#427: “It’s the inequality of higher education that makes me mad.”

Welcome, new subscribers, and welcome back, loyal readers! I’m happy you’re here.

Today’s issue is dedicated to an interview with Paul Tough, the author of “Saying No to College,” January’s article of the month.

Published in The New York Times Magazine last September, the piece explains the significant shift in Americans’ views on the value of college over the past decade. Whereas in 2010, when nearly all families wanted their children to attend college, now only half do. And 45 percent of Gen Z says a high school diploma is sufficient to “ensure financial security.”

What explains this trend — this darkening mood about college? Two things, Mr. Tough explains:

• There’s a difference between the college wage premium and the college wealth premium. In other words, you’ll make more money if you graduate from college. But that doesn’t mean you’ll become more well-off.

• Going to college is a little like going to a casino. If you graduate, you’re largely good (unless you pay full price at NYU and get a Humanities degree). But if you drop out, and you’ve got debt — that’s another story.

There’s much more in the article, but I don’t want to give away too many spoilers. If you haven’t read it yet, I urge you to do so — and to join our discussion if you’re intrigued. We’re meeting on January 28 from 2:00 to 3:30 pm PT.

Join our discussion

I got a chance to interview Mr. Tough (again!) last week, and it was an honor. If you’re a long-time subscriber, you know that Mr. Tough helped get Article Club off the ground. Back in February 2020, he shared his thoughts on “Getting an A,” a chapter from his book, The Inequality Machine. He was generous and thoughtful then. Nothing has changed.

About our conversation: I won’t give everything away, because it’s better to listen, but we discussed a number of topics, including:

• how there’s a major disconnect between “college experts” and regular American families on the value of higher education

• how this piece required a different kind of reporting and approach to writing

• how giving college advice to young people is way more complicated than it used to be

• how even though there’s “something really wrong in higher education,” our country is doomed if this current trend continues

Most of all, it became abundantly clear in our conversation that Mr. Tough knows what he’s talking about and knows how to write. Most of all, I appreciate his clarity and compassion. Especially if you’re a student, parent, or educator, this is an article that is worth your time and attention.

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 6 new subscribers — including Scott, Hoa, Sammy, Amimul, and Kevin — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Quincy! Quinn! Quince!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Wayne, thank you for sharing the newsletter and getting the word out.

If you like Article Club, please help it grow. I really appreciate your support. Here are two ways you can help out:

❤️ Become a paid subscriber, like Molly (thank you). If you’ve subscribed for free for a long time, and you appreciate the articles and author interviews, or if you’ve joined one or more discussions, I encourage you to take the leap. You’ll join an esteemed group of readers who value the mission of Article Club. Plus you’ll receive surprise perks and prizes. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

📬 Invite your friends to subscribe. Know someone who’s kind, thoughtful, and loves to read? I’d love it if you encouraged them to subscribe. Word of mouth is by far the best way to strengthen our reading community. Thank you for spreading the word.

Share Article Club

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

Reflection and Gratitude

Dear Loyal Readers,

Hope you’re having a relaxing (and reading-heavy) end of the year.

I’ll be back next Thursday to reveal our January article of the month. It’s going to be a good one, and I urge you to join our discussion.

Until then, I welcome you to listen to Article Club’s first-ever end-of-year podcast reflection episode, in which Melinda and I discuss some highlights from 2023 and what’s coming up in the new year.

Among other things, we chat about:

• our favorite articles of the year (can you guess?)

• our favorite moments from our monthly discussions

• what we’re looking forward to in 2024 (will Roxane Gay be joining us?)

• how Melinda is going to read Middlemarch

To listen: Hit the play button up top or add Article Club to your favorite podcast player.

Here’s loyal reader Blevins being cozy and reading “Wider than the Sky,” one of the best articles of the year. Do you agree with Blevins that reading on paper is the way to go? (Tell me if you do.)

In the episode, Melinda and I also share our deep appreciation of our reading community here at Article Club. In other words: This means you.

Thank you for subscribing, reading the articles, listening to author interviews, joining the discussions, and sharing your perspectives.

Thank you for being thoughtful and kind.

As we head into 2024 — which will no doubt be a roller coaster — I’m reminded that authentic connection does not come easily. True empathy does not come easily. What we continue to build here is special. In fact, in this clip, Melinda calls it magical.

Thank you again, and see you in the New Year!

Mark

#426: The Friendship Problem

Plus: Melinda and I share our first thoughts on “Saying No to College,“ by Paul Tough

Happy Thursday, loyal readers. In case you’re new here, or the holidays scrubbed your memory: Hi, I’m Mark, an educator in Oakland, and for the last 8-plus years, I’ve been sharing with you the very best articles on race, education, and culture. Thank you for being here.

This week, let’s read, listen, and talk about friends. Or to be more specific, let’s reflect on the friendship problem — how many of us say we want to spend more time with our friends, but rarely do. Scroll down to explore:

• What’s going with our friendships?
  Interested? Read this week’s lead article, “The Friendship Problem.”

