New York electing its first Muslim mayor 24 years after 9/11 and rejecting the idiotic racism that would connect those events is actually a legit excuse for American triumphalism, but the people who say they love America the most hate all the best things about it.

To whom are you beholden? What is the purpose of your politics, and who is it for? I’m grateful that Zohran has really good answers to these questions, grateful that he rightfully sees the job ahead of him as fundamentally one of care. May he help usher in an era where that doesn’t feel so novel.

If you're in Austin, get out and vote for Prop Q today, nearly 50% of which would go to provide housing and support folks experiencing homelessness. Our city has been very cruel to these folks in the past few years. This is one way for us to do something different.

A wonderful feeling: soaking in a beautiful book, wanting to savor it but also consume it all immediately, not feeling the need to take it slow because you know the words will reverberate with meaning, different and the same, with every visit.

"It took imagination to build Alligator Alcatraz in five days, and it took imagination to terrorize communities in the way that they are now being terrorized. It’s not about realism versus imagination. It’s about competing versions of an imagined future, an imagined present."

I am here to recommend that you visit tree.fm and just let it play in the background. It will make your workday a bit better.

Please excuse the laundry and focus on the fact that my child put her bike helmet on, pulled a Vonnegut book off the shelf, and climbed onto the couch to “read.”

I did indeed rush to click the link, but man, reading this just made me feel incredibly sad.

A way to have a good weekend is to go to a local bookstore this afternoons and buy something random and counterintuitive from the staff picks shelf, and spend the next two days reading it.

Really appreciated this reflection on Wendell Berry. These books have meant a lot to me—my wedding featured readings from two WB passages—and I'm more curious than ever what the totality of his project amounts to, how he'll be remembered, what the long-term legacy of his work will be.

Free lede for an essay on what our ubiquitous, therapeutic use of the language of “connection” is doing to us (or revealing about us), brought to you by my Extra peppermint gum.

"There is an unconscionable industry built around making people decide how much less than what they deserve they are willing to accept."

The divorced-dad energy of owning a Cybertruck was simply not sufficient.

Thought this was real good.

Differences in type notwithstanding, in the world of recent notable disagreeing-dudes-podcasting-it-out, TNC/Ezra Klein would’ve been well-served by a bit more of today’s Pablo Torre/Mark Cuban energy.

Books smell good.

I dare you to read the "About" section here and not feel desperately-needed optimism and heart-racing excitement about the possibilities of a literary publication truly in and of a place. Follow the work of these good folks, and subscribe if you can.

Never trust someone who says that they love "books." What an insane thing to say! Vibes-based book culture makes people very silly. I do not love "books"—I love writing that is beautiful, that is true, that is doing something interesting and new. As such, I hate many books. Many are also good.

The soundtrack in my head to this novel was the Drive-By Truckers’ “Putting People on the Moon”, which I consider to be very high praise. This is a playful, viscerally descriptive, morally serious novel from the great folks at @graywolfpress.bsky.social that is well worth your time and attention.

It's Friday afternoon! If there's a sentence or a paragraph in something you read recently that really stopped you in your tracks, whether because of the beauty of the prose, the clarity of the mind at work, or anything else, I'd love to read it.

Something I did not anticipate about becoming a parent is that I now actually love hearing other parents talk about their kids (inspired by listening to this).

Krasznahorkai! One of my first tasks as an intern at the Paris Review in 2017 was transcribing portions of his Art of Fiction interview, which was a beautifully disorienting experience. I love thinking about all the imminently-disoriented readers out there.

Wealth, boredom, and greed, a truly toxic brew.

I look down at my phone for five seconds, I swear, and when I look up my two-year-old’s got a damn apple balanced on her head.

Got an extremely kind note this morning from someone who read a book review I wrote six years ago, thanking me for the review and for introducing them to the book. Feeling keenly aware of just how easy + important it is to encourage folks whose work you admire (and how often I fail to do that!).

If you’re reading this, change your sponge out. You’ll feel a little bit better.

