Summer clams, the cost of having friends, and is it okay to be patriotic?Jess Graves selects her top Substack readsThis week’s digest is guest edited by journalist, early blogger, and fashion and beauty writer Jess Graves, who publishes THE LOVE LIST on Substack. Jess’s most popular posts include “Hot Girls in the Hamptons,” “I Resolve to... Care For and Repair,” and “The Rise of the Edfluencer, the Relatability Trap, and What Creators Actually Owe You.” If you enjoy Jess’s selections today, be sure to subscribe to her Substack. Substack felt like home to me right away. As a kid, I would publish a newsletter for my family and send it out in the mail. As an adolescent, I ran an online zine on AOL. As a teenager, I wrote a LiveJournal my entire high school devoured like it was Deuxmoi. In college, I started my first real blog, which kicked off a long career in fashion publishing, both online and off. When the industry pivoted to platforms prioritizing images over the written word, I lost my way for a while. I didn’t know where I belonged or what I had to say. I contributed to magazines occasionally, but the pitching process wore me down, and the ideas I got across the line were always watered down and underpaid. It wasn’t until I ran across a friend’s newsletter on Substack that something clicked again. I started my newsletter that night, and now, three years later, I’m amazed at the opportunities being on this platform continues to afford me. In April, I made my newsletter my full-time job. I grew up in the American South and now call New York City home. To me, there’s nothing quite like an East Coast summer. The air gets so heavy that the sweat won’t evaporate off your skin. The hydrangea bushes explode with blooms, and it becomes perfectly acceptable to have chicken salad for lunch and dinner. More rosé? Yeah, sure. Every white banister gets dressed in bunting, and the fireflies come out at sunset to flicker and put on a show. I think of childhood summers spent strapped into a bright orange life jacket on my uncle’s fishing boat. I lived my life streaked in Water Babies sunscreen, scooping fat little periwinkles out of the drippy Florida sand and screaming with delight as seagulls swooped in to steal bits of my sandwich. That’s the magic of this time of year: no matter how old and weary we’ve grown, summer always promises a carefree undercurrent of youth. (If you don’t believe me, try plowing down Montauk Highway in a top-down Jeep; it will knock 10 years off your spirit faster than any neurotoxin.) But summer isn’t perfect. With it comes a litany of annual challenges: affording vacations, body issues triggered by swimwear, tricky summer houseguests, and the weird vibes around the Fourth of July these days. When I put together this edit for Substack Reads, I wanted to pull in great work in the spirit of the season, lumps and all. I hope you save this to read from your favorite stoop, park, rooftop, beach chair, or sun porch. Like me, these writers found a new home on Substack. In a world that feels so very uncertain, being able to depend on something is important—and summer will always roll around to be our muse. DESIGN“Ali LaBelle is a creative director and the genius behind Pasta Girlfriend, a pasta appreciation project that hosts gorgeous events in the name of gluten. Her newsletter, À La Carte, is a visual calling card and a peek into her aesthetically pleasing way of seeing the world. She shares beautiful mood boards, charming essays and missives, and clever product roundups around themes like sailing and aperitivo. She’s a gifted world-builder and created a bit of a Wonderland with her newsletter. I fall down the rabbit hole whenever I open her emails.” Summer A to Z
PERSONAL FINANCE“Summer is a very social time. It can seem like everyone is in Europe or on some fabulous rooftop guzzling spritzes. But having a social life is expensive, and sometimes our friends aren’t operating on the same financial plane. Maybe they want to go to Mallorca and your budget is more Milwaukee. It can be a tough thing to navigate without hurting the integrity of the friendship. I love Linsdey Stanberry’s thoughts on how to do exactly that. In fact, her entire newsletter is wonderful—she tackles the often uncomfortable topic of money in a way that feels like you can do it too.”The cost of having friends—Lindsey Stanberry in The Purse
CULTURE“Writer Bonnie Morrison is kind of a legend in my industry, and her Substack is just as substantive and cool as you’d expect. In it, she explores the true authority of the internet’s armchair experts and thinkiest think pieces, asking ‘Is it okay…’ to internalize the noise when content erosion is so fraught. Here, she takes the temperature of the American ‘brand’ and why we might feel some kind of way about patriotism these days.”Is it okay to be patriotic?—Bonnie Morrison in Is It Okay?
FOOD“I had the pleasure of meeting Colu Henry at a New York Substack meetup, and we struck up a friendship over a common love of cooking and entertaining. Her newsletter is a gold mine of great recipes in her signature ‘back pocket, easy-fancy’ style: elegant but simple. Think: Alison Roman’s from-the-hip vibe married with Ina Garten’s elevated but inviting style. I cook from this newsletter often. If you want to go deeper, she also has two cookbooks I give as gifts and recommend constantly.” Two summery recipes for clams—Colu Henry in Colu Cooks
BEAUTY“Sometimes I worry that information consumption has completely abandoned nuance. Have we forgotten that we can disagree with one another respectfully? Jessica DeFino’s newsletter always challenges my thinking about the beauty industry, and while I don’t always agree with what she has to say, I think she’s an incredible writer with a whip-smart point of view. Just a reminder that if you don’t want to be trapped in an algorithmic k-hole echo chamber of confirmation bias, Substack is here to surface the voices of dissent and disruption who do so with immense responsibility. Jessica is one of those. Here, she discusses where we’re at with body hair, an especially timely topic during swimwear season.”The state of the bush—Jessica DeFino in The Review of Beauty by Jessica DeFino
TRAVEL“Summer is travel season! Window Seat is an info-dense luxury-travel newsletter packed with intel on far-flung locales from a woman actually traveling them. On an internet where travel planning can feel like dreadful homework, I love the way Tori Simokov has editorialized the topic and made it fun to consume. I loved this letter on travel souvenirs and how to collect them thoughtfully.”The art of the travel souvenir
FASHION“My friend Laurel Pantin is a seasoned fashion journalist, and her Substack reflects that experienced point of view but, even better, her vulnerability and goofy sense of humor. Her newsletter is always the one I recommend when someone asks me, ‘If I like your newsletter, whose else would I like?’ She does an ongoing series called ‘Saturday Snack’ that’s essentially a shopping roundup around a certain theme. And while this sort of market piece is a pretty standard content vertical for everyone on Fashion Substack, Laurel’s always feels especially refreshing, well-considered, and funny.”Travel picks: things that multitask—Laurel Pantin in Earl Earl by Laurel Pantin
PODCAST“Summer is full of etiquette conundrums, and I can think of no better authority on the matter than the descendants of Emily Post herself. I really appreciate the earnest, considerate way the authors approach modern manners. In this podcast, they talk about being a good houseguest, a position you may find yourself in if you have friends at the beach. Another good post about ‘vacation house dibs’ here as well.”Big friendship guests— Lizzie Post and Daniel Senning in Emily Post Etiquette Notes from our guest editor
Inspired by the writers featured in Substack Reads? Writing on your own Substack is just a few clicks away: Substack Reads is a weekly roundup of writing, ideas, art, and audio from the world of Substack. Posts are recommended by staff and readers, and this week’s edition was curated by Jess Graves, who writes The Love List on Substack. Substack Reads is edited and produced from Substack’s U.K. outpost by Hannah Ray. Got a Substack post to recommend? Tell us about it in the comments. |
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Summer clams, the cost of having friends, and is it okay to be patriotic?
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