• What can we do to decrease our loneliness and improve our friendships?
  Interested? Listen to this week’s podcast, “The Quiet Catastrophe.”

Then, after you read and listen, I’d love it if you shared your thoughts. Our reading community is full of kind, thoughtful people. My hope this year is that we forge deeper connections through shared reading and conversation.

➡️ Do you wish for more or stronger friendships? What’s getting in the way?
➡️ What can we do to address “the friendship problem?”

Leave a comment

⭐️ Join us for this month’s discussion of “Saying No to College,” by Paul Tough. It’s a great article about why more Americans are questioning the value of college. ICYMI, here’s last week’s issue with more info.

We’re meeting on Zoom on Sunday, January 28, from 2:00 to 3:30 pm PT. So far we have 18 people signed up (with a cap of 24), so if you’re interested, I urge you to take the leap — especially if you’re a parent, student, educator, or first-timer.

Sign up for the discussion

📚 If you’re already a yes: This week, let’s annotate the article together.

🤔 If you’re a maybe: Listen to fellow Article Clubber Melinda and I chat about the piece in this podcast episode. Don’t worry, there aren’t major spoilers!

1️⃣ The Friendship Problem

Rosie Spinks is a millennial mom living in London. This means we’re in no way alike. But the way she writes about friendship — it resonated deeply with me. And I have a feeling her essay will do the same with many of you.

Ms. Spinks explores what’s changed with modern friendships and why she feels less interested in making plans. It’s tiring, she writes:

It seems normal now that plans are made far in advance — scheduled around myriad travel and wedding weekends and kids and work commitments —  and then canceled right before. Someone doesn’t follow up, or cancels and then never proposes an alternative plan. Similarly, promising new adult friendships never seem to blossom into the kind of quotidian check-ins and week-to-week ephemera that the friendship of our younger years is based on. Life-long friends make new life choices, drift apart. The friendship fizzles into WhatsApp volleys back and forth, and then someone doesn’t answer the last message, and then it’s a year before you ever talk again.

Has any of this happened to you? (For me, all of it.)

But instead of blaming motherhood, or the pandemic, or inflation, Ms. Spinks explores the “matrix of factors” that figure into the friendship burnout she’s experiencing. For guidance, she turns to Esther Perel (maybe we all should?), who explains that hyperconnectivity is to blame. “People have easily 1,000 virtual friends,” Dr. Perel says, “but no one they can ask to feed their cat.”

What to do, then? It’s time to remember our childhoods, Ms. Spinks suggests, especially as late-stage capitalism atomizes us into our lonely fiefdoms. It’s time to “play freely on the street.”

By Rosie Spinks • What Do We Do Now That We’re Here • 13 min

Read the article

Say hi to loyal reader Rebecca (right), sporting the new Article Club T-shirt, and loyal reader Mike — who seems happy but is secretly jealous of Rebecca.

2️⃣ The Quiet Catastrophe

Picking up where “The Friendship Problem” leaves off, this conversation between Ezra Klein and Prof. Sheila Liming examines the structural issues underlying our friendship and loneliness crisis. In a freewheeling conversation, the two talk about a raft of problems, including the housing crisis, children living far from their families, the nuclear family itself, the ubiquity of phones, the rise of social media, the pervasiveness of AirPods (and the Sony Walkman!), and the loss of public spaces.

In our modern world, casual conversation, much less deep friendship, is now an intrusion, Dr. Liming suggests.

The remedy — hanging out with people, ideally in unplanned, unstructured, spontaneous ways — is easier said than done. After all, as Mr. Klein points out, class matters. The rich can hire a babysitter for a friends’ night out. They can pay a housecleaner while they grab a coffee with a bestie. But despite the inequities, Prof. Liming reminds us, friends don’t come easily. We have to keep reaching out.

With Sheila Liming • The Ezra Klein Show • 64 min • transcript • Apple Podcasts

Listen to the podcast

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 5 new subscribers — including Amimul, Austin, PJ, and Jeff — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Peter! Pedro! Pietro!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Vera, thank you for sharing the newsletter and getting the word out.

If you like Article Club, please help it grow. I really appreciate your support. Here are two ways you can help out:

❤️ Become a paid subscriber, like Lisa (thank you). If you’ve subscribed for free for a long time, and you appreciate the articles and author interviews, or if you’ve joined one or more discussions, I encourage you to take the leap. You’ll join an esteemed group of readers who value the mission of Article Club. Plus you’ll receive surprise perks and prizes. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

📬 Invite your friends to subscribe. Know someone who’s kind, thoughtful, and loves to read? I’d love it if you encouraged them to subscribe. Word of mouth is by far the best way to strengthen our reading community. Thank you for spreading the word.

Share Article Club

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#425: Saying No to College

Join us this month to discuss Paul Tough’s outstanding article on the value of college

Happy New Year, loyal readers. I’m excited to announce that this month, we’ll be reading and discussing “Saying No to College” by Paul Tough.

It’s a great piece, especially if you’re an educator, parent, or teenager. Published in The New York Times Magazine last September, the article explores two big questions:

• Why are Americans losing faith in the value of college?

