The Week in Recommendations 6.14.23

Brandon Taylor's new novel, newsletters we love, a maternity skirt and the perfect white tee.

If you live in the Boston or New York City areas, come hang out with us and see Love To See It LIVE — 6/16 and 6/22! We’ll be recapping an iconic — and hilarious — vintage episode of “The Bachelorette” (season 8, episode 5) with some very special guests: BIP alum Jill Chin and recapper extraordinaire Juliet Litman. We had the most incredible time last week in Philly with Kelsey McKinney, and we can’t wait to do it again. Get your tickets here.

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 the “Vanderpump Rules” finale and reunions! Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

We’ve been reading…

Downtime by Alisha Ramos

, formerly known as the Girl’s Night In newsletter. Alisha’s newsletter contains so many great, well-curated recommendations, so it only feels right to recommend her writing back to you all. I especially enjoyed her recent essay on what mid-career ambition looks like for millennial women who came up in the workforce during the girlboss hustle era. -Emma

“The Late Americans,” Brandon Taylor’s new novel. From his debut, “Real Life,” to his excellent literary criticism on

sweater weather

, I have always admired his writing, so I’m trying to savor his latest take on the campus novel. Set in Iowa City, the novel follows a loosely connected cast of students and locals as they navigate relationships and friendships, academic and professional quicksands, and artistic impulses. I will have more to say when I actually finish it, so stay tuned! -Claire

We’ve been watching…

We recorded with Kate Kennedy of “Be There In Five” this week, and the topic was “The Wedding Planner” — the 2001 rom-com starring Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey. (It’s available on Peacock if anyone was wondering.) This is a movie that I adored when I saw it in theaters in eighth grade. I mean, it was no Nora Ephron film, but it was a passable, delightful romp! Upon rewatch in 2023… I had some lingering questions. Like, did I never notice how much of a misogynist prick Steve is? Why does marriage seem utterly miserable in this movie? Why is Mary’s father trying to marry her off to an Italian stalker who barely registers as a human being? Also… Justice for Fran!!! Can’t wait for you all to be able to listen to our convo about this movie with Kate. We had a blast. -Emma

“Industry,” the HBO show set among the striving newbies at a British investment bank, has filled in the gaps as Greg’s and my favorite show (“Succession”) and favorite hate watch (“Ted Lasso”) both wrapped up for good in one eventful week. The show is rife with drugs, sex, microaggressions, and moral depravity; it’s an interesting foil to “Succession,” which depicts the dull, mostly sexless, ambition-poisoned lives of the very white, very privileged, inconceivably wealthy Roy children. There’s been a lot of discourse about whether it’s problematic that audiences come to root for the Roys due to the show taking their perspective, but as someone who never lost sight of how much the Roys suck, I’m a bit more unsettled by “Industry.” In following the stories of young and ambitious traders — mostly women, people of color, and people from lower-class backgrounds who are constantly faced with reminders that they don’t belong — I very easily find myself aligning with them and pulling for their success, even if success means making huge amounts of money from a morally questionable business. I want Harper to make a billion dollars! And also for no one to be a billionaire! It’s very confusing. -Claire

We’ve been listening to…

“Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried,” a new podcast from Wondery and Bloomberg. I really only followed the whole fall of crypto exchange FTX story by way of other people talking about it and scanning a handful of articles. So I appreciate being able to really process it — and its implications — in podcast form. The journalist who hosts the podcast, Hannah Miller, has a personal connection to Caroline Ellison, which adds an extra interesting way into the story. -Emma

The latest season of “Slow Burn,” hosted by Joel Anderson, takes Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as its slowly unfolding disaster du jour. I’ve listened to the first two episodes and already learned more about Thomas than I thought there was to know, from his youthful belief he was called to the priesthood to his active participation in civil rights activism. -Claire

We’ve been buying…

I have spent years searching for the perfect white t-shirt. I previously found the perfect black tee (this one from Bombas), but the perfect white tee still felt elusive. I am super picky when it comes to my t-shirts. I want them to be thick enough that they don’t show bra lines, structured enough that they drape loosely but in an intentional way, and comfortable enough to make me want to wear them weekly. The result is that I have a handful of white t-shirts that are just kinda meh, and that I rarely wear. But I think I may have finally found a winner in the COS Clean Cut T-Shirt. It’s a little bit boxy, but not too boxy, and it’s made of heavyweight cotton which gives it greater opacity and more structure. -Emma

This gorgeous linen skirt from Beyond Nine, a UK-based maternity-friendly brand I was ~influenced~ to check out by one of my favorite crunchy fashion accounts on Instagram. I remember wearing tons of full, elastic-waist skirts with my first pregnancy, and this time around they don’t seem to be in fashion anymore (and the slip skirts that have replaced them, while super cute, are not bump-flexible). So I jumped at this mixed-check maxi skirt, which is super easy to style for maternity and beyond. (Major warning: this brand is not cheap and does not take international returns so… order with care. I also tried out a super-cute jumpsuit that is now on my Poshmark because I sized down too much.) -Claire

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