ICE detain father shopping on Christmas Eve—then steal his family's groceries. Then 3 agents divvy up his paid for food—taking what they want for themselves. "Can I just get the wife's number to call and let her know?" woman asks. "No, guess he should've complied," agent says. Yakima, Washington

Lucía Pedro Juan was deported after 20 years in the U.S. A few days later, her husband Francisco died from medical complications while detained by ICE in El Paso. She went home alone. www.usatoday.com/picture-gall...

There is no sight that more efficiently puts the lie to immigration “court” than the common sight of children “representing themselves.” Children too small to climb into the chair, children in pajamas who don’t know where they are, children not yet old enough to speak.

"Her family has now been told she has been deported, despite US District Judge Brendan Hurson ruling Thursday that she could not be deported pending a hearing...attorneys said Monday that they have...confirm[ed] with the hospital she was born in Maryland." https://bit.ly/3MMdJvz

“I wish to God you could pay more money.” I wrote about F Scott Fitzgerald’s Christmas wish, and how his difficult final year led him to produce some of his best work: the irresistible, cynical, revealing and very funny Pat Hobby stories.

The photograph for this piece, by the way, was taken by one of my editors at the legendary John K. King Books in Detroit

Woman comes to US at age 6. Graduates nursing school. Work permit. No criminal record. Snatched and imprisoned by ICE for 6 months now. About to be forced back to Honduras. A life destroyed and one less nurse. Merry Christmas. www.nola.com/news/educati...

“Gantchev suffered from type 2 diabetes and told his wife no diet accommodations were made for him. She and Anna said the small amount of food that is given to people detained at North Lake was not enough for maintaining Gantchev's blood sugar levels.”

Everyone should take a couple of minutes and watch this, because it's a perfect illustration of how ICE disappears people by making it almost impossible to communicate with family, friends, and lawyers.

According to this survey by the City Journal (a conservative public policy magazine), approximately 90 percent of Gen Z conservatives today are openly pro-Hitler antisemites

Merriam-Webster has surprised us all by bringing out a beautiful new print edition of the Collegiate Dictionary, the first since 2003. Which raises the question: Why? My rumination, in this weekend's WSJ (gift link). www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Here's a brief thread of the fiction that has stayed with me most in 2025, a year in which I reviewed exactly 100 books, and was more grateful than ever for the chance to do so. First, these are screenshots of the three brilliant novels that made the WSJ Best Books list. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

This is happening around the country and it's the new normal in immigration court — the creation of a "heads I win, tails you lose" system where the government is seeking to dismiss virtually EVERY SINGLE asylum claim through so-called "safe third country" agreements.

Podhoretz's literary journalism is a lot of fun, by the way--opinionated and rangy in that omnivorous postwar fashion

This was the book that inspired one reviewer to write that it made him want to go and shoot himself.

As ICE steps up arrests in Broward County, local residents say people without criminal records are being detained. The administration says enforcement is focused on criminals, but community accounts suggest a broader impact. www.wlrn.org/immigration/...

Making It is a great memoir. We reissued it in 2017 with an intro by Terry Teachout. From our description— "It is a Balzacian story of raw talent and relentless and ruthless ambition."

Here's a brief thread of the fiction that has stayed with me most in 2025, a year in which I reviewed exactly 100 books, and was more grateful than ever for the chance to do so. First, these are screenshots of the three brilliant novels that made the WSJ Best Books list. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Norman Podhoretz has died. His son, John Podhoretz, who now edits Commentary, the magazine that Norman edited for three and a half decades, has announced the news. www.commentary.org/john-podhore...

The New York Public Library has released its list of most-checked-out books of 2025. Women authors took 8 out of 10 spots citywide, while Manhattan and Staten Island were 9 out of 10, and Queens was 10 out of 10! www.nypl.org/blog/2025/12...

Everything’s heavy, look at this pleasant snowman and his little friend I saw in Central Park yesterday ⛄️⛄️

A recent used bookshop find I couldn't pass up. Avon did this rounded corners thing for a few years in the '60s. An article at the time claims (maybe jokingly) that it was to prevent dog-earing. I've seen Henry Roth's 'Call It Sleep' in this version. Show me yours if you have one!

"Dickens is infinitely greater than his critics." True, but in this case the critic comes very close. Remembering John Carey's work this morning by rereading one of my favorite of his books.

A British mother holding an infant. A Ukrainian refugee The wife of a Navy veteran. A German man about to celebrate his first wedding anniversary. These are some of the spouses of U.S. citizens who were detained by ICE at what they thought were going to be routine green card interviews.

A Chinese citizen who fled the country after gathering evidence of alleged human-rights violations against the nation’s Uyghur population is at risk of being returned there after being detained by ICE, his supporters said www.wsj.com/world/china/...

