Linklater, feminist battleaxes and Instacats. 

Sarah Thornton’s forthcoming book, 33 Artists in 3 Acts, is published by Granta Books in October. Here, she shares five links of what she’s reading, watching and thinking about right now.

1. I travel a lot and often lose track of the news, so I read the Economist on my iPad mini. It updates on Thursday evenings no matter where I am, giving me a sense of home. As a perpetual expat, I see ‘home’ as a place with an international perspective and, as the magazine’s former chief writer on contemporary art, I am part of the extended no-byline family.

2. I also read the New Yorker on my iPad and am delighted to see it has increased its coverage of feminist battleaxes with pieces like Rebecca Mead’s ‘The Troll Slayer’ about Mary Beard, and Michelle Goldberg’s article on the conflict between radical feminists and trans activists.

3. I’ve forsaken Facebook and Twitter for Instagram, where you can write more than 140 characters and post a picture. It’s a great place to keep track of the art world with artists posting images from the studio and collectors posting snaps of their latest acquisitions. The mass-market cat-lover in me also follows a number of felines such as Colonel Meow and Makicocomo.

4. I loved Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s new film. Shot every summer for twelve years, it has an epic, anti-digital sense of time. It is strangely wondrous to watch a real boy grow up on camera. As an over-researcher who takes too long to write her books, I am glad to see someone’s production marathon pay off.

5. I’ve been spending time in San Francisco so I’ve become attached to KQED and the NPR iPhone app. I grew up in Canada with the CBC and have listened for years to BBC Radio 4. Nothing beats good public radio.

Cover image by Lydia Clark & Ruth B. Glasgow, Physical Education and the Interests of Children, 1921