Our Favourite Email Newsletters In 2019

Email newsletters keep blowing up, so we’re following up on Lifehacker’s 2017 staff recs with a new batch of our favourite newsletters. Here’s what kept us informed and entertained in 2019.

Micaela Heck, Podcast Producer

The Broadsheet is a newsletter from Fortune magazine that covers women in business and politics, and often highlights pieces that aren’t as highly covered in the mainstream.

What’s The Difference? is a fun weekly breakdown of something that people often get confused. From the difference between cornmeal. grits, and polenta, to a jungle vs. a rainforest. Light and fun.

Reply All’s newsletter is super fun. It’s just staff recommendations of movies, podcast, music, books, etc. but they’re always really good. (Scroll to the bottom of their homepage to subscribe.)

Josh Ocampo, Staff Writer

I don’t subscribe to a lot of newsletters, but I do make one exception. For readers who don’t know, I’m obsessed with ramen. A few months ago, some of the Lifehacker team visited Tokyo as part of our Hack the World series. There, I had the chance to go on an extensive tour of ramen shops with Frank of 5 AM Ramen.

On a monthly basis, and to many of his former guests, he sends out a newsletter with the latest ramen shops he’s visited in Japan. (He told me he’d had at least a few thousand bowls of ramen in his lifetime.) If you might be visiting Japan in the near future, sign up. If you want to find the best places to eat in Tokyo, sign up. Or if you just really like looking at photos of ramen (and maybe salivating in the process), well, it’s perfect for that.

Alice Bradley, Deputy Editor

I deeply enjoy the newsletter of Austin Kleon, a writer and artist whose books include Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work, and Keep Going. Every Friday Austin shares his recommendations for stuff he’s reading, listening to, and thinking about. If you like sites like Kottke.org or Boing Boing, Austin’s going to be your cup of tea.

Lisa Rowan, Money Writer

NextDraft shows up sometime in the afternoon and contains 10 links personally selected by Dave Pell, self-described “curation savant.” The news items he summarises include the must-reads to know what’s happening across the globe, but also include some quirkier or lighthearted picks so you don’t feel like you’re drowning in a news cycle of despair every day. Also, it’s obvious that along with news, Pell loves good writing. I don’t know this guy, but he’s rarely wrong when he says you have to read something. If you want to know what’s up but hate a heavy morning inbox, getting NextDraft in the afternoon is more your speed.

Beth Skwarecki, Health Editor

Occasionally I read Kat Eschner’s one on animals, Creature Feature. She had a good essay in the issue “Sincerity Poisoning.”

David Murphy, Tech Editor

The only one I would subscribe to is WTF Just Happened Today, because it sounds interesting, but I still haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

Joel Kahn, Senior Video Producer

Are you a millennial who finds financial topics too dry and boring and written for people like your parents? Well luckily former Lifehacker writer, current CNBC writer, and young person Alicia Adamczyk offers Money Moves, a regular newsletter of recommended personal finance articles. She covers topics from privacy to savings to investing, and it’s all in her trademark friendly, warm and accessible tone.

Abu Zafar, Video Producer

If you have a podcast or work in the radio industry, subscribing to Hot Pod is basically a requirement. Nick Quah and Caroline Crampton cover the growing podcast industry and provide invaluable analysis and insight on everything from major acquisitions to business deal and show launches.

If that sounds very dry and very insider-baseball, that’s because it is. But as a professional in the industry, it’s important to know how and why certain trends are shifting and what the successful players in the field are doing well. Hot Pod is a window inside the ever-changing landscape of an industry that’s quickly outgrowing independent creators in their garages, and it’s a must-read for anyone hoping to succeed in podcasting in the coming years.

Virginia K. Smith, Managing Editor

The one newsletter I consistently open every morning is Brass Ring Daily, by Kara Cutruzzula (full disclosure, a former colleague). She covers a pretty broad variety of things in the realm of productivity, creative work, interesting job listings, and what you might call “mind hacks.” It’s a positive, quick, non-news related read every morning, usually filled with good links, as well.

Nick Douglas, Staff Writer

Recomendo is a popular one at Lifehacker, and you’ll notice them pop up in our posts now and then. A group of old-school bloggers share tools, hacks, and reading recs in just one or two paragraphs per item.

Study Hall is a media industry newsletter and community, more accessible and practical than media newsletters like CJR. It’s $US2 ($3)/month.

Welcome to Hell World shows regularly that the world is garbage because the wrong people are in charge, in a way that’s still sweet and somehow hopeful. Luke O’Neil presumes that you the reader have empathy and want people to be happy. He is neither hectoring nor obnoxious, easy traps for someone covering injustice from a leftist perspective.

Melissa Kirsch, Editor-in-Chief

Ten Things, by Luke Leighfield. Weekly, ten things this interesting human found interesting. I like him! I like the things he chooses! A culture roundup of stuff you’ve heard about and stuff you haven’t. It’s good if you like lists of stuff to check out, which I do.

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