This morning’s example of the genius of toddler sense-making: “I feel sad in my mouth” is actually a great way to describe a bad taste.

Ever since reading this @albertburneko.bsky.social paragraph a while back, I find myself thinking about it, encountering unwelcome exemplars of it, far more often than I wish.

I had occasion today to dig out papers I wrote as an undergrad English major, to go through notes written by my professors. Some real shit in there but the care and attention I was given, the way my ideas were taken seriously—this is a beautiful thing whose value I dearly hope we're not forgetting.

"Boy, someone's finally doing something really different." For a small publisher like us, not much feels better than this kind of praise. We took a big chance on this weird Steely Dan book. It has been a huge success and hasn't really stopped moving since 2023, but that's sort of beside the point.

TNC: "We're losing because there are always moments when we lose." Klein: "See, that feels very fatalistic to me." TNC: Deep history of struggling for change, the value of doing so even without seeing the desired change. Klein: Too much history, let's look at the last 8-12 years. ^That was weird.

wrote about a great writer thealexpress.substack.com/p/kaleb-horton

Put together some thoughts here. In an earlier time he would have been the kind of writer being paid $5 a word by magazines to go write about whatever he pleased. And no one would be pissed off or jealous about it either. www.welcometohellworld.com/life-is-a-pr...

Tonight when we played it she just stood with her mouth open wide for the first 30 seconds.

My two-year-old calls “Wide Open Spaces” by The Chicks “Open Wide” and it is very cute.

“Bored in the USA” > “Holy Shit” > “I Went To The Store One Day” remains a hell of a way to close out an album.

In a just world, Springsteen's birthday just means everyone is reading Niko on "Dancing in the Dark" and crying in their bedrooms.

I would not miss this if I were you, person who lives in Austin.

Loyalty is both a great bookstore in its own right, and home to folks who make our industry so much better in Hannah, Christine, and the rest of the crew. If you have the means, I'd suggest snagging something from the staff picks section on their site: loyaltybookstores.com/books?f%5B0%....

I've been beating this drum for a while but related to this is the idea that you can be "late" to a book—there is no such thing! If a book is worth reading, that worth is in no way connected to the entirely arbitrary date on which it is published.

One thing I appreciate about Defector is how consistently its writers absolutely nail the tension between writing with levity and with real moral seriousness, how many of them can work in both registers (often in the same piece!). Can't recommend it enough, this is a great time to get on board.

Ironically a quite performative act, to take a picture of a random dude reading a book and put it on socials.

This is a beautiful, deeply human piece about just how badly we need each other, and how inadequate the ways we try to get around that always prove themselves to be. Please read it.

"No bookstore that PW has reached out to has been as adversely impacted as @loyaltybooks.bsky.social, which specializes in diverse and intersectional literature ... Sales are down 65% since August 11." you can shop at Loyalty at loyaltybookstores.com or through Bookshop bookshop.org/shop/loyalty

Austin people, heads up: I witnessed someone being taken by ICE this morning in North Austin. I've reported it everywhere I can but want to get the word out that they're here as much as possible. Be careful, take care of each other.

Seeing this with that NYT ChatGPT story from last week still very much on the mind is just sickening, that a teen in this situation could hang up on the hotline and instead turn to ChatGPT without any comparative safeguards.

“This man wanted to fix strangeness but she was primarily in the business of conveying strangeness.“ From Joshua Wheeler’s really terrific forthcoming novel, THE HIGH HEAVEN.

Austin people, come on out to the library downtown on September 21 and help us celebrate 75 years of @utexaspress.bsky.social. Lots of legends in this lineup.

This is great reading at @rollingstone.com. Pat Blashill's SOMEDAY ALL THE ADULTS WILL DIE!, the latest in our American Music Series at @utexaspress.bsky.social, drops on Tuesday. www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

"More people have walked on the moon than write book reviews for a living," says @roncharles.bsky.social. For @worldlittoday.bsky.social, I spoke with freelance and full-time book critics about the vanishing professional market for book reviews. worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/septemb...