I'm back, baby!

Resurrecting my Substack for no particular reason

Hello!

Remember when I started a Substack during Season One of the Global Pandemic? It was roughly 90000 years ago, so I don’t blame anyone who gets this and thinks….when did I sign up for this shit…I can’t be out here subscribing to any more parasocially-fueled newsletters from middling media types attempting to shore up their personal brands as Twitter disintegrates…unsubscribe!!!!….unsubscribe!!!!….

Please don’t unsubscribe! I’m not charging anything. This is just a free blog from your friend Kate :)

Since this was originally a book-review blog, I figured it’s thematically appropriate to plug two recent books pieces I had published at Wired. The first is a profile of Bookshop.org and its founder, Andy Hunter, who is the rare Non-Evil CEO. He has a pet rat named Agent Jellybean and a good attitude.

The second is a review of two new books about the perils of trying to be beautiful in the age of Instagram Face: Allie Rowbottom’s Aesthetica and Ling Ling Huang’s Natural Beauty. I had so much fun writing this…but reviews tend to struggle to find readers on Wired, and this one is kinda languishing, so I’d truly love if you took the time to read it. (And share it, if you like what you read!)

That’s all!