What do you feel like everyone else is mysteriously bad at? 

Your answer to this question is your secret sauce in life.

A few hundred years ago, people didn’t have TikTok or Netflix. They had pamphlets (woo!). The “reading revolution” turned ordinary citizens, both rich and poor, into thinkers who birthed democracy, science, and all those other frivolous ideas that require things called attention spans.

And I know, you’re about to hear the same talking points you’re hearing everywhere else. But it’s important. The same species that once devoured Kant and wrote beautiful letters to their spouses now spends nine hours a day watching people lip-sync and sell Athletic Greens subscriptions.

I’ve been shouting it from the rooftops. We need to create a culture of READING again! Smartphones have stolen from us the beautiful thread of literacy that connects generations of readers. Kids in college can barely read a paragraph without asking ChatGPT to summarize it for them. Politics has devolved into WWE performances and shouting matches. Culture has been reduced to Marvel movies and reboots of 90s television.

What’s the solution? You already know what I’m gonna say.

Thirty-three was a big one. Mostly because I became a dad. Our daughter was born on New Year’s Eve — a fitting arrival for a kid destined to reset everything. It’s been a beautiful, if slightly sleep-deprived blur ever since.

One day, I hope these fragments of hard-earned wisdom will form a kind of guidebook for my daughter — a user manual for life, written by someone still learning to use it.

Read the full article here.

I’m enjoying Curated Supply’s once-a-week email because I get to discover beautiful tools and objects selected by Justin, the curator, who prioritizes design and utility over disposable consumer goods. While there are always links to buy, I don’t feel like that’s the purpose of this newsletter. It’s an appreciation of craftsmanship, timeless design, and beautiful form.

h/t Recomendo

I was listening to the Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify when I came across an unbelievable cover of Tupac’s California Love. It sounded like a mythical 1950s funk/soul groove, and the lead singer had the perfect raspy voice that hooked me in right away.

Turns out, it was AI!

If you had asked me my stance on AI music a week ago, I would have said absolutely not. I would never want to listen to music that was generated by a soulless bot. But, god damn, this bot has more soul than any human musician I’ve ever listened to!

At the end of the day, music is just rhythmic sounds that elicit an emotional response. Who produces it and where it comes from is besides the point.

Unfortunately, Spotify took this music down the very next day, but you can still listen to all AI covers on YouTube.

I’m constantly in search of books that contain magic. While there’s really only a handful of books that I would consider truly “life-changing,” that definition is subjective to the individual. For some, it might be The Bible, for others, it might be The Lord of the Rings.

Data analyst Joe Hodve did the lord’s work by exploring datasets of book reviews, from Amazon and Goodreads, and counted the reviews that call the book “life-changing” or similar. The results were surprising:

I’d actually never even heard of the top-rated book, Remember Wholeness by Carol Tuttle. By the look of it, it seems along the lines of The Secret, and the majority of the reviews are from women, but I’ll definitely be adding that to my list, considering the overwhelming impact it’s made on readers.

You can explore all the books in a Google Sheet here.

Keith and Kyle sit down to discuss the life of Frantz Schmidt, a sixteenth-century executioner in ⁠Nuremberg, Germany⁠. Based on Schmidt's unique journal, the book explores his public role in executing and punishing people, his private struggles with his profession and religious faith, and his attempt to gain honor and avoid the social stigma of being an executioner.  A rare, detailed look into the era's criminal justice, social customs, and even medical practices, challenging the common perception of executioners as monsters. 

📚 Books discussed in this episode:

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Thanks for reading!