Everybody dreads the chores of maintenance; Stewart Brand is trying to make maintenance cool. In his new book Maintenance: Of Everything, Brand celebrates the value, methods, even the joy of maintaining things – from cars to homes to bodies – in a series of stories, digressions, lessons, and brilliant insights. Turns out civilization is basically varieties of maintenance. Stewart Brand’s books famously change people’s minds, and this one changed my mind. I now look forward to my maintenance duties, and I learned some how to do it better from this book. — KK

Funeral for a tree

When a 65-year-old oak tree died from fungal disease, artist Steve Parker carved slices of its trunk like vinyl records, etching bird songs into the wood grain. These playable oak records are featured in a 3-minute video where you can hear the sounds of the birds that once lived in the tree’s branches. Parker also created a brass sculpture with medical ventilators that splays out like tree roots—a reference to his father’s battle with cancer. “Funeral for a Tree” is a beautiful meditation on grief that inspires me to find ways to transform what’s been lost into something that still speaks—or sings. — CD

Budget noise-canceling earbuds

My AirPods Pro started making a loud hissing noise. I tried all the different fixes the online hive mind had to offer, to no avail. They were out of warranty, and I didn’t want to spend $250 to replace them. Instead, I bought a pair of CMF Wireless Earbuds for 1/10th the price. To my ears, they sound just as good as the AirPods Pro with excellent noise cancellation and easy pairing with all of my Apple hardware. I use them for phone calls, listening to podcasts, and music. I bought the orange ones so they'd be easy to find when I drop them on the floor of a plane. — MF

Clothing fan podcast

One of my go-to podcasts these days is the non-fiction scripted show Articles of Interest, which investigates articles of clothing and other things that we wear. It is a spin-off from the legendary podcast 99% Invisible, and carries that program’s intelligence and the nerdy appeal of deep research. Now in its second season, each episode tackles the origin, history, and meaning of an article such as blue jeans, suits, wedding dresses, and even pockets! Illuminating worlds within small details is what this show is so good at. Recommended. — KK

12 distractions to leave behind in 2026

Rather than adding resolutions and goals to your new year, this article suggests 12 distractions you can leave behind — like scrolling for stress relief, push notifications for most apps, and constant background noise. When they’re listed like this, I can immediately see how leaving them behind would create more silence and space in my life, since a lot of these things seem to be the default settings for daily life. — CD

Our other newsletters

Did you know that Recomendo isn’t the only newsletter we publish? We have eight others!

• Gar’s Tips & Tools Useful ideas for home and workshop. (Weekly)
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• Tools for Possibilities Curated, thematic picks from 20+ years of Cool Tools. (Weekly)
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In our humble opinion, they are all worth trying out, and they’re all free. — MF

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