Wander

Once upon a time people had ~ blogrolls ~ Well here in 2026, we have wander pages (a la James’ Coffee Blog).

• A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry by Bret Devereaux: Do you like reading about the Roman Republic? Of course you do. Dr Devereaux is (imo) the leading public intellectual on the classic Mediterranean, not to mention fantasy worldbuilding; his very long posts are scholarly but eminently readable.
• Alan Jacobs: One of the greatest literary and cultural critics of our time, even if he occasionally presumes the truth of his Christian faith.
• anhvn: Anh is a designer (?) based in Vancouver (??) I think (???). But in any case she redesigns her site about once a month and it’s always delightful.
• Articles of Interest: Everybody’s favorite podcast about clothes, why we wear them, and what they mean to us. Seriously Avery Trufelman is one of the best in the (podcast) biz.
• Esoterica: Short educational videos from a PhD in Western esotericism. If you have any interest in the history of mysticism, occultism, or Western esotericism, you must watch.
• Futility Closet: A charming collection of fun facts and curiosities. Their podcast is dearly missed.
• Gastropod: Delightfully nerdy podcast that looks at “food through the lens of science and history” — one of those podcasts where you learn something every episode, no matter how well you know the topic at hand.
• Jacob Geller: The most important media critic of my generation, and it’s not even close. You can skip the year’s-best and “games that do x” video essays if you really don’t care about video games, but everything else is essential.
• Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie: The only American political commentator that makes a lick of sense.
• Literature and History: One of the greatest educational resources of the 21st century. An English PhD started with a desire to chronicle the evolution of English literature, starting in ancient Mesopotamia; 200+ hours later, he’s finally made it to early Islam. Every episode is approachable but exhaustively researched; the episode on ancient Zoroastrianism is the best beginner’s introduction to Zoroastrianism I’m aware of.
• Naomi Kanakia: A software engineer-turned-literary critic with a delightfully eclectic focus on the Great Books (and the Great Books-that-were-forgotten!).
• Ones and Tooze: Biweekly deep dives from beloved economic historian Adam Tooze. Probably the best way to keep current on the world outside the United States.
• Quinns Quest: I’ve been following Quinns since the Rock, Paper, Shotgun days, but he’s truly found his calling nerding out about tabletop role-playing games while engaging in droll English humour. His enthusiasm is so infectious that I a.) watch every episode despite knowing I’ll never play most if any of these games b.) want to go be enthusiastic about all the things I love too.
• Robin Sloan: C’mon if you’ve spent ten minutes on this site you know I read every word the man writes.
• Tor’s Cabinet of Curiosities: A self-described “autistic special interests” channel where the host dives deep on bizarre historical oddities, like how Mormonism almost had its own alphabet or how the Nation of Islam was (probably) founded by a Central Asian tamale salesman from Oregon, or low-stakes-but-hilarious Wikipedia drama like the decade-long fight over a photo of an economist sitting in a chair (the economist’s name? Guy Standing), or genuine mysteries like the well-documented existence of blacks in the Caucasus or one of the more credible mass UFO sightings. Despite the low-budget, public-access-television vibes and the runtimes running close to an hour, I watch every episode almost immediately.