First time here? Welcome to our quiet corner of the web.
We’re Gina + Amy, founders of The What List, a community of 100k readers and members, who continue to believe that human connection beats anything technical. Curation and authenticity have become buzzwords, but it’s genuinely what we’ve been doing since our first newsletter in 1999. We try things, then tell it like it is. We’re not spammers, scrapers, or masters of scale. Just two dot com OGs using our human algorithm of taste to share our favorite books, articles, shows, products, wishlists, and esoterica.
This week one of us is in cloudy 55° San Francisco where we’ll likely watch fireworks obscured by fog, the other vacationing in the sunny, swampy heat of South Carolina. Hope you’re doing something fun or relaxing (or both) this Independence Day Weekend.
Happy Fourth!
Love, Amy + Gina
P.S. We don’t paywall because we believe that if you enjoy THE WHAT, you’ll help keep us going. We celebrate our paid subscribers in The Wall of Fame.
THE BINGE. If a tense Cold War thriller set in 60s Soviet Union sounds like a perfect long weekend, cancel your plans. Star City, Apple TV’s For All Mankind spin-off (no need to watch beforehand), retells the space race from behind the Iron Curtain. The finale lands July 10, so there’s exactly one holiday weekend to catch up before everyone spoils it.
THE LISTEN. SNL’s hilarious Kate McKinnon and her real-life sister Emily Lynne are back for round two of their gloriously unhinged Audible comedy, Heads Will Roll: Heir Apparent. McKinnon reigns as Queen Mortuana of the Night Realm, Lynne is her ditzy raven minion JoJo, and the guest bench (Laurie Metcalf, Richard Kind, Jimmy Fallon) is deep. The first season hit the NYT bestseller list. Cue this one up for the drive when nobody can agree on music.
THE READ. YA Author Mary H.K. Choi’s first for adults, Pool House, is a fun page turner that’s not an airport novel. It’s a tricky mother-daughter story set in a fading corner of Hollywood, where a widowed 90s B-actress and her slacker daughter rent out the main house and squeeze into their glass pool house out back. Read it poolside for symmetry.
THE BREAK. Self proclaimed ‘puzzles for weirdos,’ Birdie makes the coolest modern jigsaws from independent artists, printed on recycled stock and, with a cut of every sale going straight to the artist. We bought them all and have already done three this week.
THE BETA. Ask AI to picture a CEO and you’ll get a guy in a suit; ask for a nurse and, well, you can guess the result. The machines busy rewriting reality for billions are getting women wrong, not shocking, since women barely crack a quarter of the people building them. Sitting it out won’t fix the code; it just leaves us out of it, which is why we’re building THE WHAT AI, a hype-free, hand-curated crash course in making this stuff work for you, not the other way around. Grab a spot on the early list and cut the line.
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We keep a running list of everything we’re buying, trying, and loving. SHOP books, clothes, and other goodies here. Updated weekly. Check out the new summery additions to our Everyday Chic category.
And if you write your own newsletter, create your own store here and we’ll both benefit.
THANK YOU Anne Woods, Peggy Panosh, and Gayna Dupont for supporting our indie newsletter and adding your name to our growing Wall of Fame!
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