Maggie Rogers. We’ve been listening to Maggie Rogers for several years now, ever since “Alaska” caught our attention back in 2016. Her music is perfect for those golden hour drives during the summer when you’ve got the windows down and sunroof open and are just feeling chill. In a pop landscape that feels vapid and homogenous, Rogers stands out for her unique sound and persona (there aren’t a lot of pop stars who graduated from Harvard Divinity School). Rogers reminds me of that super cool girl from high school who was playing coffee shops at open-mic night but was actually good and not annoying and you really rooted for her to make it as a musician. What’s great about Rogers is that she has indeed made it but hasn’t sold out to the industry and maintains that interesting artistic quality.
How to Become a Straight-A Student by Cal Newport. My son Gus is heading into high school (high school!) next year and asked me for some books about how to be an effective student and all-around focused scholar. So I bought him all the books from five-time AoM podcast guest Cal Newport, including this one. He’s found it really useful. Newport’s whole premise is that straight-A students don’t study harder, they study smarter. The book breaks down practical strategies for everything from managing time to tackling essays to preparing for exams. Makes a great gift for any 8th grader moving into high school or a high schooler moving into college.
Sex Without Women. I always enjoy a Caitlin Flanagan barn burner. Her Atlantic essays cut right through the BS everyone else tiptoes around. In her most recent one, she flips the usual narrative about relationships between the sexes. We constantly hear about how women don’t need men anymore because they can support themselves financially. But Flanagan argues that porn and AI have created a mirror dynamic: men who no longer need women for sexual satisfaction. So now we’ve got this perfect storm where neither sex needs the other. Women can pay their own bills; men can get off without dealing with actual human beings. Sure sounds lonely and miserable; we’ve engineered culture for max isolation.
Back to Nature Fudge Striped Cookies. These taste like the Keebler version we all grew up with but better. The shortbread flavor is on point. Perfect for dunking in milk or grabbing straight from the box when you need something sweet. It’s my go-to after-lunch dessert, and I’ve been eating them on the daily for months now.
On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: You Are Your Relation to Pain and 20 Lessons From 20 Years of Marriage.
Quote of the Week
God has so constituted our nature that we cannot be happy unless we are, or think we are, the means of good to others. We can scarcely conceive of greater wretchedness than must be felt by him who knows he is wholly useless to the world.
—Erskine Mason
