Friday Favorites 25

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. I’ve been listening to Charli xcx all week and soaking up the dog days of summer before it’s pants season.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

A few years ago I watched “Adaptation” and became really interested in how Hollywood and writers can use “The Hero’s Journey” to structure stories, which led me to read Vogler’s “The Writer’s Journey” and Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” So I really enjoyed this 90-minute interview with Steven Pressfield on “How I Write”, who talks a lot about structure, Hollywood, writing good stories, and why we like The Hero’s Journey so much.
I’m still listening to nothing but “No One Lasts Forever.” Voice samples in music are nothing new, but it is interesting how the speech-to-song illusion can make certain statements feel so musical.
I wrote about my love for vintage mass market paperbacks — those gorgeous, portable books I recall from 60s and 70s lit classics and 80s horror — and why I think they’re the best book format.
This Tuesday was August 4, 2026 — the day of Ray Bradbury’s 1950 short story “There Will Come Soft Rains,” which makes it as good a time to read it as any.
I have a few meals I’ve made several times a week for years (popcorn, bean bowls) — and beans are a hot food item this year — so I’m thinking about that time Beau Miles ate nothing but canned beans for 40 days then ran 50 kilometers. (If I did this I would consider coffee a form of bean and have a better adjustment.)
Every couple years a local news station will talk about why people still like typewriters, and I’ll watch them every time. This one’s about Gramercy in New York City, the same store Ruth Ozeki got hers.
“I can’t dance, I’ve got two left feet!” “I thought he was kidding.” “But I wasn’t, I was born with two left feet.” “Best In Show” is a really funny movie, and after talking with a few people older than me, a once-popular movie that’s not talked about much anymore!
Sorry, this newsletter is becoming a place I share everything I see about typewriters, but Andrew Loura’s restoration of his family’s 1919 Underwood was very satisfying.
I finished Stephen King’s “Duma Key” about a painter grieving a life-altering event who moves to a vacation community and slowly uncovers its dark past as it impacts their creative process. Which is exactly the same premise as “Bag of Bones,” which I read earlier this summer. I love when writers return to the same well to explore the same idea in new ways.
I relate to a lot in this video essay about ordinariness feeling boring, being stuck in the past or future, and overthinking instead of experiencing your life.

See you on down the dusty trail,

In praise of mass market paperbacks

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There’s something special about vintage mass market paperbacks: those small, cheap books that could fit in your back pocket if they weren’t so thick. Titles with large fonts, a simple cover — the ones often used for the season’s best romance and thriller books, or retro horror. Yellow, dried out paper with a three-dimensionality that grips your finger. Dark typeface that’s easy to read. The ones you see on the rack of grocery stores, Little Free Libraries, and hotels and resort lobbies for bored visitors who didn’t have smartphones.

Massmarket on Isak's Blog

Friday Favorites 25

In praise of mass market paperbacks