Dissolute novelist Jamie comes face to face with his worst nightmare... a fan! #booksky theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/everything...

We've redecorated. And beefed up the archive. Come see! theflaneurmagazine.substack.com

I just used water pumped through the Nespresso machine to make my Lady Grey. The end results are extraordinary. This must be what George's marvellous medicine tasted like. #Booksky

We live in an age when the Washington Post cuts its book reviews and a New York Times television critic ranked every commercial in Sunday night’s Super Bowl from best to worst. Ever get the feeling that things are getting dumber? Ever get the feeling someone wants you to be dumber?

Thrilled to buggery that there's a new book from Robert Newman on the way, I'm reading The Trade Secret from 2014. Addictive. #Booksky www.waterstones.com/book/the-tra...

Relatable.

Such excitement at Flaneur Towers this weekend when we learned, quite by chance, that there's a new novel from Robert Newman next month! If you've never had the pleasure, try The Fountain at the Centre of the World or The Trade Secret. One of the greats. @profilebooks.bsky.social

Beginning today on The Flaneur, a new series of Everything's Fine, a #literary #sex comedy set in the world of #publishing and #novelists. #Booksky Jamie McThackeray wouldn't appear at a literary festival under any circumstances, right? Right?? theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/everything...

Hey #Booksky, I think you're really going to love Yann Martel's new novel.

Is this anything other than Publishing Desperation Fatigue? www.publishersweekly.com/pw/newsbrief...

The Flaneur is getting ready to quietly fold in the next few days. One last attempt to reach readers then. Dear #booksky, we have reviews, original fiction, columns and editorials. Please come and have a look! I'll even put the kettle on and crack out some hobnobs... theflaneurmagazine.substack.com

Featuring all the high comedy and bitter fury of Dylan’s mid-60’s misogynist masterpieces, Amy Rigby’s “20 Questions” is a repudiation of rock’s bad-boy myths whose funniest twist is the final one: she’s been the using one all along. Happy birthday to a hero of mine. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAN6...

One thing we can now say in Boris Johnson's defence: he never ordered an amateur army of gun-toting racists to occupy a British city to start killing his own citizens.

Some new music keeping me from going stir-crazy this snowday: The Just Joans album 'Romantic Visions of Scotland' and Big Special's 'National Average.' Invigorating, funny, clever, and immediate.

All the news from the secret #F1 test... #Formula1 #LewisHamilton #Ferrari #RedBull #Mclaren #Alpine #LandoNorris theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/total-bull...

This is the week where everyone can see him for what he is, a confused, senile old grifting fool. If we all just ignore him, he'll go away.

Robbie Williams has had, what, about 20 years off to write some good lyrics for his new record 'Britpop'. Yet it's the usual self-aggrandizing doggerel prickery that any solipsistic 18 year old could have shat out. Kinda comforting in its studied mediocrity.

The video for “Supernatural Superserious,” the first single from Accelerate, was filmed at various locations in NYC on this day in 2008. Directed by Vincent Moon. youtu.be/_We6ubpUHZs?...

Here's a revised, expanded and updated piece about Kaliane Bradley's The Ministry of Time, @booksky.bsky.social #booksky #sciencefiction theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/firstediti...

As a former Brit, the one thing that really hit me last week on my trip to the UK was that Colchester's WHSmiths is no a longer a WHSmiths. Now it's called TJ Hooker or somesuch.

www.nme.com/news/music/b... Queen won't be playing Glasto "because (the Eavises) kill badgers." (And also, as a sidebar, because Queen's singer has been dead for thirty-five years...)

Today I am REVELLING in Nicola Barker's #TonyInterruptor. In other news we will soon be publishing an article about Nicola Barker's #TonyInterruptor... #booksky

Thank you for the lovely surprise of elegant bachelors, @paranoiacs.bsky.social

Here's a five-minute piece about the Zadie Smith short story "The Embassy of Cambodia". #Booksky theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/firstediti...

I cannot emphasize how much “be the news” is the opposite of what I was taught about how to be a good journalist and strikes me as an excellent way to churn out elite solipsism that has nothing to do with the public interest and everything to do with self promotion www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/b...

Secretly pleased to be in the UK this week while America collapses into civil war.

Very sad to hear this news from the frankly majestic Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. #booksky www.bbc.com/news/article...

Greetings #booksky people! I have a new weekly books and publishing column here: theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/firstediti...

Check out my fancy new column about books and publishing... theflaneurmagazine.substack.com

Quick question, #booksky: which one book, published from 1950 onwards, is a 100% stone-cold classic and should be added to school syllabi and university reading lists?

Into every love story, sooner or later, must come a dirty great monster.... theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/moonlight-...

For anyone living in fear, exhaustion or despair right now, I direct you to read this. It is the flickering flame of hope in these monstrous times. www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/whe...

Yesterday I hosted a publisher's lunch at La Tomate in Dupont Circle, DC, for no other reason beside the place being much beloved by Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis. I felt suitably inadequate before those two literary ghosts. #booksky

In this week's episode of Winterhill... the Arachana are back! theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/winterhill...

Independent media is a difficult game, but my colleagues at @literaryhub.bsky.social are doing it and producing a consistently excellent publication, by book lovers and for book lovers If you can support us with a membership, it really makes a difference

When 97% is 'no clear consensus', and 52% is 'the will of the people', it's time to face facts that Governments do what Governments want to do regardless of what their people actually want.

Hands up if you also cringe at LBC's podcast advert? "I'm Simon Marks, my American Week is next." A voice like a cheese-grater dragged across the peen-helm. Ghastly.

How the #F1 World Championship was lost, and how the #RedBull team will bounce back in 2026. #Verstappen #Tsunoda #McLaren #LewisHamilton #Lando theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/total-bull...

This weekend we said goodbye to our legal counsel, Harvey Cohen, who was also our 13-year-old cat. Read about this larger-than-life character in this profile from September. theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/little-won...

🌲DING DONG MERRILY ON HIGH 🌲 As #Christmas approaches, and we put the finishing touches on our third series of electric sodcast, why not listen to last year's Christmas Special? Here it is. It is the sound of men being silly. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...

Not to make light of this tragic news, but notice please how the social media manager at The Bookseller, the UK's biggest book-trade publication (for which I used to write a column, back in the day) cannot spell the word "novelist".

Author Sophie Kinsella, the pen name used by novellist Madeleine Wickham, has died aged 55 after being diagnosed with brain cancer in 2022

Now. All I'm sayin' is that if I had been in charge of designing a #GunsNRoses Christmas jumper, it would say "Welcome to the Jingle". You're welcome.

A perfect marriage of style and content. www.nme.com/news/music/l...

Dear @Gunsnroses, you forgot to release those two singles yesterday. You know, the ones you announced a week ago. I think they were called "Nothin'" and "Atlas". Maybe they fell behind someone's desk?

The cultural prick-tease of the year (those two new singles by Guns N' Roses) and I'm already refreshing Spotify every ten minutes like a chump in case they're out in the world yet. I think 'Perhaps' (2023) dropped at 8pm. #GunsNRoses

Is there just too much damn Christmas? theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/flaneurdit...

There will be two new #GunsNRoses songs released next tuesday: 'Nothin' and 'Atlas'. This is not me writing fiction, you understand, this is me jumping up and down with excitement.

@simonbrew.bsky.social Big love, SB Xx

So, #booksky: what are YOU reading right now?