Ever wonder how bookstores decide what books to stock out of the "Fifty thousand new books a year [published] in the United States"*? A bookstore buyer explains: * 50k is just traditionally published books countercraft.substack.com/p/interview-...

It should be extra illegal to text/call/email/pop up spam you about "feedback."

Economist is the funniest fake profession.

Brilliant insight, and exchange. Is your life touched by books in any sense? Read every word.

Are you a #bookseller or #bibiliphile? This is a great interview with an indie bookstore buyer. #BookSky 📚

I found this fascinating… #books #bookshops #bookstores #authors

Authors, I think you might enjoy this long interview with a independent bookstore buyer about how bookstores decide what books to stock and display: countercraft.substack.com/p/interview-...

AI bros got mad at me last week when I said investors were expecting Trump to bail out AI companies when the bubble pops but...

Trump does not even have a nub of a brain left. He is completely gone into his own demented fan fiction self-insert AU story with basically no reference to the real world.

Shout for all the people who have nothing to say 'Cause we're only gone tomorrow and here today youtu.be/sjqSRQoxnhs?...

Some of the most interesting alternative universe worldbuilding fan fiction is being written by Republicans today.

VA gov winner is ex-CIA officer who ran moderate campaign, although also with an economic focus like Mamdani's. Lessons across VA/NJ/NYC seem to me to be 1) Voters are turning on Trump 2) They want politicians who are fighting back 3) Economic focus wins 4) GOP culture war nonsense is losing power

👀

I'm sure this observation has been made before, but political pundits have a bad case of sport fan brain where in any close contest the ball bouncing one way means inevitable GOAT team of destiny and the ball bouncing the other way means hopeless chokers cursed to suffer.

Problem for centrist Dems is their entire pitch has been "OK, we offer nothing but *only we* can win elections and defeat Trump" and then they lost 2/3 times to Trump and failed to prosecute or halt him in one time they won. If your pitch is competence and you're incompetent...

Again, these are not final exit poll results (since they are reweighted multiple times over the course of a night) but this coalition is striking.

Republicans really love AI slop, huh? Is the basketball made of concrete?

Bill Ackman gotta be on the third draft of a tweet longer than Middlemarch right now

Look, gotta give credit where credit is due. The NY Post still has it.

[Puts "The Boys Are Back in Town" on the jukebox]

Decision Desk calls it for Mamdani already let's gooooo!

STOP THE COUNT jk keep going he's got this

Is this supposed to be pronounced "Minge ya"?

We know that if the tables were flipped, the media would unanimously call this a "red wave" and a huge referendum on the sitting Dem president. Would be the dominant story for months.

👍home state

5pm hits and...

Seems telling how instead of taking policy neutral lessons from Mamdani--e.g., people like big ideas, politicians who project integrity, retail politics still matters, etc.--centrists are bending themselves into pretzels trying to argue there is nothing to see here at all

Another example of how nothing about Trump wasn't already present in the GOP

Noirvember reads off the top of my head: @victormanibo.com's DEAD NOTE, @silviamg.bsky.social VELVET WAS THE NIGHT, @briewoodfiction.bsky.social's BANG BANG BODHISATTVA, @nickharkaway.com's TITANIUM NOIR, @thelincoln.bsky.social's BODY SCOUT. And always, Patricia Highsmith. Add your favourites.

"I think I like this aloof wife..."

Somebody less lazy than me photoshop a cover for Hanya Yanigahara's An Aloof Wife

"I work best from a place of zero ego and zero hope. I call this state being “lower than a worm.” A feeling that nothing will ever come of what I’m working on is crucial. A feeling of my smallness in relation to the world. I gotta be below the dirt. I am nothing and nobody. That frees me up."

My feelings about the skill behind comedy couldn't be more succinctly expressed! (I haven't read the book, but this piques my interest.)

do it! i dont want to see my family and i want everyone to go nuts on you

“If a comedic work is successful, you probably can’t see the effort. If it’s very successful, it will seem almost off-the-cuff, like it was created that moment. This is why a lot of ponderous books end up over-praised." - @somers.bsky.social countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...

molto bene

the issue with this piece isn't "siloing," it's a basic lack of rigor in the reporting on Cuomo's time as governor, which is treated as a triumph until 2020. Cuomo spent most of his time in charge stymying the progress this article credits him with achieving.

As I regularly note, "AI" at this point is an umbrella marketing term for a bunch or generative/machine learning/other formerly differently-termed processes that (of course) have no actual intelligence behind them. It means nothing useful for how the underlying computing proceeds. Thus the quotes.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos's Trump- and plutocrat-friendly newspaper defending rich nepo baby Andrew Cuomo:

He's both a model (relentless cost-of-living focus, cheerful and informative social media) and a fluke (crooked mayor gets bigfooted by hated ex-gov, ZM wins primary).

Starting to think the market is pricing in that Trump will bail out big tech when the AI bubble pops.

"You might say that he ceded the future to China in return for a hill of beans. This is especially amazing when you bear in mind that China made similar promises to buy U.S. goods during the first Trump administration and never came close to delivering" paulkrugman.substack.com/p/were-numbe...

Funny that Trump basically just came out and admitted Bari Weiss was a hack for hire that he installed to censor the news. Weiss running distraction for Musk while he censored twitter was a smart move for her. A big blinking "I have no principles, plutocrats!" sign

This would be great for everyone, but sadly I think we know this is in the "will absolutely not happen" category.

Healthcare but only for my friends

Bait used to be believable.

AI bros get mad when you point out that what they want is a robot slave, but what else would a "sentient entity who has to do everything you say" be?

ICYMI:

Abduction of Proserpina, by Giambologna, 1579 (from the @NortonSimon Museum in Pasadena), 📸 by @nturchiarophoto