There's a particularly bleak anecdote in here about people coming to the writer's book signings and complaining about how her characters behave www.ft.com/content/11db...

Must we, really, share Guido Fawkes' mutterings in 2026?

Had the absolute pleasure of chatting with the great @joshthelibromancer.bsky.social of @portersqbooks.bsky.social about the fabulous new Porter Square Review of Books and how booksellers can, maybe, fill the growing book-criticism void and have some fun doing it. lithub.com/as-book-crit...

This is both wrenching and glorious to read, somehow.

The one good thing about Three Lions is it's about exactly this and easy to sing slowed down and mournfully as you slink off to bed

Harry Dean Stanton. 100 years. He’d been an actor for 30 years by the time of PARIS, TEXAS. The performance is close to the bone because it’s close to the bone, I think: a guy trying to look in the mirror, trying to let go.

In which I rave about two new books, one fiction, one nonfiction, both of which are dark with unexpected rays of light. www.themarisreview.com/the-maris-re...

On the language of Homeric Greek, and the language of a certain forthcoming film: here are a few simple observations.

Also, the gods show up disguised as multiple other people/creatures throughout the Odyssey. And also we are debating the depictions of *gods*. I feel insane but this is a good thread.

Newsroom law: If you, hypothetically, stay up later than you should watching a World Cup game on a Saturday, something will derail the news cycle on the Sunday.

For @theguardian.com I compiled a list of 20 books to read in a day (whittled down from 70 - goodbye Readers Block, Turn of the Screw, Less Than Zero, Call Me Ishmael, The Stone Book, Autobiography of Red etc). Not a top 20, but all worth your time I guarantee it. www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

This week classicist @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social has Lunch with the FT. She is criticised by trolls for an alleged ‘woke’ translation of the Odyssey and I love she deals with them by suggesting they read the original in Greek ❤️🤣 www.ft.com/content/3edb...

Went to the Tate Britain's Whistler exhibition today. It features a glorious room of his Nocturnes and other London paintings. I could have spent a week looking at these.

Just wondering how many threats Sadiq Khan has to quietly navigate behind the scenes.

Zadie Smith being at Taylor Swift's wedding cracks me up. I hope she took a notebook and scribbled down every absurd detail.

Larkin's wish for a newborn Sally Amis: 'May you be dull - if that is what a skilled, vigilant, flexible, unemphasised, enthralled catching of happiness is called.' readalittlepoetry.com/2012/03/19/b...

A servile mother, a domineering father who claims he gave his wife’s friend cancer as “psychic revenge”, and the idea that a novel “by disregarding the real provides the truth”. Me on Andrea Bajani’s The Anniversary (tr. Geoffrey Brock). Just watch you don’t trip up on the heavy-handed metaphors.

For this week's @ftweekend.com I went to Zurich to interview Swiss novelist Christian Kracht and lose to him at chess as.ft.com/r/26cbfad6-7...

Why it matters that @andyburnham.bsky.social is an English Lit graduate. Thoughtful piece from @tanjilrashid.bsky.social magazine.newstatesman.com/2026/07/01/a...

Literary style in British politics My @newstatesman1913.bsky.social column reflects on Andy Burnham's English degree (and my thwarted one). Includes a potted history of Eng. lit. in politics, via the early Labour movement, FR Leavis and Michael Gove. www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

An Indian friend just remarked that the whole circus reminds her of the Ambani wedding which is....not a flattering comparison.

Clive James, whom I had never met before, once crossed a room at a publishing party specifically to come and talk to me, because he'd noticed I was standing on my own.

Reading about John Carey and some of his excoriating reviews. Poor Clive James but "immortal names drop from him like dandruff" is simply a glorious line. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/25/b...

I talked — at length! — with Julian Lucas of the New Yorker and this is what happened: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

My review of Timothy X Atack’s novel ‘Father Alberto and the Flying Girl’ in @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

A lot of "why are you surprised" replies here, which really bugs me.

Here’s something - LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK has been chosen as one of The Times’ best books to read this summer. So that’s nice, isn’t it!

I read Lucky Jim when I was 24 and had taken a horribly wrong turn. Jim Dixon's line about taking what you want and paying for it was the impetus I needed to ditch my boyfriend, leave my job, move to London and upend my life.

"Caine is the latest celebrity to lend his voice to [the Odyssey.] But Caine isn’t really telling the story. Instead, he licensed his voice to ElevenLabs, a company that produces audiobooks voiced by artificial intelligence, which used an A.I. clone of his voice." www.nytimes.com/2026/06/23/b...

Summer poem! From Mary Oliver's Devotions: bit.ly/devotionsLB #poem #booksky #writing

Robert Hayden's 'Those Winter Sundays' isn't the cheeriest poem for Father's Day but that last stanza is perfect. A more sentimental poem wouldn't be able to pull that off. poets.org/poem/those-w...

So we used to have a broadcast news system that enforced standards through rules and elite consensus. You want access to the delivery pipe for fun stuff? You have to give space to boring news stuff. Rebuilding the boring news slot on TikTok could be good for democracy but oh boy the implementation!

"The Girls is many things at once. It’s a comedy but it's also a portrait of an England of down-at-heel seediness, where flower shows, dirty coppers and the serial killer Dennis Nilsen are part of the same social fabric." Me on John Bowen's 1986 novel The Girls, reissued by Vintage and McNally:

James Burrows was not a giant in sitcom directing. He was THE giant. The primary director of Cheers and Taxi. The only director (I believe) of Will & Grace. The director whose pilots for Friends, Third Rock, Frasier, and Big Bang Theory got them on the air. The king. RIP. people.com/james-burrow...

This is about US TV but it applies to UK shows as well in the current market. Whenever I see a headline about Jesse Armstrong I think about how he started out writing on CBBC shows (The Queen's Nose! Tracy Beaker!), then did Peep Show and then, after all that, did Succession.

Ahh, I've missed watching Pickford shout at the defenders

A Verso book book making it into the FT reading list:

Ishiguro's novel sounds like a cross between The Unconsoled and Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes i.e. strangeness on a train. Let's hope it is. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

And we thought The Guardian list had flaws.

I'm sure there's more to this but I'm tickled by the fact that publishing trends come for everyone...even Nobel laureates

Hey! I just realised the North American editions of my first two books are out today. Firstly, the Compendium, with a couple of new entries and a jazzy new title which I DID NOT CHOOSE MYSELF www.amazon.com/Elledges-Non...

This gets to what's been bothering me about YouTube being lumped in with the other social apps

in this week's newsletter! I pine and I beg the publishing industry to once again value the humble novella youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/a-passiona...

“I’ve read several of Harrison’s novels: not once have I fully understood what was happening, but I keep rushing back for more.” Me on M John Harrison’s The End of Everything, a book that speaks to our time of repeated crises, when disaster follows disaster until something seems permanently broken.

Maris Kreizman shares her picks for best books of the year (so far).

Bluesky's COO gave an interview recently where she said they plan to make the site more like Reddit. I'm guessing this focus on "communities" is the first step towards that.

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS! For our next issue, we're looking for smart, thoughtful, engaging writing on any summer blockbuster released between 1975 - 2025. Submission Deadline: 6/28/26 Full Details: brightwalldarkroom.submittable.com/submit/35825...

'Members of ethnic minority communities have asked their white friends to accompany or drive them to work, hoping it would reduce the risk of being targeted.'

My boring take, from other people’s experiences and my own: Doctor Who is a ferociously difficult, near-inhumane show to produce. Brutal for every department, but particularly for one person to hold at the top as it is. If they want the best range of pitches, the production model needs rethinking