Many thanks @olgaz.bsky.social for this early review of Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social - it’s such a humane and real response to the book it made me see it differently again.

While staring out the window at falling snow, thinking of #ToveWinter26, I happened to see a fox running through neighbors' yards. What a perfect day to start Tove Jansson's "A Winter Book"! ❄️📖 Feel free to join me & @petipaw.bsky.social if you have a copy. Or even read TJ's "Summer Book" instead!🌞

Just finished the forthcoming @newvesselpress.bsky.social title My Dreadful Body by Egana Djabbarova, translated by @lizoksbooks.bsky.social Mark your calendars, you will want to add this book to your TBR list. A story of the body as the intersection of cultural expectations, family, and disease.

Thanks for publishing my review of Maria Stepanova's new novel, The Disappearing Act, translated by Sasha Dugdale! www.ronslate.com/on-the-disap...

“Now that something had been arranged, I realized just how much I wanted to leave. Now that I could gather my thoughts, I felt frightened. I could see what life would be like for me if I stayed.” #BookSky 💙📚 #NYRBWomen25 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/12/28/m...

After decades in the US, my mom found these made-in-Canada decorations, seemingly aimed at the very niche audience in both nations of ex-Soviet Jews. There are a handful of other countries they could export them to.

“The crush at the station was unimaginable. Troop trains were occupying nearly all the lines. We didn’t know whether they were just arriving or just departing. They probably didn’t even know themselves." #BookSky 💙📚 #NYRBWomen25 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/12/28/m...

One of the many things Brigitte Bardot did was support a Bulgarian sanctuary for retired dancing bears which I was able to report on earlier this century. www.sfgate.com/news/article...

Between bouts of rain and hard days, an impromptu day trip to one of the loveliest places on earth, Santa Barbara, CA.

So pleased to see Muñeca included in this episode of horror books for the first half of 2026! Along with The Curse of Hester Gardens, a new Cynthia Pelayo (and, @lindsaykingmiller.bsky.social, there's a new Catriona Ward!) Thank you to Becky and Emily and Robb :) www.thearcparty.com/p/2026-horro...

"But we were not easily deterred. All night long, the theaters, clubs, & restaurants remained crowded with people. Fabulous sums were lost at cards. In the morning, stupefied by wine, gambling, & cigar smoke, bankers & sugar manufacturers would emerge..." 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/12/28/m...

When I wrote the horrible THINGS, I was tapping into my own most paranoid fears.

Picked up my new @sashavasilyuk.bsky.social novel from Monarch Books and Echo has already claimed it.

The audio book is half off, should you or yours be into that sort of thing! www.audiobooks.com/promotions/p...

#Booksky #MixedRace #AfricanAmericanHistory Cíara Emmanuel interviews Alison Hart. “It's a way for me to almost build a cosmology.” Starry-eyed and visionary, Alison Hart still keeps both feet on the ground. Read the interview here tinyurl.com/4873zy9v Buy book here www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3QXP6XT

Tomorrow in Washington DC!

Announcing the winner of the Restless Books 2025 Kellman Prize for New Immigrant Writing. lithub.com/announcing-t...

Absolutely delighted to be reading with @olgaz.bsky.social and everyone else on this terrific list next Tuesday night, 12/16! Travel with us to Central/Eastern/South Europe right here in DC! Thanks to @bergstrombookstore.bsky.social and Kensington Row Bookshop for hosting!

I'm heading to DC to meet @bergstrombookstore.bsky.social in person!! If you're in the area, you will not want to miss this Central/Eastern/South Europe focused event next week! With @katherineeyoung.bsky.social Turkoslavia's Ena Selimović, Roman Kostovski of Plamen Press and Greg Bernstein?!

IMMENSE gratitude to the 4 authors who wowed us at Babylon on Saturday night! ⭐ Susie Hara [Earthquake Shack] ⭐ Aimee Phan/@aimeephan.bsky.social {The Lost Queen] ⭐ Kevin Smokler/@weegee.bsky.social [Break the Frame] ⭐ Lori Ostlund/@loriostlund.bsky.social [Are You Happy?] #writers #books #authors

Litquake 2025 was a great reminder of just how powerful words can be — we joined in community, had passionate and interesting dialogue, and left feeling inspired. We can’t thank you enough for joining us and a big thank you to our incredible sponsors for their support. 💫📚

words I learned from being edited and correspondence this week: unslaked --"not quenched or satisfied" -- thanks to @ronslate.bsky.social lagniappe -- "a small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase" -- thanks to @bergstrombookstore.bsky.social the worlds of English!!

