The Week In Recommendations 10.11.23

A new James McBride novel, a love cult docu-series, podcasts about thorny subjects, fall jeans, a cozy blanket, and a perfume sampler.

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest podcast was about episodes 8 and 9 of “Love Is Blind” season 5! Rich Text is a completely reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

While Claire is out on maternity leave, we’ll be featuring guest recommendations from some of the coolest tastemakers we know. This week, those guests are

Aja Frost

and

Aliza Sir

, co-authors of the newsletter

Platonic Love

,  a twice-weekly newsletter letting you in on what they’re talking about — from motherhood and friendship to weekly obsessions and hot takes.

Aja + Aliza have been reading… 📖

Just finished my latest Elinor Lipman book (“The Family Man”). I’ve now read ten of her sixteen, and to a book, they’ve been clever, funny, and highly readable — the perfect thing to read when you’re having a rough week, taking a flight, or uninspired with everything else you’ve got on deck. Start with “The View from Penthouse B,” "about two middle-aged sisters who move into a West Village apartment together after their husbands unexpectedly leave the picture. -Aja

I picked up Emma Jane Unsworth’s unflinchingly honest memoir, “After the Storm: Postnatal Depression and the Utter Weirdness of New Motherhood,” after I saw

Pandora Sykes

recommend it on Instagram. I had my first child, Jude, last September, and Unsworth’s writing is an important reminder postpartum mental health includes, but is not limited to, formal diagnoses or depression (all of which needs to be discussed and normalized!) I saw myself in her hilarious and candid stories of being a new mother and couldn’t put it down. 

One of the greatest writers, James McBride (I mean, “The Color of Water”! “Deacon King Kong”!), just released a new novel, “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,” exploring the relationships of immigrant Jews and African Americans living side-by-side in a working-class Pennsylvania town. -Aliza

Aja + Aliza have been watching… 📺

I was legitimately sad when Max canceled “Minx,” a show about a radical feminist who ends up starting a porn magazine   — the first season was such a pleasure to watch. Luckily, Starz picked up the show for season 2. It’s just as gutsy, and a little more polished, than before. -Aja

As Emma has said, finding a new show that my partner and I can agree on watching together is… complicated. But when all five seasons of “Friday Night Lights,” the story of a small Texas town and the personal lives of its star football players (and a book we’d both loved!), started streaming on Netflix last month, we found our answer — at least for the foreseeable future. I’ll admit, the first several episodes failed to draw me in (too much football), but in case you, too, missed “Friday Night Lights” in its heyday, I’m loving it now and fully in the grips of Tim Riggins’ gaze. -Aliza (Aja: Between Riggins, Matt Saracen, and Lyla Garrity, I had a crush on nearly every character on that show.)

Aja + Aliza have been listening to… 🎧

Remember “Girls Gone Wild”? Its rise (and subsequent fall) were vaguely on my radar in the early 2010s — after listening to the Infamous podcast’s five-part deep dive, I can recount the entire fascinating saga… and have lots of thoughts. Infamous is hosted by Vanessa Grigoriadis and Gabriel Sherman, two talented journalists who have been reporting on Hollywood scandals for the past two decades and therefore have lots of first-hand experiences and anecdotes to weave into the episodes. I’m excited to listen to their mini-series on Tory Burch’s empire next.

I have

Casey Lewis

from platonic love favorite

After School by Casey Lewis

to thank for introducing me to Kaytraminé, a bouncy and perfectly paced collaboration between Kaytranada and Aminé. The 11-track album features some fun guests, including Pharrell and Snoop Dogg. Listen when you need to inject your October with a little summer. -Aja

Aja + Aliza have been buying… 🛍️

After the third time I walked by someone on the street wearing the same Le Labo perfume as me, I decided it was time for a change. The DS & Durga Greatest Hits sampler kit has been really fun to rotate through. Every scent I’ve tried so far has been beautiful, complex, and wearable — the perfume trifecta — and at least so far, I haven’t smelled them on anyone else. -Aja

This luxurious throw blanket from Sunday Citizen travels with me between couch and bed throughout the week. For those of us with dogs who shed (and are, cough, sometimes allowed on the bed), it’s machine washable. -Aliza

Emma has been reading… 📖

Honestly… I’ve been doing a lot of doom-scrolling. It’s been a very hard week. I am an American Jew. I have spent significant time in Israel, have treasured loved ones who live there, and have also always opposed the occupation. The pain of the last few days has been nearly unbearable to bear witness to even from far away — the death, the destruction, the incomprehensible cruelty of it all. And the discourse that has erupted on social media has made things feel even worse. I have watched people I love and respect express radically opposite opinions, many in ways that feel counterproductive or dehumanizing or self-righteous. I have loved ones who have been intimately and irrevocably impacted by the violence. No one’s pain is more important than another’s, but what I know is that my community is reeling right now from a massacre.

I am not interested in getting into a debate about Israel/Palestine on Instagram, because those conversations almost always lack nuance, and people are casting about for a portal for their pain and anger. (Which, on an emotional level, I really understand!) I do, however, hope we can try to hold multiple truths at one time. I hope we can continue to listen to each other, and hold space for each other’s humanity and heartache, even when we don’t see eye to eye. I hope we can approach other people’s deepest hurts with compassion rather than glib Instagram captions. I hope we can hold onto the overarching goal of peace and liberation for all peoples. And I hope we can do those things without hardening our own empathy and humanity in the process.

Journalist

Jessica Yellin

’s newsletter,

News Not Noise

, is a good one to follow for digestible information on what is unfolding. Also, David Remnick’s piece in The New Yorker, “Israel’s Calamity — And After,” is worth a read.

Emma has been watching… 📺

As someone who spent years toiling away on dating apps — and years analyzing reality dating shows — I am always fascinated by the love advice industry/ecosystem, especially the ways that our desire for connection can be weaponized and exploited. Enter Twin Flames Universe. I listened to the Wondery podcast about this online cult when it came out in 2022, so I was super excited to learn that Prime was releasing a three-part docu-series on the subject, “Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe,” featuring journalist Alice Hines, who Claire and I both overlapped with at HuffPost back in the day. It is well-reported and absolutely gripping.

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

Two episodes of podcast that calmly deliver much-needed information about things that feel deeply thorny and that I have a hard time knowing how to untangle my feelings about: First, the “War In Israel” episode of The Daily, which is a really useful primer for people trying to understand what has been happening in the region as well as some of the larger geopolitical dynamics at play. Second, the “Ozempic” episode of Maintenance Phase. I have been needing Aubrey and Michael to break down the research, implications of and discourse about the semaglutide class of drugs for months now, and they do it beautifully.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

My current favorite jeans are these ones from Zara, which are sold out in most sizes in both washes. I wanted to find a comparable silhouette that would last longer than Zara’s pre-distressed denim, and then I walked into Everlane and walked out of the store with the Utility Barrel Pant in New Blue. I sized up because I wanted a loose and super comfy fit.

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