'50s fascists, a flying machine, and the grifter queen of the ancien régime

Plus: Jack the Ripper, Gilded Age rags, and the curse of Fall River

Season two of Rachel Maddow’s ULTRA podcast dropped this week, kicking things off with the “sudden and shocking suicide of a popular Democratic Senator” whose death “will start to reveal a web of troubling forces at work on the American ultra right in the post-war 1950s.” Scope the trailer below and bring yourself up to speed by reading my interview with Rachel about season one.

Paging Jo Piazza: When is episode eight of THE SICILIAN INHERITANCE gonna show up in my podcast feed? I’m getting antsy over here! Kate Winkler Dawson’s latest season of TENFOLD MORE WICKED wonders, WTF is up with all the tragedies and murders in Fall River during olden times? “Is Fall River cursed?” More importantly, did THE GILDED GENTLEMAN make its latest two episodes just for me? 1. “Jack the Ripper: Inside the World’s Most Famous Unsolved Murders” 2. “Gilded Age Newspapers”

I devoured the May 17 installment of VERY SPECIAL EPISODES while mowing the lawn last week. Because who doesn’t love a grifty French countess who conned a starfucking Cardinal by impersonating Marie Antoinette?

Here’s Smithsonian on the flying machine that “captivated America” twenty-five years before the Wright brothers. And WaPo’s Retropolis on “The New York-born politician who was convicted, then became president.” And AirMail’s review of WHEN WOMEN RAN FIFTH AVENUE: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion. (“A handful of dramas that took place in three department stores in Midtown Manhattan.”) The New York Times Book Review rounds up some of the latest in historical fiction: “Witch Hunts, Wartime and Mysterious Murders.” Not included is ORIANA, “the first biographical novel about the brilliant and fearless Italian journalist whom Christiane Amanpour has called her role model.” The author lives up the road from me and was kind enough to drop off a copy recently so I’d be remiss not to recommend it for your beach-reads pile.

That’s all for now. Back to you with more soon…