Novelist Afflicted With Explosive Logorrhea

NYT article on Catcher in the Rye dovetails with our recent episode on its place in the high school canon #booksky www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/b...

I don’t see why everyone is celebrating Sam Neill when he’s the one who cut out his own eyes, vivisected a crew member, and attempted to drive the ship into a bloody and horrifying hellscape

Transcription raises interesting ideas about reality, memory, and recursive experience, and is also fun to read #booksky 🖋️📚

Yes, what a mystery why the USMNT wants to play in LA and Seattle instead of Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Dallas, etc. (all over 90F + rain this week)

Couldn’t get an ARC so I picked up @barfridmantell.bsky.social ‘s Honeysuckle at the library. Well worth the wait! A touching and complex take on an unfamiliar (to me) folk legend #booksky

It would strain credulity more if a reality show washout outpolled a sitting city councilmember in the L.A. mayor’s race, not the other way round

This great article on why Claude is not conscious, by author Ted Chiang, raises this point covered by Paul Carr’s novel The Confessions: that when we outsource decision making and even ethical reasoning to chatbots, we atrophy our moral reasoning. #booksky www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2...

Glad we got the chance to talk with Nina and make fun of Wikipedia’s definition of post-colonial literature #booksky

The statement that Instructure CEO Steve Daly posted about the Canvas hack came back as 100% AI-generated

Posting this just so I can watch it again some time

A good thing to remember

Thank you @sohopress.bsky.social for the ARC of the late James Sallis’ upcoming Backwater, which I dared to start reading in a sultry Seoul jazz bar. Looking forward to talking about this one on the podcast #booksky

Ironically, there *is* social commentary in Project Hail Mary and The Martian; both are about technological solutionism and faith in science to solve the most intractable problems. Weir might not have intended it consciously, but in our current times, this is a position that can be debated #booksky

Normalize not yelling

You can’t read alone if someone is standing right behind you, or if the broader social context implicates us all in a blah blah blah #booksky

Donald Trump and his supporters have spoken specifically about their desire to harm fellow Americans, so feel free to capture them, Congressman

Submit your recommendations for novels to send into space #booksky

Traditional post-Xmas visit to Bart’s Books and the Krotona Institute of Theosophy library in Ojai #booksky

The best “best books list” list lists the best books! #booksky

Loved talked with Patricia and reading her stories more. And she has a collection out now! #booksky

Watching the Bucked Up L.A. Bowl Hosted by Gronk Me (whispering): That’s Gronk

Metallic Realms, an excellent meta spec-fic novel by @thelincoln.bsky.social , joins this year’s Best Books of 2025 #booksky

This was a fun episode, and all the related stories are great. Send us your recommendations for story writers to interview! #booksky

Another best book of 2025 is @joemungoreed.bsky.social ‘s Terrestrial History, a four-generation family epic that takes humans from a ruined Earth to Mars and back again, focusing on intimate moments of connection against a backdrop of climate disaster #booksky

Starting my list of 2025’s best books with Audition, a delightfully weird novel by @pipadam.bsky.social about a trio of giant humans shipped into space by an Earth government unwilling to make room for those who don’t fit 📚💙

In Episode 12, @ambersparks.bsky.social talks about her chaotic first drafts.

Love this story (not just for shouting out my old neighborhood) and looking forward to posting our episode with @patriciaqbidar.bsky.social soon 📚💙

We had a great conversation with Amber about her highly entertaining new novel 📚💙

Guess the author! Winner gets a limited supply of temporary, fractional internet clout 📚💙

An intriguing premise is always better when you care about the characters, as in Grace Walker’s The Merge, a novel about consciousness, tech, and dystopia that flips the script on Apple TV’s comparatively upbeat Severance 📚💙

Jason’s novel is on Barnes and Noble’s Best Books of 2025 list, and our thoughts on book PR tactics are on Mason Stockstill’s Best Podcasts of 2025. “Riveting!” —Joyce Carol Oates 📚💙

How many Hamlets is too many? 📚💙

💥 A group founded by Stephen Miller filed a federal complaint in July against the 2025 World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers for their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. The team's website continues to display its commitment to DEI. Congratulations, Dodgers! #Dodgers #WorldSeries

We now join the 2026 World Series, already in progress

Two months after our episode on the complicated claim that reading more literature will fix men’s problems, Bari Weiss introduced a new podcast on getting men to read more literature #booksky

There’s a reason Kiké Hernandez is a starter in the postseason #worldseries

Great episode with Kyle (not pictured), everyone check out his novels #booksky

“A slippery narrative POV reminds us that storytelling — and hence life, the world, and everything in it — is a muddle of competing and conflicting interpretations.” A new piece by @stockstill.bsky.social of @thirdpersonlimited.bsky.social. pghrev.com/fluid-narrat...

Apropos of nothing, earlier this year we named our dog after Freddie Freeman. He’s the big one #dodgers #worldseries

Excited to check out Quan Barry’s latest. Her previous novel was in my Best of 2023 📚🖋️💙

The (postmodernist) boys are back in town 📚🖋️ #booksky

“Juuust a bit outside” … Joe Davis has been waiting his whole career to make that call #alcs

I was enjoying my digital review copy of @johnhornor.bsky.social ‘s latest novel, the slow-burn nautical horror The Night That Finds Is All, until it disappeared from my device with 50 pages to go, because yesterday was the pub date. To the bookstore at once! #booksky

Mona Awad takes us back to the Bunny verse … Not as good as the original, unfortunately, but still gets under your pelt (that’s a Bunny joke, haha). Full review coming on the podcast soon. #booksky

Might be my favorite book of the year #booksky

Enjoyed @laraehrlich.bsky.social ‘s Bind Me Tighter Still, a tale of mermaid motherhood and the fraught business of discovering and creating one’s own identity in a world that doesn’t seem like it was made for you #booksky

Don’t think I can get to this before it’s published in two weeks. But I assume it is fair to say, “Ian McEwan has done it again!” (I’ve only read one of his other novels.) #booksky

First in line, hope you’re not jealous #booksky