What We're Reading

THE VIBE Rich people flee New York City during lockdown, a woman goes missing on a hike, and as neighbours, family and friends go searching for her, secrets slowly come to the surface – a masterclass in what lies beneath WHAT GOT ME The wonderful cast of characters whose worlds you disappear into and momentarily forget the main plot YOU’LL LOVE THIS IF … You appreciate layered and artful storytelling. Underneath the woman’s disappearance is an incisive exploration of race, cl

My question is, is marriage still the prize, and if so, for whom?

The reality TV thirst is a sickness. I'm sitting here watching House of Stassi, trying to work out what exactly this show is. First she tells us she pitched the show to Disney – and, I'd guess, half a dozen other networks before that. Then she tells us she coached her own family on what it takes to make good reality TV: that you have to be open, vulnerable, willing to have the hard conversations on camera. She doesn't hide her hunger for fame or relevance but what I can't wor

A deck of tarot cards, pulled out when family or friends gather round a table does something ordinary conversation rarely manages. It doesn’t always have to be that deep or meaningful; it’s just such a lovely way to draw out different perspectives and thoughts from your people. I’m not an experienced card reader by any stretch, but I had been looking for the right deck of cards for the longest time. I wanted something a little different from the typical but I didn’t know wha

Roland Barthes’ Mythologies unpacks the cultural myths we’ve stopped noticing. In the chapter Romans in the Movies, Barthes talks about how all the male characters in Julius Caesar wear bangs – some curly, some straight. And they all sweat. Presumably, to signify that they are Romans. 'Every face sweats unremittingly,' he writes: 'workers, soldiers, conspirators all bathe their austerer and tense features in an abundant perspiration (of vaseline). And the close-ups are so fre