Earlier this month, The Washington Post scuttled its Books section amid mass layoffs. Its former editor, @johnwilliams.bsky.social, on why he thinks the paper’s leaders are wrong about subscriber loyalty:

Sadly out of town for this:

“If I can generate a book in a day, and you need six months to write a book, who’s going to win the race?” God this is bleak

Breaking News: Will Lewis stepped down as the chief executive and publisher of The Washington Post days after it laid off hundreds of journalists.

So Long to Cheap Books You Could Fit in Your Pocket www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/b... Gifted

It’s remarkable to me what rich people chose to do with their money. Imagine you’re one of the richest people in the world. Imagine the responsibility. The gift. Imagine what you could do, especially at this time in this country, with The Washington Post. Instead you give $70 million to Melania.

Layoffs at the Washington Post! 🦋 www.cjr.org/news/layoffs...

My current and, sadly, last review for The Washington Post, as it retrenches and bows and eliminates its book section. www.washingtonpost.com/books/2026/0...

I asked @lancerichardson.bsky.social some questions about his major new biography of Peter Matthiessen. www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/1...

Looking forward to this. DC peeps, do come!

DC folks - please come here @lancerichardson.bsky.social and I talk about True Nature, his wonderful new biography of Peter Matthiessen at @politicsprose.bsky.social Ct Ave. this Saturday, 3 pm. politics-prose.com/lance-richar...

Have fun!

A delicious read, this book. DC friends - please come see Lance and I discuss it at @politicsprose.bsky.social Saturday, 11/1 at 3 pm. politics-prose.com/lance-richar...

Absurd as everything this admin does. And per usual just complete ignorance. Anyone interested in Amelia should read @lauriestories.bsky.social new book The Aviator and The Showman.

These people are nuts. They sound more and more like the Taliban or the right wing Israelis. They hate America.

“...you will live in exile, because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you have broken the law, to take away your freedom.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/o...

Congrats. I love True Nature and couldn’t agree more.

Ta-Nehasi Coates is doing a lot of things with this essay, but one of the most important is fearlessly using examples of anti-trans hate to describe Charlie Kirk's politics. The contrast between his choices and those of other writers for major legacy outlets is revealing.

All five of my books, plus several translations.

The precise moment when and where in recent weeks America crossed that invisible line from democracy into authoritarianism can and will be debated by future historians, but it’s clear that the line itself has been crossed. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-ti...

Freedom, in the American context, has always meant the freedom to make bank at pretty much anyone’s expense.... My review of Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West for The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com @bookcritics.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/0...

One hundred and eight five years after Melville shipped out of New Bedford, Ma., then the largest whaling port in the world, the city remains the highest grossing fishing port in the USA. Spending the next year reporting on it; heading out for ten days on the Debra C in pursuit of wild fish.

Well, I’m still here and still working! Not dead yet!

Reviewed James Rebanks's strange and beguiling new book for the Washington Post.

What we have become: www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

In this lawless landscape of frail masculine egos clinging to cockeyed, and often booze-fueled, notions of honor, the bullets fly, the bodies pile up, the pages turn fast and easy...." My review of Bryan Burrough's The Gunfighters for @washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/0...

I love sulphur-crested cockatoos. wapo.st/43MWCi4

Town and Country weighs in on the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller wing at the Met; alone of the other pieces so far the reporter delved into the complexities of his collecting and the uneven, colonial power relationships of it. www.townandcountrymag.com/society/trad...

Can't wait to go see the renovated and newly reopening Michael C. Rockefeller room in the Met. An error in the piece: the Asmat never lived in Papua New Guinea, but in Netherlands New Guinea in 1961, and what is today Indonesian West Papua. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/a...

A gang controlled this Honduran barrio. Then a small NGO fought back. My review of Bear Witness in The Washington Post: wapo.st/3Sx6Zkz

Once you correctly recognize Trump's tariffs as a way to fund his intended upper-class tax cut with an immediate tax increase on poor and working Americans ... you can't see the tariffs any other way. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Oof, this is tragic and sad. I met Jill Sobule once at an EG conference in 2014 and a few weeks later she sent me a signed CD and I sent her a signed book. She was smart and funny and kind. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/a...

Beware of searching too hard for the past in the present. My review of A Training School for Elephants in The Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/0...

@newyorker.com just published a deep look at recent turmoils at my old employer, @outsidemag.bsky.social ... Sad (for me) recap of the end of an era. www.newyorker.com/news/letter-...

The idiocy of people continues to astound. And what a gift, leaving a can of Coca-Cola for the thirsty, needy "natives." www.bbc.com/news/article...

How times have changed. In 1993, during my 1st of 4 trips to Greenland, I flew w US anti-submarine aircraft in then-annual joint Danish/Canadian/American exercises out of Thule, now Pituffik, practicing chasing Russian submarines. Huge base. Big hangars/long runway. Also a good bar w no windows.

In which I talk about Trump and what's happening in this country to the Waco Herald Tribune: wacotrib.com/opinion/colu...

"Zelensky’s physical and moral courage, including his refusal to be belittled on camera in the Oval Office, enrages Trump, for he’s accustomed to endless subservience and flattery." Excellent piece; echoes so much of what I wrote in Liar's Circus. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

I've been thinking this for weeks. An American cultural revolution, sending anyone/everyone who supports liberal democracy & rule of law - anything in opposition to Trump - to the fields to humiliate them and to dominate them. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/b...

"These are intensely good people who did hard things well." "Our work rested upon the fundamental value of our democracy that we exist 'as a government of laws, and not of men." Don't read about it; read the thing itself. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

"You're close to the ground; you're looking for trees & poles. You've got wind shears & crosswinds & convection columns that can flip you right on your back, & smoke and pieces of ember the size of grapefruits." My 2009 Pop Mech piece on aerial fire fighting in LA.https://shorturl.at/GVTRQ

This. I feel it so much, all the time. It's really corrosive. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

I'm starting a new project and looking to find/hire someone who has deep experience with FOIA requests. Any names or leads would be most helpful. Please feel free to DM with any suggestions. Thank you!

What's it like to have your world invaded by an alien society? What happened when a smart, ambitious indigenous man in the Amazon sought economic success for his people? When We Sold God's Eye is powerful & revealing. My review in @washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/1...

Tragic. Still one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/02/u...

Thankful for so many interesting new followers, and thought I ought to properly introduce myself. Thirty-five year full time freelance writer. I've seen some things!

100 percent true. When I was reporting my Trump book, almost all the Trumpians’ news came from social media. All the things democrats did and say, the people who voted for Trump know nothing about it or don’t believe it. Trumps crimes? Made up.

I think East Greenland is one of the most spectacular places I’ve ever been. So monumental. So untouched by human hands.

This should be paired with Scott Wallace’s excellent new book Central America in the Crosshairs of War, his account in words and pics of seven years reporting from the front lines of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.