• Ta-Nehisi Coates shares a reading list of “five books to make you less stupid about the Civil War.” (TheAtlantic.com)

• This week in unexpected headlines: “Why Martin Luther’s Body Type Mattered.” (JSTOR Daily)

• An excerpt from The Last Sheriff in Texas about law enforcement gone bad and local elections past. (Texas Monthly)

• Kathryn Schulz consults Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Aristotle to ascertain the likelihood that the yeti exists. (The New Yorker)

• Meanwhile, MEARCSTAPA, “which stands for Monsters: the Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory And Practical Application,” looks for said fictional creatures in history. (Atlas Obscura)

• The Tune Detective tells an audience in 1952 that we need more bad musicians. (WNYC)

• A brief history of the preconceptions and period clothing that shaped usage of the term “bodice ripper”: “The funny thing about bodice rippers is that bodices are hard to rip! They’re made with bones of steel!” (Racked)