No doubt you’ve seen your share of gift guides already, but if you’ve run out the clock and are still searching for the perfect thing, we’re here to help. There are plenty of reasons why a subscription makes a great gift—but at this point, the most salient one is that it’s guaranteed to arrive on time.
To help you explore beyond the bounds of your own inbox, we reached out to a few well-read Substackers and asked them to share their favorite subscriptions. We’ve organized their picks around the kind of last-minute gift you might otherwise grab on your way out the door. These Substacks are better.
Instead of an expensive candle, get them…
Dia Lupo of Broke but Moisturized, “a slice of life newsletter on beauty and aging, dispatched from American suburbia,” recommends Health Gossip. “It’s like being part of a secret society of people who use salt crystals as deodorant and roast themselves in sauna blankets and have astrologers on speed dial.”
Evan Ross Katz, the cultural commentator and fashion columnist behind SHUT UP EVAN: THE NEWSLETTER, is pulling for Max Berlinger’s Add 2 Cart. “In a sea of 2s and 3s, Max is—and will always be, quite frankly—the 1. He’s sharp, incisive, aware, prescient, evocative. He knows his shit and he knows how to write about it, two separate skill sets that Venn diagram so perfectly in this newsletter that is honestly a ‘can’t miss’ for me. I feel lucky to have Max’s writing to look forward to each week.”
James Beard Award–winning cookbook author Dorie Greenspan of the xoxoDorie Newsletter tailors her recommendation to well-dressed travelers: “Christine Muhlke has exquisite taste in just about everything. Her Substack is chockablock with her takes on places to go, places to stay and eat and see when you get there, people to know about, and, yes, fashion.”
As the editor of SSENSE and the writer behind HEAVIES, a health and wellness newsletter, Chris Gayomali has several recommendations. “I love a few of the big fashion Substacks, like Jake Woolf and Viv Chen’s The Molehill,” he told us, “but a semi slept-on newsletter that I’ve been loving this year is Nico Lazaro’s The Bengal Stripe, which brings a thoughtful, non-snarky approach to menswear coverage that isn’t just recycled advice from a 2012 issue of GQ. To my mind, he’s one of the best-dressed guys anywhere: a curious and genuine enthusiast in a space where clothes are often treated as trends and are, at least by that logic, rendered disposable.”
Journalist, podcaster, and writer of culture newsletter I <3 Mess Emily Kirkpatrick has just the thing for thrifters: Thanks It's From by Nora. “Nora does the hard work of sifting through pages and pages of eBay search results on your behalf, assembling a tightly curated list of things you will absolutely want to buy. Plus, I always leave her newsletter with some great ideas for new keywords to search to find hidden gems.”
And Max Read, the journalist and writer behind Read Max, offers stylish readers a twist. “Sami Reiss ’s SNAKE is about furniture, and sometimes also raw milk.”
Instead of a desk tchotchke, get them…
For the friend who doesn’t need more stuff—but does love to obsess—these picks skew pleasantly niche.
Anne Kadet, the writer behind CAFÉ ANNE, a newsletter devoted to innovation and delight, has a pick specifically for fans of New York: “For my friends in NYC (or who just happen to love it) I’d gift Rob Stephenson’s The Neighborhoods. Every week, Rob, a terrific writer and photographer, profiles a different section of the city based on his own quirky sensibilities. It’s reliably funny and fascinating.”
She doesn’t ignore those beyond the five boroughs, either: “For everyone else, I’d gift Paul Lukas’s Inconspicuous Consumption, a delightful deep dive into the quotidian. Some of my favorite past issues were dedicated to security envelope patterns, spatula design, prescription labels and the history of binder clips. So much fun!”
Adam Mastroianni writes Experimental History, a narrative examination of people, data, and science, and recommends Age of Invention, by Anton Howes. “Great historians uncover how history is far stranger and more interesting than we ever expect. Anton Howes is a great historian.” He also suggests The Egg and the Rock by Julian Gough: “This guy wrote the Minecraft End Poem and now he’s rewriting the history of the universe. It’s the most interesting scientific work happening on Substack right now, and I have no idea how it’s going to turn out.”
