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Curious Reading Club

@readcurious.xyz
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Brilliant, hand-picked non-fiction delivered to your door every month. Sign up or get our newsletter at readcurious.xyz

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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 24/09/2026
It's your last chance to sign up to our club and get September's book, SOLDIERS AND KINGS,—an astonishing, intimate look at human trafficking from Mexico to the US. LAT: "a glimpse into a world rarely seen or understood” NYT: "A rare inside look at human smuggling on the border" readcurious.xyz
The cover of Soldiers & Kings by Jason De León, featuring a blue-shaded  image of the back of the head of a people smuggler, their hair in cornrows, and bold yellow text. "Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling"
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 15/09/2026
What makes Jason de León's "Soldiers and Kings" work so well? One reason is how comfortable it is with ambiguity, and how it sets the reader up for life in the gray zone. Our close read is here: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/close-read...
A migrant walks along the railway tracks in Juarez, Mexico.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 20/07/2026
Why did we love POSITIVE OBSESSION by @susanamorris.bsky.social so much? Many reasons, but a few of the most important ones are here. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/positive-o...
A handwritten note from the Octavia E. Butler archive with reminders for herself. "Tell stories Filled with Facts. Make People Touch and Taste and KNOW. Make People FEEL! FEEL! Feel!"
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 13/04/2026
What made “Waste Wars” our book of the month for April? It’s a skillful expose of the myths at the center of the rubbish and recycling industry… revealing how this is a big money operation that perverts our relationship with trash. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/waste-wars...
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 05/04/2026
If you're interested in finding out what really happens to your trash (hint, it's a big business that causes a lot of harm) then pick up a copy of "Waste Wars." Guess what? It's our book of the month, available now with a Curious Reading Club subscription! readcurious.xyz/collections/...
A man carries a basket on his head while walking atop a gigantic pile of trash in Indonesia that stretches meters high and as far as the eye can see.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 05/04/2026
And here's a worker in a shipbreaking yard in Izmir, Turkey, where huge cruise liners are ripped to pieces and the parts are reused. The conditions are wildly unsafe, workers are often untrained and rarely have protective gear. Deaths are disturbingly common.
A woman carries a large piece of metal that's been pulled out of a decommissioned ship in a grey yard in Turkey.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 05/04/2026
This is a *river* in Java, Indonesia that is so stuffed with plastic waste you can't even see the water. There's so much trash here that recycling is impossible: people here simply burn the plastic they find for fuel in their homes and kitchens.
A small blue boat full of plastic bottles sits in a river that is totally covered in floating garbage—no water is visible.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 05/04/2026
Here's Agbogbloshie, the vast garbage pile in Accra, Ghana, that is home to 35,000 people and the dumping ground for some 15,000 tonnes of western e-waste every year.
A young Ghanaian man sifts through electronic waste in the Agbogbloshie dump in Accra, Ghana
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 24/02/2026
And our weekly newsletter features announcements, interviews, close reads and insights into what makes some books great. Signing up is free! newsletter.readcurious.xyz
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 24/02/2026
In the last year we’ve featured books on topics ranging from AI to boardgames, from outer space to China, from the human body to urban policy, and from geopolitics and geology. There’s so much great stuff out there. readcurious.xyz/pages/some-r...
Cover of Red Memory by Tania Branigan, featuring a porcelain figurine of four Mao-era charactersCover of The Martians by David Baron
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 01/12/2025
Our book of the month for December is @dhbaron.bsky.social's THE MARTIANS, a fun, readable history of a wild period in American history when influential people were obsessed with the impending arrival of an alien race. Read more and sign up now: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/announceme...
Cover of The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America by David Baron
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 17/06/2025
The great @laurenmarkham.bsky.social is almost there with her Kickstarter for a new "guerrilla newspaper" on "how to approach—thwart, upend, survive—autocracy" More in our weekly update: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/curious-ne...
A typographical poster saying "THE APPROACH - THWART! UPEND! SABOTAGE! SURVIVE!" on a glowing orange and white background
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 08/06/2025
3. It's expansive. "there are lots of books about AI and the people who shape it out... this book takes a much wider and more global view of things" and actually goes to eyewitness things that many others just take on trust.
Photo of a page in Karen Hao's book describing a visit to an "urban forest" built by Google in Chile to offset its data center there, which turns out to be a few straggly trees in a remote area -- not what Google claims.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 01/04/2025
The New York Times called it "wry and revelatory" The New Yorker said it was “consistently entertaining and often downright funny" And you know what, they are right. PLUS! We'll be holding a live Q&A with Henry later this month: if you're signed up you will get an invitation. readcurious.xyz
Author Henry Grabar standing at a lectern wearing a suit.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 21/02/2025
Part 1 is here: Adam talks about on the value of a story that transports people back to life before things changed. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/unexpected...
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 21/02/2025
People who read @adamhigginbotham.bsky.social’s “Challenger” were so immersed that they hoped the disaster would somehow be averted. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/adam-higgi... 2nd part of our interview with Adam is out now!
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 13/02/2025
Last chance to get our February book of the month, Adam Higginbotham's CHALLENGER before we wrap up mailouts. readcurious.xyz/products/cur... Sign up and for just $25 each month, you get a hand-picked work of non-fiction that will entertain, inform and expand your mind.
