The satisfaction of finding a good newsletter is unbeatable. Depending on how wide our range of interests is, we can get that little rush of clicking “Subscribe” quite often. Here are some things I love that I’ve miraculously found my way to on the never-ending internet.
I love quality writing.
Alexandra is one of my favorite writers. I rarely email stuff I find online to my friends, but I’ve sent them plenty of hers. She inspired my bio.
She came to mind when I was trying to find what to say to a broken-hearted friend. Her newsletter is beautiful and witty.
Here are two of my favorite things to have landed in my inbox: “But what if nobody shows up?” and “Say it now.“
I love Narratively‘s human stories. Some of the best pieces I’ve ever read in my life are from there.
I love introspection.
When we meet someone new IRL, we have to get to know the person and decide if we like them and if they like us back to establish a relationship of any kind. Interest should be mutual.
Rules don’t apply to the internet.
I only came across this old-school-style blog in April, but despite knowing about it for less than five months, I can confidently say I’m in love with it.
Some of my faves:
- “The Life-Changing Magic of Unfollowing Almost Everybody“
- the Albanian style “Hanging Out is Essential To Our Health”
- “Let’s Talk Like We Used To.“
“Science is organised knowledge. Wisdom is organised life.”
Will Durant
That quote is courtesy of Dense Discovery. Every Tuesday, they send “A densely curated mix of practical and inspirational links at the intersection of tech, design, and culture.” I love all those things!
I liked “An anti-fray charging cable and a weekly habit builder” and “An anti-roll pen and tiny spreadsheets,“ the beginning of which got me THINKING (once I got over the slap that privilege gave me).
I love work.
You also read that essay about how thinking we need to love our job is all capitalist propaganda so our bosses can legally take advantage of us in the name of ~passion~?
I read it too, or versions of it:
- The New York Times’ “Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?“
- Paul Jarvis’ “Do we have to love our work?“
- Buffer’s “I Used to Call My Coworkers “Family.” Here’s Why I Stopped“.
I’m well aware of the ideology. In a way, reading about stuff like that actually makes me mindfully enjoy work more. I especially love The Cut Ask a Boss column, Fast Company Compass, IDEO, and 99U.
I love food.
Unless you’ve lived under a rock devoid of culinary talk, you’ve heard of Bon Appétit.
Well, better keep the sass to myself. Despite coming across BA often, I only really checked it out after realizing Marissa A. Ross, one of my favorite people, is their wine editor.
The way they talk and write about food is ethereal. The headlines, the copy, the pictures, the food styling! ART, I’m telling you.
I’m subscribed to the Bon Appetit, Healthyish, and Basically newsletters. One would argue they’re the same thing, but one would be wrong.
Here’s one from Healthyish “No one told me my 30s would be like this and one from BA “I want to marry these magic beans.”
These are two of my favorite titles from Basically’s newsletter “No-Cook Puttanesca Is Here To Save Your Sweaty Summer“:
- “I Will Not Apologize for the Dorky Way I Cut Cherry Tomatoes” with the byline “Laugh all you want: I will beat you in a cherry tomato cutting contest,”
- “This Trick Makes Tomatoes Even More Tomato-y” with the byline “How to help your tomatoes become their best selves.”
Not optional to enjoy these: an appreciation of good food and good puns.
I love educational journalism.
The criminal justice system is in crisis. The Marshall Project “strives to educate and enlarge the audience of people who care about the state of criminal justice.”
Through their award-winning journalism, they’ve reached thousands of people.
I’ll admit I don’t always read The Marshall Project newsletter when it pops up in my inbox.
Staying informed is key, but compassion fatigue is a real thing.
Life Inside is their newsletter with essays from people living or working in prisons.
From people on death row to those traumatized by having witnessed suicide in there, the first-person articles evoke realness that’s hard to come by these days.
I think it’s especially a mandatory subscription for anyone in the legal sphere. Speaking of educational, award-winning journalism…
I love The New Yorker.
