Merry Christmas.

Really lovely to see that The Man Made of Smoke made the list of Apple’s best books of 2025. apple.co/bestbooks202...

A perfect first minute, this. youtu.be/PuhF4o3nqPw?...

Really happy to be at this too - I love Waterstones Leeds, and I’m looking forward to seeing people there. 6-8pm ish. No ticket required, as far as I know. Just rock up, get out of the cold for a bit, maybe buy some books, and chat to some fabulous local authors.

We're thrilled to announce the highly acclaimed “queen of the psychological thriller” and bestselling writer Lisa Jewell as Programming Chair for the 2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. 👉 Find out more: bit.ly/3XiRnnu

“It is a rare talent to be able to write a compulsive thriller with such heart … both terrifying and heart-wrenching, bittersweet and hopeful, nightmarish and deeply, deeply human.” Thank you, @spookyrebecca.bsky.social The Man Made of Smoke is out in the UK as a very lovely paperback today.

This is a really great speech about the value of the arts and storytelling, and the importance of empathy.

“Surprisingly packed with profound humanity” is a lovely thing to read. Thank you so much, Linda.

I forgot to mention on here that I had a ‘new’ book out in the UK last week. Dark Room was previously published years ago under my real name, and then went out of print. It won’t set the world on fire, or anything, but it’s nice to have it out there again. Four more of them to come…

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

reminder: Jimmy Kimmel is enough of a mensch that he devised a segment on which actors who are just short of having enough work to qualify for union healthcare come on his show and deliver a single line of dialogue deadline.com/2024/07/jimm...

The link below is a subscriber link with a handful of free clicks. Maybe a kindly FT staffer will share a gift link... 👀

Filmed in Leeds city centre! And judging by the clock, if it had been ten minutes later then I’d have been in the background. (Really lovely song too.) youtu.be/BQDDbesNPJ4?...

New—and packed!—column is up at @crimereads.bsky.social. This time, I talk about novels by Michael Farris Smith, @alexnorth.co.uk, @carlhiaasen.com, @kairarouda.bsky.social, Katia Lief, and Rob Hart. crimereads.com/gabino-igles...

This post by @lewisgoodall.com on the Afghan super-injunction should be read - and read *very* carefully - by all with any interest in law and policy in the UK. And he is spot-on about Mr Justice Chamberlain. goodallandgoodluck.substack.com/p/my-two-yea...

⏰ Last chance to vote! The shortlist vote closes tonight, Thursday 10 July at 23.59. Hurry and vote for you favourite to win the coveted Theakston's cask 👉 https://bit.ly/VOTETOP25 @brookmyre.bsky.social @mwcraven.bsky.social  @ellygriffiths.bsky.social  @radiomukhers.bsky.social

Absolutely brilliant news!

The Salt Path (post-credits scene): *Moth & Raynor Winn enter their home to find Hannah Ingram-Moore & Johann Hari waiting for them* Hari: "I'm putting together a team."

With this and Captain Tom, it's getting hard to trust people who go on really long walks.

The Man Made of Smoke by Alex North #TheManMadeofSmoke @alexnorth.co.uk @michaeljbooks.bsky.social #BookReview randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-...

The Prodigy are laying absolute fucking waste to that field right now.

OK, so here’s my JJ Abrams story… Before I started working in digital restoration one of my primary jobs in post-production support was running the in-house theater and screening rooms at work. Every now and again it would get booked for casting sessions, because it was perfectly suited for that…

Oh my. I can’t stop rewatching. The stuff of courtroom nightmares. (H/T @timmorton2.bsky.social)

Outreach work is at the heart of our ethos: promoting engagement with the arts in Harrogate & beyond through collaborations with our local communities. We're incredibly grateful to our funders, the Wild Foundations, for supporting us to make these workshops happen.

“A deranged maniac impersonated a police officer and killed lawmakers but if you’re an immigrant be sure you immediately comply with plain clothes people who won’t identify themselves telling you to get in a van”, what a fuckin country

You’ll be too young to remember, but there was a time when you could wake up as many as three mornings in a row and not find the world had lost its fucking mind.

No one is safe.

A fantastic launch for the 2025 programme which has now been let loose on the world! Tickets at bloodyscotland.com/whats-on

Newsletter: I want my damn tech industry back. I'm sick of these sociopathic and directionless freaks wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on AI and ruining products in search of perpetual growth. It has never been more urgent to hold them accountable. www.wheresyoured.at/never-forget...

It is genuinely unsafe for average people to use Twitter and speak freely. It appears to be this administration's primary intelligence gathering operation.

There’s a fairly significant effort underway to conflate “software which can simulate conversation” with “a machine which has a meaningful experience of the world” and it’s hurting people, the planet and policy-making.

Think about all the incredible writers you know who can’t get any publicity but James Fucking Frey gets the front page glow up in the Sunday NY Times, called a “literary outlaw” for making shit up in a book billed as non-fiction, and a whole paragraph devoted to him describing his orgasms.

They're doing it on purpose now surely?

I feel for the historian who will have to write this saga up in a coherent way in future textbooks

this is like drake and kendrick lamar but they're both drake

O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.

The suspects are in... 🕵️‍♀️ We're thrilled to reveal the shortlists for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and the McDermid Debut Award 2025! Discover who made the cut! 👇 bit.ly/Shortlist2025 @waterstones.bsky.social @express.co.uk

And while you’re waiting - if you are - for these re-releases, you could check out this to keep yourself entertained in the meantime. www.amazon.co.uk/Copying-Cat-...

Site Passes for #Theakstonscrime are on sale now!  A Festival Site Pass is the perfect way to be part of the action. You can access the Festival grounds for either a full day or the whole weekend - head to our website to book yours today 🕵️‍♂️

"I need you to mistrust me ... one ... last ... time ..."

The Unbound scandal keeps getting worse…

If you just watch Musk during this press conference he is really struggling to keep it together

I recently left my job which was in an Estates department at one of Leeds’ Universities. I’ll never ever forget one of the first things that struck me when I started there: Oh damn, we’re running a small city adjacent to Leeds here. So, y’know, good luck if you want local economies to collapse.

ELEMENTARY is the best Holmes, and I was very pleased to write two novels for it (glad you enjoyed them @nachoiskerka.bsky.social!)

“Quite a lot of voices say ‘You can only train on my content, [if you] first ask’. And I have to say that strikes me as somewhat implausible because these systems train on vast amounts of data.” Well, maybe it’s the business model that’s implausible? The suppressed premise here is fucking enraging.

This piece floored me and will stay with me for ages.

This is what happens when you only view things through the lens of "political benefit" rather than actually improving people's lives. Scrapping the two child limit would lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. That's the benefit!