What to Stream: Middle Kids are an excellent alt rock band from Sydney. Lead singer Hannah Joy is great, has major charisma on stage, and plays a right handed guitar left handed (without swapping the string order). Their single Edge of Town is a good place to start. I also dig this cover of Don’t Dream it’s Over. And here’s their latest album on Spotify. I saw them this week at a small club in SF. I’m pretty sure that’s the last time they’ll be playing a small place around here. And while you’ve got your headphones on, the new album by Florence and the Machine is out. I’m about to listen to it, but I already know it’s excellent. (I choose to believe there are still a few norms we can count on…)

+ What to Book: “That meal is why we still eat a meal together in November. Celebrate it as a nation. But that one wasn’t a thanksgiving meal. It was a land deal meal. Two years later there was another, similar meal, meant to symbolize eternal friendship. Two hundred Indians dropped dead that night from supposed unknown poison.” Tommy Orange is getting rave reviews for his debut novel, There There. They’re well deserved.

+ What to Read: “It was the start of a journey that one reporter would call “a bizarre tale of hijinks, of abduction, of physical threats, and finally of arrest.” When Jones arrived hot and tired in Melbourne, Florida, Hardy dropped the bomb. There was no Aretha, he admitted. Jones would impersonate the ‘Queen of Soul.'” Jeff Maysh in Smithsonian Mag: The Counterfeit Queen of Soul.