John Carey’s gone. A great critic and a very decent man. Knock it off, would you, reaper? I spoke to him about poetry a few years back

For the Books of the Year issue at the WSJ, I've written about a trend that struck me in a lot of 2025 fiction--a revived interest in the art of the story. I sense that novelists are tired of ceding the role of the storyteller to advertisers and podcasters. (Gift link.) www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

One of the most ancient arts—the telling of a tale drawn from life and imagination—still thrives in an era of fragmentation and distraction. on.wsj.com/4aMlcoa

Open Letters Review editor Steve Donoghue continues his Best Books of 2025 with this year's Fiction - see them now at his Substack, Stevereads: stevedonoghue.substack.com/p/the-best-b...

A mother filmed ICE agents at her Queens home and begged them not to come in because her baby was in bed. Advocates say there was no warrant, and the person ICE wanted was not living at that address. pix11.com/news/local-n...

A pleasure to join the One Bright Book podcast, where we largely abided by the rules and named just three of the many books we're looking forward to in 2026. It's a good, diverse list, give a listen!

An interesting 'advent calendar' of works entering the public domain in 2026. I'm already looking forward to the Langston Hughes reconsiderations.

As the quarter of beef he was painting began to turn green, "Soutine’s idea was to return to the abattoir for a bucket of blood and toss it over the carcass, restoring its original hue." Belated link to a fine Suzanna Murawski review of Celeste Marcus' Chaim Soutine bio. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

The cathartic Stevereads Worst Nonfiction of 2025 list open.substack.com/pub/stevedon...

PEN America mourns the passing of bestselling author Madeleine Wickham, better known by her pen name, Sophie Kinsella. She told the Boston Herald in 2004, "My first aim is to make people laugh." Across 30+ books translated into over 40 languages, she most certainly did. www.npr.org/2025/12/10/n...

A very solid argument in favor of immigration (and not just for those already here, as the headline suggests) from a somewhat surprising place. www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...

Open Letters Review editor Steve Donoghue kicks off his Worst Books of 2025 with this year's Worst Fiction - see them now at his Substack, Stevereads: stevedonoghue.substack.com/p/the-worst-...

I found this amazing Mimetica incisa leaf katydid in my garden yesterday. #bugsky #katydids #insects #nature #costarica

"After her hearing ended, three-year-old Lucy cuddled her teddy bear as she walked back from the lawyer’s table and took a seat. Moments later, the next child was called up to face the judge..." coppercourier.com/2025/12/05/c...

Open Letters Review editor Steve Donoghue continues his Best Books of 2025 with this year's Biography - see them now at his Substack, Stevereads: stevedonoghue.substack.com/p/the-best-b...

Without a warrant, ICE agents try to kick down the door of an immigrant who entered legally. Utterly unconstitutional. The Department of Trespassing failed, but despite portraying him as some kind of threat, they never came back with a real warrant.

Not only is ICE snatching hard working people who are trying to earn a living, they’re taking their money too? A witness recorded ICE agents taking a cash box from a taco stand in La Puente during an operation where four people were arrested.

She’s been in ICE detention since MARCH for sending money to her family in Gaza. Leqaa Kordia’s story needs to be heard. Read more: interc.pt/4gQG3aV ✍️ @shawnmusgrave.bsky.social 📹 @jordanuhl.com

"Camus at 42 has no hesitation in fixing Camus at 22. The end result is as much a Rorschach Test as it is a raw document." Steve Donoghue on a fascinating new edition of Camus' notebooks, which the author kept (and revised) in total awareness of future readers. openlettersreview.com/posts/the-co...

“Gandalf has a staff, Harry Potter has a wand, Alan’s got a spliff about this big.” In the Metropolitan Review, Alex Sorondo has a long, funny, in-depth feature--a kind of oral history--on Alan Moore. metropolitanreview.com/giant-of-the...

I sometimes forget to keep up with the Brooklyn Rail, but in September they had a great special feature on Nicolas Poussin ("one of the first painter-philosophers"), with pieces by John Currin, Richard Schiff, Ali Banisadr and others, guest-edited by Klaus Ottmann brooklynrail.org/2025/09/crit...

A difficult and important dispatch from Kyiv by Yevgenia Belorusets about the real human toll of an endless resistance to the Russian invasion www.equator.org/articles/the...

Tunku Varadarajan reviews Audrey Truschke's enormous 'India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent,' calling it "the pre-eminent general history of India" (gift link) www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Recording our annual "Books We are Excited for Next Year" episode tomorrow, with special guest @ssacks.bsky.social ! Whoever decided we could only choose 3 titles each... well, I want a word with that person....