The loss of Patrick Stewart this week has left many of us reflecting on the impact he had. Beyond seeing him countless times on TV and film, my own two Patrick Stewart stories involve going to watch him and Ian McKellen live in Waiting for Godot, a play I knew nothing about, but I knew I wanted to see those actors.1 And once I saw him in the inter-terminal shuttle at Heathrow - though sadly didn’t pluck up the courage to speak to him in time.
A great actor and a good man. Rest in peace.
If you’re here, you probably like reading blogs. And on the grounds that no-one can have too many good things to read, here are ten of the best blogs that I follow.
Like everyone, my overall reading is clustered around the subjects I find interesting, enjoy and have an affinity with.2 So to create a balanced list,3 I’m recommending my favourite blog in each of ten categories, from politics to history to maths.4
In no particular order:
Political Right: Wrong Side of History. Ed West is amongst the most eloquent advocates of the right, bringing both feeling and evidence to discussions of social, cultural and governance issues. His piece, What should small-c conservatives believe?, is one of the best articulations of the genre, and I found his series on cultural change from the ‘60s to today and the comparison to the Christianisation of the Roman Empire highly thought-provoking.
Political Left: Comment is Freed. Sam Freedman is amongst the most persuasive advocates of centre-left thinking in Britain today5 - and his evidence-filled pieces mean that you always learn something, even if you end up disagreeing. Runs detailed analyses of what to look for in local and other elections. As a bonus, he shares the blog with his Dad, a military historian, who writes excellent pieces on ongoing conflicts, including the Russia-Ukraine War, the various Middle East conflicts and more.
Policy Wonkery: Neil O'Brien's Substack. Brilliant, detailed analysis, chock-full of graphs, of various policy issues facing the UK. Youth unemployment, higher education, migration and more; his piece on ‘The Confluence’ [of problems facing Britain] is a tour de force of our current malaise.
US Politics and Policy: Slow Boring . A centrist Democrat, Matt Yglesias mixes political commentary with detailed policy analyses on planning, energy policy, cultural change and the occasional alternative history in which the survival of the Austro-Hungarian Empire makes the 20th century a happier one.
Education: No More Marking. I made my joke about how brilliant Daisy Christodoulou is in the last post, so it seems churlish to repeat it. Suffice it to say that No More Marking is the blog to read for analysis of educational changes, the impact of AI on education, assessment methods and more.
Understanding Women: Cartoons Hate Her. I am not a woman.6 Nevertheless, about half the population are women7 and, furthermore, I have a daughter, so it feels helpful to keep abreast of how they see the modern world. CHH writes humorously about social issues, friendships and relationship issues, parenting and more, pushing back against the more deranged positions of both wokery and the right, all from the perspective of an (apparently) normal-ish woman.8 Worth reading purely for her ‘Many Such Takes’, a regular piece on the most unhinged social discourse of the fortnight.
Everyday Wisdom: Jots and Scribbles. Thought-provoking pieces on how to live a wholesome life, looking at issues such as friendship, the impact of AI, and antifragility. The author is a Christian pastor, which is explicit in his writing9, but speaking as a non-believer, there is much in there of value for people of all faiths and none. His two-parter on how many of our problems stem from being neither as rich nor as poor as we think we are is one of the best things I’ve read on the subject.
History: A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry. Though my favourite pieces are his analyses of classic battles in Tolkien and other fantasy, and his ‘Teaching Paradox’ series on Paradox’s Grand Strategy games, Bret Devereaux is the only historian yet to get me to read a 20,000+ word series on how pre-industrial people made bread, alongside many more genuinely historical deep-dives.
Maths and Stats: Logging the World. Written by a Bristol Maths Professor, Logging the World explores everyday examples of maths and statistics, from COVID to energy policy, from the World Cup to statistical reporting. Always intelligible, always informative, always entertainingly written.
All-round Awesomeness: Astral Codex Ten. One of the best writers on the internet or anywhere else, Scott Alexander never fails to inform, inspire and delight, whether about societal change, sun miracles or trepanation. His humour and fiction are also great. Many older posts, including those from his annus mirabilis such as I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup or The Toxoplasma of Rage can be found on his previous site, Slate Star Codex.
Happy reading!
Still not sure what the fuss is about the play, but boy could Stewart and McKellen act.
For example, I read more writers on the political right than on the political left, as like most people I have a more tolerant level of ‘not getting annoyed with issues’ in arguments if I broadly agree with them.
Very woke of me, I know.
Some of these have paywalls, some don’t; all have a decent amount of freely available material.
So none of you who may be considering voting Conservative are allowed to go and read him.
Citation needed.
Citation needed.
Though she might dispute this.
And some posts are purely theological.
Thank you, there's some great company to be in here
Thank you Iain! You’re most kind