This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Tyler Austin Harper, a staff writer who has covered the University of Chicago’s latest “gut-punch to the humanities”; the dangerous, secretive world of extreme fishing; and the blockbuster that captured a growing American rift.Tyler is a former assistant professor whose interests include “wetsuiting”—an extreme form of saltwater fishing—and reading Monte Burke’s tales of obsession and madness in the fishing world. He also recommends watching Melancholia, listening to the Hold Steady, and checking out “Finer Things / Tamahagene,” by the rapper Ka.The Culture Survey: Tyler Austin HarperMy favorite blockbuster and favorite art movie: My favorite blockbuster is a toss-up between two Spielberg classics: Jaws and Jurassic Park. My favorite art film is Melancholia. I don’t know if favorite is even the right word because it’s so … uh … melancholic, but it is a beautiful film. I used to put it on my course’s syllabus. The first time I assigned it, I started class by asking my students what they thought of the film. There was a full minute of silence before one student raised his hand and demanded: “Why did you make us watch that?” Anyway, not an uplifting movie—but a very good one.An author I will read anything by: Monte Burke, who writes about football and fishing (generally not at the same time). He documented the quest to catch a world-record tarpon using a fly rod in Lords of the Fly, a gorgeous book that is meticulously reported and researched. I’d recommend it to anyone, whether or not you are a fisherman: It’s really a Moby-Dick-like tale of obsession and madness, with a touch more drugs and mob activity than Melville. Burke’s new essay and profile collection, Rivers Always Reach the Sea, is also a delight.My favorite way of wasting time on my phone: Obsessing over my various tide and weather apps during fishing season.The last museum or gallery show that I loved: Oh dear, are you going to make me admit that I’m a cultureless rube? Pass.The television show I’m most enjoying right now: Untamed, a Netflix series about a special agent who works at a national park. Is it good? I’m not sure. Are there explosions and gun fights set against sweeping mountain vistas? Yes.A quiet song that I love: I’m a fan of the Hold Steady, and of anything done by the front man Craig Finn, whose solo material is superb. The Hold Steady is mostly known for rowdy, boozy bar rock, but the band’s albums usually have one or two softer songs that really shine. My favorite of these is “Cheyenne Sunrise,” which is a bonus track from the album Stay Positive. I’d also like to pick another quiet tune as an honorable mention: “Finer Things / Tamahagene,” by the rapper Ka, who died at age 52 last fall. Ka was a lyrical genius and critical darling, but more important, he dedicated decades to public service after a misspent youth, maintaining a full-time job as a captain in the New York City Fire Department—where he was a 9/11 first responder—alongside his music career. His entire body of work is remarkable, but Honor Killed the Samurai is a good place to start.A musical artist who means a lot to me: I’ll repeat myself and say Craig Finn. I have made this argument before, but there is perhaps no artist, in any genre, who has done more to capture the American 21st century—the deindustrialization, the wars, the financial crisis, the opioid epidemic—than Finn. His two-decade-plus body of work is a singular achievement, and his new solo album, Always Been, is maybe his best yet.The last debate I had about culture: It was probably about legal weed. It seems like every other person I know spends half their day zonked on gummies. I used to be a big “Legalize it!” guy, but I’ve changed my mind over the past few years. Although I agree that marijuana should absolutely be decriminalized, and nobody should be thrown in jail over a mildly narcotic plant, I also think having an entire industry based around designing ever more THC-packed strains and products is a problem. At various points in my life, I have enjoyed the devil’s lettuce as much as (in truth, probably more than) the next person, but I’ve come around to the idea that we have underpriced the cultural, social, and medical costs of ubiquitous legal weed. We have certainly underplayed the risks to public safety, and we have shockingly little information about the long-term consequences for people who are daily users of the much stronger and more concentrated forms of THC on the market.The upcoming entertainment event I’m most looking forward to: I should probably say something more high-brow, but the honest answer is the final season of Stranger Things.Best novel I’ve recently read, and the best work of nonfiction: I’ve been on a minor Hemingway kick this summer. I recently finished To Have and Have Not, which is the only novel of his I hadn’t read. I also worked through Dateline: Toronto, a collected volume of Hemingway’s articles from his time at the Toronto Star in the early 1920s. It’s a real treat. You can see flashes of the writer he would become.A piece of journalism that recently changed my perspective on a topic: There’s no single piece of journalism that changed my mind on this topic—though Elaina Plott Calabro’s recent Atlantic feature is excellent—but I have reversed course on the issue of state-sanctioned euthanasia. I absolutely understand the compassion-based arguments in favor of the right to die, but the latest developments in Canada are proof that, whatever the upsides may be, it is far too easy for these policies to end up in dystopian territory. Perhaps I’ve simply watched Soylent Green and Logan’s Run too many times, but the more reporting I’ve read over the past few years, the more I’ve become convinced that assisted suicide is leading to a world where it’s too easy to get rid of the sick, the poor, and the socially inconvenient.The last thing that made me cry: Going to give the lamest dad answer ever: Saving Private Ryan.A poem, or line of poetry, that I return to: Wallace Stevens’s “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction,” which is about the problem of morality and meaning in a godless age, and whether secular alternatives can fill the gap left behind by religion. As relevant a set of questions today as it was in 1942.Here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic:The perverse consequences of the easy AThe new Millennial parenting anxietyHow close are manatees to extinction?The Week AheadThe Conjuring: Last Rites, the fourth Conjuring, film featuring two paranormal investigators who take on one last case (out Friday in theaters)Season 2 of Wednesday, a show following the story of teenage Wednesday Addams who is sent to a boarding school for supernatural outcasts (Part 2 out Wednesday on Netflix)Trip, a novel by Amie Barrodale about a woman embarking on a journey through the afterlife to save her son (out Tuesday)EssayA24Why a Chinese Animated Film Has Made More Money Than Any Star Wars SequelBy Shirley LiLike its mischievous demigod protagonist, the Chinese animated fantasy film Ne Zha II has been a practically unstoppable force. Since its initial release in China, over Lunar New Year, the blockbuster has earned more than $2 billion worldwide. It’s now the highest-grossing film of 2025, the highest-grossing animated film of all time, and the highest-grossing non-English-language film in history.The film has also been a magnet for conspiratorial chatter, with viewers and critics alike theorizing about the reasons for its box-office success.Read the full article.More in CultureIf the University of Chicago won’t defend the humanities, who will?What women’s baseball will look likeThe tortured poet of love gets engaged.The defiant conventionality of Taylor Swift and Travis KelceThe hardest question for a writer to answerDear James: I’ve got a bad case of unrequited loveCatch Up on The Atlantic The Supreme Court made a bad bet.Did the White House not understand what Putin was really offering?Who wants to work for ICE? They do.Photo AlbumA greater flamingo in the act of scratching its head with one of its legs in southern France. (© Leana Kuster / Wildlife Photographer of the Year)See a collection of honored images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.Play our daily crossword.Explore all of our newsletters.When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.