A list of good reads
- New York Times (splainer gift link) traces the legacy of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’—a show centering truly terrible people that became the defining US sitcom.
- Public Books compares the disparate depictions of hijabi characters on the small screen compared to the big screen.
- Lauren Markham in The Guardian travels across Italy to determine whether the trend of selling houses for a single euro is the life swap dream or just a marketing gimmick.
- Elizabeth Kostina in Aeon analyses architectural restorations of lost structures to ask—at what cost is the past rebuilt?
- Scroll offers a history lesson on the maritime Floating University—which sailed to India in the 1920s for ‘cultural immersion’.
- The Conversation has a primer on how to spot and avoid online ‘ghost stores’ that sell cheap, poorly manufactured clothing from Chinese factories under the illusion of prestige and luxury.
- Wall Street Journal (splainer gift link) looks at how matcha lovers are turning on each other over a global shortage.
- Madhura Rao in Good Food Movement sounds the alarm on Geographical Indication (GI) tags—distributed unequally between farmers and labourers.
- BBC News breaks down ‘wobbly-tooth puberty’—a long neglected field in science that concerns how children’s brains change from ages 6 to 11.
- From bird-safe glass to sculptures for insects, Financial Times (splainer gift link) asks whether an octopus can appreciate art.
