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 downright 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.
• 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 our 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 probably the best beginner’s introduction I’ve ever seen.
• 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.