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LUNCH BREAK READS

Happy Thursday!

Four very different reads today, and not one of them is what it looks like on the surface.

  • The woman whose name appears in the Epstein files more than anyone else's was his assistant for 18 years. Lesley Groff scheduled everything, but her lawyers maintain she had no idea what was happening.

  • Three winners of a prestigious literary prize are accused of submitting AI-written fiction. This time nobody is confessing, and the institutions can’t prove a thing.

  • Nicolas Cage sits down to explain his career through Duchamp, Warhol, and a childhood hole he once dug toward China. He is also, by his own account, extremely boring now.

  • A buyer posing as a French supermarket walked off with $400,000 of handmade British cheddar and disappeared. It turns out cheese is the most stolen food in the world.

Brett

01 • ~25 Minute Read
The Guardian Sophie Elmhirst
‘Seriously the best boss ever’: inside the world of Jeffrey Epstein’s assistant
Lesley Groff scheduled the massages, booked the flights, arranged the cash payments, and emailed the girls Jeffrey Epstein wanted to "see." For 18 years she ran his calendar as what he called a "social prosthesis," an extension of his own mind. Her lawyers insist she knew nothing of his crimes, and no charges were ever brought. Sophie Elmhirst read roughly 10,000 of the 160,000 documents bearing Groff's name, more than anyone else in the files. The question her emails raise is not legal but moral. How does someone divide a life so cleanly between devoted motherhood and enabling abuse?
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02 • ~11 Minute Read
The Atlantic Vauhini Vara
This Literary AI Scandal Changes Everything
Three winners of this year's Commonwealth Short Story Prize stand accused of submitting AI-generated fiction, with readers flagging canned metaphors and the detection platform Pangram labeling all three stories largely machine-made. What makes this different, Vauhini Vara reports, is the response. Past authors confessed quickly. This time the writers deny everything, and the institutions cannot disprove them. Granta's board asked the chatbot Claude to assess one story, a move that only drew more ridicule. Detection remains fallible, especially for non-native English writers, which hands accused authors an enforcement loophole. Proving AI use is nothing like proving plagiarism.
🔓 Unlocked for LBR Readers →
03 • ~18 Minute Read
The New York Times David Marchese
Nicolas Cage Made Himself a Legend. Then He Had to Live With It.
Nicolas Cage sat down with The New York Times's David Marchese to talk about his monastic life, raising a toddler, drinking six strawberry energy drinks a day, and taking no risks. Cage explains his performances through Duchamp, Warhol, and Lichtenstein, treating film acting as pop-art collision. His new series "Spider-Noir" casts him as a 1930s web-slinging detective, shot in black and white to lure young viewers toward old cinema. He coined "memeification" to describe what happened to his face from "Vampire's Kiss." Between theories, he offers stories about Jim Morrison, Miles Davis, and a childhood hole he dug toward China. I enjoyed listening to the entire conversation.
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04 • ~17 Minute Read
Longreads Olivia Potts
The Grate Cheese Robbery
Cheese is the most stolen food on earth. Olivia Potts shows how organized crime came to favor it. The anchor is a 2024 sting. A buyer posing as a French supermarket ordered 950 truckles of artisanal British cheddar worth around $400,000, collected it from Neal's Yard, and disappeared. Three small dairies in Somerset and Wales had scrambled to fill the order. Six men were arrested. No charges followed. Most cheesemakers believe the haul reached Russia's black market, where sanctions have built a thriving underground for banned European cheese. Parmesan producers now embed edible microchips in their rinds.
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