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?

I'm a bit sick of hearing Lily Allen wanging on about her dreadful new record.

Trump was almost correct with that Q-Anon stuff. Turns out there WAS a pedo sex-trafficking ring at work, and indeed the scandal DOES lead to the White House. Who'd a thunk it?

Here's the second chapter of Moonlight Over Coverack, a love story about art, and nutritionally-balanced protein shakes. theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/moonlight-...

I dunno, I'm pretty sure AI could generate silence just as well as humans... www.nme.com/news/music/p...

The latest wacky craziness from nobody's favourite F1 team... #Verstappen #RedBull #F1 #Formula1 theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/total-bull...

I've just stumbled across an article on Runner's World entitled "Why I'm Switching Shorts For Leggings This Winter". I mean, because it's cold, yeah? The internet is reaching peak solipsism.

Here's me on my lovely friend Joe's new X-Files podcast... #podcasts #mulder #scully #thetruthisoutthere #iwanttobelieve podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f...

Something new, and something romantic, because maybe we need a bit more love in the world right now. Here's the first of nine weekly chapters of 'Moonlight Over Coverack'. #fiction #booksky theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/moonlight-...

As a completely bipartisan, impartial literary magazine with no business weighing in on politics, I can't wait to see how pedo guy gets out of this one. #epstein Les Nonce d'Orange...?

A new adventure for Winterhill begins here! #cyberpunk #sciencefiction #serial #booksky theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/winterhill...

And today it's the turn of The Times to try and patronise us all. Every single day the right wing establishment tries to close ranks. And every day we are growing. Join.greenparty.org.uk

Amazing to think that the author of the novel "London and the South East" has somehow become a Booker Prize-winner. One can only imagine how he must have evolved.

Those Grammy's better be heading Gaga's way...

Some great news from the world of podcasting, geeks. Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk have just launched a new show, called "Once We Were Spacemen", and it is as lovely a listen as you might hope it to be. podcasts.apple.com/bh/podcast/o...

Are there any POETS out there who are willing to submit an old/early/WIP poem to The Flaneur in exchange for the oxygen of publicity? #poetry

If you can pinpoint what I was on, to the exact dosage, when I reviewed the new album from Florence + the Machine, I will send you a prize. #popsky #musicsky theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/festival-f...

Advice for indie authors: Announcing when readers can buy your book for a handful of cents in a Kindle deal is not the same as telling a reader WHY they might enjoy your book, and it may well have less impact than you'd hoped.

I've just seen some major jobs advertised at Hachette. They'd like you to run International Digital Operations OR the really essential relationship with B&N. Also, they want you to do this from New York. Best of all, they want you to do this for less that $70K. #booksky

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

This is what happens when your music writer spends the weekend totally stoned... #FlorenceWelch #florenceandthemachine theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/festival-f...

If enough people take out a $5 subscription to The Flaneur, I'll become one of these billionaires, and I will devote my life to philanthropy unlike other billionaires I could name who have devoted their lives to bastardry, Elon. Plus: you get to read all our stuff! theflaneurmagazine.substack.com

Well. We've just had *quite* the meeting at Flaneur Towers. Our political correspondent Dick Lickspittle is frothing at the mouth about #Mamdani 's victory, and Ronald Welke ate all the chocolate croissants. I expect it's my fault for being late, but I was jonesing for a bagel.

Tell you what though. New Florence + the Machine album? BIG yes.

You are nothing without Richie Sambora, Jon Bon. NOTHING. www.nme.com/news/music/b...

The ur-example of a hostile literary review: theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/everything... #booksky

The case against #TikTok: theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/dick-licks...

Karoline Leavitt officially announced the "Launch of a large-scale investigation to find the people behind 'No Kings.'" I've saved her some time.

In today's chapter of Winterhill, the team get attacked by a bloody great dinosaur. theflaneurmagazine.substack.com/p/winterhill...

As a cultural commentator with his finger on the pulse, I'm revisiting Extreme's 1992 album 'III Sides to Every Story', which audaciously fuses heavy rock virtuosity with the poppy, doggerel lyrics of a simpleton with English as a second-language.