PHYSICAL

• Penzy’s Spices are one of my go-to gifts. I love encouraging my people to feel more comfortable in the kitchen, and these are an easy way to uplift even simple foods. Sunny Paris and Fines Herbes are my to-go (salt-free!) choices for eggs, and the Vietnamese Cinnamon blows grocery store options out of the water.
• I bought this wave study from an artist named Jean Wichea, whose work I found at a gallery in Maine. It looks eerily similar to my favorite cliffside spot, and I find myself staring at it a few times a day, since it pulls me out of my anxieties and helps me reset.
• I’ve been slowly replacing all of my lower-quality pots and pans over the last couple of years, and I saved up for this braiser after seeing someone else cook with one and instantly coveting it. Although I probably could have gotten away with a similar, cheaper model with a glass lid, I don’t have any regrets. It cooks really evenly, and the bright yellow makes a big, happy focal point in the middle of the kitchen.

DIGITAL

• Dungeon Scrawl is an awesome tool for building fantasy maps, perfect for D&D and other tabletop RPGs. You don’t even need to make an account to use it (unless you decide you want the premium features). Design a Dungeon next time you get bored in a Zoom meeting!
• Hanif Abdurraqib is one of my favorite authors and poets, and overlaps just enough of my friend group and special interests that I sometimes find myself thinking, “oh yeah, we’d be pals” before feeling creeped out at myself for skirting a parasocial hypothetical. His posts are always interesting, whether deep-diving into a song or album, basketball lore, or life in general. They’re a welcome addition to an increasingly fraught social landscape.

INVISIBLE

“Now will never come again.”

One of my best friends recently shared this quote with me (shoutout to the nerds that know the source), and it’s influenced my decision-making dozens of times since. Sometimes, we need a reminder of the obvious.

Irving Harper: Works in Paper
by Irving Harper (artist) and Michael Maharam (editor)
Skira Rizzoli
2013, 176 pages, 8.3 x 10.3 x 1.1 inches

Buy on Amazon

Anyone familiar with the American version of the hit comedy The Office might remember a scene in which Michael Scott attends an art show where Pam exhibits her paintings. Struck by a painting she made of the office building, Michael buys it and muses, “It is a message. It is an inspiration. It is a source of beauty. And without paper, it could not have happened.” The quote could just as easily be said of famed designer Irving Harper, an alchemist who transforms paper into works of wonder. One look at Irving Harper: Works In Paper will be sufficient to astonish those who are not yet acquainted with the genius of design, and to further amaze those who are already fans of his.

Irving Harper was famous primarily as a furniture designer who championed the modernist style, becoming famous for the “Marshmallow Sofa” which comprises 18 plush discs arranged on a wire frame, and the “Ball Clock,” which resembles an asterix with multi-colored balls punctuating the tip of each line. Harper was not a sculptor by profession, but he created paper sculptures at home as a pastime to relieve himself of the stress of his regular job. This book features the astonishing results of someone who was ultimately more artist than hobbyist. Within these pages, a series of masks with graceful, Kabuki-like features can be found alongside vivid and striking depictions of wildlife including a wizened owl with expressive eyes, a snarling wolf hovering over its prey and a stoic elephant made with spare grace. A lavish cathedral skillfully depicts a stained glass window with a seraph in an arched doorway, while a sparse rendition of a scowling soldier on horseback offers a remarkable contrast. A series of abstract sculptures reminiscent of some of Robert Rauschenberg’s bold experiments also capture the reader’s attention.

The book offers a brief introduction to Irving Harper and discusses his design career in some detail, but the majority of the pagers are devoted to stunning full-color and black-and-white images of his paper sculptures. One photograph stands out: Harper, surrounded by his magnificent creations in his living room, idly scans a newspaper from his easy chair. The image remains in the mind even after closing the book as a quiet and powerful document of a humble genius who gave shape to his imagination with the simplest of resources. It is, as Michael Scott suggested, a source of beauty. And it couldn’t have happened without paper. – Lee Hollman

WHERE’S WARHOL – A VISUAL NEEDLE-IN-A-HAYSTACK PICTURE BOOK INSPIRED BY THE WHERE’S WALDO SERIES

Where’s Warhol?
by Catherine Ingram and Andrew Rae
Laurence King Publishing
2016, 32 pages, 9.8 x 13 x 0.5 inches

Buy on Amazon

Andy Warhol was known for both “making the scene,” literally turning “scenes” into improvised art, and for being impressively awkward and shy within those scenes. So, there really is something fundamentally right about the concept of hiding Andy inside of iconic scenes from history, both art history and beyond.

