Upcoming appearance notes and two unlocked essays

Quick notes before I head off to London...

It’s been a week since Here Be Monsters was officially released. I’ve been bombarded by photos from people showing me that they’ve now gotten their copies, and it’s really amazing to see so many of these. I’m also excited for when the reviews start coming out. If you write a review of it somewhere, drop me a comment with a link to it and I’ll feature it along with others in a later post. Same with photos and “shelfies” (spottings of the book in bookstores) — either here or on my instagram are good places to notify me.

I leave for London in two days for a release event on Friday, 22 September, for Here Be Monsters at Hoxton Books. I’ve already heard from about a dozen of you who hope to attend, and I’m quite looking forward to meeting you. If you’re also planning to attend, consider letting me know in the comments.

This was the post I wrote to remind people of that event. Standing shirtless in front of my neighbor’s cows, it felt quite hard to imagine myself being in London. I’ll also probably have to wear a shirt:

rhydwildermuth

A post shared by @rhydwildermuth

For those of you not local to London, you can also catch me on the online release event with Gordon White on Rune Soup. That’s Sunday, 24 September, at 6PM CEST. Going to the link now will tell you the local time for its broadcast wherever you are in the world, and you can also set a reminder alert for yourself there.

There are also plans for events in early November, including a potential appearance at the London Radical Bookfair (4 November). I’m also hoping to do other events while there. If you’re in the UK and willing to help co-ordinate an appearance during that time (1-8 November), please let me know in the comments.

Next week, I’ll start new recordings for The Re/al/ign. First up will be

Catherine Liu

— author of the excellent Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class. Then, the week after, I’ll have Dan Evans, author of A Nation of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise of the Petite Bourgeoisie, on. Each of those episodes will, like usual, be paywalled for the first two weeks after release, before then being made public to everyone.

Because of these events this week and some other work, I’m very unlikely to have any new essays for you until next week. So, I’ve decided to unlock two of my more popular paid-only essays for you.

The first one is my most-viewed paywalled one, about why all those “maybe you have ADHD/Autism” quizzes seem to explain everyone perfectly: Neurodivergence? Or Alienation?

Maybe none of us are actually evolved for this kind of world, maybe none of us have the capacity to focus our attention on things we need to do when everything else is demanding that attention as well. Maybe internet technology is “rewiring” the way we think, maybe social media is harming not just our friendships and relationships but also our ability to communicate as humans-as-bodies, maybe all the devices that constantly interrupt our thoughts are actually shaping our way of thinking.

And the second is one of my own favorite essays, Naked, about body shame and body liberation.

The rays of the sun warming your skin, the light breath of wind across your neck, the tickle of grass under bare feet, the smell of pollen, leaf, and flower from warm forests and the sharp bite of winter’s chill: this is the Eros of the earth.

The world is always touching us, always making love to us, always reaching its desire out to us. We can only feel that desire, that Eros, that love, because we are bodies.

You can now view both of those as a free subscriber.

Thanks for all your well-wishes!

—Rhyd