Jack Smith: "My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted. The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it."

Special Counsel Jack Smith in his Opening Remarks:

One court decision, two different headlines. Guardian on the left, NY Times on the right. Which one more directly conveys information and the stakes to the reader?

Pew Research Institute (2023): • Red State Texas has about 2.1 million undocumented immigrants • Red State Florida has 1.6 M undocumented immigrants • Blue State Minnesota has 130,000. And yet only Minnesota is being occupied by masked thugs over "immigration." It's *not* about immigration.

As witnessed at dawn this morning!

We now have a full-blown European-American crisis, and for no reason that the president is able to articulate

LUCIO ‚Cucullus non facit monachum‘: honest in nothing but in his clothes, and one that hath spoke most villainous speeches of the Duke.  #MeasureForMeasure_2026 V,1,261-263 #TheBard_ProblemPlays John Philip Kemble as VINCENTIO, the DUKE, in the 1794 rendition of Measure for Measure

“A certain recluse monk once remarked, ‘I have relinquished all that ties me to the world, but the one thing that still haunts me is the beauty of the sky.’” Kenko #SundaySentence

I’ll never get over this. Trump unfairly pardoned someone, they turned around and committed a new crime, and Trump pardoned them again. You can commit any any crime you want as long as you have the money, power, and connections to get yourself a pardon. edition.cnn.com/2026/01/17/p...

French artist Marie Bracquemond died #OTD in 1916. Though she is considered 1 of 4 notable women in the Impressionist movement & participated in 3 of the 8 major exhibitions (1879, 1880, 1889), her artistic career was stifled by her husband, artist Félix Bracquemond... #art #Impressionism (1/2)

What a fab novel about a medieval convent & its singular, spirited nuns spanning decades. Plague, politics, ambition, money, sex, murder - nothing is off limits in this immersive world laced with STW's delicious dry wit. Time passes, nuns come & go, but convent life goes on. I'm bereft it's over!

The increasingly common habit of screenshotting the AI summary of a Google search and presenting it as evidence must be nipped in the bud immediately. That is nothing. That is not anything, it is not a thing.

Shelley: "poets are the unacknowledged . . . " Me, losing it completely: "tell your legislators it's poetry! poetry! that we need!"

my library weeded a Marie Kondo book today. i think it’s what she would want. 📚

We are discussing "Janet's Repentance" in my George Eliot seminar this week - my first time ever teaching anything from Scenes of Clerical Life!

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckG... www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

In this episode, we talk about upcoming releases we’re excited for, and then share some longer reading plans for the year ahead, including big novels, rereads, and ongoing projects we’re hoping to live with slowly. We talk about why reading, conversation and community matter. @mookse.bsky.social

🖼️🇫🇮 NEW EXHIBIT Helsinki Art Museum will open a new permanent Tove Jansson exhibit spanning across 3 halls, from February 13th 2026.

Just a small, literary PSA: If you are a #PenelopeFitzgerald fan hesitant about reading my new novel FONSECA because you love her work so much, please know that I've heard from many such readers who ended up really liking the book! #Booksky

“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!”   (Shakespeare “King Lear”, III,2) 🎨 Edward Gordon Craig #shakespearesunday

Isabella: “To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, Who would believe me?” Measure for Measure #ShakespeareSunday

“This respite of happiness is brief, like the shade of a palm tree in winter.” The Mahabharata #SundaySentence

Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act,…   By th’ clock ’tis day,  And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp.  Is ’t night’s predominance or the day’s shame  That darkness does the face of earth entomb  When living light should kiss it? Macbeth 2.4 #ShakespeareSunday

Crockett: "Everyone wants to talk about how Maduro was illegitimate. As we sit here on January 6, I do want to be clear: somebody else was trying to be a Maduro of the United States. Somebody else wanted to do the exact same thing. The difference is Maduro was successful."

Just finished reading Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None'. One of my all-time favourite Christies. Many readers have rated this as Christie's greatest book. My review is here. #AgathaChristie #ClassicMysteries vishytheknight.wordpress.com/2026/01/07/b...

Juliet: “Must die tomorrow? oh injurious Love That respited me a life, whose very comfort Is still a dying horror.” MeasureforMeasure_2025 Not sure why the Friar/Duke thinks Juliet is guiltier than Claudio…

the 6% is the WaPo editorial board

Good morning to everyone who doesn’t want to annex Canada, Columbia, Cuba, Greenland, Mexico, or Panama, and just wants universal healthcare.

Isabella: …”Well, believe this: No ceremony that to great ones ‘longs, Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does.” Measure for Measure #ShakespeareSunday

“But all this— the mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all— made no impression on the man.” Jack London #SundaySentence

. . . but man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he’s most assured . . . Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; #MeasureforMeasure_2026 Act II s2 (117-122)

“Throughout the world, the more wrong a man does, the more indignant is he at wrong done to him.” Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now Truly a novel for our times.

The first full moon of 2026 is known as the #WolfMoon when the wolves howl with hunger. Kiki Smith, Cathedral, 2012,  jacquard tapestry #WomensArt

Mamdani has only been Mayor for a day & criminals are already fleeing New York

My best reads of 2025 includes two very different books of letters — one is primarily about cooking, the other is primarily about show business, but both are also about the hard work of writing. 1/6

2025 was an uneven reading year, but its highlights were very high indeed. Thank you to everyone who read, commented, or chatted with me here about books, and to all the other bloggers who keep on posting. ❤️ 📚

Top 10 books of 2025 (from 100, in order) #DorothyDunnett #DodieSmith #AntonioWhite #MFKFisher #ToveJansson #OliviaManning #GeorgetteHeyer #Melville Astonishing writing. Grateful.

I finished reading my last book of 2025 yesterday. Here are some of my favorites:

Y’all, I am so excited to bring you my new translation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain soon. After years of work (beginning in 2019!), I have finally completed the translation, written my preface, and even finished translating the French dialogues for the appendix. 1/2

Starting The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope. It’s been over 20 years since I read this last. For our @onebrightbook.bsky.social January conversation. Anyone have a Trollope bio they recommend?

“Scalded the eyes out of me reading Effie again, a page a day with tears again. Effie… Could have been happy with her, up there on the Baltic, and the pines, and the dunes.”—Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape (Theodor Fontane, born OTD in 1819)

I read 70 books this year, most of them not published this year. My favourite fiction: Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico; Exit Ghost by Isabella Hammad; Country Girls trilogy by Edna O’Brien; Woodworking by Emily St. James; The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller; The Leavers by Lisa Ko.

Through the mail slot today. Much to look forward to from @archipelagobooks.bsky.social in the new year. And I love having a physical catalog in my hands! I’ve made an effort this year to subscribe to more journals, mags, etc in physical copies. Creating more space between me and my devices.

When I say there is no such thing as too many books, I mean there is such a thing as not enough bookshelves.

2025 Year in Review! -falcon hearing worse than ever -center losing 50 to 100% of holding capacity -blood-dimmed tide containment failure -the Worst with record high passionate intensity

Thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas episode of @backlisted.bsky.social on the Asterix books- in sound and picture via YouTube! Such a delight to finally see my dear friend @robertshearman.bsky.social inducted as an official member of the Backlisted family ❤️

“…but this new governor Awakes me all the enrolled penalties Which have, like unscour’d armor, hung by th’ wall So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round And none of them been worn; and for a name Now puts the drowsy and neglected act Freshly on me.” #Measureformeasure_2025