In Where’s Warhol? art historian Catherine Ingram teams up with artist Andrew Rae to create a visual needle-in-a-haystack picture book inspired by the Where’s Waldo? series. In a series of two-page spreads, Andy, in his iconic striped shirt and shock of silver hair, is hidden within massive crowd scenes. The scenes range from actual places where Andy did hang out (e.g. Studio 54) to historical places and events such as the French Revolution and Germany’s Bauhaus art school. The fun is not only in finding Andy, but in trying to identity all of the other historical figures drawn into these scenes. In the back of the book, many of these characters are pointed out with little anecdotes. And other known people are there, but not identified (like Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith). It’s fun to see just how many characters from history you can identity. There is also enough going on here to reward repeat scans of the pages.

This would be a fun gift book to get for anyone who’s a Warhol fan, a fan of art history, or who just enjoys these kinds of visual puzzle books. Everyone who’s seen this on my coffee table has gotten a big kick out of it. – Gareth Branwyn

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

How to get rich slow

Five Rituals of Wealth

Wealth seems to grow out of a discipline, a habit, a practice that is applied daily and harvested decades later. Not everyone wants to accumulate a pile of money; but most people would like true wealth. This guide addresses that desire. I’ve gone through the entire New York Times bestseller list of how-to-get-rich books, and beyond. This is the book that most matches my own experience, and what I observe of the rich around me. It’s wise where there is often little wisdom, and yet practical, but not so practical it goes out of date. (For that kind of advice see Your Money) — KK

• The biggest lie people tell themselves about wealth is that if you make more money, you’ll be rich.
• Here’s the problem: Most of us have been taught little or nothing about wealth. Most people grow up believing they should pay all their bills first and then play with what’s left. There’s some sense to that strategy. Certainly, it teaches us responsibility as debtors. The thing is, we’ve never been told that we count as much as our creditors. No one has ever said it’s okay to save and pay ourselves first.
• All the time I hear people say, “If I just earned more money, then I could feel wealthy or pay my bills or use money as a tool to do good things, or save for my future.” The lists seem to go on forever, but believe me when I say: Before significant wealth will come your way and stay, you have to master the money you already control.
• When it comes to saving and investing for your future, the historical rule of thumb is 10 percent. Save 10 percent of your income every single month and you’ll grow wealthier than you dreamed possible.
• In some circles, budgeting is a plan for the future — not a record of the past. I prefer to keep track of my expenses as I spend, rather than plan a budget out to the year 2010. That just feels too constraining. I call my as-you-spend record keeping “take-control budgeting” and recommend it over forward-planning your expenses. I think there are just too many variables in our spending patterns to plan our future expenditures to the dollar. Furthermore, I think that most people find the money to buy the things they really want or need, so the goal here is to be aware enough of your cash flow to spend money only on things you really want. This awareness is accomplished by prioritizing your expenditures, which will be explained shortly. I think you’ll find, as I did, that if you just keep a record of your prioritized expenses and balance them every month against your income, you’ll instinctively know what to do next.
• So successful investing is not a matter of which new theory is hot lately, or when to buy low and when to sell high. It’s a matter of getting invested, staying invested, and reinvesting the dividends over time. The accumulation of wealth is virtually that simple if you side with time.
• To many people approach being a giver from the wrong perspective. They look at the resources they possess and invariably fail to see any “extra” they can part with. That’s wrongheaded thinking. Remember: If you don’t feel secure enough to give, you’ll never feel wealthy at the deepest level.
• ou can’t give just a tiny bit and sit back, waiting for your ship to come in. You have to give with selflessness. And, if you don’t feel like you can, then you must. It’s the only way you can break free. We’ve already established how wealthy you really are, regardless of your situation. You know that you’re wealthier than the majority of the world. You have to ask yourself: How rich is rich? How much is enough? How wealthy will I have to be before I become a good steward?
  You know the answer: It all starts in the belief that you’re wealthy right now.

Realtime budget overview

Mint

This web-based dashboard gives me an elegant overview of all my financial accounts in one screen. I’ve been using Mint for the past 6 months and it is marvelous. It is super friendly, quick, and illuminating. It makes me smart.

Mint will aggregate any money or spending account with online access — which is basically all financial accounts by now. In ten minutes or less I added our bank, credit cards, mortgage, cars, 401k, credit union, checking, and Etrade accounts to Mint. That’s the last input I ever had to do. From then on Mint automatically updates all the accounts, sucking in their data with the correct passwords, and integrates this diverse information into a single unified realtime snapshot of our finances. At once glance I can see where we are spending too much, or how we actually allot our income. I no longer have to hunt for my password and numbers for different accounts, say checking our bank balance, or a credit card purchase. It is much much easier, and far more pleasant, to simply log into Mint, where I can see everything. There, in clear presentation far superior to most banks, are all my accounts informing each other. One window to watch them all!