• What will happen to our country if this downward trend continues?

Mr. Tough writes:

For the nation’s more affluent families (and their children), the rules of the higher education game are clear, and the benefits are almost always worth the cost. For everyone else, the rules seem increasingly opaque, the benefits are increasingly uncertain and the thought of just giving up without playing seems more appealing all the time.

There are many reasons I loved this article. One is that this is my 28th year in education (wow, oh my), and up until recently, I’ve been unabashedly pro-college. My advice to students was simple and direct: Go to the best college you can get into, and you’ll figure out the finances down the road. But a few years back, I realized that this simplistic message was, for many students, lacking in nuance and potentially harmful. It was certainly informed by my own privilege, college experience, and life trajectory. Reading this article helped me understand how I can better guide my students when they’re considering their next steps after high school. (Step #1: Listen.)

Another reason I loved this article is that I’m a huge fan of Mr. Tough. He understands education, he knows how to write clearly, and he’s thoughtful and compassionate. I’m proud to say that he’s our first returning writer at Article Club! He was great back in February 2020, when we were launching this experiment in community reading. I’m deeply honored he’s back, generously participating again.

Read the article

I’d love it if you read the article and joined our discussion on January 28. If you’re interested, this is how things will go:

• This week, we’ll read the article

• Next week, we’ll annotate the article as a group and share our first impressions

• The following week, we’ll hear from Mr. Tough in a podcast interview

• On Sunday, January 28, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT, we’ll discuss the article on Zoom

Sign up for the discussion on Jan. 28

If this will be your first time participating in Article Club, I’m 100% sure you’ll find that you’ll feel welcome. We’re a kind, thoughtful reading community. Feel free to reach out with all of your questions.

Also exciting, as with all Article Club monthly selections, the author will be participating in the festivities, recording a podcast episode for your listening pleasure.

Mr. Tough is the author of The Inequality Machine: How College Divides Us. His three previous books include How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, Mr. Tough’s writing has also appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, GQ, and Esquire, and on the op-ed page of the New York Times. He has worked as an editor at the New York Times Magazine and Harper’s Magazine and as a reporter and producer for the public-radio program This American Life. He lives with his wife and two sons in Austin.

So what do you think? Interested in reading the article and joining our discussion this month? Hope so! If you’re still a maybe, here are a few questions for you. If you’re a yes to one or more of them, you‘re a great candidate.

• Are you an educator who no longer knows how to give college advice to your students?

• Are you a parent questioning how best to guide your kid’s next steps?

• Did you go to college and you’re still paying off your student loans?

Sign up for the discussion on Jan. 28

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 22 new subscribers — including Carl, Ashley, Irene, Fiona, Alessandro, Jay, Barry, Kat, Pamela, Mike, Baidu, Ruchir, Gupta, Eleni, Sean, Ibrahim, Anna, SJD, Matt, Rebecca, Bilo, and Joel — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Olga! Osai! Osiel!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Toni, thank you for sharing the newsletter and getting the word out.

If you like Article Club, please help it grow. I really appreciate your support. Here are two ways you can help out:

❤️ Become a paid subscriber, like Joel (thank you). If you’ve subscribed for free for a long time, and you appreciate the articles and author interviews, or if you’ve joined one or more discussions, I encourage you to take the leap. You’ll join an esteemed group of readers who value the mission of Article Club. Plus you’ll receive surprise perks and prizes. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

📬 Invite your friends to subscribe. Know someone who’s kind, thoughtful, and loves to read? I’d love it if you encouraged them to subscribe. Word of mouth is by far the best way to strengthen our reading community. Thank you for spreading the word.

Share Article Club

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#424: The Best Articles of 2023

🏆 Thank you, loyal readers, for another great year at Article Club

It’s that time of year again. Let’s reveal the best articles of the past year, shall we? But before the unveiling, a couple quick things:

1. Thank you for a great year. Together we discussed 10 phenomenal articles, interviewed 10 outstanding authors, and published 50 issues that included more than 150 great pieces on race, education, and culture. Plus we rebranded and came out with our own Enneagram.

2. Our reading community is strong. We added 300 new loyal readers and 20 new paid subscribers. More than 100 people joined our monthly discussions, facilitated by generous fellow Article Clubbers. We gathered at HHH, read the NYT at the Lake, and held quiet reading hours. And loyal reader Melinda joined us as podcast co-host and Chat leader (see below).

One more time: Thank you for your readership.

OK, are you ready for this year’s winners? (And: Can you predict them?)

Here we go. The selection process was rigorous. After scanning all ~150 pieces, I chose 12 semifinalists, reread them all, and then narrowed the list down to the best of the best. They’re outstanding and in no particular order. I hope you enjoy (re)reading them. If you’re moved, I’d love to hear which one is your favorite. All you need to do is click the button below.

Leave a comment

A happy break and holiday to you. See you in the New Year! I’m taking two weeks off, back Jan. 4.

