My money's on character actress Margo Martindale share.google/RlPSJCACjowN...

So grateful to @mmagency.bsky.social, esp. @agentbal.bsky.social who helped me figure out this book (and how to not write like an academic!), and to @christofi.bsky.social at @torvabooks.bsky.social and @sarahhaugen.bsky.social at @harperbooks.bsky.social who are excellent editors. I got so lucky. 🥰

my heart goes out to the hand wringers who simply don't know how best to make all that lovely money

Articles like this remind me of when the news could be fun share.google/YsW1Anu7oPTM...

I find it so funny that royals give themselves so many badges and buttons to show they are good at kinging, it's like a 5 year old found the teacher's sticker drawer. Bless

This has shaken me to my core

'what is your citation house style?' 'plagiarism'

I did it.

The new Terry Deary book has my favourite endpapers I have ever produced. It's like something by Francesco Bassano but way more surreal

And you thought all the news in the UK was doom and gloom www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

i'm the guy who invented the spike traps that pop out of temple walls. i hate my job. every day my boss says "why haven't we killed any archeologists" and i say "they haven't invented that yet." they pay me in tomb juice. i hate tomb juice. honestly i might just start working on my big boulder idea

It seems that actually understanding things is no longer necessary, laments - *checks byline* - Rod Liddle?

In the bookshop this morning: PARENTS: “Okay, we’re leaving now.” CHILD: *pulls another book from the shelf and sits down * CHILD: “Then I guess this is goodbye.”

The mathematician John Venn was born on this day in 1834. To commemorate the occasion, here’s a poem in the form of a Venn diagram.

This 2,500 year old Siberian tattoo goes hard. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Love old papers. Fancy having such a list today!

Amazing to see America, América by Greg Grandin longlisted for the Cundill History Prize - a book that makes you look at the Americas (and particularly Latin America) anew. www.cundillprize.com/news/the-202...

So migrants are workshy benefit scroungers who are stealing our easy and lucrative food delivery jobs? Bit confused

Hot off the press!

- Plato

Believe that I am serious when I say: lol

My cartoon in this weeks @newyorker.com

And...yes. Another big AI decision. When a win is maybe not a win. The AI training is fair use cult may be very disappointed by Meta's Summary Judgment "victory" in its copyright suit. Be very very careful not to be spun by Meta's proxies and advocates. READ THE ACTUAL OPINION CLOSELY. /1

Old manifestos were so much better written. This is from Labour's 1924 manifesto, under the heading "The Spirit That Giveth Life".

The Amazon AI summary of reviews for NUCLEAR WAR is so uncanny it's actually funny. 'While some find it has a nice pace, others describe it as sobering and disturbing. The terror level is also mixed, with some customers finding it the most frightening book they've read.'

It was used as far back as Emperor Hadrian, in case you thought it rang a bell...

I have finally discovered why my Spanish teacher was so worried about me

@christofi.bsky.social I’ve just finished Cypria, and wanted to say it was exceptional. I’m half Cypriot but grew up in the UK and haven’t much Greek, so i’ve always felt Cyprus is a story i can only half understand. Your book has given me my own Cyprus and i’m so grateful to you for writing it.

Happy birthday Penguin!

Episode 3 of the FT's excellent Jan Marsalek podcast tells the wild story of the finance executive's secret plans to create a Libyan boarder force, but also chills from 2016 John McCain audio warning about Russian plans to weaponise the politics of migration

Congratulations to @sashadugdale.bsky.social for winning the Anglo-Hellenic League #RuncimanAward2025 with her astonishingly wonderful poetry collection “The Strongbox” (#Carcanet). A great choice by @sofkazinovieff.bsky.social and all the judges.

'While we regret that the present is not like the past and despair of its ever becoming the future, its innumerable inscrutable habits lie in wait for their meaning. I want to gather them, like somebody's grandmother putting up preserves, because they will have been so beautiful.' Diane Arbus

I love Robert Macfarlane but dammit I also love Craig Brown

Truly don't understand why the left is allergic to simply taking the win. It is not beneath you! Shout about the good things left of centre politicians do!

It’s so revealing to describe audiobooks as “lazy” – do you think reading is supposed to be a chore? Of course, it may require hard work if you’re attempting to grind through Das Kapital, but I also read for pleasure. I love audiobooks. They enrich my time on commutes, during domestic tasks, etc

I'm sure next week we can all go back to hammering Labour for their limpness but indulge me for today: isn't it nice to see increased spending on public goods like roads, hospitals and social housing. People like those things! Especially those that voted for Labour.

Just finished reading this book which is part history part travel part memoir part contemporary politics. -It’s really a page turner - read it during my 7th visit to Cyprus and as much as I thought I knew about the island - I learned so much and given it is so well written, in a very enjoyable way.

How amazing to be doing the right thing. Not to mention something that is going to endear the UK to Greece for a generation. A gesture to be proud of. thecritic.co.uk/exclusive-os...

Important news: the Weston Library in Oxford (part of the Bodleian) has added a small baby play space. And they've called it the Toddleian.

This is the good shit #bookreview

The Penguin vending machine is so cool, we should have one on every train platform!

wasn't expecting this bird book to be so harsh on the birds

2.5 million people work in the UK creative sector. So what you are saying is, we need to destroy 2.5 million good jobs in order to potentially have a few thousand very high paid jobs. Now, I'm no mathematician but www.thetimes.com/article/9481...

Yup. I continue to say that AI is for those who fetishize THE IDEA and dismiss THE WORK. It's for those people who come up to writers and say, "I got a great idea for a book, I'll give it to you, you write it, and we'll split the profits 50/50," as if the idea is the hardest and most important part.

I wonder if JG Ballard would be spending 4 hours a day on Tiktok. Possibly.

I could have sworn we successfully voted to kick out the Tories this time. Must be losing it.

Defending copyright is very important at a time when the impetus to alter it skews toward corporate power, away from the individual. It's a powerful protection for creators and philosophical or abstract arguments against it are often distasteful in how they weirdly align in action w those in power.

Fantastic ending to Baroness Kidron's speech in the House of Lords yesterday, which led to the government's defeat on AI & copyright. Speaking the UK's creators: "Their property, their labour, is worthy of your protection - because apart from anything else, it is not ours to give away."