I'm Sometimes More Impressed By Normality

The most popular link last time was this look at what Gen Z does with their "fun money", followed by this list of ten pieces to help you get into classical music.

1. Cookbooks are an industry of their own within publishing — 20 million are sold annually in the US alone. Why is there so little coverage of what goes on in this influential sector?
2. Godchecker: a sort of Wikipedia, but just for deities of all origins and cultures.
3. Are we "scapegoating the algorithm"? An argument that the problems of political polarisation and disinformation already existed before social media. US-centric, but an interesting read nonetheless.

4. Account of a conservation programme in northern Mexico where ranchers (who previously hunted big cats to protect their herds) are paid per photo of a live jaguar from the motion capture cameras on their land. It seems to both saving animals and producing fun jaguar selfies!
5. In the era of emoji, don't overlook the charm of ASCII smileys ;-)
6. I feel like I recommend the Still Sketching newsletter every week, and I'm going to do it again now. This post about Tom's Midnight Garden is wonderful.
7. An account of a bookstore crawl in Tallinn, Estonia.

8. A series of photographs that tell the story of the Lykov family. They belonged to an offshoot of the Russian Orthodox religion known as the "Old Believers" and in 1936 disappeared into the Siberian wilderness so they could follow their faith unmolested by successive Soviet regimes. They were rediscovered in 1978 when a team of geologists flew over their remote cabin, 160 miles from the nearest human settlement. The family did not know that WW2 had happened and declined to be relocated. One daughter of the original patriarch still lives out there.
9. This memoir excerpt by John Gregory Dunne (husband of Joan Didion) is dark but arresting.
10. Use the Tourist Map of Literature to see other readers' preferences mapped and find recommendations. Type in the name of your favourite author and see the strong and weak ties that surround them.
11. On fame and normality: "I'm sometimes more impressed by normality, especially successful people who've touched the sun and still choose normality in the end."
12. Uncovering an Ancient Roman wine scam. Imagine having your fake Cretan wine dug up 2,000 years later!
13. Jane Austen left relatively few notes behind her, but her characters are forever jotting things down. Why?