Mint is a read-only interface. There is no way to move money, or reconcile accounts, or pay bills, or calculate taxes (for now). That is also why it is safe. In fact it is probably safer than most banks because fancy algorithms at Mint similar to credit card fraud detection software will alert you when your finances show an unusual pattern. This is one of its cool features. It will gently inform you (at your choice) that say, based on your past months’ expenditures, you’ve overspent your grocery budget this month. It also makes a fairly good guess at categorizing your expenses on its own. It can then make comparisons of how your budget stacks up to other aggregate users in your area, and offer budget suggestions (which we have not followed). We rarely use cash for anything so Mint gives us a very complete picture.

Some people will not be convinced by any reasoning or proof that having a single window into your entire financial situation is safe. If you are of that type, don’t use Mint. But for the rest, who long ago realized that using credit cards online is far safer than using one in a store, Mint is a fabulous cool tool. And it is free. Available anywhere the web lives.

There are a couple of similar sites, such as Wesabe and Geezeo, which emphasize sharing budgets, sort of like a Weight Watchers for finances, but I find their interfaces far less elegant. However this niche is evolving fast, and features expand. Mint has a good head start, a winning design (I love the pie charts!), and a sizable user base, so I think it will be around for a while. (If it did disappear, no loss because it does not store any unique data.) — KK

Best introductory guide to money

Money Rules

I didn’t think another book on finance smarts would add anything new to the wisdom of the previously reviewed books Your Money, and Five Rituals of Wealth. But this one takes the great advice found in those and reduces it all to 100 maxims that you can read (and reread) in an hour or less. There is one simple paragraph of hard-won advice per page. This small book’s chief benefit is that busy people will actually READ it.

This is also the best money guide for young adults. I think it is perfect to start with even for elementary kids. It is less about finance and more about developing a common sense about money. Works as a refresher and reminder for adults too. I found myself in total agreement, having done well over the years using the same principles.

If you need convincing on any point, or want the details on how to execute an idea, you can delve into the aforementioned books. — KK

• The four most powerful words in any negotiation: “Can you do better?”You’re sitting in the office of the person who’s dying to be your new boss. He’s just offered you a job that you really want with the title you’ve been craving. The only hitch: The salary isn’t where you’d hoped it would be. Don’t commit–at least not neil you ask, “Can you do better?” It’s the perfect haggle. You sound as if you know there’s wiggle room, and you’re willing to let him work his magic. And note: This works just as well when you’re on the phone with the cable company, at the mechanic for an oil change, talking to a mortgage rep about in a “refi” rate. It even–I know from experience–works with teenage kids.
• There’s no such thing as chump change.$100 is not a lot of money. Save it every week, however, and invest it in a retirement account where you earn a conservative 6 percent, and keep doing it for 30 years and you’ll have $433,557. In 40 years, you’ll have more than twice that. And that is a lot of money.
• Saving is more important than investing.Next time you stress about the stock market, remember this: The amount of money you manage to sock away is much more important than the return on that money. You can take my word for it. Or you can consider this eye-opening example: You save $250 a month, which you then invest. If you earn 6 percent on that money, a year from now you’ll have $3,267. If you earn 10 percent, you’ll have $3,311–$44 more. But what if you waited a month to start saving? Then even at 10 percent you’d have $3,052–$215 less. What if you saved $200 a month instead of $250? Then, again at 10 percent, you’d have $2,649–$618 less. As your nest-egg grows and gets into the six figure range, the return on investment starts to matter more. But you can’t get to that level if you don’t start to save now. Right now.
• Your retirement trumps their tuition.You know when you’re on an airplane and they always tell you to put your oxygen mask on first before assisting a child? Saving for long-term financial needs is the same. If you don’t save for your own future first, you won’t be able to help your children when they need it. Worse, they may be forced to help you just when they’re trying to put their own kids through school. There is no financial aid for retirement. There is plenty of financial aid for college. Don’t feel guilty about this.
• The best cost-cutting tool is a good night’s sleep.With the possible exception of prescription medication, flashlight batteries, bottled water (under the pressure of a hurricane), and a few other true necessities, there is nothing you need to buy that can’t wait until tomorrow. So when you’re faced with a discretionary purchase, do your wallet a favor and sleep on it. If you’re not still thinking about it–whatever it happened to be–24 hours later, you didn’t need or want it anyway.
• Don’t shop hungry.This is not just a rule that applies in grocery stores. Do you know why they ply you with samples at warehouse stores? Because exciting your mouth–literally making you drool–makes you spend more money not just on food, but on everything. It primes the same part of your brain that responds to the rewards you really want. So maybe you went to the store to buy diapers but now that your brain is active, you buy the tent. (That shopping trip is legend in our family. I should tell you: we don’t camp.) Oh, and when your favorite little boutique offers a special evening sale with wine and cheese? Steer clear. Alcohol not only primes the pleasure pump, it inhibits self-control.