Update: Article Club Chat

💬 Let’s chat: Hi Article Club! Melinda here! You may have seen that I’ve been hosting a discussion of the new personal essay series by writer and podcaster Ann Friedman over in the Substack Chat. This is an opportunity to connect with fellow Article Clubbers in a flexible way to discuss this series where Ann shares her current unexpected journey from child-free person to new parent. We’ll be taking a short break for the end-of-the-year holidays, but we’ll be back in the New Year on Monday January 8th at Noon Eastern to continue our discussion of this profound essay series. If you’ve been curious about the Article Club community, this is an easy and flexible way to check it out — it’s basically like a fun group chat with a bunch of thoughtful folks reading exceptional writing. And if you’re a long time Article Clubber looking to connect with folks in the community in between the monthly discussions, this is a great way to connect and share! You can read more here about why I was inspired to start this new chat feature, plus listen to my mini-podcast episode and get all the details on how to join! Have a safe and lovely holiday season, and I can’t wait to see you in the New Year!

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1️⃣ The Sunset

Young people are scared of old people, which is to say all people are scared of old people, which is to say all people are scared of death.

Because we’re scared of death, our society doesn’t care about old people, unless they’re our grandparents. So when Lisa Bubert chooses to work as an aide in a Texas nursing home as a 19-year-old college student, making $7.25 an hour, her friends are confused. Even before COVID, the annual turnover rate was 60 percent – not surprising, given the understaffing and underfunding. Despite the horrendous working conditions, Ms. Bubert finds purpose and meaning in her work. It helps to think of her Granny K when connecting with residents who feel isolated and lonely. She recognizes that death is a vulnerable act: “There is no act of love greater than to sit with someone as they face their deepest moment of vulnerability.”

By Lisa Bubert • Longreads • 13 min

Read the article

2️⃣ The Instagram Account that Shattered a High School

This article was our summer blockbuster, telling the story of a racist social media account and its repercussions on young people and their community in the Bay Area. The piece also raises the question: What does it mean to be held accountable for harm that takes place behind a screen?

Ms. Slater writes:

The questions that the account raised — about fighting bigotry, about the impacts of social media and about the best way to respond when young people in your community fail so utterly to live up to the values you thought you shared — had no simple answer. Whatever you believed about Albany, about America, about teenagers, racism, sexism, social media, punishment and the public discourse on each of these topics, the story of the Instagram account could be marshaled as evidence. It was the incident that explained everything and yet also the incident that couldn’t be explained.

I instantly connected with the article, not only because I’m an educator in the Bay Area, but also because of Ms. Slater’s riveting prose. Her reporting is spot on; she does an excellent job eliciting the perspectives of the boy who created the account, his friends who laughed and egged him on, the girls who he harmed, the school administrators who had no clue, and the parents who called for blood. I especially appreciated the care and nuance Ms. Slater brought to this piece.

The article also exposes the limitations of our current notions of justice and accountability. We know old-school punishment doesn’t work. It doesn’t heal. It doesn’t teach. But it’s comfortable. It makes us feel we’ve done something to address the harm. But in this piece, Ms. Slater reminds us that the harm is still there, for everyone involved, including the perpetrator.

By Dashka Slater • The New York Times Magazine • 47 mins

Our interview with Dashka Slater

Read the article

Watson, who belongs to loyal reader Maria, is a nature dog who loves to explore the world and then snuggle the day away. Want your pet to appear here? hltr.co/pets

3️⃣ The Fog: Living With Adoption’s Emotional Aftermath

Originally published in The New Yorker in April, the extraordinary piece profiles three adoptees who have come out of “the fog,” or the denial of the trauma of being adopted. Not all adoptees have mixed or negative emotions, but many do.

They seek their birth parents but are lied to; they can’t obtain their original birth certificates; they’re told they should be happy they’re adopted when their feelings are complicated; they find the adoption system corrupt; they feel like they’re living a double life, estranged from the person they really are.

By focusing on the lives of Deanna, Joy, and Angela, the article also discusses the history and problems of three categories of adoption: invisible (or closed) adoptions, transracial adoptions, and international adoptions.

Author Larissa MacFarquhar writes:

“Coming out of the fog” means different things to different adoptees. It can mean realizing that the obscure, intermittent unhappiness or bewilderment you have felt since childhood is not a personality trait but something shared by others who are adopted. It can mean realizing that you were a good, hardworking child partly out of a need to prove that your parents were right to choose you, or a sense that it was your job to make your parents happy, or a fear that if you weren’t good your parents would give you away, like the first ones did. It can mean coming to feel that not knowing anything about the people whose bodies made yours is strange and disturbing. It can mean seeing that you and your parents were brought together not only by choice or Providence but by a vast, powerful, opaque system with its own history and purposes. Those who have come out of the fog say that doing so is not just disorienting but painful, and many think back longingly to the time before they had such thoughts.

Some adoptees dislike the idea of the fog, because it suggests that an adoptee who doesn’t feel the way that out-of-the-fog adoptees do must be deluded. And it’s true; many out-of-the-fog adoptees do believe that. They point out that a person can feel fine about their adoption for most of their life and then some event—pregnancy, the death of a parent—will reveal to them that they were not fine at all. But there are many others who reject this—who aren’t interested in searching for their birth parents, and think about their adoption only rarely in the course of their life.

