LUNCH BREAK READS

From where I sit in my office, I can track the year by the changing trees. The large, 150-year-old silver maple that dominates my back yard, and its slightly younger and taller offspring that dominates my neighbor's front yard, have slowly begun to redden in the cooling temperatures. They’re playing catch-up with the copper tinged cherry tree that sits next to my fence. I watch these trees every day, passively, while I sit on conference calls for work, shepherd my dogs in and out of my office, and write.

October is over and fall is settling in, and soon these trees will be barren, and I will stare at the denuded branches and think fondly of the spring-time blooms that erupt from this cherry tree. I have no idea where this month, or this year, has gone.

Thank you for being a subscriber to this little project of mine. I am grateful for the community of readers who engage with me on a daily basis, sharing their favorite stories and book recommendations. It is much more fulfilling than the algorithms that sort us all into our data-driven silos and back us into a wall of nonstop content.

Below you will find our top read stories this month, book recommendations, podcast recommendations, and a few more items I found interesting.

Yours,

Brett

Our most clicked stories this month:

The Long, Weird Tale of Comet Ping Pong

Whatever happened to the D.C. pizza place that became a target for the internet’s darkest obsessives?

The Atlantic

This Is What America’s Utility Bill Crisis Looks Like

Record heat and a rising demand for electricity are closing in on Oklahoma families trying to keep the lights on and the AC running.

The New York Times

Dying Patients Are Inundated by Misinformation. My Dad Was One of Them.

Cancer patients are being persuaded to spend tens of thousands on unproven treatments by alternative-medicine clinics.

The New York Times

Meet the Kids Who Identify as Animals

A rising subculture of kids says they don’t feel entirely human.

Boston Magazine

He Murdered My Uncle...Then Wrote a Fake Memoir About It

The killer spent years recasting himself as the victim in a widely praised book. Decades later, I set out to uncover what really happened—and reclaim my uncle’s story.

Jessica Lipsky

Book Recommendations:

The Deluge

By Stephen Markley

This 900-page doorstop from Stephen Markley was published in 2023, and it has sat on my shelf since then. I finally cracked it this month and regret waiting so long. Markley is an excellent writer, and his first book, Ohio, is also an incredible novel. He gives us a realistic future where America, and the rest of the world, is grappling with the effects of runaway climate change, while also living under the thumb of invasive surveillance technology and megalomaniacal demagogues. The characters are richly fleshed out and the story moves quickly despite the book's density.

Support Lunch Break Reads and buy a copy here.

The rest of this issue is for Lunch Club members.

Below: another book recommendation, my favorite longform stories that became films, including the reporting behind Dallas Buyers Club and The Insider, and what I have been listening to this month. Lunch Club is $5/month and also gets you the weekly Top 5 and reading lists.

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A subscription gets you:

The Weekly Top 5 — every Saturday, the five best reads from the week, ranked and annotated
The LBR Reading Lists — my all-time favorites in different categories
Source Notes — a monthly note from Brett on what didn't make the cut, what he's been reading for himself, and what's been on his mind
The LBR Archive — a curated vault of the best longform journalism Brett has ever read, organized by category and growing over time
Ad-free reading across every issue

Source Notes: October 2026