WEEKEND READS for October 4, 2025: Across a divided country
Folk wisdom, medical grifters, love and climate, a yacht heist, and more
Happy Saturday, Ink readers!
The Republicans in Congress may have shut down the government rather than take care of the American people, but we’re still working here at The Ink. And as we do each weekend for our supporting subscribers, we’ve collected some of the most intriguing writing we’ve come across this week. Among the links you’ll find in today’s edition:
Travel brings people together — and that includes cross-country roadtrips
Did a high-end superyacht designer rip off an oligarch?
What is climate change doing to romance?
How Trump’s medbed post reveals the grifts at the heart of conspiracies
With another Trump advisor convicted of abuse, are all accusations confessions?
And, as always, music
You won’t want to miss any of it. Thank you so much to our supporting subscribers for making this newsletter possible. If you haven’t yet joined our community, why not become part of this and help us build the future of independent media today?
In The Ink this week
It’s time to move past the 2024 postmortems. So throughout the month, we’ll be talking to people who are articulating a real vision for the future of the Democratic Party, beginning with veteran strategist Corbin Trent.
And now, your Weekend Reads
Make the road by roadtripping
Driving across a fractured country reveals a surprising number of connections.
Mary Ann tells me that she has a problem with drivers who don’t speak English well, and it jars me. Then she talks about sharing dinners with those same drivers over camp stoves, the air alive with spices she can’t name, hands of different colors passing bowls back and forth. Suspicion at the threshold, welcome once the table is set: This is Mary Ann’s America.
For others we meet, America is faith and uncertainty interlaced, inextricable. [The Atavist]