I loved this article for many reasons. One was how much I learned. Though I have many friends who are adoptees and adoptive parents, and though I have tried to understand their experiences, I’ve remained fairly ignorant of the pain that some of them have suffered. Another reason was Ms. MacFarquhar’s compelling prose. The piece is long, but I was riveted from beginning to end because the author holds Deanna, Joy, and Angela with compassion and tells their stories directly. There’s no fluff. Every sentence is about honoring their lives and experiences.

By Larissa MacFarquhar • The New Yorker • 71 mins

Our interview with Larissa MacFarquhar

Read the article

4️⃣ Wider Than The Sky

“The human brain,” Phyllis Beckman writes, “weighs approximately three pounds, resembles nothing so much as a shelled walnut, and is the texture, one neurosurgeon tells us, of soft tofu.” Yet our brains hold our memories, they direct our activities, they tell us when when to eat and sleep, they help us dream.

The love we experience in our lives, as well as the pain and sorrow, comes not from our hearts, Ms. Beckman reminds us, but rather from our brains.

This exquisitely written piece, a moving braided essay, explores the meaning of consciousness, the question of free will, and the mystery of chance.

One moment, Ms. Beckman and her husband, the love of her life, are enjoying a summer meal together — beef kabobs on the grill, yellow bell peppers, cherry tomatoes. The next moment, she notices something off. She says to her husband, “Your left pupil is dilated.”

By Phyllis Beckman • True Story • 31 min

Read the article

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 5 new subscribers — including Amanda, Camino, Ellis, Myriam, and Coco — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Nick! Nicholas! Nico!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Mindy, thank you for sharing the newsletter and getting the word out.

If you like Article Club, please help it grow. I really appreciate your support. Here are two ways you can help out:

❤️ Become a paid subscriber, like Bernie (thank you). If you’ve subscribed for free for some time, and you appreciate the articles and interviews, or if you’ve joined one or more discussions, I encourage you to take the leap. You’ll join an esteemed group of readers who value the mission of Article Club. Plus you’ll receive surprise perks and prizes from time to time. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

Also: If locking in a subscription feels like too much of a commitment right now, you can buy me a coffee ☕️ (thanks Beth!) to share your gratitude.

📬 Invite your friends to subscribe. Know someone who’s kind, thoughtful, and loves to read? I’d love it if you encouraged them to subscribe. Word of mouth is by far the best way to strengthen our reading community. Thank you for spreading the word.

Share Article Club

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe. See you on Thursday, January 4, at 9:10 am PT.

#423: Things I Didn’t Know About

3 great articles that widened my perspective and grew my empathy

Hi there, loyal readers, and welcome, new subscribers. Thank you for being here.

We’re coming up on the ninth year of this newsletter. It’s an honor, week after week, to put in front of you what I think are the best articles on race, education, and culture. Along the way, I get to learn a ton. Even if the topic of an article is something I know a little bit about — let’s say teaching — I go in curious and find a morsel of newness. But sometimes, like this week, I’m blown away with how little I know. Doing this newsletter puts me in contact with new experiences and new perspectives that grow my empathy. I hope this week’s articles might do the same for you. They’re about:

• women’s land communities and lesbian separatist collectives in Oregon

• what it feels like to give birth at age 45

• a kissing game in 1958 in Monroe, North Carolina

Depending on your interest and time, I’d love it if you read one (or three) of these pieces and then shared your thoughts about them in the comments. Please enjoy!

Leave a comment

Coming up at Article Club

💬 Let’s chat: Hello Article Club! Melinda here! Our new Substack Chat feature is well underway, but it isn’t too late to join the party! In this Substack Chat, fellow Article Clubbers are discussing the new personal essay series by writer and podcaster, Ann Friedman, where she’s sharing with us her unexpected journey from child-free person to new parent. Ann will be publishing a new essay each Friday for a total of 10 weeks, and the fourth in the series comes out tomorrow! On Monday, December 11th at Noon Eastern, I’ll pop into the chat to get the discussion going! Whether you’re completely new to Article Club and you’re curious to see what the community is like, or you’re a long-time Article Clubber looking to connect with the community more consistently while reading shorter essays — this Substack chat party is for you! You can check out more details here, listen to my mini-podcast episode, and see next steps to join! Hope to see you in the chat!

1️⃣ Women’s Land

In southern Oregon, in between Grants Pass and Roseburg, there’s a 100-mile stretch where in the 1970s, groups of lesbian women, who called themselves landdykes, built intentional communities in order to fight against the heterosexism of second-wave feminism and to live free from the male gaze.

In this well-written article, Bethany Kaylor travels to Fly Away Home during the fall Equinox to spend time with the women who live there. They’re mostly in their 70s and 80s now. They explain how they came to the land, how liberating it was, how they shed their birth names and governed by consensus.

