This & That: Guilty Pleasures

Hello, readers!

In today’s edition of the newsletter I’m sharing Ozan Varol’s thoughts on guilty pleasures, a mini-list with a few of my own guilty pleasure books, and some great links for your week. Let’s get to it.

---

Something I’m Thinking About: Let Go of the Guilt

Ozan Varol is one of my favorite thinkers in the realm of work and creativity. Last week he wrote a short piece about guilty pleasures that really resonated with me and I wanted to share a good chunk of it here. Be sure to read the whole thing and check out Ozan’s books and newsletters as well.

One of my guilty pleasures is reading Dan Brown novels.

I love the startling plot twists, the cliffhangers, and the adrenaline rush produced by his over-the-top plots.

Reading thrillers isn’t “productive,” so I’d call it my guilty pleasure.

But then I started to question the term “guilty pleasure.”

The implication is clear: If it feels good—and if it’s not intellectual or doesn’t serve some clear productive purpose—you better feel guilty about doing it.

We’ve been conditioned to attach guilt to pleasure.

We’ve been told that we improve ourselves by fighting ourselves, distrusting what makes us feel good, and denying ourselves what we desire.

This is the entire premise of the prevailing hustle culture: If you’re not in pain—if you’re not constantly grinding, hustling, and struggling—you’re not doing it right.

This mindset is so prevalent—the sacrifice of personal desires for external rewards is so persistent—that people lose touch with what they really want.

What do you think? What are some of your favorite diversions that you shouldn’t feel guilty about, but sometimes do?

---

The Mini List: A Few of My Favorite Not-So-Guilty Pleasures

For me, the guilty pleasure bucket of books is almost always filled by thrillers that are light on prose and heavy on fast plots + witty conversations. Here are a few that have stuck, for no real reason whatsoever.

• The General’s Daughter by Nelson DeMille. I’m almost done with this thriller-turned-Hollywood-blockbuster and I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s the first DeMille I’ve read and definitely won’t be the last.

• The Mediterranean Caper by Clive Cussler. Cussler was my go-to guilty pleasure author for a long time. This one, just his second published novel, remains one of my favorites.

• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. The plot is so outrageous that it’s utterly memorable and stands out in my memory for just how fun it was to read over a long weekend many years ago.

---

Miscellany

📚 As someone who reviews a lot of books, this longform meditation on the art and craft of the book review was inspiring, challenging, thought-provoking, and something I plan to return to more than once.

🕺 Irina Dumitrescu’s newsletter

the process

always makes me think. This piece on how social media disconnects us from our physical bodies was especially interesting.

🏘️ It’s reality TV season, baby! Seasons 7 of both Queer Eye and Selling Sunset have dropped in the last week and we’ve been bingeing. They’re delightful and entertaining in very different ways.

🍹 In a carryover from Dry January, Jane and I have found ourselves drinking way less alcohol this year, especially during the week and at home. So I’ve been revisiting my own mocktail recipe that I wrote during my Art of Manliness days. It’s such a versatile framework that you just can’t go wrong.

---

Thanks for reading! I really appreciate it.

-Jeremy