A LRB essay on Elmore Leonard by @jrobertlennon.com? YES please

“He died as content” well I’m gonna go sit with this in a very lonely corner now

This is the way

A gut gebencht yor?

A very fun film and clearly the universe wants me to write about Donald Westlake again

It’s not out till November but spending the weekend reading an 800-page novel in translation by a great and unjustly forgotten German-Jewish writer was absolutely the correct call

Autocorrect changed “sour cream” to “sour crime” and now I want to know what subgenre that is

it was literally in a bag www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/u...

If you love the song “Me and Bobby McGee” you absolutely must read @elongreen.bsky.social on the life of the woman who inspired the song.

New fake Rockefeller conman story just dropped

It’s @staceywescott.bsky.social with the photo of the year so far

Federal judge tosses Trump's lawsuit against the @nytimes.com, less than four days after it was filed. The ruling calls the lawsuit "improper and impermissible." Trump is allowed to refile a new, shorter complaint if he wants.

Tell me you are in a bubble without telling me you are in a bubble

TIL Donald Westlake was a massive fan of PALE FIRE and never has something made more sense to me literarily

A LOT of demoralized journalists today, myself included

Some people are so good at charming the powerful they can get away with actual murder, pederasty, grifting, and worse, so sleeping with a source is swatted away as a minor inconvenience and probably a bonus

Two months out from pub and I can already sense my book will be published at the right and wrong time simultaneously

Principles, it’s good to have some

Sally Rooney can “no longer safely enter the UK.”

In better news, finally watched the Thursday Murder Club movie and it was pretty delightful

The thing about accelerating authoritarianism is that it is deadly serious and also just increasingly absurd All of this, and more, because of that guy?

Reminded of the story about Fran Lebowitz would tell about seeing him the morning of the FBI raid on Epstein’s townhouse

the joke that got Kimmel kicked off ABC isn't even at the expense of Charlie Kirk. the way the US is accelerating in fascism is truly scaring the shit out of me!

This book is staggeringly good and super-relevant to the current situation and it’s cheap and you should buy it.

I misread it as MAGAsm and…..well, that feels telling

I spent too long crafting this post not to put it on main

This is really good: bidoun.org/articles/hou...

Your longread for the day: the true story of “Rex Feral”, the young divorcee (now 77) whose murder manual raised relevant, uncomfortable questions — then and now — about what responsibility authors have for the crimes inspired by their work.

Ta-Nehisi Coates: “What of the writers, the thinkers, and the pundits who cannot separate the great crime of Kirk’s death from the malignancy of his public life? Can they truly be so ignorant to the words of a man they have so rushed to memorialize? I don’t know.”

Thomas Perry, one of the greatest thriller writers of the past four decades, has died, per his publisher, The Mysterious Press:

Now I know what I’m rewatching tonight

I wrote about the firing of Alan Sepinwall, which is awful. And I tied it into what's happening all over in the media, why it's scary & what we can do to help. I used my words, but it's definitely Hulk Mo dialed up to 11, if that's a thing you would like to experience: www.moryan.com/on-the-firin...

Americans like the 6 judges you serve with, you mean

Important context for the ruling/thread that starts here: bsky.app/profile/moll...

We aren’t going to see the likes of him again. RIP.

Can’t even process this!?!

Just utterly absurd (and any lawyer would have a field day with this)

1. Ice cream 2. Fort Tryon Park, especially around sunset 3. The parade of dogs in my neighborhood 4. Watching the leaves about to turn 5. A good book

The FBI director is definitely an unreliable narrator and tbh I’d like some reliability again

I cannot believe it took five days to see a post noting the parallels. Now imagine an entire admin in lockstep trying to canonize Rockwell.

Speech was never free.

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

This was a word AND he cussed 😂

Oh it’s all happening

Sally no

Reminder (mostly to me) that international press has more accurate information about what is happening in the US

Now I get it — he surfed the polarizing algorithm expertly, and now we as a culture are going to pay the bitter price for this widening divide.

Was waiting for someone to equate Kirk to WFB and of course it was George Will, the longest-running pundit

I’ve wondered what Robert Munsch was up to and dementia is the worst — but this is a beautiful living tribute to a great children’s storyteller and writer.