workweek reading recs (20 October 2025)

[matsushima]

I apologize that I've only been able to keep up with these intermittently. My work life is imploding and sucking up all of my energy for basically anything else but I haven't forgotten about this community!

Please feel free to post excerpts of what you're reading. I originally planned for this to be a place like agonyaunt to discuss specific articles. I don't mind doing these weekly round ups (I enjoy it) but everyone else is welcome to post, too.

• Holy Essence: Chasing the truffle’s powerful, mysterious allure (2025/10)
• The Right Jumps to Defend Young Republicans' Racist Texts (2025/10)
• They Got to Live a Life of Luxury. Then Came the Fine Print. (2025/10)
• Inside the audacious mission to bring a rare toad back from the brink (2025/10)
• The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem (2025/10)
• Don't Touch That Dial! (2025/10)
• From the archives: The 19th Century Lesbian Made for 21st Century Consumption (2019/06)
• Podcast: Ill Conceived: Abstinence-Only Sex Education (2025/08)
• Podcast: If Books Could Kill: The Secret (2023/01)
• Fiction: A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies, by Alix E. Harrow

This week (and every week), please consider supporting the Middle East Children's Alliance.