The cover of Adam Higginbotham's book CHALLENGER: "A true story of heroism and disaster on the edge of space"
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 01/02/2025
ANNOUNCEMENT! Our February book is @adamhigginbotham.bsky.social's tremendous telling of the 1986 Space Shuttle tragedy "Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space" Get your beautiful hardback copy for $25 by signing up today. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur010-cha...
The cover of Adam Higginbotham's book CHALLENGER on a black and white tiled background
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 28/01/2025
Preparing to announce and ship February's book of the month—a real doozy that was rightly praised to the roof in end-of-year lists. Want to get it and other hand-picked non-fiction each month for just $25? Sign up now and fantastic reads will be on their way to you in no time! readcurious.xyz
The hidden cover of CUR010, Curious Reading Club's book of the month for February 2025, on a black and white tiled background.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 25/01/2025
We chatted with @annaleen.bsky.social, our author of the month... and got a bunch of fascinating lessons on psychological warfare, including how culture wars use the same tactics as the military to sow fear and loathing among Americans. Read more: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/interview-...
Screenshot of a segment of text reading "these kinds of laws create a state of psychological distress in the chosen victims, whether it's black people or trans people or immigrants. And that's the goal of psychological war: to make a particularly adversary scared, confused, unable to speak out publicly about their situation unless they want to risk arrest or risk lynching or risk being beaten."Author Annalee Newitz on a Zoom call discuss their book Stories Are Weapons.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 21/01/2025
Every Friday our newsletter features interviews with authors, close reads and explorations of the recipe for great non-fiction as well as links, news and updates. Sign up for free here: newsletter.readcurious.xyz
A screenshot of the homepage of the Curious Reading Club newsletter, featuring recent stories and interviews
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 20/01/2025
Don’t know what you spent your day doing, but instead of doomscrolling or staring transfixed by current events we went to the bookstore. Great haul from Moe’s in Berkeley.
Four books with largely monochrome colors splayed across a yellow seat, posing for a photo like your French girls. Crime & Punishment, Exhalation, The Imaginative Argument and Beowulf lay before you.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 20/01/2025
In case you missed it... We're a book recommendation service focused on hand-picking brilliant non-fiction that will entertain you, provoke your imagination and expand your horizons. Sign up to get a new book each month: It's $25/month to subscribe (US-only) readcurious.xyz/collections/...
Three covers of books chosen recently by Curious Reading Club: On Tyranny, A Map of Future Ruins and Another Word For Love.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 17/01/2025
This newsletter also features one of the best character descriptions of all time! It's the opening lines of Ian Parker's 2008 @newyorker.com profile of the irascible Alec Baldwin. www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...
Screenshot of text from a New Yorker article reads "Alec Baldwin, who stars in '30 Rock,' the NBC sitcom that has revived his career and done nothing to lift his spirits, has the unbending, straight-armed gait of someone trying to prevent clothes from rubbing against sunburned skin. He is fifty years old, divorced, and lives alone in an old white farmhouse in the Hamptons and an apartment on Central Park West—feeling thwarted, if not quite persecuted."
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 10/01/2025
Anyone out there looking for the "Great American Fantasy" may want to consider conspiracy theories—the nation's incoherent legendarium of psyops, cults and unhinged claims. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/conspiracy... Featuring @annaleen.bsky.social, @abbierichards.bsky.social and @nytimes.com
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 10/12/2024
All this and more in our full interview with Rebecca! newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/interview-... Sign up to our newsletter for get more interviews, close reads and book recommendations: newsletter.readcurious.xyz
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 10/12/2024
3) Research, research, research. You might find stories that are so vital but hidden in documents, libraries, and archives — like the story of Millie Naharkey, a Muskogee woman who was abducted, abused and swindled in the 1920s by unscrupulous oilmen who wanted her inheritance.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 10/12/2024
2) help people see what you see, and feel what you feel.
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 25/11/2024
How does the opening of By The Fire We Carry drag the reader into the story? Take look at the use of perspective, images and landscape: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/zooming-in...
Highlighted section of text from the linked post saying “we start with the camera zoomed way out, almost as if we are looking down from space at a map of the US and its complicated borders.”
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 22/11/2024
Coming up in today's newsletter: a close read of the opening of Rebecca Nagle's BY THE FIRE WE CARRY. Why is it so punchy and effective? Sign up now to find out! newsletter.readcurious.xyz
The first page of the hardcover edition of Rebecca Nagle's BY THE FIRE WE CARRY. It begins "The Indian Nation Turnpike is a four-lane highway cutting north to south through the bottom right corner of Oklahoma."
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Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 21/11/2024
Even an internet outage caused by the wind and rain from an atmospheric river couldn't stop us from chatting with @rebeccanagle.bsky.social about this month's book club pick. Interview coming soon for newsletter subscribers (and video too for paying Members.) Sign up at: newsletter.readcurious.xyz
Screen capture of video chat between author Rebecca Nagle, who has one earphone in as she talks into the microphone, and interviewer Bobbie Johnson, who appears to have gigantic hands.
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