But they also acknowledge that lesbian collectives are no longer as popular as they used to be. Younger women find them too white. There’s no wi-fi. There’s concern that the lands promote a sense of manifest destiny. Worst of all is a charge that the communities are transphobic.

But there’s something that keeps Ms. Kaylor going back, that makes her friends ask her why she’s obsessed with these lands. There are many reasons, she writes:

Time is different on women’s land. Decades stretch and fold into each other: the trees grow higher, the women older, their gardens wilder. Years are measured by lovers and breakups, the bounty of harvests, the slow construction of yurts and cabins, children and grandchildren.

By Bethany Kaylor • Sunday Long Read • 21 min

Read the article

Our beloved Sid turns 14 soon. To celebrate, he chooses to go on hikes in the Oakland redwoods with his favorite human, Abby, who is also one of my favorite humans. Want your pet to appear here? hltr.co/pets

2️⃣ I Gave Birth at 45

“Giving birth at 45 is rolling the dice,” writes Grace Glassman in this fast-paced, frightening first-person account of her birth. After all, Dr. Glassman makes sure to mention, if you’re a woman, and you’re 35 years or older, you’ve reached “advanced maternal age,” with a much higher chance of dying during childbirth. It doesn’t help that the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries.

What begins as a routine C-section slowly changes after Dr. Glassman’s nurse notices the bleeding. Then comes a blood pressure reading of 63/17. Then come the blood transfusions, then pressors, then disseminated intravascular coagulation, then finally hemorrhagic shock.

“In medicine,” Dr. Glassman writes, “it can be hard to recognize the instant when a patient has crossed the line from stable to unstable, or from unstable to gracing death’s door, because there are no clear lines.”

By Grace Glassman • Slate • 20 mins

Read the article

3️⃣ The Kiss

One afternoon in October 1958 in Monroe, North Carolina, three children were playing a kissing game. One was Sissy Sutton, a 7-year-old white girl. The other two were James Hanover Thompson, a 9-year-old Black boy; and his friend David Fuzzy Simpson, an 8-year-old Black boy. Sissy kissed David on the cheek. Then she kissed James. Then the children headed home.

You may not want to read what happened next. Certainly the point of Article Club is not to (re)traumatize you. But this is an important story I didn’t know about, despite my college history degree and my many years of teaching U.S. History. Given that we have states banning the teaching of full and truthful representations of our nation’s past, I do recommend this piece, especially to social studies teachers.

By Sara Rimer • Equal Justice Initiative • 9 mins

Read the article & watch the film

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 9 new subscribers — including Mercedes, Anne, Zack, Liv, Maggie, Vinson, and Ly — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Marcia! Marsha! Marshall!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Norah, thank you for sharing the newsletter and getting the word out.

If you like Article Club, please help it grow. I really appreciate your support. Here are two ways you can help out:

❤️ Become a paid subscriber, like Anne (thank you). If you’ve subscribed for free for some time, and you appreciate the articles and interviews, or if you’ve joined one or more discussions, I encourage you to take the leap. You’ll join an esteemed group of readers who value the mission of Article Club. Plus you’ll receive surprise perks and prizes from time to time. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

📬 Invite your friends to subscribe. Know someone who’s kind, thoughtful, and loves to read? I’d love it if you encouraged them to subscribe. Word of mouth is by far the best way to strengthen our reading community. Thank you for spreading the word.

Share Article Club

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#422: Wider Than The Sky

3 great articles, plus 3 great opportunities to connect with other thoughtful readers

Hi there, loyal readers, and welcome, new subscribers. As we head into December, there’s a lot going on here at Article Club (see below!), so let’s get right to it.

There’s no obvious theme connecting this week’s three articles. But each of the pieces is well written (of course) and falls squarely on the Solemn-to-Silly Continuum. If you want serious first, start up at the top, then scroll down. If you want silly first, start from the bottom, then scroll up. The articles will explore:

• our magnificent brain and how our lives can change in a moment

• the glorious and complicated experience of being a teenager

• the splendor of Cookie Monster and his cookies

Usually I save one article for a special recommendation. But this time, you can’t go wrong with any of the three pieces. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Leave a comment

Coming up at Article Club

💬 Let’s chat! Hello Article Club, Melinda here! A gentle reminder to check out the newest free feature at Article Club — an opportunity to chat with fellow Article Clubbers as we read the newest essay series from writer and co-host of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast, Ann Friedman, as she shares with us her unexpected journey from child-free person to parenthood. We’ll be popping into the Substack chat each Monday at Noon eastern to share our reflections on this 10-week essay series. Whether you’re completely new to Article Club and you’re curious to see what the community is like, or you’re a long-time Article Clubber looking to connect with the community more consistently while reading shorter essays — this Substack chat party is for you! You can check out more details here, listen to my mini-podcast episode, and see next steps to join! Hope to see you in the chat!

💬 Let’s discuss! This Sunday at 2 pm PT, we’ll be discussing “The Fog,” by Larissa MacFarquhar. There’s one spot left. You can sign up here.