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

TeamLab produces immersive destinations that are worth going out of your way to see. They began in Japan, where they have four huge installations that offer entertaining environments, using lights, mirrors, video, projectors and other media magic inside giant rooms. Our family spent an exhilarating 3 hours in the TeamLab Borderless site in Tokyo wandering through the mazes of experiences with constant smiles. It dazzled kids and elders. Even though TeamLab have become Instagram hot spots, and art snobs consider it too commercial, I would recommend making a trip to experience Borderless yourself. Go with friends, it’s more fun. — KK

Listen to whale codas

Project CETI’s Listen to Whales website is an immersion into the codas and culture of cetaceans, inviting you to literally listen in on sperm whale family life and history. The project uses AI to listen to, decode, and translate sperm whale communication. I love how CETI reframes whales as cultural beings with their own clans, dialects, and stories, and has created this living platform to share what they’re learning in real time—and to inspire meaningful action to protect our oceans. — CD

Kitchen drawer multitool

I keep this Workpro 24-in-1 Multitool in a kitchen drawer for quick fixes so I don’t need to shlep down to the basement for my toolbox. It handles minor repairs: tightening a loose cabinet hinge, snipping a zip tie, prying open a battery compartment. The pliers are solid, the knife is sharp, and the Phillips and flathead screwdrivers cover 90% of household fasteners. Folds to about the size of a thick marker. Not a replacement for real tools, but perfect for “I just need to fix this one thing” moments. — MF

Compact travel toy

I’ve long been a big fan of Magna-Tiles, which are small plastic squares that act as parts of a construction system for kids. The tiles rely on magnetic edges to build things easily. You can build a million different things, like Lego, but it is much easier to do than Lego. Even toddlers can master them without boredom. They now make MicroMags, tiny compact versions of mini-Magna-Tiles, perfect for travel. A small set of MicroMags will fit into a slim box about the size of a standard book, and give restless kids enough options to occupy them for hours. Small enough to pack in luggage, but set out on a table, they invite playful engagement. — KK

The Correlation Experiment

The Correlation Experiment has you answer questions about everyday preferences so it can predict your answers based on data correlations. I don’t like being predictable, so I loved when its predictions went wrong—out of 60 questions, it missed about 20%. After a while, though, I was insulted by the misses: it pegged me as not an inbox zero person, guessed comedy over horror, and said I don’t make my bed first thing in the morning. No login needed, and it’s fun to play. — CD

Free iPhone storage cleaner

Clever Cleaner is a free iPhone app — no ads, no subscriptions, no paywalled features. It scans your photo library for duplicates and similar shots, identifies large videos hogging space, and rounds up forgotten screenshots. A “Smart Cleanup” button lets AI select which duplicates to trash, or you can swipe through photos manually. All processing happens on-device, so your photos never leave your phone. It’s made by CleverFiles, the folks behind Disk Drill data recovery software. — MF

Sign up here to get Recomendo a week early in your inbox.

Get When Things Fall Apart

Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, When Things Fall Apart offers a counterintuitive approach to suffering: instead of running from pain, move toward it with friendliness and curiosity — and discover that groundlessness itself can become the foundation for an awakened life.

Core Principles

Embrace Groundlessness

We spend enormous energy trying to find solid ground — security, certainty, permanence — but life is fundamentally groundless. Rather than fighting this truth, Pema teaches us to relax into uncertainty. Getting the knack of staying present with shakiness, a broken heart, or hopelessness without panicking is the path of true awakening.

Move Toward Pain

Our instinct is to flee from painful situations, but nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. When we protect ourselves from pain, that protection becomes armor that imprisons the softness of the heart. The approach that brings lasting benefit involves becoming intimate with difficulty rather than avoiding it.

Practice Maitri (Loving-Kindness)

Before we can extend compassion to others, we must develop maitri — unconditional friendliness toward ourselves. This means having the courage and honesty to look at ourselves without aggression, accepting our fears, confusion, and imperfection as part of being human rather than evidence of failure.

This Moment Is the Teacher

We don’t need to wait for extraordinary circumstances to practice awakening. This very moment — with all its messiness, ordinariness, and discomfort — is the perfect teacher. Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available right now in our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives.

