There’s a certain comfort in knowing that any and all October pursuits will entail a change of pace. To complement the shorter days and colder weather, there’s a raft of new cultural activities and entertainment that’s slightly darker and more cerebral than the norm. Not to say that these offerings are any less enjoyable. Check out the best of the month below.
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow (MCD)
Doctorow, a sci-fi writer and journalist, argues that a captive consumer base has allowed internet platforms to devolve into mediocrity. (With people locked into Facebook and their data mined, the quality of content and had ads deteriorated, for instance.)He popularized the title’s term in 2022, then the American Dialect Society named it word of the year in 2023—and now it’ll be enshrined once and for all. Oct. 7