💬 Let’s meet up! Our signature gathering HHH is back tonight (and sold out) at Room 389 in Oakland beginning at 5:30 pm. I’m looking forward to seeing you there.

1️⃣ Wider Than The Sky

“The human brain,” Phyllis Beckman writes, “weighs approximately three pounds, resembles nothing so much as a shelled walnut, and is the texture, one neurosurgeon tells us, of soft tofu.” Yet our brains hold our memories, they direct our activities, they tell us when when to eat and sleep, they help us dream.

The love we experience in our lives, as well as the pain and sorrow, comes not from our hearts, Ms. Beckman reminds us, but rather from our brains.

This exquisitely written piece, a moving braided essay, explores the meaning of consciousness, the question of free will, and the mystery of chance.

One moment, Ms. Beckman and her husband, the love of her life, are enjoying a summer meal together — beef kabobs on the grill, yellow bell peppers, cherry tomatoes. The next moment, she notices something off. She says to her husband, “Your left pupil is dilated.”

By Phyllis Beckman • True Story • 31 min

Read the article

One great thing about publishing this newsletter for 8+ years is that you collect a lot of powerful quotations from brilliant people. Here’s Nikole Hannah-Jones in an interview I shared back in 2017.

2️⃣ The Fall of My Teen-Age Self

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve read exactly zero books that Zadie Smith has written. So that’s why I was excited to read this article, a memoir of her tumultuous time as a teenager. If this is typical writing for Ms. Smith, I’m sold. She captures the angst of being a teenager, the big feelings, and the dichotomous either-or thinking. After recounting a harrowing event that leads to “a teen-age epiphany,” Ms. Smith, now a mother of a teenager, wonders if “teen-age misery is different from what it used to be.” I won’t spoil her answer, except to say that I appreciated its nuance.

By Zadie Smith • The New Yorker • 13 mins

Read the article

3️⃣ Nom Nom Nom: Cookie Monster’s Cookies

Here are a few reasons why I’m including this delightful exposé about Cookie Monster’s cookies, what their ingredients are, who makes them, and how they’re made: (1) It’s possible to say that I like cookies more than Cookie Monster, (2) It makes me sad when Cookie Monster has to wait for his cookies to bake, (3) It gives me an opportunity to thank Article Clubber Lisa for the delicious cookies she sent me yesterday. There are a ton of fun facts in this short piece, plus plenty of questions to debate. For example: Which secret ingredient is most surprising? Extra credit: Make a batch and tell me about it!

By Sopan Deb • The New York Times • 5 mins

Read the article

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 6 new subscribers — including Paige, Jay, Alexander, Claudia, Amine, and Brittany — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Lance! Lars! Linus!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Maureen, thank you for sharing the newsletter and getting the word out.

If you like Article Club, please help it grow. I really appreciate your support. Here are two ways you can help out:

❤️ Become a paid subscriber, like Tsoniki (thank you). If you’ve subscribed for free for some time, and you appreciate the articles and interviews, or if you’ve joined one or more discussions, I encourage you to take the leap. You’ll join an esteemed group of readers who value the mission of Article Club. Plus you’ll receive surprise perks and prizes. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

Also: If locking in a subscription feels like too much of a commitment right now, you can buy me a coffee ☕️ to share your gratitude.

📬 Invite your friends to subscribe. Know someone who’s kind, thoughtful, and loves to read? I’d love it if you encouraged them to subscribe. Word of mouth is by far the best way to strengthen our reading community. Thank you for spreading the word.

Share Article Club

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

What gets in the way of our reading?

And: Do we want to do something about it?

Happy Thanksgiving, VIPs. Thank you for supporting me and The Highlighter Article Club with your loyal readership and hard-earned cash.

To express my gratitude, I recorded a quick audio letter to share some thoughts I’ve been having lately about reading. For example:

• how many of us aspire to read more

• how there are many obstacles to reading (especially online reading)

• how maybe we should do something about it?

Do you agree with me — that you’d like to read more, but that things get in the way? If so, I’d love to hear from you. Tell me more! Leave a comment or vote in this poll. What gets in the way of your reading?

(poll conducted on substack)

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. I’m thinking of a few ways we can support each other and our reading goals in the New Year. Stay tuned.

Hope you have a great week, and thank you again!

We won’t let Elon Musk mess with us

VIP audio letter: An invitation, question, and small announcement

Thank you VIPs for supporting me and The Highlighter Article Club with your loyal readership and hard-earned cash. This month’s audio letter from me to you is about Elon Musk, how he’s trying to mess with our reading community, and how we won’t let him. We will win! Also I have an invitation and question for you, too. It’d be great to hear from you. Thank you again and have a great week ahead.

Sign up for our discussion on Nov. 20

#421: Searching For Home

Three great articles on finding the places and people that feel familiar

Happy Thanksgiving, loyal readers, and welcome, new subscribers. I’m happy you’re here and grateful that you’ve allowed me a weekly spot in your inbox.