For me, this deserves its own category. Again, I have Marissa A. Ross (and the frequent exposure of her cool TNY tote) to thank.
I would come across a New Yorker article once in a while, read it, like it, then forget about them. Then, something changed and I was hooked.
After reading my three monthly free articles, reading my other three free ones browsing incognito, and asking loved ones to send me some more, I realized I maybe had to subscribe.
If there’s one thing worth paying for, it’s quality writing. But I write full-time so maybe I’m biased 🙂
They have a bunch of newsletters you can subscribe to depending on your interests. I enjoy the Daily Humor and the throwback one. Here are some of my favorites articles:
- “Losing Religion and Finding Ecstasy in Houston“
- “What If We Stopped Pretending?“
- “The Machine Stops”
- “America’s Exclusionary Past and Present and the Judgment of History“.
I love creative newsletters about writing, copywriting and content.
Neville Medhora. Recommended:
- his literal Death Calculator
- this article “Leading Questions (and how they are used in different situations)“.
I love VeryGoodCopy. Some good ones:
- “Consistency: 7 lessons learned after publishing 100 VeryGoodCopy articles”
- “Whenever I’m really unsure about an idea…”.
I like the email format and how he says “Read 318 words below or on VeryGoodCopy.com”. Yes, I wanna know exactly how many words there are.
I loove Honey Copy, I mean go take a look at how pretty the homepage is. The emails are the real treat. There’s no option to share the newsletter (to my knowledge), but it’s such a beautiful experience you have to try for yourself.
You can tell it’s carefully crafted to be an experience rather than an email.
And yes, you’ve probably heard of Seth Godin, he’s been writing every day for years now. That’s an achievement in and of itself! At what he does, he’s a legend.
I like getting his thoughts delivered daily, the ones like:
I love sex.
A lot of us do. It’s natural. Get over it. I came across Gigi Engle when I was maybe 18? I binge-read all her EliteDaily articles in a few days. Then I don’t know what happened, but I forgot about her. She’s a writer, a sex educator, and an awesome person overall, but at the time…
The only thing I remembered about her was her last article about choosing not to have a threesome with her partner and someone else because she was in love with her partner. That isn’t exactly search-engine-friendly material.
I thought about her now and then, she was very sex-positive and open about her experiences in a way that was hard to encounter online at the time.
Three years later, on Twitter, I saw an RT from a familiar name. It was her! I remembered the name! I even remembered an article of hers talking about her name and its history.
Her newsletter is called Weekly Wisdom with Gigi Engle. There are 180 issues and counting, like:
It’s sex-related mostly, yes, but also simply very vulnerable and positive writing.
Ravishly is also very sex-positive. Their newsletter is “a weekly roundup of feelings, family, and feminism”. It’s about sex, relationships, body positivity, race, it’s about everything. Here are some articles of theirs I like:
- “Why I Brag About My Divorce”
- “5 Bad Habits I Won’t Repeat In A Relationship Again”
- “Feminist Healing Through BDSM“
- “Please Don’t Compliment My Weight Loss“.
Not really a newsletter, but a great blog with insightful articles on dating, love, sex, parenting, manifestation and whatnot is La,la,la, let me explain. The way I came across her page is itself proof of the law of attraction, and Lala’s magic, but that’s a story for another time.
I spent an entire afternoon in New York in that fancy place that shall not be named, with the good cause and the bad iced coffee, reading some particular articles of hers, getting chills down my spine.
She helped me heal in more ways than one. Also, her Instagram lives, captions, and stories should NOT be missed.
Lalala has one of the best online communities I’ve come across (so do Jenna & Julien and Fitness Blender).
If you’re in a toxic relationship, the deeper into her articles and posts you dive, the more likely you are to drop that fucker, see your worth and turn into your best self.
I love meditation.
The Mindful Resistance newsletter is beautiful. In many ways, it transcends meditation and mindfulness. They’re trying “to help readers preserve inner peace even as they remain engaged citizens” and “to help transcend humankind’s tribalistic tendencies and so foster the formation of a global community.”
