Best Reads, Links & Listens

great reads on Substack this month: better tuna salad, pretty sheds, penelope fitzgerald quotes, nick hornby, and the joy of "stooping" for free stuff.

I’m trying an experiment this month. There was so much good content on Substack that I’m keeping this round-up to only stuff I read and loved on this here platform. (‘tis so full.)

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for people who like quotes

“When we work too hard, something breaks.”

A great quote from this piece by Unfiltered by Tim Denning (who I also featured in this big roundup of tips, tricks, and wacky suggestions from Substack's bestselling writers)

for people who like small beauty

for eaters

In salad news, I STAN this discussion over at emily nunn of best ways to make tuna salad, as that’s my go-to for at least two weekly lunches. I liked this commenter’s suggestion for its apple-ness with a lack of onion. Oh my!

One can white, albacore tuna

Small, diced tart/sweet apple (I like Fujis or Pink Ladies.)

One rib celery diced small

Olive-oil based mayo to taste (not too gloopy)

Small squirt of dijon mustard (I like the horseradish kind)

Salt to taste, and a healthy amount of coarse ground black pepper.

for readers

Nick Hornby is now on Substack!

Welcome to A Fan's Notes

How Penelope Fitzgerald became a late blooming novelist taught me many things about Fitzgerald’s weird and hard life, including that fact that Fitzgerald was 62 when her first book came out. I had no idea!

“It is a peculiar thing to take a step forward in middle age, but having done it I don’t intend to retreat.”

for writers

Thanks to Publishing Confidential for 35 questions you need to ask your publisher before your book is published.

Sara Petersen shares what nobody tells first time authors.

(an image of Sara Petersen’s journal as a kid, which was mine also! (in black.) i ended up in a Mary Englebreit rabbit hole after this image. she is alive and well and still selling sweet journals, calendars, and more.)

Jane Goodall’s chimpanzee notes are over on Noted by Jillian Hess. She was only 26 when she showed up at Gombe Stream National Park! (See more of Jane’s notebooks at this post.)

for shoppers

I loved this Lia Buffa De Feo take on “stooping” for free stuff in NYC. (I didn’t know this word!) and I heart-heart-hearted Christene Barberich piece, 15 personal reasons why I thrift.

… when I went thrifting, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. In the drive from here to there. In the meandering up and down aisles. In the gentle chit-chat between fellow thrifters and charity shop owners. In the bliss that I felt when I arrived at a crate brimming with tiny framed pictures and mismatched tea cups. Maybe something important was waiting in there for me, like a love letter from another time…a clue or some guidance for exactly where I stood in that very moment. In those years when thrifting became a form of ritual and recreation, I began to know who I was. And LIKE who I was. And these exercises in solitude and vintage silk Hawaiian shirts always led me back to her whenever I got lost.

for Substackers

Substack the company says you can now launch native videos on Substack, the platform. Read more here. Then, watch Leslie Stephens break from the hamster wheel of email send and response to the quiet, focused work of writing with a five-minute ritual.

Kristi Keller said it’s not cheesy or desperate to ask for money on Substack. She says it’s not ‘tipping’, it’s paying it forward. So, when she once got $1,000 from a reader (!), she passed on $50 of it to someone else.

And I wrote a piece people liked, How 9 Successful Substack Writers Have Grown their Substacks in 2024. Enjoy the weird and wacky tips (and avoid Patreon, apparently.)

for people on Notes

I loved this take by Tsh Oxenreider. Applies to anything in life.

for people who need a break

go watch television.

(i nominate Top Chef, my favorite show. then, swoon over this recap episode from Pack Your Knives)

bye now!

p.s. did you have any fave reads on Substack this month?

let me know in the comments!