on jealousy: a reading list

Over the last few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in how we’re taught to interpret our emotions: which ones are treated as useful, and which ones are dismissed as moral failures or personal flaws.

Earlier this week, I published an essay called “in defense of jealousy,” where I argue that jealousy is one of the clearest signals of desire we have (if you haven’t read that yet, go do so before continuing here!).

But I didn’t arrive at that idea on my own. The way I think about jealousy has been shaped by writers and thinkers who treat the feeling as information, attention as choice, and desire as something worth taking seriously.

For paid subscribers, I’ve pulled together a short list of books and essays that have helped me understand jealousy as a form of self-knowledge—and, more importantly, how to decide what kind of life to organize around it.