You are fluent in this language (and don't even know it)

I can't stomach horror books (let alone movies). So I had never read anything by Stephen King when I first picked up this book. It might be the most insightful, witty, serious, funny and instructive book on the craft of writing — or rather, storytelling in general.

Pixar is one of the few places that is able to balance rigorous creative exploration with a sustainable structure. I work on a much smaller scale, but it's stunning how many of the challenges of such a large production company actually apply to an artistic one-man show.

Reading about politics in the last two years has been... trying. First, there's all the terrible news, but on top of everything else, the Twitter algorithm seems to make us all more shrill, more addicted to the cheap applause from the like-minded. Reading this essay by Zadie Smith was a rare revelation. She is a lucid observer and an incredible writer (probably much better than I can even assess). But what moved me most was that she seems to be looking for answers without vanity, but with doubt, humor and a unique ability for empathy.

It was a collaboration between Google and the Russian Railway. A video tour of the Siberian Railway — all 5,752 miles of it. I've been obsessed with that train route since I was a child, and finally I was able to see what it looks like to travel through the endless Siberian Taiga or arrive at the (very drab) train station of Vladiwostok. You were even able to pick from different sound tracks: Ballaleika Music, rumble of train tracks or War and Peace read in Russian. If somebody at Google or the Russian Railway reads this: please bring back that site!