A list of good reads
- The passing of David Lynch has prompted plenty of great writing paying tribute to the visionary filmmaker. The Guardian has the all-encompassing obituary on his career while Rolling Stone appreciates him as the “great, golly-gee chronicler of American darkness”.
- Also in The Guardian: how the mysterious suicide of Mary Shelley’s elder half-sister, Fanny Imlay, served as a morbid inspiration for her novel ‘Frankenstein’.
- New York Times (splainer gift link) claims that sex scenes in movies are back, but they aren’t exactly sexy—instead involving more complex power dynamics between characters.
- BBC News tells the story of Irawati Karve—India's trailblazing female anthropologist who challenged Nazi race theories.
- Also in BBC News: the astonishing legacy of India's Chola dynasty, featuring temples, treasures and trade
- Wall Street Journal (splainer gift link) reveals that actually, vacationing in a ghost town can be quite a grim experience.
- Good Food Movement looks at the fragile future of Guchi—a rare form of morel mushrooms found in the Himalayas and highly sought after in gourmet cooking.
- The Conversation analyses the ‘hot hand’ and the gambler’s fallacy, explaining why our brains struggle to believe in randomness.
- Public Books traces the economic history of rap beefs, in light of last year’s Drake-Kendrick Lamar lafda.
- The Print bats for illustrative Indian history books as a guide to push back against misinformation in today’s polarising times.
- Mint reviews the new English translation of Unni R’s short story collection—‘Malayali Memorial’—featuring notes on the fragile Malayali male ego.
- Here’s a throwback pick (h/t subscriber Manish): in 2017, Bleacher Report detailed the long stalker hell faced by Italian footballer Fabio Quagliarella—during his time playing for Napoli.
