Substacks recommended by Oliver Johnson

Recommended by Oliver Johnson

Deconfusion device

By Joshua Blake

Failing to understand the world, learning a little along the way

Billy’s Substack

By Billy Quilty

My personal Substack

Nutrition, Food & Health

By Gunter Kuhnle

My personal Substack

Dividing Lines

By Tom Hamilton

A Substack about political attack, what it means and why it matters

Everyday Hate

By Dave Rich

Reflections from the frontlines of antisemitism

Unfortunately far more necessary than it should be, an unflinching look at 21st century antisemitism

- Oliver Johnson

Tim Leunig’s Policy Substack

This substack will set out policy solutions to the issues we face today.

My personal Substack

An occasional Substack about small places, forgotten spaces, signs, maps, and unisex names... lots of unisex names.

Understanding the unseen

By Adam Kucharski

Analysis and discussion covering epidemiology, statistics and science communication from the author of 'The Rules of Contagion' and 'The Perfect Bet'.

Epidemiology, randomness, large language models, plus some invaluable writing and productivity tips from Adam Kucharski

- Oliver Johnson

Drinking Culture

By Henry Jeffreys

A newsletter about alcohol, culture and history.

arg min

By Ben Recht

arg min: a blog of minimum value. on the history, foundations, and validity of "optimally" automated decision making.

Material World

By Ed Conway

Unexpected stories from the underbelly of the modern world

If you enjoyed Ed Conway's book, this newsletter contains much more about how materials and their extraction and processing shape our modern world.

- Oliver Johnson

Stat Significant

By Daniel Parris

Data-centric essays about movies, music, TV, and more.

Sustainability by numbers

By Hannah Ritchie

Using data and research to understand what really makes a difference

A data-driven deep dive into energy and climate change, exploring whether we are doing the right things fast enough.

- Oliver Johnson

Ciaran's Crispy Cogitations

By Ciaran Martin

Mostly cyber security. Occasionally constitutional politics. Very occasionally crisps. From the former/founding head of the UK National Cyber Security Centre; now at the University of Oxford

Political Calculus

By Ben Ansell

A Substack on the connections between politics and the economy from the author of Why Politics Fails.

The Swingometer

By Rob Ford

Thoughts on elections, public opinion and politics. The Swingometer is named in honour of the late Sir David Butler, inventor of both "swing" and the device to illustrate it on television.

Opinion polls, data and politics are never not going to be important, and I've learned a lot by getting talked through the issues here.

- Oliver Johnson

Six Things

By Lev Parikian

Writings, findings, amusements, nonsense – six at a time.

Never the same each week, but always enjoyable. A good chance that birds, music and cricket might feature

- Oliver Johnson

Julia Belluz

Julia Belluz is a health journalist. Here's the latest on her new writing and stories in progress.

Gideon M-K: Health Nerd

Science, data, and evidence from epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz

One of the best non-aligned COVID commentators, in longer form than Twitter. Never afraid to provide the data to combat both antivaxxers and perma-doomers.

- Oliver Johnson

Mean Squared Error

By Paul Mainwood

A newsletter about statistics, inference and time series.

Sometimes scary, but always backed up by graphs. Paul Mainwood brings his eye for an interesting dataset to bear on issues like vaccines and hospitals

- Oliver Johnson

Invisible Women

By Caroline Criado Perez

Keeping up with the gender data gap (and whatever else takes my fancy).

Joxley Writes

Politics, history and culture from a right of centre perspective.

The Snowdon Substack

By Christopher Snowdon

Things that irritate me, often bad statistics

Scientific Discovery

By Saloni

A newsletter to keep you updated with great new scientific research.

Deep dive into scientific papers you might have missed, and into data trends over time.

- Oliver Johnson

Notes from Kyiv

By James Rushton

I’m James Rushton, a freelance security and foreign policy analyst. Currently based in Kyiv, Ukraine, I mainly write about issues relating to the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. I tweet at @JimmySecUK.

Confections & Reputations

By Ananyo

A delicious mix of science fiction, science fact, history, politics and chicanery.

Maths, science, fiction, and of course the genius of von Neumann.

- Oliver Johnson

Dangerous Precedents

By Lawrence Newport

how to build a more positive future, combat bad ideas and amplify better ones

Robstack

By Rob Francis

Writing about whatever takes my interest, typically politics and culture, from a broadly social democratic perspective.

Deplatform Disease

By Edward Nirenberg

Vaccines, Immunology, COVID-19 and debunking the misinformation in between.

Comment is Freed

By Sam Freedman

Politics, policy analysis, and foreign affairs from Sam and Lawrence Freedman

The Debatable Land

By Alex Massie

Politics, culture, and history from Scotland, the UK and beyond

Chris Arnade Walks the World

Dispatches and photos from walks around the world

Stories that matter

Celebrating the final track on the album.

Simple format: great last tracks on albums. Either learn more about songs you love, or find new ones to listen to.

- Oliver Johnson

Marginally Productive

By Sam Ashworth-Hayes

All the notes the margin was too small to contain. Economics, politics, history.

Rory’s Always On Newsletter

By Rory Cellan-Jones

A tech notebook with a focus on health

The Metropolitan

By The Editors

Weekly emails about pop culture & society, written by British Generation X. No dunking. No hot takes. No false nostalgia. Choose the 'Free' option when you subscribe to get the weekly newsletter.

The Intrinsic Perspective

By Erik Hoel

Bridging the two cultures of science and the humanities

The Deleted Scenes

By Addison Del Mastro

Urbanism, culture, idiosyncrasy

The Honest Broker

By Ted Gioia

A trustworthy guide to music, books, arts, media & culture by Ted Gioia

The Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything

By Jonn Elledge

assorted nerdery from a man who should probably be doing something else

PassTheAux

By Eleanor Halls

Essays & interviews on music, media and popular culture

The Common Reader

By Henry Oliver

Essays for interesting people about talent, literature, and biography. "One of my favourite Substacks." Helen Lewis

Normielisation

By Jeremy Driver

Reflections on progress, politics and society, written from a British perspective.

Notes from the Field

By Katrina Gulliver's Notes

Newsletter on the strange and quirky histories of popular culture.

Tales From Topographic Kitchens

By Nic Miller

A feast of writing about food, eating and cookbooks in one easy-to-access place. Winner of the Guild of Food Writers Award for best online food writing 2020. Written by Fortnum & Mason's Cookery Writer of the Year 2022.

One Great Read

By Harry Lambert

Stay up to date with longreads, essays, stories, profiles, polemics from the UK and US - sent to you periodically.

Pillar Talk

By The Columnist

The ramblings of an ancient sage whose best days are lost in the mists of time

My 2 cents

By Darren Dahly

Ranting, musing and learning about statistics, epidemiology, clinical trials, and academia.

Social Warming by Charles Arthur

By Social Warming: the Substack

Looking at the way social networks affect our societies, and in particular how they generate "social warming". It's why everyone seems so angry all the time.