JD Vance: "I think Nixon's historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and deservedly so. I joked that if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12 hours news story. The idea that it took down a presidency is crazy."

Bill Clinton called the White House the ‘crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system’ -- but that’s not how Jill Biden saw it. I wrote about her new memoir for the LRB blog. (With much gratitude to @moonjets.bsky.social) www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ju...

Stayin' Alive x Renaissance madrigal www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zGf...

"You call this fiction, but it is more.” @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social really excellent here on Ben Lerner: www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

‘Other recent first lady memoirs can make the job seem wearying – one demand after another, unrelenting scrutiny – but not in Jill Biden’s telling.’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on the Bidens in the White House – and leaving it – from the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ju...

Gavin Newsom learned from his mother that identity was elective. After all, she spoke with a "cut glass English accent" despite being a lifelong Californian. (She picked it up after watching Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady" and never stopped) My piece @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...!

‘Newsom sometimes used to open speeches by saying: “My name is Gavin Newsom and I helped elect George Bush” – a joke, but not a funny one.’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on the California governor. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

“As Larry Brilliant, who helped to eradicate smallpox … observed, ‘Outbreaks are inevitable. Pandemics are optional.’ The eating of bush meat can’t possibly explain the epidemic, but grotesque and growing disparities in access to care … can.“ By Paul Farmer, from 2014:

I’ve written about the late, great Len Deighton www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Can't help thinking what a woman Martha Mills would have become with @meropemills.bsky.social and @paullaity.bsky.social for parents.

This pretty much says it all. Thanks to the brilliant @estheraddley.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Will be heading to the @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk on May 21st to hear the great Lauren Elkin (@laurenelkin.bsky.social) launch "Vocal Break: On Women, Music and Power" www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lauren-elk...

"Here the four of us were born; here my grandmother died; here my mother died; here my father died ... " For £2 million, you too can live & die at 22 Hyde Park Gate: www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/det...

I'll be asking the great Gwendoline Riley about new novel The Palm House, and some of the other six, at Daunt Marylebone on 15 April. Be there dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/events/...

RIP Tracy Kidder, who was always one of my writing heroes. His profile of Paul Farmer for @newyorker.com is worth going back to read and treasure. www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...

Calling all young UK writers aged 11-14. Great prizes, and a chance to have your writing published. www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

"Melania" is now streaming on Amazon Prime. I just rewatched the opening sequence to make sure I hadn't hallucinated the use of "Gimme Shelter" ...

Hegseth confirms “the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since WWII.” I guess he missed the LRB podcast on the sinking of the Belgrano? www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...

‘She was an executive producer on 𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘢, with editorial control, yet the film often seems as though it’s been edited by someone who despises her.’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on Melania Trump. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

"In 1884-5 Gilles de la Tourette, a pupil of Charcot, described the astonishing syndrome which now bears his name" Oliver Sacks in the LRB archive: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v0...

On Wednesday, @jamesmeek.bsky.social will be at the @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk to discuss his latest novel, ‘Your Life Without Me’ with Lara Pawson. Tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/james-meek...

Same thought -- especially after reading @moonjets.bsky.social on 'Lives of the Caesars' www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The lecture that I gave on January 16 in London, the second of the LRB Winter Lectures, is now available online. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Keeping the flame of civilisation burning, I wrote about what's really important (English novelists in the Seventies and Eighties) - harpers.org/archive/2026...

‘Editors silently rewrote passages that seemed tawdry, or just left them out; it was routine to excise Pepys’s sexual escapades while preserving his wife’s rages, which just made her seem unhinged.’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on Samuel Pepys’s diary. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘In February 1660, Pepys noted that the government was so unpopular that “boys do now cry ‘Kiss my Parliament’ instead of ‘Kiss my arse.’”’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on the decipherment of Samuel Pepys. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

A book I especially loved this year: "The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary" by @kateloveman.bsky.social. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

“the diary became Pepys’s secret ledger, the place for him to record bribes (‘considerations’) and the elaborate justifications he might one day need to defend them.” @deborahfriedell.bsky.social in @lrb.co.uk

To go after a family for no other reason than that their daughter sparked sympathy is appalling. Absolutely appalling. Beyond cruelty into outright sadism.

In this week’s episode of the LRB podcast I speak with the filmmaker Sepideh Farsi about her new documentary, ‘Put Your Soul in Your Hand and Walk,’ a portrait of Fatma Hassona, a photographer in Gaza who was killed in an Israeli air strike on April 15. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Writers! Applications for the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award are open. This year, we've increased the prize to $15,000 to account for the higher cost of pasta. Apply now: journalism.nyu.edu/about-us/awa...

Join us at our Christmas Late Shopping Evenings on 3, 10, and 18 December and get 10% off all books bought on the night. Our neighbours at St. JOHN will also be open late for festive food and drink purchases. Attendance is free! Tickets here:

On 27 October @adamtooze.bsky.social will give the inaugural 𝘓𝘙𝘉 Autumn Lecture in New York on the subject of Electrostates, Petrostates & the New Cold War. Book now: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nyc-lectur...

I love the @lrb.co.uk “Close Readings” podcast, so it was a total treat to do this episode with @moonjets.bsky.social & Colm Tóibín on Henry James -- even if Colm remains inexplicably blind to the charms of Lord Warburton & his moat. www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...

I wrote about Artificial Desire www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Based on the novel "Box Hill" by none other than Adam Mars-Jones! @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social

‪Tony Harrison's 'V.' was first published in the London Review of Books in 1985. The front page of the Daily Mail reported on the 'FOUR LETTER TV POEM FURY.' www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v0...

'Welcome to my last four years.' A search for accountability and a full, detailed explanation for Martha's death . . . www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Israel’s allies are still buying time for Israel to change course or come to a deal with Hamas over how many trucks to allow in, as though food were a legitimate bargaining chip. Gazans cannot afford to wait for either.’ New on the blog: Amjad Iraqi on Gaza. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ju...

On the Bayeux Tapestry, Anglo-French relations, Macron, European borders, small boats and British warships, from seven years ago www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The cartoonist Jules Feiffer once wrote that Superman’s real home wasn’t Krypton but “the planet Poland, from Lodz maybe, possibly Crakow, maybe Vilna.” Of course Superman is an immigrant. I wrote about him for the @newyorker.com in 2013: www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

Zohran's father, Mahmood Mamdani, wrote for @lrb.co.uk about his family's expulsion from Uganda www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Doing a lil’ local talk tomorrow night, come on out southeast London!

"When I wrote that I’d had sex over the years with 3,000 men, one of my contemporaries asked pityingly: ‘Why so few?’” Edmund White's essays in the @lrb.co.uk archive: www.lrb.co.uk/contributors... & Adam Phillips on White's autobiography www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v2...

Deadline a week today. The Martha Mills Young Writers’ Prize 2025 www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/blog/2025/ma...

Very late indeed to this remarkable Helen Sullivan piece, the opening of a crack into another (to me) world www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that he would attempt a serious novel one more time. If it failed, he would ‘come home, go to Hollywood and learn the movie business’. That is what he did. Then he died. Thomas Powers on 'The Great Gatsby' in the @lrb.co.uk: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...

Londres! Laurent Binet will be speaking with Thomas Jones on Tuesday at the French Institute in South Ken: www.institut-francais.org.uk/events-agend... @atahualpavasari.bsky.social @moonjets.bsky.social @lrb.co.uk

‘Musk offered to do to America just what he’d done for Twitter.’ Deborah Friedell on Elon Musk: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...