Try It Now

1. Notice something uncomfortable you’re feeling right now — anxiety, restlessness, sadness, or physical tension.
2. Instead of trying to fix it or push it away, stay with the sensation for one minute. Breathe and observe it with curiosity.
3. Silently say to yourself: “This is what fear feels like” (or sadness, or uncertainty). Name it without judgment.
4. Ask yourself: “What is this feeling trying to teach me?” Don’t force an answer — just let the question sit.
5. End offering yourself the same compassion you would give a good friend in pain.

Quote

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. We run away from it, but the same problem just waits for us wearing new names and new faces.”

…is Bangkok once again. Hosting more than 30 million arrivals in 2025, Thailand’s capital was the most popular place to land. Next on the list were Hong Kong, London, Macau, and Istanbul. Paris, the #1 “most attractive city” on Euromonitor’s list was #9 in arrivals. See the details here.

US/Canadian Rail Travelers in Europe

RailEurope only gets a fraction of the total foreign train bookings on the continent, but it gets enough of them do that the company could release a whole 2025 wrap-up on US and Canadian travel there. Nice to see that more than half of visitors are picking multiple cities and adding smaller cities to the big and famous ones. Nevertheless, France was the number one market overall and this was shocking: “The Barcelona-Madrid corridor accounted for almost 50% of all revenue from Canadian and U.S. travellers.”

Experienced Travelers Shun AI Bots

Experienced travelers may be fine with asking ChatGPT who won the best picture Oscar in 2019, but they’re not about to let the computer bots plan their vacation. Anyone who has asked an AI tool to recommend an itinerary for their own city quickly sees why, but this new report says, “Only 20 percent said they would feel comfortable letting AI design a complete trip itinerary based on their preferences.” A full 79 percent said they would feel uncomfortable letting “agentic AI” systems book their travel for them.

Huge Admission Increases in Mexico

Until this year, admission prices for the archaeological sites in Mexico were a good value when compared to others around the world. That was until the national government doubled them all for foreigners this month. It will now cost you $38 to brave the tour bus crowds and vendors at Chichen Itza. Oddly, it will cost you the same amount to visit far less popular Ek Balam and $35 to visit ruins almost nobody goes to as it is, such as Sayil and Labna. The best bang for the buck is sprawling Teotihuacan near Mexico City, now looking like a deal at less than $12. Despite the doubling, that’s also the price for Monte Alban, Coba, and Palenque.

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

I work managing creative teams for the online communication of brands and institutions across Italy and Spain, but mostly on the Internet. For over seven years, I have been writing nonostantement – a weekly Sunday newsletter, collecting the most interesting things I find online. — Joele Lucherini

PHYSICAL

• Japanese Barbecue Tongs – I am completely influenced by Japanese chefs on TikTok, and when I saw these tongs, I had to buy them. I find them much better than regular ones, especially for handling small pieces of food while cooking.
• Manduka Yoga Mat – Over the past year, I started practicing yoga twice a week. I’m lucky to be able to do it at home with online classes, which helped turn it into a habit—even though I’ve never really enjoyed sports.
• Cat Meme Stickers Pack – A pack of about a hundred cat meme stickers. It’s a small, inexpensive thing, but it can completely change my day — surprising someone with a weird cat sticker is a simple gesture that always makes people smile.

DIGITAL

• Parcel app – Working from home and spending a lot of time in front of my computer, I buy things online quite a lot. This app is reliable and it’s almost always open on my laptop for tracking all my deliveries.
• Make.com – I’ve never really had the calm mind (lol) to become a proper coder, but I’ve always enjoyed tinkering with how things work behind the scenes. Make.com—a no-code platform that connects different apps and services—has genuinely changed my life, dramatically improving my work by letting me automate almost anything I can think of.

INVISIBLE

“Not my business, not my problem.”

Every year, I choose a sentence to guide me in my work. This year it was this “mantra” I often had to repeat to avoid getting too involved in my clients’ company issues, especially when dealing with things I don’t control or am not responsible for.

Sign up here to get What’s in my NOW? a week early in your inbox.

FIGHT CLUB 2 – IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A PUNCH TO THE CEREBRAL CORTEX, DEFINITELY PICK THIS UP

Fight Club 2
by Chuck Palahniuk (author), Cameron Stewart (illustrator) and David Mack (illustrator)
Dark Horse Comics
2016, 256 pages, 6.9 x 10.5 x 0.9 inches

Buy on Amazon

Let’s talk about Fight Club. This movie rocked me, and introduced me to the incredible and controversial work of Chuck Palahniuk. Now the concept of a sequel does seem a little out of sorts to the counter culture message of the original, but honestly, who hasn’t been wondering how things turned out for Marla and the Narrator after he stuck a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger? Did they find their happily ever after? No, of course they didn’t, thus the sequel.

