In his essay "How to Explore Like a Real Victorian Adventurer," Monte Reel writes of explorer Richard F. Burton, "He was an enthusiastic amateur in an era when the word wasn't a slur." That, perhaps, is the best encapsulation of Read Harder's ethos. In this compilation, culled from the last five years of the Believer magazine's pages, the disparate topics lend themselves to discovery; here, the reader is the amateur, and the pieces demand investigation and wonderment, no matter how far-flung their subject matter.
The word "disparate" isn't hyperbolic. Read Harder covers an anatomical and historical analysis of beavers, Nick Hornby's remembrance of the World's Weirdest Job (fetching purebred puppies and castle architectural plans for a Korean company's English headquarters), a dissection of the clothing store Hollister's sensory marketing (particularly with regard to stoners), and a glimpse at a man who purposely seeks snake bites to gain superhuman immunity. The collection's most winsome quality--a rare one, in contemporary reportage--is the sheer delight it offers through the act of consumption. Each discovery feels revelatory, and the writers' zeal is as contagious as their curiosity. Readers may not set out to know the psychological innuendos of V.C. Andrews's Flowers in the Attic, but Sara Gran and Megan Abbott's "Dark Family" could easily convince them to seek out the author's entire unsettling oeuvre.
Read Harder champions unabashed exploration. Together, reader and writer tumble down rabbit holes as strange as they are edifying, and it's a testament to the Believer's editors that the magazine encourages and produces such distinct and engaging work. --Linnie Greene, freelance writer and bookseller at Flyleaf Books