The Worst Air Disaster You’ve Never Heard Of 

Captain, that was a lilly dilly!

https://magazine.atavist.com/2025/american-hindenberg-zeppelin-disaster?src=longreads 

Omar El Akkad's One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. 

'On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: "One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this."'

I don't know how the recent-ish three short, but very different, including author's backgrounds, Ta-Nehisi Coates', Peter Beinart's and now (in my reading order) Omar El Akkad's books are/will be taken, but this one hit hardest for me. Part of that may be being a parent/view towards the future. All certainly worth a read.  

May hit Finkelstein's next. 

 

Finding Peter Putnam: The forgotten janitor who discovered the logic of the mind

https://nautil.us/finding-peter-putnam-1218035/ 

It’s easy to say why someone is wrong. The hard part is figuring out why they’re right. 

 

Guido Barbujani - The Invention of Races - Science Against Racism

Well I'm already anti-racist and I think "race" is a looooong outdated concept but still it feels good when science agrees with your point of view. Really good book, has no pseudo-scientific bullshit in it, not easy to understand, going to take a bit longer to finish than my regular reading materials. But still a good read.

In the Wake of the Edmund Fitzgerald

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/arts/edmund-fitzgerald-gordon-lightfoot.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sk8.MyaM.8WtsXHa1Kr_6&smid=url-share (gift article) 

This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You 

by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas

Edited December 14, 2025Dec 14 by HiWire

The Federalist Papers.

https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/full-text

and the slightly more readable format.

https://csac.history.wisc.edu/constitutional-debates/the-federalist-papers/

no particular reason.... 

 

This section starts to hit harder:

The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union

A few highlights...

The already mentioned in music thread James Kaplan's 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and The Lost Empire of Cool (2024). A blast to read, though that may depend a little on existing knowledge of the reader. The three paths up to Kind of Blue and after, though many others are also covered. Really a portrait of a culture changing. Also heroin bad.

I don't read enough fiction any longer for the following to carry any weight at all. Really, but Stephen Markley's Ohio (2018) is the best thing I've read by an author not named George Saunders or Cormac McCarthy in probably 15 years. Lots of people screamed at the time that this, not Hillbilly Elegy, was the text to read to understand Midwest disgruntled feelings and Trumps rise to power, and while that's probably unfair, it's a far better book (I hated Vance before it became popular!). Bias warning although it takes place in a fictional town of New Canaan, Ohio, though from references it can't be further than two counties from where I was born and raised. I don't think that's all of it though considering NYTimes, NPR, and other reviews. I "read" at a busy work time, so moved between the paperback and the audiobook and will say as the stories shift perspective between characters, the audiobook with its different voice actors, may help a little there. Heroin still bad.

Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa's Erotic Resistance: The Struggle for the Soul of San Francisco (2024). I haven't finished this yet and I swear Melissa or Esmé may have confiscated my copy, but a fun read with lots of references to an earlier San Francisco and where the city differentiates from other US cities (more geo-bias). I'm cheering it on, but we'll see by the end. Can read about a related exhibit here. Some fun historical posters included in book. Heroine very good here.

Edited 18 minutes ago18 min by blessingx