A list of good reads

• Sam Graham-Felsen in New York Times (splainer gift link) asks where all his deep male friendships have gone.
• Also in New York Times: What if making cartoons becomes 90% cheaper—thanks to AI?
• BBC News explores the peculiar smells of outer space—from cat urine to gunpowder!
• The South First looks at Bengaluru’s continuing tryst with colonial legacy—with popular locations named after nineteenth century British officials.
• FYI: We are just one branch of a diverse human family tree. Aeon identifies these other Homo sapiens aside from Neanderthals—who they were, and why we replaced them.
• Turning the clock back to 1915, Scroll tells the story of how the British Raj treated an Iranian governor after occupying his province and exiling him to Pune.
• Chris Kay in Financial Times (splainer gift link) traces how Lawrence Bishnoi declared war on Salman Khan.
• The Atlantic (splainer gift link) peers inside the world of extreme-privacy consultants, who, for the right fee, will make you and your personal information very hard to find.
• Wall Street Journal (splainer gift link) lifts the lid on a corruption scandal rocking Monaco—which involves Prince Albert II and his longtime money manager.
• Also in Wall Street Journal: the rise of ‘romantasy’ novels—amid the decline of romance in general.
• Good Food Movement breaks down how lemon groves turned Manipur’s Kachai village into a citrus empire.