Culture Study

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Anne Helen Petersen
Dec 28, 2020
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A totally unorganized, uncategorized list of writing for a year that felt the same. Poke around, click on things you wouldn’t normally otherwise, let some thinking wash over you, save things for when you have the space. Nothing and no one’s going anywhere for now.

Durga Chew-Bose’s letter of recommendation for framing

Adrian Hon on what ARGS can teach us about QAnon

Taylor Lorenz on The Original Renegade

Sarah Miller on the grip of the diet industrial complex and the bridge dog

Dayna Tortorici on the endlessness of Instagram

Nick Estes on the tie between epidemics and colonialization

Katy Kelleher on periwinkle

Cal Newport on the rise and fall of getting things done

Alex Pareene on Madison Cawthorn and the future of the GOP

Jason Parham on TikTok and the evolution of digital blackface

John Hermann on the weird brands of Amazon

Helen McDonald, “The Mysterious Life of Birds Who Never Come Down”

Carissa M. Harris on SVU and the Problem of Justice

Nidhi Prakash on COVID longhauling and rethinking productivity

Liana Aghajanian on the place of Ferrero Rocher in immigrant families

Samin Nosrat on gardening

Allison P. Davis on living with Karens

A.O. Scott on the wonder of Wallace Stegner

Cortney Cassidy on resisting capitalism and/alongside artistic practice

Patricia Lockwood on her brain after COVID

S. Fambul on jollof rice and what else the pandemic has stolen

Lydia Kiesling on the fight for preschool for all in Portland

Ximena Larkin profiles the Dreadhead Cowboy of Chicago

Jenisha Watts, “Breonna is me and I am her.”

Jeffrey Moro makes the case for abolishing time

Maris Kreizman, “Where Did My Ambition Go?”

Jamelle Bouie, “Why Juneteenth Matters”

Venessa Wong on the continual dread of pandemic parenting

Sarah Jones on a long death at the hands of American capitalism

Hanif Abdurraqib profiles Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

Dan Kois, “When Learning Pods Came to Greenbrier Elementary”

Alice Bolin on the corporate feminism of NXIVM

Tressie McMillan Cottom on AOC

Ian Bogost on what Americans will sacrifice for the “college experience”

Seaborn Larson, “Samantha Francine Did Not Back Down”

Natasha Cloud, “Your Silence is a Knee on My Neck”

David Roth on the infinite scroll of online reading

Chloe L. Cooney on the parents are not all right

Eli Saslow: here, here, here

Patricia Park on taking her father’s place at the family bodega

Adam Serwer on the motivations of birtherism

Nitya Rayapati on “the health insurance plot”

Gabrielle Hamilton on the purpose of restaurants

Sarah Smarsh on arguing with Trump voters

Anna Watkins on how “lean production” has failed us

Allyn West on the Texas architecture of gentrification

Ed Yong on our pandemic spiral

Meg Conley on miscarriage in the home

Ashley Reeve on the Snapewife

Dara T. Mathis on the church’s black exodus

Dan Q. Dao on Black Lives Matter in Houston’s Vietnamese community

Natalie Lima on voice personals in the late ‘90s

Emile Duck photographs the isolated communities along the Siberian River

Kyle Chayka on the unsatisfying infomercial of The Home Edit

Casey Cep on Marilynne Robinson

Latria Graham, “Out There, No One Can Hear You Scream”

Lili Loofbourouw on political degradation

Amanda Mull on the laptop as life ruiner

Marina Koen on the rhetoric of colonization in space

Carina del Valle Schorske on Bad Bunny

Jiayang Fan on becoming Chinese propaganda

Max Read on Twitter and the death drive

Julian Brave NoiseCat on colonialism as apocalypse

Jesmyn Ward on loss upon loss

Emma Copley Eisenberg on why so few books get factchecked

Terry Nguyen on social justice Instagram slideshows

Lyz Lenz, “It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal”

Kaitlyn Greenridge on the broken promise of “this, too, shall pass”

Molly Fischer on the tyranny of the millennial aesthetic

Kelli Maria Korducki on Liz Lemoning

Jessica Tilley Hoffman, Agnes and Muriel’s and All the Places I Have Loved You

Helena Fitzgerald, “Small Rooms”

Some Instagram Accounts I’ve Particularly Enjoyed This Year:

Alexis Bonogofsky

Jamelle Bouie

Megan Abbott

Jason Diamond

Alexander Chee

Somewhere.nothere

Hillhouse Vintage

Phoebe Robinson

Mule Dragger

LaTonya Yvette

Ilana Panich-Linsman

Stacy Kranitz

Tailyr Irvine

Small Purchases That Gave Me Outsized Pleasure:

These toasty mittens

These beautiful mugs

A lemon squeezer

These truly ridiculous depressed kiwi birds purchased after one Negroni

These boots I have worn every damn day for the last 5 months

Keeper Recipes of the Pandemic:

Everything in Melissa Clark’s Dinner

Sheet pan sausages and brussels sprouts

Shredded tofu and shiitakes

Cilantro noodle bowl

Tumeric black pepper chicken + asparagus

Peanut sesame noodles

Tuscan farro soup

Looking forward to cooking everything in Meera Sodha’s East

Things I’m Endlessly Grateful For:

My indefatigable dogs Peggy and Steve

My partner Charlie

My mom who always alerts me to typos immediately

The friends I haven’t seen in months but who feel, miraculously, closer than ever

A house that warms quickly and the ability to do my work from it

Space and time to work and think

All of you whose subscriptions and support and curiosity and conversation make that possible. If you want to join, here’s how.


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Nora Mabie
Dec 29, 2020Liked by Anne Helen Petersen

Love this list! Thanks Anne. Your reading recommendations have made my year better. I read Long Bright River after seeing your tweet and loved it! Looking forward to more great reads in 2021.

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Coree Brown Swan
Writes Working Moms Make it Work
Dec 31, 2020

Oh my goodness, the Sperry boots. I bought a pair when I was just barely pregnant as I was afraid of slipping on the ice. Kiddo is now 3.5 and I wore them out to play in the snow yesterday. Has to be one of my all time best purchases.

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