Reading Report: July 2026

Hi friends, a combo of summer brain slowdown and work crunch means you are getting a reading report instead of a normal post today. I promise a double post week sometime in the future to make up for it. If you are subscribed and want me to tackle a specific topic, you can put it in the comments below and I'll add it to my topic list. Happy reading! ~EM

Year of Joy

• Rediscovering the Joy of Writing - Red Pens and Playwriting - Writing has been a slog lately, and Jordan's words were the reminder to take the break I needed.
• Words from a professional Free Spirit: Making it Real Weird - Rusty's Electric Dreams

Here’s what I think: Be a Trojan horse. Be a glitch in the system. A joyful saboteur. Smuggle meaning into the mundane. Inject absurdity into the ordinary. Make something that seems playful but carries a spark that wakes people up.

Zen Pencils

I was recently reminded of one of my favorite ever online comics and spent a delightful afternoon revisiting them. I hope they inspire you too.

• Kurt Vonnegut - Take a moment
• Ira Glass - Advice for Beginners
• Amy Poehler - Great people do things before they’re ready

Writing Bits & Bobs

• Writing by Hand is Good for your Brain - Neal Stephenson - Come for the logic behind handwriting your stories from the man who writes the thickest books on the shelf, stay for Neal's fountain pen collection.
• P.S. If you ever want to geek out about fountain pens, the fountain pen feed on bluesky is a nice place to hangout.
• Honey we bought an AI story - Bona Books - This one is going to be affecting how you submit stories in the future, so it's an important read to understand what's happening on the publishing side.

Longread

Has America Crossed the Asshole Threshold? - The Grim Historian

I don't normally post things from substack, but I think the argument and conclusion of this article are important to read. Here's the key bit:

Between roughly 1870 and 1920, Americans went on the greatest civic-joining spree in the country’s history — Putnam’s data show more enduring civic organizations founded in those decades than in any comparable period before or since. Unions, granges, fraternal lodges, women’s clubs, settlement houses, mutual aid societies, congregations, the PTA. Millions of people who had every reason to conclude that honesty was for suckers instead went out and found the other cooperators.

Books I'm Reading

• This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me - Illona Andrews - reread - Ilona Andrews are still one of the best in the business. Worth the reread to see how they built in the various reveals.
• Consider This - Chuck Pahlanhuik - This one was good. A lot of good info and things to think about. Still working through my notes but I'll do a full review soon.
• This Inevitable Ruin - Matt Dinniman - Still on my slow roll of through this series.
• Alien Olympus - Glynn Stewart - Glynn Stewart is hitting his David Weber era. Big space battles, but lots of small stuff to make them meaningful.
• The Duke who Didn't - Courtney Milan - Had never really read any Courtney Milan. This was good, just the right amount of funny and sweet.
• Roverpowered 1-5 - Drew Hays - reread - These go quick and I wanted a reread. Still sweet if a bit thin