Conversations about ideas we encounter through books and films, and where they lead us.
| Platform |  | Pricing | Freemium | Publishes | Weekly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issues | 221 | Founded | 3 years ago | Last Issue | 8 days ago |
| Active | |||||
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The Mondays We’ve Got Left (You Only Die Once)
I’ve been revisiting some older pieces to see which still feel at home in Shaping Life. I first published this one a couple of years ago, inspired by an idea I encountered in Jodi Wellman’s book You Only Die Once and her TEDx talk. It’s an...
Why Jean never left the hotel (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel)
“Why don’t you ever go out?”, asks Graham Dashwood in the 2011 John Madden film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
He asks this of Jean Ainslee, who along with her husband and other British retirees, moved to Jaipur, India, lured by the prom...
Am I well-read if I haven’t read the right books?
I read a lot.
Reading is one of the organizing activities of my life. There is almost always a book beside me, my Kindle never far away. My To-Be-Read list is so ambitious, the phrase “so many books, so little time” comes to mind.
But a r...
What Stayed With Me #2
notebook entries, August 2026
Dear friends,
The Happiness Project: Is simplicity the secret?
In the introduction to her book, The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin shared a list of personal reminders and observations. She called them “secrets of adulthood”.
“Bring a sweater. What you do every day matters more than what you do once...
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Authors
The writers behind this newsletter.
I read, I watch films, and I write about the ones that get stuck in my head. \ud83d\udcda✍\ud83c\udffc
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