Best Recs #2
And a summer break
Hello!
This is the second edition of Best Recs, where I will share a selection of things that I have been watching/listening to/reading. You might be wondering if the Substack-universe really needs someone else offering recommendations. It doesn’t. But I wrote about my thinking in the first edition last month. Anyway, I hope that you stick around and please let me know in the comments if there is anything that you have been enjoying recently. I love recommendations 😀
Before I get into the recs (or you can just skip ahead), I wanted to share some housekeeping news that I am taking a break over the month of July.
Recently, Emma Gannon wrote about her post-publication slump, and while I am obviously not in her position (or at least I don’t think that I published a novel and then went on a UK-tour), I could relate to the feelings of “meh” and “being uninspired.” For me, I have noticed that ideas and the connections between these seem just out of reach and so, each time I sit down to write, I am left stuck and feeling frustrated.
I know that this slump is temporary, much like how Gannon writes about her own, and I am looking forward to coming out the other side after a few weeks away spent with family and friends.
That said, I will be doing some writing over the summer. Over the past year, I have been chipping away at editing my postgraduate dissertation as I am hoping to submit this an academic journal. My project focused on the influences of resistance training on female body image (in January, I wrote a piece for Leyla Kazim’s newsletter summarising my own experiences of resistance training).
Two weeks ago my supervisor informed me that the project was almost ready for submission. Like within touching distance! There are a few more things to do: minor corrections to the diagrams, tighten the conclusion, and I need to check the dreaded references (again). So, my goal is get these bits done and hit submit 🤞
Anyway, I am truly grateful to you the readers who choose to spend your time reading The Best of Intentions. Thank you!
Sarah
Reading/Listening to/Watching
These microlibraries in Indonesia are fantastic.
For anyone interested in the human memory. The benefits of our flawed and flexible memory:
“It is well established that people tend to selectively forget negative experiences. Actually, people not only tend to forget unpleasant events faster than pleasant ones, but misremember the past as being better than it really was – suggesting that some forms of forgetting might make us happier.”
Strong Message Here is a BBC Radio 4 podcast hosted by Helen Lewis and Armando Iannucci. It covers “the utterly baffling world of political language” if that is your kind of thing. It is very funny. Separately, when I am in London this summer, I am going to see Helen Lewis in an event where she is discussing her new book The Genius Myth.
This fantastic piece by Heather Havrilesky.
I have been fortunate enough to try various creative endeavours over the past few years. But I like this post by David Epstein (who wrote the book Range), about how hobbies provide us with an advantage in life.
I finished the second series of Shrinking on Apple+. Things I like about the series: Harrison Ford being his best curmudgeonly-self, some tight storylines, and Jessica Williams’s clothes. Things I like less: the fact that I cry when I watch almost every single episode. It’s emotional!
I don’t subscribe to Disney+ or Hulu but I am tempted to just so that I can watch the documentary to celebrate 50 years since the release of Jaws. A film that terrified me when I was a kid and still does as an adult.
And on the theme of films that scare the heck out of me. This article is about the film Return to Oz (40 years since it’s release!). Dorothy being taken to a psychiatric hospital, the disembodied heads, the weird things on wheels, oh my! 😱
Fascinating article about sinking cities around the world due to the over-consumption of groundwater. The outlook for large areas of Asia isn’t good.
Is it loneliness or depersonalisation? A long read from Aeon.
This video about the Hong Kong-born photographer Tseng Kwong Chi (1950-90). I have seen some of Tseng’s work including the striking piece below. You can find more about the exhibition that displayed some of Tseng’s work here.
Finally, here is a selection of posts that subscribers received recently:
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Good luck with the dissertation, Sarah!
Enjoy the break and congrats on your dissertation, Sarah!