Echo was nose deep in this essay about growing up amidst major social change by @olgaz.bsky.social in the latest Chicago Quarterly Review. Excited to see a story by another writing friend, Max Ufberg, as well.

This list of the best bookstores in Dallas is so beautiful, our city has grown so much in the past decade into a city with bookstores to match our incredibly diverse & engaged reading citizenry! So grateful our own little @deepvellumbooks.bsky.social is included! #LiteraryDallas forever!

friends! @coyotemedia.org is dropping our paywall for December so you can see what we’ve been up to even if you have none dollars. All of our posts are currently free to read. Come check us out & spread the word? www.coyotemedia.org

now PAYWALL-FREE

Without downloading any new pics describe your gender.

“Human language, Winston thought, was not adequate for spiritual union.” —Olga Zilberbourg, “A Dark and Empty Corner” @olgaz.bsky.social

I think I might do something a little different next year for #NYRBWomen26. I’m considering just 1 book per month because 1) I’d like to focus better & be more thoughtful +2) I want to reread May Sarton’s nonfiction & am hoping to find a small group that might want to join me. More thoughts below👇

THE CLIMATE ISSUE 🌊 Our Winter 2025-26 issue is out next week launching on Thursday 27th November in The Digital Depot, Dublin 🎨The Conversation by Limerick-based artist Robert Ryan, selected from the 195th RHA Annual Exhibition / Cover design Eimear Gavin. More info stingingfly.org/newsletter/

California reporters, I have two opportunities: 1. Use our police records website, give us your opinion and get paid for an hour of your time 2. Schedule a workshop for your newsroom or request personal assistance going through our data My DMs are open.

We think of censorship as a political act, but systemic censorship affects areas that have the most remote relationship to politics. Why was Giacometti censored in the USSR? For similar reasons why today people are censoring rainbows. Discussion on Sat-- campaigns.telhilit.org/secure/cause...

Bizarre Exiles-- tomorrow! On Tuesday, November 4, 4:30 pm, I'll be introducing a feminist philosopher from the former Yugoslavia (North Macedonia), Senka Anastasova and her book from @routledgebooks POLITICAL NARRATOSOPHY, at Philosophers Club (824 Ulloa St). Come! #BookSky

From Chernobyl with Love is 6 today! @univnebpress.bsky.social

If you're able to, please donate to this one if in LA, or to whichever your local one is. www.lafoodbank.org?_gl=1%2Aft21...

Latest in my post-Soviet community building efforts in San Francisco and more --- zilberbourg.com/2025/10/30/n...

it's so weird to look at my 7-year old child and think "how foreign she looks"

I'm getting ready for an event about Giacometti, and wondering what specific ideological reasons made it impossible for Giacometti to be shown in the USSR? Do any of my #postSoviet scholar friends know or have a guess? Art by Leonid Sokov; The meeting of the two sculptures, 1994

Bart Schneider will be presenting his beautiful book in SF on November 8. A wild, fictionalized story about the last few years of Giacometti's life, it's illustrated by a celebrated Sonoma county artist Chester Arnold. I'll read from my work, too!

RIP to a dear friend and eminent scholar, David Bellos.

‘Blokes cringe if you talk about it in the pub’ - my feature on the untapped power of menstrual blood published today. www.theguardian.com/society/ng-i...

Huge thanks @elizabethmck.bsky.social and @chicagoqreview.bsky.social for publishing my personal essay "The Richest Kid in the World." It's about the fall of the USSR as told through the eyes of a pre-teen, censorship, & the way end of censorship in the USSR affected different generations.

In Putin's Russia, defending krill = high treason www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Tomorrow! Come Crawl with us!

Tomorrow! Rain is in the forecast, which I think is to be celebrated.

something I learned today: medieval Russians used to fry and eat swans

Come Crawl with us on Saturday! It's San Francisco's @litquake.org season. We have great stories for you!

Bay Area folks, this is Friday! I'll be telling scary stories by the campfire and would love to see some of your faces there. tallyhobookstore.com/events/37378...