I am a voracious reader and every week I come across either a book, online piece or website I want to share with others. I’ve decided to curate these gems and highlight them on Friday. I hope you find these faves as insightful as I do.

• This truth: “Online, we don’t have access to social cues. There’s no one on the receiving end of our jabs and tirades and vitriol. All we see are words on a screen in a text box. Empathy is null and void.” Stephanie Wittels Wachs makes a powerful argument in the “The End of Empathy.” (h/t Dina Relles)

• I loved this intimate portrait of Robin Williams profiled on CBS Sunday morning. Arthur Grace started photographing Williams since 1986 and documented his private and public life for over three decades.

• Jennifer Aniston’s piece, “For the Record” on body shaming is important and worth reading. She says this, “The message that girls are not pretty unless they’re incredibly thin, that they’re not worthy of our attention unless they look like a supermodel or an actress on the cover of a magazine is something we’re all willingly buying into. This conditioning is something girls then carry into womanhood.”  The Atlantic comments on celebrity journalism, feminism and communal ownership in “Jennifer Aniston Body-Shames the Tabloids.“

• I adored the essay, “A Mom Like Me” in Brain, Child by Betty Christiansen. It portrays the common ground that happens between two mothers – all born from a bus stop.

 What were your favorite reads this week?