The Week In Recommendations 8.28.24

A cozy cardi, the new Sabrina Carpenter, and Emma's travel adventures!

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 “Love Is Blind UK” season 1 finale! A pod about the LIB UK reunion is coming later this week. Rich Text is a completely reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

Claire has been reading… 📖

The first few chapters of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s “The Long Island Compromise,” which has held me rapt even though I’m reading it in the Kindle app on my phone during odd moments (never an ideal reading experience). I’m reminded of why “Fleishman Is in Trouble” sucked me in, and why her celebrity profiles were appointment reading — her prose positively crackles, her characters feel (often painfully) real, and every page is packed with sharply observed details.

Emma has been reading… 📖

I got through the first two books on my end-of-summer reading list! When I say that I do my best reading sitting by a pool, I truly am not exaggerating. There’s something about being home on my couch that feels full of distractions — my to-do list! my TV watch list! my anxious thoughts! But all of that recedes when I’m traveling, especially when I’m by a body of water, manmade or otherwise. This week I ready “Wedding People” by Alison Espach and “A Novel Love Story” by Ashley Poston. I think these books are trying to do different things, so I don’t want either of them to suffer by comparison, but for me, “Wedding People” was both fun and deeply thought-provoking and made me linger with its prose, while “A Novel Love Story” was mostly just fun. (Not a knock on the sweet novel, which I think makes a perfect vacay read.)

Espach’s novel is set at a fancy hotel in Newport, Rhode Island, during the six-day wedding extravaganza of a woman in her late 20s named Lila. But the real protagonist of the story is Phoebe, an adjunct professor in her early 40s who has shown up at the hotel, not to attend the wedding, but to die by suicide. I won’t give anything else away, but it’s dark and comedic and ultimately very hopeful. Highly, highly recommend.

Claire has been watching… 📺

Double helpings of “The Bachelorette” and the “Love Is Blind: UK” reunion! The reality dating show gods (ABC and Netflix) decided to rain content upon us this week, so it’s been an intense week of viewing and note-taking. And between the men taking over Jenn’s season, and the devastating breakup on “LIB” that sent me straight to my fainting couch, it all brought the drama I could have asked for. Stay tuned for a chat about the “Love Is Blind” reunion with

Gibson Johns

, coming soon! (I also went on his podcast, “Gabbing with Gib,” this week to discuss “LIB: UK” — please do enjoy all our “LIB: UK” content.)

Emma has been watching… 📺

My reading quotient is up and my watching quotient is WAY down. Vacation will do that to you! I’ve mostly been focused on keeping up with “The Bachelorette” so that I can rejoin Claire to recap the season finale. I’ve also begun dipping into some screeners for the Netflix adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s “The Perfect Couple,” and oh man is it everything I hoped for thus far. Rich people behaving badly is truly my favorite genre!!!

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

The dulcet tones of my children’s voices, of course! We’ve entered that chaotic liminal space between “summer” (when there are camps and daycare) and “the school year” (when there is school and daycare), so my children are simply… around during the workday, or at least during a lot more of the workday than usual. They always want to play with the same toys, even though they are 4 and 1, which means they are often both crying, but when they’re not crying they are laughing or, in the 4-year-old’s case, talking incessantly. I love my overstimulating kids!

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

Sabrina Carpenter’s fabulously, deliciously poppy new album, “Short n’ Sweet.
I truly laughed out loud at the lyrics in “Slim Pickins.”

Jesus, what's a girl to do? / This boy doesn't even know / The difference between / "there," "their" and "they are" / Yet he's naked in my room

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

Embarrassingly, I’ve been back on the buying/returning treadmill lately. I got a bit swept up in the pre-fall collections from my favorite brands (apparently every season now requires a pre-season, early season, and mid-season drop), but then most of the purchases either didn’t work for me or couldn’t be justified.

One thing I am planning to keep: the Christy Dawn Nola cardigan in toast, a splurge even after I redeemed a huge stash of Christy Dawn points to buy it. I’ve been trying to allocate less of my budget to sundresses (beautiful, effortless, overrepresented in my closet) and more of it to knitwear (practical, requires me to think of outfits to put together). I dislike synthetic knits that quickly pill and fall apart, but nice sweaters will really cost you! Unfortunately this one is just perfect, with the waist cropped at the right spot for high-waisted pants or dresses, a nubbly and inviting knit texture, and a statement sleeve that sets it apart from more basic sweaters. It’s cotton, so it’s not scratchy, but the yarn is bulky, making it a substantial layer ideal for fall weather.

While I was thinking ahead to fall, I also pulled the trigger on a long-contemplated purchase: a Quince silk slip skirt to wear as a skirt and as a slip. I got the forest green, since I love the color and also think it will work well underneath the tartan and dark floral dresses I’m hoping to wear into the colder months. Nothing slips like silk, and I hate it when my dresses cling to my tights, so I am crossing my fingers that this is the answer.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

No fun souvenirs yet, other than a bottle of wine from Casa do Rio, where I stayed in the Duoro Valley, but I did need to spend money this week on adding additional baggage to my already-overpriced, forthcoming EasyJet flight from Lisbon to Barcelona. You truly cannot take a cheap flight within Europe unless you travel VERY light, which simply was not possible for us this time given that we’re going to a wedding. (Turns out that formalwear and heels do not fit into a small duffel alongside 10 days of clothing.)

Claire has been making… 🧶

Not much, aside from the rotisserie chicken pasta from the NYT and the oven-roasted corn on the cob to have with our extremely elegant dinner last night (hot dogs warmed on the stove in hot water). It’s double “Bachelorette” and “LIB: UK” reunion week, and school is out! We do what we must to survive!

Emma has been making… 🧶

The drive from Porto, Portugal, straight inland. I spent the last few days at Casa do Rio Wine Hotel, the Vila Nova de Foz Côa sister property to Quinta do Vallado. Adam had been eyeing this property for YEARS, and I am so glad that we finally made the trip. The service was 10/10, the view from the pool was maybe the most divine I’ve ever seen, and the in-house dinners were incredibly impressive, and all paired with wines that were perhaps a little *too* delicious. If you’re planning to go to the Duoro Valley and don’t feel like shelling out 2k a night to stay at Six Senses during the peak season, Quinta do Vallado is a very, very, very special property. There’s a reason we met several groups of people who come every single summer — including a couple who got married there and were celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary!

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