The Narrator finally gets a name, Sebastian…it’s not a great name, but it fits given the current state of his life. Marla’s bored, Sebastian is in a drug-induced fog, Tyler Durden is raging behind the scenes trying to get back in control, and project mayhem is causing more chaos than ever. Then things get weird.

If you’ve only seen the movie you probably won’t dig this. Actually Palahniuk’s anticipation of the fanbase’s dislike for the comic becomes an actual plot point. Things get meta to say the least. The comic builds off of not just the novel, but Palahniuk’s work and reputation since the film came out. It’s very fitting of Palahniuk, and I think fans of his will really enjoy it, but be clear this is not a blockbuster directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt or Ed Norton.

What I found really unique was that this story could only be told in comic form. Tyler’s antics, and his fight to control the narrative couldn’t be contained by text in a novel. And things get far too self-referential for any film goer – I found myself having to go back a page or two on several occasions to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Images are strategically placed over dialogue, narration bubbles obstruct characters. The design of the comic itself adds to the feeling that this is a war over the story itself. Is Sebastian in control? Is Tyler? Is Palahniuk? I found myself engaged and thinking about it long after I finished reading. It’s heady and not for a casual comic reader, but if you’re looking for a punch to the cerebral cortex, definitely pick this up. I want you to read this as hard as you can. – JP LeRoux

TESLA: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AN ELECTRIC MESSIAH

Tesla: The Life and Times of an Electric Messiah
by Nigel Cawthorne
Chartwell Books
2014, 192 pages, 7.2 x 10.5 x 0.8 inches

Buy on Amazon

Mad scientist. Inventor. Philosopher. Visionary. Eccentric. A man who was terrible at business, but great with pigeons. A mythic figure, Nicola Tesla was all these things and more. Examining his life and career, Tesla: The Life And Times Of An Electric Messiah is a lengthy, oversized book filled with illustrations, photos, diagrams of his many inventions, and brief, informative vignettes about his friends, colleagues, business associates, and rivals.

Tesla’s own words are pulled from writings and correspondence, and help flesh out a turn-of-the-century futurist, although they can be somewhat dry and academic. His eccentricities liven things up considerably. For instance, did you know he once fell into a vat of boiling milk, and lived on a diet of bread, warm milk, and something mysteriously known as ‘Factor Actus’? Did you know he had a strange aversion to women’s earrings, and would become feverish at the sight of a peach? Tidbits like these keep the book moving at a nice pace, as the man became more reclusive and odd toward the end of his life.

His War Of The Currents with Thomas Edison is detailed, as well as his battle of radio with Guglielmo Marconi. His experiments with wireless transmission of energy, X-Rays, flying machines, remote control, and artificial intelligence are also described, as well as the mystery surrounding the disappearance of his papers concerning his invention of a death ray by the US government. Beautifully illustrated on parchment-tinted paper, Tesla: The Life And Times Of An Electric Messiah is a handsome, encyclopedic book about a startlingly prescient early 20th-century pioneer. – S. Deathrage

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

Essential parental skill

Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems

I was trying to think of the book that has had the greatest effect on my life. Books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , or The Fountainhead carried a lot of philosophical weight at the time I’d read them in college but they seem like junk upon re-reading them now. So, I asked myself again, what book has really changed my life? Then it hit me: it was, without a doubt, Richard Ferber’s Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems.

We have two kids, one age six, the other 11 months. When our six year old was a baby, we put her to sleep by holding her and rocking her. She would wake up every couple of hours, crying for us to come back and rescue her. We finally gave up and let her sleep with us. It was the only way we could get any sleep. To this day, she demands that one of us crawls into bed with her until she falls asleep.

When we had our other daughter, she would cry for us every hour at night. The whole family was exhausted from the ordeal. Would we have to suffer this ordeal for three more years?

Some friends told us to “Ferberize” her and we’d all be able to sleep soundly. We were skeptical, but we bought the book and followed the instructions faithfully. In a nutshell, Ferberization entails putting your baby in her crib, kissing her goodnight and walking out of the room. She’ll cry, of course. After five minutes, you walk in and reassure her, then walk out again. This time you wait ten minutes. You repeat this, adding five minutes between return visits. It sounds cruel. As a parent, your instinct is to run to your baby as soon as she starts crying. But in this case, not following you instincts is the best course of action. It took exactly two nights to Ferberize our baby. She has learned to fall asleep on her own, and when she wakes up at night, she knows how to fall back asleep on her own. Best of all, she is happy, confident, and well-rested. And so are we. We have our nights, and as a result, our days back.

