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 reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, a staff writer who’s covered the fight over who runs elections in Maricopa County, the arc of the Voting Rights Act, and why election deniers are winning.
Yvonne has a nostalgic fondness for state fairs and rodeos, and she’s excited for an upcoming one in her home state. She also recommends watching anything with Billy Bob Thornton in it, reading Chris Whitaker for a good mystery, and putting down the hair crimper in the year 2026.
— Stephanie Bai, senior associate editor
The upcoming event I’m most looking forward to: The Hondo Rodeo Fest in Phoenix, where I’ll watch the Turnpike Troubadours sing and the cowboys compete in everything from bull riding to barrel racing. I grew up going to rodeos and competing in county cooking showcases in small-town Idaho, and even though I’ve lived in Arizona for decades, a big piece of my heart still considers Idaho home. Every now and then, I hit the county rodeos outside of Phoenix because the smells, the riders, the announcers, the food on a stick, and the leather-fringe rodeo chaps all remind me of my childhood. I’ve never been to the Hondo Rodeo Fest before, and my husband—who grew up in a small town near Fort Worth, Texas, and is always looking for an excuse to wear his boots—made plans for us to try the big-city rodeo scene. We can’t wait!
The television show I’m most enjoying right now: My guilty pleasure is watching The Real Housewives, and I am loving the new Rhode Island series. (Rosie is my favorite!) I also can’t get enough of the twists and turns of British crime dramas, and I plan on rewatching Jed Mercurio’s Line of Duty (which has been on hiatus) before the next season premieres.
An actor I would watch in anything: Billy Bob Thornton. He seems to effortlessly channel a variety of complicated, unpredictable, and funny characters. He has a way of making you root for him, even when he’s skirting—or completely breaking—all the rules. I grew up watching him in Westerns with my dad (The Alamo and Tombstone), and he was brilliant in Sling Blade. I’ve loved him in everything since, including Goliath, Landman, and yes, even Bad Santa.
A quiet song that I love: I can’t stop listening to Flatland Cavalry, a country band from Lubbock, Texas, that a friend introduced me to last summer. Their ballad “Mountain Song” takes me back to my childhood in the Mountain West, where I’d spend summer evenings on the back porch of our apple orchard. Our home had a breathtaking view of the area’s towering butte, which resembles a woman’s face, and the song reminds me of my parents, nature, and a simpler time.
A musical artist who means a lot to me: Willie Nelson. He’s part of my core childhood memories. My family spent hours trekking in our motor home to Idaho campsites, the beaches of the Pacific Northwest, and the parking lots of Las Vegas casinos (Circus Circus, anyone?). Those road trips almost always featured my dad behind the wheel, the window half down while he sang along to “On the Road Again” and “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.” (My mom, on the other hand, preferred “Always on My Mind.”)
Best novel I’ve recently read, and the best work of nonfiction: I love a good mystery, and All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker, drew me in for days. Beginning in small-town Missouri in the 1970s, it follows a serial killer and a missing-person case. The story is so gripping and well written, I didn’t want it to end. When it did, I bought all of Whitaker’s other books, which are piled up on my nightstand.
As for nonfiction, I just binged Regime Change, a new chronicle of the first year of President Trump’s second term, by the New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. It’s exceptional—and the reporting is jaw-dropping.
A cultural product I loved as a teenager and still love: I discovered Selena’s Tejano music when I was in middle school, danced to “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” throughout high school, and still listen to her rancheras today. (It was an honor to spend time with her dad and sister back in 2005 for a story I wrote about the 10-year anniversary of her death.)
Something I loved but now dislike: Hair crimpers. Love the look, don’t miss the smell of burning hair. A piece of me dies every time I watch my daughter straighten her natural curls, only to singe zigzag shapes into her hair.
A favorite story I’ve read in The Atlantic: “The Missing Kayaker,” by Jamie Thompson. It is an irresistible—and infuriating—mystery.
Something delightful introduced to me by a kid in my life: My 11-year-old daughter is obsessed with the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, the new women’s professional softball league, and I’m obsessed now too. Our favorite player is Bri Ellis, who plays first base for the Utah Talons. She is kind, funny, strong, and an inspiration for young girls and the moms raising them.
The last thing that made me cry: I’m going to go full mom here. A few weeks ago, we were up in Prescott, Arizona, for a softball tournament. The weather was perfect, and the bases were loaded, with two outs in the last inning. My daughter had two strikes on her and then nailed the ball out to left field for the game-winning hit. I bawled as she rounded first base and then was mobbed at second base by a sweaty mess of preteen girls celebrating their win.
A quote that I return to: I often recall this 1944 diary passage by Anne Frank, which perfectly encapsulates hope for humanity: “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
The Week Ahead
- Tony, a biopic that follows Anthony Bourdain as he begins his career in the restaurant world (in select theaters Friday)
- Etna, a novel by Paul Yoon told through the eyes of an ex-military dog returning home after war (out Tuesday)
- The Shards, a series adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel, set at an elite Los Angeles prep school in 1981 (out Wednesday on Hulu)
Essay
Is This What Comes After AI Slop?
By Will Oremus
Among thousands of self-published Amazon ebooks that they identified as containing “substantial AI text,” none was more popular than Daggermouth.
Until recently, AI fiction has been easy to dismiss as slop. On Amazon, new-book releases nearly tripled from 2022 to 2025. (That’s probably not because humans suddenly dedicated themselves en masse to the written word.) Many are blatant copycats of existing titles, seemingly intended to trick readers into buying them. Their sales figures are generally meager; the reviews, indignant. A suspicious number of them feature protagonists with the same names. Last year, readers of one fantasy novel noticed a line that seemed to be responding to a prompt asking a chatbot to write in the style of another author. But if a book as beloved as Daggermouth were written with a chatbot, it would raise an awkward question: Could AI fiction be getting … good?
Read the full article.
More in Culture
Catch Up on The Atlantic
Photo Album
Explore a collection of images from winners of the GDT Nature Photographer of the Year 2026.
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.