This week’s articles focus on the theme of searching for home. In typical Article Club fashion, I’ve selected a few outstanding articles that explore a range of perspectives from a variety of publications. (For instance: Have you heard of The Delacorte Review or Rest of World?) I hope at least one piece resonates with you.

You’ll meet a queer Black woman who travels the globe to find a place she feels she belongs. You’ll meet a straight white man who has given up on dating and prefers spending time with his partner, a straight Asian man. And you’ll meet two Korean American adoptees who always thought they were alone until they found each other on Facebook. Please enjoy!

⭐️ Coming up at Article Club

• HHH #21, Nov. 30. HHH is a great way to hang out with fellow kind and thoughtful readers in person. We’ll be at Room 389 in Oakland beginning at 5:30 pm. You can get your free ticket here.

• This month’s discussion, Dec. 3. This month, we’ll be diving into “The Fog,” by Larissa MacFarquhar. It might be one of my favorite articles of the year. There are a few slots left. You can sign up for free here.

1️⃣ A Black Woman’s Search For Her Place in White, White Vermont

As a queer Black woman, Sheena Daree Romero has never felt at home. After growing up in suburban Ohio, where white classmates tolerated her and white neighbors ignored her, Ms. Romero wanted to escape, very far away. She chose Germany, where she spent a year as an exchange student. It was better than the United States, but certainly no dream. Several moves in her twenties brought her around the world — Japan, Spain, Australia, Norway, Finland, England, Portugal, Chicago, Albuquerque, New York, Tajikistan, and ultimately Vermont — on a quest to belong and feel safe. This personal essay tells the story of Ms. Romero’s time in Vermont, where she vows to spend 1,000 days. Her first snowstorm is disconcerting. She writes:

I glared out of the window, amazed, but mostly frustrated, that a place that was already so white in so many ways, could become even whiter. But if I could survive the tundra, I thought, I could survive anything.

Yearning to tough it out, wanting desperately to call a place home, Ms. Romero makes it halfway to her goal. Then she gets hit crossing the street, in a crosswalk, by a truck whose driver who doesn’t see her.

By Sheena Daree Romero • The Delacorte Review • 30 min

Read the article

This week’s theme got me re-reading Matthew Desmond’s first book, Evicted. I highly recommend it. Prof. Desmond joined Article Club earlier this year to talk about his latest book, Poverty by America. Here’s the interview.

2️⃣ Family Membership

This week I met up with a friend I’ve known since preschool. On my drive home, I got to thinking about how rare and special this is. After all, he’s not my sibling, but he might as well be. Then I read this endearing piece about Christopher and Tan, whose friendship is so tight that fellow shoppers at Costco assume they’re married. Christopher used to worry how they came across. Now he lets people assume what they want. He writes:

Tan is not the partner I ever pictured myself spending so much of my life with (and he would say the same). But we do not choose the people who end up mattering the most to us. In this life, if we’re very lucky we get two families: There is the family we’re born into. And then there is the family we find.

As Kathryn Schulz reminded us last year in this interview, let’s not take for granted the loved ones we’ve found in our lives. After all, “it is finding that is astonishing,” she writes.

By Christopher Solomon • Esquire • 9 mins

Read the article

3️⃣ Korean adoptees felt isolated and alone for decades. Then Facebook brought them together.

Since 1953, more than 200,000 Korean children have been adopted abroad. More than two-thirds were sent to the United States. The idea was that the children were orphans (mostly not true), the American parents were saviors, and assimilation was the goal. The reality, of course, is very different. Torn from family and home, many Korean American adoptees have felt lost and out of place. This article follows two women, both 36 years old, who experienced trauma for decades before finding each other on the Korean American Adoptees group on Facebook. Discovering that they were not alone was affirming. There was “instant acceptance, a validation of their lived experiences.” But the complicated feelings persisted, especially when they decided to return to Korea to search for their birth mothers and visit the adoption agencies that gave them away.

By Ann Babe • Rest of World • 23 mins

Read the article

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 23 new subscribers — including Grace, Aileen, Ellen, Mike, Josh, Suzanne, Erik, Kimberly, Alvin, Melinda, Jeremy, Lindsey, Emma, Tami, Kathryn, Ady, Ellen, Jo, Sophie, Iris, Isabela, Dean, and Sarah — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Karen! Kati! Katherine!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Neil, thank you for sharing the newsletter and getting the word out.

If you like Article Club, please help it grow. I really appreciate your support. Here are two ways you can help out:

❤️ Become a paid subscriber, like Suzanne and Tami (thank you). If you’ve subscribed for free for some time, and you appreciate the articles and interviews, or if you’ve joined one or more discussions, I encourage you to take the leap. You’ll join an esteemed group of readers who value the mission of Article Club. Plus you’ll receive surprise perks and prizes. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

Also: If locking in a subscription feels like too much of a commitment right now, you can buy me a coffee ☕️ to share your gratitude.

📬 Invite your friends to subscribe. Know someone who’s kind, thoughtful, and loves to read? I’d love it if you encouraged them to subscribe. Word of mouth is by far the best way to strengthen our reading community. Thank you for spreading the word.

Share Article Club

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.