While this was truly a life-changing book, you really don’t need to read it. Other chapters address the nature of sleep and how to deal with more unusual child sleep problems, but for most people, the procedure I described above is all you need. Reading the book, however, made me feel better psychologically about going through with it. — Mark Frauenfelder

I have three kids. This method works. — KK

• Better than lying with your toddler or young child until he falls asleep at night is for him to fall asleep with a “transitional object” — a stuffed animal, a doll, a toy, a special blanket. The toy will often help him accept the nighttime separation from you and can be a source of reassurance and comfort when he is alone. It will give him a feeling of having a little control over his world because he may have the toy or blanket with him whenever he wants, which he cannot expect from you. His toy will not get up and leave after he falls asleep and it will still be there whenever he wakes.

Distributed weight babywearing

Moby Wrap

There are so many baby carriers on the market right now, and I’ve tried a good deal of them: various slings, the Ergo Baby, Baby Bjorn, and the like all tend to put the bulk of the baby’s weight on one part of the back. While there is some distribution with shoulder or hip straps, the weight is still focused primarily on one area (shoulder/hips). I had seen the Moby Wrap and had decidedly avoided trying it, as it looked complicated and uncomfortable. A friend finally convinced me to try one, and I fell in love.

Not only is my baby securely snuggled up against my body, but it is incredibly comfortable to wear. It looks to be about 20 feet of fabric that you wrap around your body and slip the baby into. No doubt based on some age-old method of carrying babies, it is by far the most comfortable and versatile carrier I’ve seen. Because it crosses around your body so many times in different locations, it distributes the weight of the child to a variety of places: shoulders, upper back, lower back and hips. Plus, the baby can face forwards, backwards or sideways when worn on your front, and she can be worn on your hips or back as well.

While it does require an introduction on how to put it on, once you have figured out how it works, it could not be simpler to use. The basic concept is that you create a cross of fabric on your body and slip the baby between you and the cross, with her legs hanging out between. Also, because of the criss-cross over your shoulders you can nestle the baby’s head under the wrap, allowing full protection from the sun or, more importantly for the new parent, a quiet zone in which to nap, even at a bustling market. For all its simplicity this is simply the best baby carrier available.

There are several variations on this idea — one with rings, one made of more stretchy material, one with fancy patterns — from various manufacturers, but the basic design is all the same — wrap the fabric around your body, slide the baby in and enjoy. — Elizabeth Sendil

Simplest baby carrier

New Native Baby Sling

Like most Americans, I hauled my firstborn around in his carseat/infant carrier. Never again. For my second child, I researched slings extensively, and bought a New Native. It’s simpler than any other sling, including the Maya sling Cool Tools reviewed.

New Native is just one piece of fabric, hemmed and stitched into a big pocket. That means no adjustment rings or buckles to come loose or fiddle with. Accordingly, it’s sized. I wear a medium. My husband, who is much bigger than I am, wears my (medium) sling as well — there are three sizes, small, medium, and large, and the medium fits a pretty wide range of people.

I’ve slung my second baby since day one. She has taken countless naps in it. The sleek, professional look of the New Native means that a lot of people take it for fashion. While my daughter was small, they didn’t even know I had a baby on. I wore it to the office and even taught class with it.

At nine months I can count on one hand the number of times my daughter has ridden in a stroller. Everywhere I go people who see it wish they had known about it when they were carrying babies, and ask me where I got my sling: New Native. — Donna Bowman

Back/front/hip infant carrier

Ergobaby

We carried our seven-month-old daughter around Prague and Leipzig for hours in a standard BabyBjörn this last winter and she/we loved it — cozy and comfortable. The problem: it’s only a front carrier, and since then, she’s gotten heavier, which started to take it’s toll on our backs (imagine carrying a bowling ball strapped to your chest.). Now we’re using an Ergo, which can be easily re-configured for back-, front-, or side-carrying. Since it buckles around your waist, most of the weight is put on your hips. While an “original” BabyBjörn is rated for use with babies up to 25 lbs, I tried ours with our daughter when she was 15 lbs and it was a no go. She’s heavier now, and the Ergo remains incredibly comfortable: I’ve noticed much less lower back strain.

Learning to scoot the baby around your hips, onto your back, and into the Ergo without outside help is a bit of a production at first, but no problem once you get the hang of it. If you want to put the pack in front or on your hip, it’s quite simple, too (ed. note: the videos are quite helpful). Like the BabyBjörrn, the Ergo is made of cotton and cleans up very easily with just a sponge most of the time. It can be washed in a machine, too. There’s a cotton hood (the green fabric in the pic) that attaches with snap buttons for when the baby is sleeping — protects her from the elements, and keeps her head from flopping around.

