad of health problems through good eating and wellness habits after all the doctors and medications failed. She has evolved and me along with her. I noticed that many of her fav books are mine — an instant kindred spirit!

Newsletters

Newsletters are a lighter way to read the journalists, writers and thinkers I follow. Not lighter in substance, lighter in demand. They arrive, you read them in fifteen minutes, you’re done. No feed, no algorithm deciding what you see next. They are free or user-funded. What I like is that you get a person thinking rather than a person performing. Sometimes that’s an argument I need to sit with. Sometimes it’s a recipe or exercise tip and I’m open to it all!

The Sunday Paper — Maria Shriver
The Sunday Paper — Maria Shriver

This is one I always read. She’s got her finger on the pulse of so much that interests me — news, culture, aging, health, purpose, spirituality — and it lands on a Sunday morning, which is exactly right. Her own weekly essay inside it is called “I’ve Been Thinking.”

Word of Honour — Dina Honour
Word of Honour — Dina Honour

Clever, strong and funny — Dina is inspirational and brave. She writes at the intersection of parenting, feminism, politics and life, a New Yorker who built her adult life in Europe. Arrives on Fridays, entirely reader-supported.

The Queenager — Eleanor Mills Noon
The Queenager — Eleanor Mills/Noon

Inspiration, community and joy for getting through the pinchpoints of midlife. Eleanor shares what’s going on with us Queenagers — the news and happenings that affect all of us as midlife women. Free, Sundays.

Mark’s Picks — Dr. Mark Hyman
Mark’s Picks — Dr. Mark Hyman

An easy read about what he’s loving lately. He gives up-to-date solutions for optimizing health, debunks a myth, or shares a recipe for fish tacos. Fair warning: there are supplement ads, and I skip those.

The European Correspondent
The European Correspondent

A community-funded outlet telling the stories of Europe, written by local journalists across seven European regions. It exists because Europe lacked a genuinely European press. I recommend the weekly “best-of” — the daily is a lot.