How old is the Phantom of the Opera supposed to be? Get into the weeds with me and Lord Andy on Phantom age gap discourse: open.substack.com/pub/reinahar...

CONLADIES OF HISTORY UNITE! Laura Kolb writes @publicdomainrev about a 17th Century "German Princess" who could give Anna Delvey a run for someone else's money. publicdomainreview.org/essay/mary-c...

Subscribe to Book Post now, and you'll get 3 months of the paid version for free! No credit card or trial. It's totally automatic and our little way to celebrate near victory (10,000 subscribers)! books.substack.com

“I know … But even so.”

It is an absolute dream to have an essay in the Public Domain Review: publicdomainreview.org/essay/mary-c...

It is an absolute dream to have an essay in the Public Domain Review: publicdomainreview.org/essay/mary-c...

NEW ESSAY — Laura Kolb on Mary Carleton, the 17th-century woman accused of posing as foreign royalty to lure a young suitor into a bigamous marriage, a strange precursor to our modern-day fascination with conwomen and counterfeits — publicdomainreview.org/essay/mary-c...

Thai cat treatises — called “Tamra Maew” — pair illustrations of auspicious felines with poetic notes: one has “eyes like dewdrops on a lotus,” another’s are “lit like fireflies, applied liquid gold”. Pages of a fine 19th-century example here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/tamra-maew/

My first newsletter is live! It's about writing a book, and watching the silent film Hamlet where Hamlet is secretly a girl. Kindly click and subscribe so I can get my first ten subs and satisfy the hungry machine's demands. reinahardy.substack.com/p/the-author...

I wrote about Mujica Lainez’s grotesque, glorious masterpiece Bomarzo, which deserves to be as well known in English as One Hundred Years of Solitude, for @bookpostusa.bsky.social. Newly reissued by @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social books.substack.com/p/review-mic...

My op-ed in the @chicagomaroon.bsky.social on the University of Chicago’s appalling plans to gut the humanities and possibly eliminate the South Asian studies department chicagomaroon.com/48353/viewpo...

Getting people in my comments saying, oh you do have to learn how to work with a chatbot effectively. Whatever brain genius skills you believe you’ve mastered, I guarantee you that students aren’t learning them by clicking “summarize” on a PDF +

I considered writing a long carefully constructed argument laying out the harms and limitations of AI, but instead I wrote about being a hater. Only humans can be haters.

Beautiful: "I am a hater, and I will not be polite. The machine is disgusting and we should break it. The people who build it are vapid shit-eating cannibals glorifying ignorance. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself." (from @anthonymoser.com) anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

Panic panic panic panic!!!

Did not expect to be called out by and then tear up at an endnote about the Iliad’s list of ships

I really want to watch the Jamie Lloyd Cyrano. Is it gettable, anywhere? I would pay like 20 bucks to stream it if anyone would let me.

I have an essay in this month’s @harpers.bsky.social on freaking out during the pandemic & hiring a dominatrix & how this relates to our historical moment of deranged vibes probably TMI

my brilliant cousin (this is very good)

American English speakers! I have a question for you, for some informal research I'm doing. Do you know the meaning of the verb "to tump"? If so, how would you use it, and where are you from? [Reposts appreciated]

I reviewed the Morgan's wonderful, complicated exhibit on Belle da Costa Greene for the TLS. There's just over a week left to see it, which I urge you to do if you can. (I wrote this in December! Publication schedules are weird!) www.the-tls.co.uk/arts/visual-...

absolutely fascinating historical artefact - the first written source we have to mention shakespeare's butt

I reviewed the Morgan's wonderful, complicated exhibit on Belle da Costa Greene for the TLS. There's just over a week left to see it, which I urge you to do if you can. (I wrote this in December! Publication schedules are weird!) www.the-tls.co.uk/arts/visual-...

ELR is putting our best face forward for the big @saaupdates.bsky.social + RSA extravaganza next week. Here is a new poster with the titles of our special issues in 2024, 2025 (coming this fall), and 2026.

I am proud of having written this but even prouder of my big orange boy

“Wicked” and deceitful women have recurred in literature for centuries, from Medea and Clytemnestra to Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne. In our newest post by Lara Kolb (@laurakolb.bsky.social), she asks, “Are all women’s lies actually that: wicked?” Read here: books.substack.com/p/diary-laur... #Literature

I wrote a thing for @bookpostusa.bsky.social. It is about how Medea and Becky Sharp and Amy Dunne and a bunch of other fictional ladies-who-lie are all telling us something real: books.substack.com/p/diary-laur...

I wrote a thing. It contains a misreading of The Shining wrapped in some details about my own ridiculous life. But it is really about friendship and making stuff. electricliterature.com/the-shining-...

Thinking with Laura Kolb on creativity and domestic violence today: electricliterature.com/the-shining-... (@ztul.bsky.social no idea if you still have a Stephen King reading list, but this can go on the pile.)

I did not think I'd see this day (January 8th). We sold my book!