Note: BabyBjörrn does make an “Active” model (which we have not tried) with lower back support that is supposed to “ease the burden.” However, you cannot convert that one to a hip/back carrier. —Brandon Summers

Bedwetting solution

Enurad

Our son is a very sound sleeper and had problems with bedwetting. We tried everything we could think of. Finally I stumbled across a mention of Enurad in a parents’ forum. It’s a wireless wetness sensor that you place in the child’s underwear. A standard alarm clock has been modified to ring at the slightest wetness. Enurad combined with limiting nighttime fluids solved the problem in a couple of months. He wore the device for sometime after that as an insurance policy. He just slept better knowing it was there. At $210 it’s not inexpensive, but worth every penny. Enurad doesn’t have a US distrubuter that I know of. I ordered ours from Austrailia. Highly Recommended. — Johnboy

According to the most recent science moisture alarms are the most lasting medical cures for nocturnal bedwetting, better than commonly prescribed drugs. —KK

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

We launched a free daily email newsletter called Recomendo Deals that alerts you when products we’ve previously recommended in Recomendo and Cool Tools drop to unusually low prices. Here’s how it works: Every day, the system checks thousands of products we’ve recommended over the years against Keepa, a service that tracks Amazon price history. When a product falls 20% or more below its 90-day average price, or hits an all-time low, it surfaces as a deal. These aren’t random products — they’re things we’ve already vetted and recommended. I’ve already purchased a few items myself. It literally takes 20 seconds to scan the 5 to 10 deals that show up each day, and most days there’s nothing I need. But occasionally, something I’ve had my eye on drops to a great price. Give it a try by subscribing here. — MF

Bargain flights to Japan

By far the best bargain flights to Japan are through a Japan Airlines subsidiary called Zip Air. Our family used it going both ways to Tokyo this holiday and I can highly recommend them. All routes begin or terminate in Tokyo, flying from hub cities in Asia, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and from select cities in the US. Prices vary widely during the year, but on some weeks this coming spring an economy ROUND TRIP flight from San Francisco to Tokyo is only $283!!!! Of course, they charge for everything from meals, water, blankets, and luggage. But we can manage. And their “lie full flat” seats (business class) are less than $2,000, but also without blankets, pillows, or service. We tried both the economy and full flat seats, and both are worth the small hassles for the ridiculous cheap prices. — KK

35 simple health tips

This article gathers 35 simple, research-backed practices from sleep specialists, sex therapists, psychologists, nutrition scientists and more, each offering one small habit they personally rely on to support everyday well-being. The whole list is great, and I especially love the reflection on “soft fascination” — turning to simple, almost meditative tasks when there are too many mental tabs open, and letting answers rise on their own. For me, washing dishes is always a meditative reset that clears out mental clutter and restores a sense of spaciousness. — CD

Understanding Old English

What we now call the English language has been rapidly changing for over a thousand years. The best way to experience this evolution is to watch this video by Simon Roper where the same passage is recited in proto-English, and then repeated in newer versions of Old English every hundred years, until you reach modern English. The game is to see when you begin to understand it. For me it was around 1600 in part. This gimmick, more than any other, gave me an appreciation of what ancestral versions of English were like. — KK

Dream school newsletter

Every night I have multiple, vivid dream adventures, and for the past five years I’ve been writing them down and treating them as a parallel stream of consciousness for self‑reflection, healing, and guidance. The dream teacher who’s helped me the most is author Robert Moss, whose free Substack is a living archive of shamanic “active dreaming” prompts, personal stories, and techniques that make it easy to develop a co‑creative relationship with your dreams. If you’re at all interested in understanding your dream self on a deeper level, I highly recommend subscribing to his newsletter. Two great starting pieces are “Nine Keys to Understanding Your Dreams” and “The Only Dream Expert is You.” — CD

Satisfying squish

A relative with ADHD brought a NeeDoh to a family gathering, and I couldn’t put it down. Like me, she uses fidgets to focus, and this one is perfect — a soft, stretchy ball filled with a viscous dough-like substance inside a silicone skin. You squeeze, squish, and stretch it, and it slowly oozes back to its original shape. The resistance is deeply satisfying. Her tips: keep it in the fridge to make it harder(and more fun) to squeeze, and when the silicone skin gets grungy, wash it with soap and water, then rub cornstarch over it — good as new. NeeDoh comes in various shapes (balls, cubes, figures) and costs around $5-10. Great for desks, meetings, or anywhere you need to keep restless hands busy. — MF

Sign up here to get Recomendo a week early in your inbox.