Publication day (paperback @pantheonbooks.bsky.social):

Matthew Aucoin: "[A]n outsize percentage of classical musicians who write especially well about music are pianists: Charles Rosen, Jeremy Denk, Ethan Iverson, Timo Andres, Vijay Iyer, Jonathan Biss—the list goes on. Might virtuosity at one keyboard translate, somehow, into fluency at the other?"

Delightful piece in the next LRB by Julian Barnes about Flaubert and his publisher, Michel Lévy: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Really enjoyed discussing THE TIGER'S SHARE with @jbhattacharjirose.bsky.social on the #TOIBookmark podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/6LIF...

While this piece makes a number of valuable points, the pernicious focus on "track" is ultimately just another symptom of publishing's structural problem, which is one of a declining ratio. Too many writers, not enough readers. thewalrus.ca/the-publishi...

(Anthropic, not OpenAI, but the principle still applies).

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

Funny notion of something "that isn't British or American"..

I wrote about Ben Pester's THE EXPANSION PROJECT: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

on earth we're finally free from pretending this is good writing www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The reviewer really took one for the team here (via @questingvole.bsky.social) www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I wrote about Gurnaik Johal's SARASWATI, and what I call "connection novels", in @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

The Tiger’s Share by Keshava Guha review – hopeless sons vs brilliant daughters. Review of @keshavaguha.bsky.social ‘s novel www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

"With The Boyhood of Cain, a star is born." 📖 ⭐ Me on Michael Amherst's debut novel of exceptional poise and confidence.👇 It has the surface calmness, inner turbulence, understated emotion and muted wit of JM Coetzee, and the most affecting ending I've read in ages.