And several writers turned to the past. Talía Cu recommends The Inside Pocket for the budding collector. “Giulia C. has the most beautiful vintage brooch collection!” Max Read took a nostalgic view. “There are thousands of newsletters about AI and only one (as far as I know) about old Sony gadgets.” He and Kyla Scanlon both also recommend Odd Old News, a Substack that offers exactly what the name promises. “What else do you need to know?” Max asks.
And Emily Kirkpatrick looks to the entertainment of yore. “Give the pop culture know-it-all in your life a crash course in the sacred texts of Y2K with a subscription to Nicstalgia. Whether you’re looking for a pop-culture history lesson or are a millennial who just wants to have their memory viciously jogged, Nicole Tremaglio is a masterful curator of these early internet archives.”
Instead of branded olive oil, get them…
Dorie Greenspan recommends a classic: Ruth Reichl’s La Briffe. “Anyone who loves food and great writing will appreciate it. Ruth’s career in food is long and splendid, and luckily for us, she’s saved endless memorabilia, including dreamy menus, and she remembers all the delicious details.”
Emily Kirkpatrick is also in it for the story, which is why she recommends Eat Your Feelings by Kate Messinger . “A lot of newsletters will give you a recipe. But how many newsletters will give you a recipe alongside a story about a threesome and some heartwarming marital advice? That’s the beauty of Eat Your Feelings.”
Both Kyla Scanlon and Max Read recommend a boozy favorite: James Beard Award–winning author Brad Thomas Parsons’s LAST CALL. Max recommends it for “the cocktail recipes and liquor recommendations, but especially for the yearly three-part gift guide, which alerts me to all kinds of mail-order American cheese and candy treasures and which I refer to year-round for thank-you presents.” (We have chosen to overlook this brazen gift guide Trojan horse.)
Talía Cu, a fashion journalist, educator, and illustrator who writes Latin Zine by Talia Cu, recommends food (for thought) by Paola van der Hulst, “a wonderful archive for learning how to make Mexican conchas or fermented tacos, created by a sourdough expert.”
John Paul Brammer, the author and illustrator behind ¡Hola Papi!, a Substack that dissects culture, has a rec for the friend who loves to eat out but is trying to cook more in the new year. “The Secret Ingredient is my foodstack go-to, for one reason: Harrison has great taste in restaurants, and his recipes are often copycats of those restaurants’ best dishes. For example, the squash bread at San Francisco’s Quince, which I would like delivered to my home weekly but, sadly, cannot afford to do so (yet). If you’re a foodie, you’ll probably see one of your favorite restaurants on his page and, if you’re lucky, a recipe for your favorite menu item.”
Instead of a celeb memoir, get them…
John Paul Brammer is a fan of Hunter Harris. “For me, when it comes to pop culture, there is only Hunter Harris at Hung Up. I wish I had some undiscovered gem to include here, but Hunter is the only source I need on this front. It’s like she knows what I want to talk about before I even know what I want to talk about, like Lily Allen’s ‘West End Girl,’ aka ‘Innit Lemonade.’ Keep an eye on this young woman, I think her Substack’s going places!”
Chris Gayomali recommends Deez Links by Delia Cai. “Deez Links is where I get 69% of my news these days, unfortunately. Delia is one of those twisted geniuses whose brain never seems to get scrambled even as she’s scraping from the most rat-infested corners of the internet. Her ability to neatly synthesize all these disparate threads about people I often find noxious is a gift that I would not wish on anyone.”
Talía Cu recommends ★culture vulture★, for “all things pop culture, delivered with a snarky and witty perspective.” Meanwhile, for Max Read, “no one is a better or funnier gossip columnist than Allie Jones [of Gossip Time].”