Trust me, even though it seems like they’re exaggerating, they’re not. MRN offers ways to stay sane, yet engaged, in a world that’s often cruel.
The mastermind behind the ideology and the newsletter is Robert Wright. His Princeton course “Buddhism and Modern Psychology” was the reason I started meditating in 2014.
I love the Albanian language.
Se di pse m’ësht dasht kaq shum koh me has n’ktë faqe. Nuk ka gjë gjithsesi, jam e lumtur që më n’fund rastisa. Mu nuk m’pëlqen edhe aq me shkru n’shqip (shumë prej termave t’psikologjisë apo fenomeneve që m’duhet -ose du- të përshkruj nuk ndihem dhe aq rehat t’jem un ajo që i shqipëroj, plus dua t’mund t’më lexojn edhe njerz të huj), por ka gjuha jonë një rrjedhshmëri, pastërti, t’sjell një nostalgji për kohë t shkume, ësht sa e ëmbël, aq e egër, sa kur lexohen shkrime t’tilla si t’Plisit nuk ia del dot pa u emocionu.
Nuk ndihmon që disa prej shkrimeve jan prej shqiptarve jasht Shqiprisë, që e shohin shum ma ndryshe nga ç’e shohim ne që jetojmë, këtu e në Kosovë. I di, oh sa mirë i di çfarë shumë e shumë të këqijash të panumërta ka vendi jonë, e prap…
M’duket ndonjëher kur lexoj shkrime shqiptare të shqiptarëve t’ikun sikur ajo Shqipri që përshkrujn ësht ajo “e vërteta”.
E mbushun veç me mikpritje, muhabete e të qeshuna, dashni t’vërtet (jo e pamundun, por pak ma e vshtir me u gjet “jasht”), e njerz kaq t’zotë e t’mençun sa ato që kan ik, q n’vendet ku jetojn jan t’shkëlqyshëm në fusha nga ma t’ndryshmet. Sikur t’mirat jan, n’fakt, ma t’mdhaja se ato t’kqija.
Kërkoj goosebumps n’translate se nuk po m’kujtohet si i thon kur ke…goosebumps, po n’shqip nuk del gja. E kërkoj t’ndame goose bumps, ndoshta ndihmon? Jo, gunga patë m’thot. Qesh me vete.
Thona najher me t’qeshun me t’shpisë “Shnosh”. Shnosh-i ka përdorim t’gjerë, prej çështjeve më serioze te më qesharaket, që siç e dini po t’jeni duke lexu deri ktu dhe flisni ktë gjuh, në Shqipri jan shum shpesh t’ndërthuruna.
Seriozja e qesharakja, 2-në-1, si shampo me balsam, si shakatë që menjëherë pasuan tërmetin e të shtunës, si gunga patë.
Njerz që takojm n’shkallë thonë “na ka rujt zoti”. Gjana t’tilla na bashkojn gjithmon, po ma mir do ishte me ken t’bashkum pa ken nevoja për gjana t’tilla. Eh nejse, shnosh.
Me shkrime prej ktu e prej “jasht”, Plisi m’ka pëlqy shum, ktë desha me than. Ju kërkoj t’falur për kombinimin rëndshëm të t’shkrujtmes me t’menumen, që e kam gegnisht, ose Shkodranshe kur i thon. M’mori vala. 3 prej tregimeve t’Plisit që m’kan pëlqy, edhe pse ka shum më shum: “Drejt Evropës“, “Fëmijë për botë” e “Futbolli është gjithçka“.
This is it, a glimpse into my inbox, into the things that inspire and teach me every day. Please feel free to mention a favorite of yours in the comments, I’d love to expand my list! Unless you’re a spam bot attracted to this post because of the obscene amount of links, then please refrain from commenting.
I am intrigued of your country and your opinions on general life as compared to others. I feel showing my ignorance speaks to my sincerity.