20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you one book per day for 20 days in no particular order no explanations no reviews just covers.

What’s everyone reading? I’m revisiting one of my favorites by a most influential authors: IN A SHALLOW GRAVE by James Purdy. His prose becomes poetry. Case in point: “… we both exchanged what was like one single, same terrible look, a look like two shots which met and exploded together in the air.”

Can someone start reissuing all the old James Purdy novels? The world needs to know.

Justin Spring's biography of Steward is a good overview, but I am also repeatedly surprised when reading biographies of other people (such as Michael Snyder's bio of James Purdy) to see Steward pop up as an important background figure.

Our $2.99 Kindle deal is James Purdy's IN A SHALLOW GRAVE (1975), a novel by turns Gothic, mystical, and grotesque, and, like all of Purdy's works, a compelling read. Grab it cheap while this deal lasts: www.amazon.com/Shallow-Grav...

James Purdy, Narrow Rooms, 1978 / Champaigne, Le Christ mort couché sur son linceul, 1654 (détail)

1. I feel bad for people who don't read. I can't imagine not experiencing Toni Morison, Dan Chaon, James Purdy, Ishiguro, Joy Williams, Kyle Winkler, Zora Hurston! Like ...

The paperback edition of #OnFreedom is out today. It preserves a positive argument about how to build a better country and has been updated to account for what has happened in 2025. timothysnyder.org/on-freedom

A year ago, I launched my book #OnFreedom in a war zone – in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 35 seconds from Russian artillery. Today, I'm launching the paperback in Portland, Oregon. Which is NOT a war zone. There is a difference in the real world between what's a war and what is not, and between truth and lies.

"Any vacuum of facts and values will be filled with spectacle and war." — Timothy Snyder, "On Freedom."

Bob Dylan was the Old Testament and Elvis Costello the New.

“Anything [James] Purdy writes is a literary event of importance. He is indisputably one of the half-dozen or so living writers worth taking seriously.” —Susan Sontag, October 1964

WHAT. THE ACTUAL. FUCK. Chicago Sun Times seems to have used AI to write its summer reading list of BOOKS THAT DO NOT EXIST. I did not write a book called Boiling Point. @rumaan.bsky.social and Min Jin Lee and Percival Everett etc. etc. did not write these books. WTAF

Two years, two editions of Brother & Sister Enter the Forest. Thanks to everyone who supported this book over the past two years.

Bookstack. Didion, McCarthy, Purdy, D. Barthelme, James Whitcomb Riley, Waugh, Franzen, Homestead on Cather, Joan Blondell bio, The Fall collection, etc

Today, April 1st, in NYC: I am honored to be delivering the annual Robert B. Silvers lecture at the NYPL. The topic will be: "The New Paganism: A Framework for Understanding Our Politics." Livestream registration is available: www.showclix.com/event/timoth...

"5. Remember professional ethics.

Here is my best guidance for action, rendered beautifully by the great John Lithgow. I first published these lessons more than eight years ago, in late 2016. They open the twenty chapters of "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century." snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-les...

“Anything [James] Purdy writes is a literary event of importance. He is indisputably one of the half-dozen or so living writers worth taking seriously.” —Susan Sontag, October 1964

Marci Shore being clarifying on Russia and the US – the Silicon Curtain. @marcishore.bsky.social youtu.be/GHJIwBGcbR8?...

Anyone who asks a question and writes, “I’m trying to see something” gets instantly muted.

Marci Shore on Ukraine and America, on reality and unreality, and the lethal price we can make others pay for our own lies to ourselves. @marcishore.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhEi...

The way that Trump and Vance spoke to Zelenskyy at the White House was a national disgrace. Two bullies pretended that Z had not thanked the US again and again. How can you gang up like that on the leader of a nation that was invaded and bombed over and again? Where is the grace and compassion?

That flag hangs in a Ukrainian brigade’s r&r house near the front in Kharkiv region, where I was visiting some infantrymen in September. I was proud to see it.

Here I react to the shameful encounter between American leaders and media and the Ukrainian president. No doubt there were more, but I saw five failures on our side: of hospitality, decency, democracy, strategy, and independence. Please watch and share. snyder.substack.com/p/five-failu...

Has Brian Laundrie, murderer of Gabby Petito, done for the white Ford Transit Connect van what O.J. Simpson did for the white Ford Bronco?

One way to commemorate the end of the third year of Russia’s senseless, criminal war against Ukraine is to read the work of Ukrainians about it. Vika did not live to see the publication of this book, since she was killed by a Russian missile. But we can see her in her words.

I am sending around "Oligarchs’ Island" again, written in November 2024. The White House has become an island of international oligarchs. snyder.substack.com/p/oligarchs-...

This site has little edge so far. I want to see beyond easy platitudes and self-congratulations. Preaching to the choir is not worthy of merit badges. Scolding from the self-righteous leaves one cold. Eschew the specious easy chummy style. Commit to singular visions.

It makes me so happy to see your book announcements, cover reveals, preorder links, blurb opinions. Please, give them to me. It's a gift. You want to know why? It means books still exist, writers still exist, and that is the world I want to live in. Yes, everything is awful. I still want books.

20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. 20 days. No description or review. Just covers!

On the indigenous history/cinema beat, the brilliant Timothy Snyder says: 'If you are interested in the history behind the "Killers of the Flower Moon" film, see Michael Snyder's ( @AmLit7 ) "Our Osage Hills" and his biography of John Joseph Matthews.'

20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. 20 days. No description or review. Just covers!

Come ready and see me, No matter how late Come before the years run out, I’m waiting with a candle No wind will blow out, But you must haste By foot or by sky For no one can wait forever Under the bluest sky I can’t wait forever For the years are running out. - James Purdy

Three Women by Altman Possession (the 1981 film), feels like it was made by aliens who had never met humans. Narrow Rooms by James Purdy (same reason as above)

potentially my last read of the year…some all-time Paragraphs in this bad boy

Nice review of our recent Brooklyn show.

The Oxford UK shoegaze band RIDE played their early song “Close My Eyes” live for perhaps the first time in the US last night in Dallas. Fortunately, I was there. I saw them in Denver, 2023 with the Charlatans and the 1994 Glastonbury festival. An incredible live band. @rideox4official.bsky.social

‘The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy’ by James Purdy http://bit.ly/1hjr6ts

Christmas with James Purdy http://bit.ly/18Ao81p

I grew up in NW Ohio and James Purdy told one interviewer he was born in my hometown though Hicksville, OH is usually credited. It wasn't until I was 25 did I even know he existed. Gay history matters and so do his books. They're weird and funny and dark. Valancourt has beautiful reprints.

I'm currently working my way through the James Purdy short story collection if you want things evil and gay and not at all wholesome lmao