Dorie Greenspan recommends turning to an expert. “Tina Brown’s FRESH HELL Tina Brown's Diary is definitely the Substack for this obsessive. The force behind bringing Vanity Fair back to life and shaking up The New Yorker, Brown is supersmart, fearless, and a terrific writer. Fresh Hell covers politics and news, but also pop culture and, well, everything that catches her eye and tickles her brain. Brown could write about watching paint dry and I’d want to read her.” Emily Kirkpatrick agrees: “Tina Brown has a way of delivering the news that makes you feel like a close friend just called to dish up some hot gossip.”
Instead of an airport bestseller, get them…
Skip the book they’ve probably already read. These recommendations run the gamut from the analytical to the literary, but all are opinionated, rigorous, and thoughtful.
Mo_Diggs, who writes Cross Current, a newsletter about politics, tech, culture, and media, recommends The Metropolitan Review: “It began as primarily a literature review magazine but is evolving to become a veritable general culture magazine. As editor-in-chief Ross Barkan has said, a person can have only so many paid subscriptions; why not make one of them a publication that gives you many writers, some world-renowned, some up-and-coming like the Miami miracle Alexander Sorondo?”
Hyun Woo Kim writes the Substack Requests of Literary Exile and translates ancient Chinese poetry in Three Hundred Tang Poems. He recommends The Decade Project by Robert Boyd Skipper: “A charming, no-pressure newsletter where you get to read great books with Robert. I love how he keeps it casual but not shallow.”
For those interested in economic history, Max Read recommends Angus Bylsma’s Unevenly Combined Thoughts for a “thorough and approachable review of economic history texts. His overview of the medieval-history scholar Chris Wickham’s body of work (and the larger arguments and issues through which Wickham was working) this year was a model of accessible academic writing.”
Kyla Scanlon recommends Joseph Politano, of Apricitas Economics. “Joey covers macroeconomics with exceptional clarity, and his charts are a work of art. His ability to make complex trends feel understandable and grounded in real-world dynamics is absolutely one of a kind.”
Chris Gayomali recommends going straight to the source: subscribing to a novelist. “I’m such an unapologetic Mary H.K. Choi fanboy, but she really is one of the best essayists of our generation. I love how her Substack is a glimpse into a slightly more unhinged (lol) and bloggy version of her print writing: sometimes she’ll bowl you over with a sentence so perfect and nasty in its zags that it feels like a brush with God.”
Emily Kirkpatrick turns to the experts: “The Booker Prizes is my love, my life. They have literally never led me astray when it comes to choosing what book I want to read next. Their selections have introduced me to so many books I wouldn’t have read otherwise, and every time I am blown away by the quality of storytelling.”
Max Read and Kyla Scanlon, ever in sync, chose to turn up the charm. They both recommend Looking at Picture Books, where “Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett, two of North America’s finest picture book authors, [are] doing wonderful critical reads of their favorite picture books.”
And John Paul Brammer recommends THE ANNALS OF HAROLD. “You’re gonna want to trust me on this. If you’re looking for book recs you won’t find anywhere else, seek out Harold. He’s criminally underfollowed, but the dude reads. I don’t know where he finds the time to read as much as he does, but when he posts a book rec, I buy that book. Like with Schattenfroh, a recent English translation of a titanic, ambitious German novel that could serve as a blunt weapon in an emergency.”
Happy holidays, and may your procrastination go unnoticed into the new year.
The Wayback Machine was initially included in this and is being actively suppressed. Boycott TSP until added
Actually, these aren't my favorite Substackers. Mine are smaller, and don't get noticed much. They certainly don't get highlighted by the likes of The Substack Post. And I keep asking, what do the smaller publishers, like me and the people I read have to do to get noticed? Oh, right.
We have to have lots of paid subscribers. I almost forgot. I work my butt off on this platform. Not complaining, I love it here. But every once in a while, it would be nice for you guys to highlight the people who aren't as big...yet. There are so many good writers here.
I publish The Next Write Thing (I'm a bestseller) and Wham! Bam! Thank You! Slam!, my newest stack, a live story slam for feminist writers on Substack. I also publish Style Your Stack where I design graphic assets for content creators on this platform.
Take a walk on the wild side, Substack, and celebrate us for a change. What a great gift that would make. With much love, and wishing you a happy holiday season, xo, Nan Tepper.