READ.LOOK.THINK. | Sophie Braham

The first guest poster in the READ.LOOK.THINK. summer series is Sophie Braham: writer, top five favourite tweeter @sophiebrahams, and one third of my favourite new podcast. These are Sophie’s picks.

READ: I like to read about television so I feel like I’m doing more than just watching TV.  Emily Nussbaum is wise. She files short unintimidating posts with a great ear for what TV is saying about us. | Todd Van Der Werff’s recaps are always completely committed to the logic of the universe within the show. And the other day on Twitter he said this: ‘in 15 years, the only way to find a job will be via a reality tv show.’ | Alyssa Rosenberg on rudeness in Mad Men. | ‘You are going to be hearing a lot more about it in the next ten to twenty years’ is a very compelling opening argument for what might be my favourite ever conspiracy theory. |Jennifer Egan’s Black Box.

LOOK: Finding out about Vivian Maier, beta version of The Sartorialist, was the best bit of the This American Life live show. Imbibe her novelistic photos. | More than just rabbithole of narcissism, Favstar.fm can be a good place to hang out when Twitter seems too noisy. | I really like Veep. It is a perfectly entertaining artifact rather than a cultural phenomenon, like Girls or Mad Men. What a relief! | The Nerdist Writers Panel is the Podcast I’m currently neglecting all others to listen to. | Gracie from The Nanny looks a bit like Pete Campbell?

THINK: Paying attention to the creative gestures of Misha Glouberman and Sheila Heti is rewarding. Here are some excerpts of their recent joint book project, which features this refreshing view about cycling lanes in the city: ’what the city will end up looking like if such people achieve all their goals is one that’s uniquely and specifically well suited to people who are young and well educated and able-bodied, with a fair amount of free time, who are interested in culture and parties and living in a dense downtown core. In other words, people just like themselves.’ | Barthes birthed the TV recap, ‘a collapse of creativity and criticism into one.’ | Tom Scocca on this Don Draper fellow, and the false ecology of talking only about television. | Cantankerous Vladimir Nabokov on whether he’ll do a guest READ.LOOK.THINK post linking to some of his favourite online writers: “There are several such writers, but I shall not name them. Anonymous pleasure hurts nobody.”