I gather there’s been some *discourse* (WHY did we all agree to use this word all the time?) which I missed entirely but I’ve enjoyed reading everyone else’s top tens so here’s mine.

Tuesday’s event is postponed because of the tube strike - new date coming!

I’ve got three events coming up - all in London - do come! 19th May (next week!) I’ll be at Waterstones Finchley Road talking about Chopping Onions on my Heart with Viv Groskop. 6th and 7th June I’m doing two events at Jaipur Literary Festival London, one on the Brontës, one on Chopping Onions.

If only there were a book, I hear you say, about the reality of the special relationship and the folly of relying on the Americans as allies.

Just started reading this, and it's already extraordinary "Chopping Onions on My Heart" by @samanthaellis.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a... #JewSky #BookSky

Be Funny Or Die is available again, at last, by the way. No physical version yet, but all the ones and zeroes are out there.

“Self-market” & “self-promote” makes it sound like writers are egomaniacs wanting attention / sales but more often we have lovingly made books we want to share & sometimes our work is about untold stories or important issues which we are trying to get across.

Fantastic to talk to Jordan Salama and @samanthaellis.bsky.social at @jewishliteraryfoundation.co.uk. Their books, 'Stranger in the Desert' and 'Chopping Onions on my Heart' are wonderful, so it was a pleasure to get to know them both better. Subscribe now to hear our conversation on the pod.

I’m not on here much (is anyone else feeling too much platform exhaustion?) but I have a few events coming up including one this Sunday which was sold out but now has tickets as we’ve been moved to a bigger room! Do come. All the details here: www.samanthaellis.me.uk/events

While Samantha Ellis’s memoir ALWAYS CARRY SALT is ostensibly about Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, it is also about the culture that produced it, and living in a diaspora that finds your existence inconvenient. I flew through it. https://bookishlyjewish.com/?p=3110

Want to hear what me & @stephmerritt.bsky.social thought of the new Wuthering Heights film? www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Really enjoyed talking to @alexvont.bsky.social about the novel. Do have a listen. And if you’d like to hear my thoughts on the film I will also be on Front Row tonight to review it.

We asked the extraordinary and rightly celebrated author Marilynne Robinson to respond to events in Minneapolis. She immediately sent us a forceful and utterly direct cri de coeur. The Weekend Essay as.ft.com/r/afe4fee8-1...

Currently reading these. Both excellent. Samantha never misses: her books are musts to read.

Two new recipes for the Jewish Food Society! www.jewishfoodsociety.org/stories/writ...

Latest substack in which in the grand tradition of how to titles I don’t really tell you how to ward off the evil eye but I do recommend a lot of books.

“An urgent and ten­der explo­ration of cul­tur­al extinc­tion” - lovely review from Shamar Hill at the @jewishbookcouncil.bsky.social. www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/always-...

Join us this Thursday January 15th at 7p.m. ET for a conversation with @samanthaellis.bsky.social and Jordan Salama. The two will be in conversation on Ellis's powerful new memoir, ALWAYS CARRY SALT. Reserve your spot today! bit.ly/492B17W

Aaaand nine great books about Iraqi Jews. There used to be really none so it’s amazing there are starting to be more. www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/pre...

My favourite fictional family sagas. What are yours? inews.co.uk/culture/book...

Next week! Join us on Thursday January 15th at 7p.m. ET for a conversation with Samantha Ellis and Jordan Salama. The two will be in conversation on Ellis's powerful new memoir, ALWAYS CARRY SALT. Reserve your spot today! bit.ly/492B17W

Happy release day to The Star a society by Gabriella Saab and Always Carry Salt by @samanthaellis.bsky.social https://amzn.to/4aH86Zr https://amzn.to/49HpJr1

We're back with the first #NewBookTuesday of 2026! Featuring #books by authors like Laura Dave, @ladyhawkins.bsky.social, Paula McLain, @jenniferniven.bsky.social, @samanthaellis.bsky.social, @duncanweldon.bsky.social, and more!

Loved going on the Five Books podcast - my picks included @laurenelkin.bsky.social’s wonderful novel Scaffolding.

Always Carry Salt is out today in the US with the amazing @pegasus-books.bsky.social!

I enjoyed this New Year essay by @samanthaellis.bsky.social with its focus on training & recovery, rereading & rewriting. And I completely agree with Samantha about this: 'I’m a huge advocate of rereading and how books change for you when you go back to them, and what that can give you.'

You're invited! ✉ Join us on Thursday January 15th at 7p.m. ET for a conversation with Samantha Ellis and Jordan Salama. The two will be in conversation on Ellis's powerful new memoir, ALWAYS CARRY SALT. Reserve your spot today! bit.ly/492B17W

Happy new year. X

#booksky This excellent column by @samanthaellis.bsky.social brings up aspects of #wutheringheights I've been pondering since my recent reread. 📚💙📚💙🖋️💙🖋️📚🖋️

‘It’s no romcom’: why the real Wuthering Heights is too extreme for the screen

So I think Wuthering Heights is unfilmable because it’s just too complex & holds a tension on the page between the love story & the destructive bleak darkness…that doesn’t mean I won’t be watching this & every film about it ever. www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...

TOND is here, and it’s put the Broken Vell podcast channel back in the top ten! Thanks to everyone who supports us on patreon.com/brokenveil and everyone who’s listened… especially if they’ve told a friend. It’s like The Ring. Right? You have to pass it on.

Whoop!

It was pure joy reviewing Ella Risbridger’s clever, super enthusiastic book about romance (genre AND activity) for @thespectator1828.bsky.social. Thank you @questingvole.bsky.social for the commission! www.spectator.co.uk/article/prid...

An excellent piece by Yasmin Khan in @theguardian.com – and I’m very relieved the preposterous case against her has been dropped. www.theguardian.com/food/comment...

If you want to be your family’s unofficial archivist - or even just to write down a few recipes - here’s everything I know about how to do it.

Since writing Chopping Onions on my Heart, lots of people have told me or asked me about how to explore their own family’s stories so I gathered up everything I learned about it for @psyche.co.

Loved going on The Shift, one of my favourite podcasts, with @theothersambaker.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

On quinces & on getting unstuck inspired by Sarah Solemani’s film about Mashhadi Jews & The Americans…& more things I liked lately.

From the Einstein of sex to letters by Oliver Sacks: meet the authors on the 2026 Wingate Prize longlist www.thejc.com/life/books/e...

Thank you @thewingateprize.bsky.social!

I’ve made a list of books I read while writing mine on @bookshop.org - for all your Chanukah / other gifting needs! uk.bookshop.org/lists/books-...

“Don’t forget that the worst thing you can be is a girl” New newsletter is out! with stuff on “feminisation”, Latvia, Russian post-feminism, the deepfake ecosystem and motherhood and writing, with links to stuff by @samanthaellis.bsky.social and others thebacklash.substack.com/p/the-worst-...

This has only ever happened once before but my first grown up novel, the now iconic* Unsticky is currently 99p for Kindle. amzn.to/4pQV4O7 (*Other people have said this, it's not just me tooting my own horn.)

First proper post on my substack - free by the way. Thank you everyone who subscribed.

'It is amazing to read a young writer loudly, exultingly, exploring her ideas on the page.' Samantha Ellis on the precocious poetry of Charlotte Brontë

Samantha Ellis: Rewriting welcome at Britain's threshold

Two reviews from me for @thetls.bsky.social this week. The first is Charlotte Brontë’s messy, misspelled, gorgeous teenage poetry.

Shana tova!