What is the point of reading? Seriously. Does it make us more empathetic? confer better judgement? elevate our minds? Berkeley professor Flora Champy has a few thoughts on the matter. aeon.co/essays/the-r...

Frank Lloyd Wright was an artist, teacher, iconoclast, utilitarian, democrat, adulterer, cult-like leader, wayward in life and thought. This essay is so good I'm posting it again. aeon.co/essays/frank...

It was a treat to work on this essay by Noah Charney. Can AI replace art experts in settling scores over attribution and provencance? aeon.co/essays/could...

Delighted that Gwendoline Riley and Kei MIller - two absolutely brilliant writers were recognised by the Windham-Campbell prize committee. Congratulations. Miller writes personal essays like no one else. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Deplorable doesn't even begin to describe these people. The Guardian has been brilliant lately at exposing Farage's filth and his crew's miserable, small-minded vengefulness at every turn. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

On Robert Frost: 'He liked to say that he “had as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.” Frost was a playful poet, but in order to play, we needed to agree on the shape of the field, the rules of the game.' Fab essay in @yalereview.bsky.social yalereview.org/article/kamr...

We like to work with practitioners @aeon.co, but boy can this architect write: A wonderful, challenging, contradition-accepting essay on Frank Lloyd Wright by Andrew Deming aeon.co/essays/frank...

And the joint winners were...Nell Osbourne and Moist Press for Ghost Driver, and Rebecca Grandsen and Tangerine Press for Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group. I'm so delighted that we found such stellar winners. www.thebookseller.com/news/the-que...

The Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize. What you need to know.

Reserve your place at the panel celebrating the shortlisted authors and presses of this years Queen Mary Prize for Small Press Fiction ⬇️ www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/queen-mary...

Bill Gates was up to his, er 'ears' in Epstein filth. www.vanityfair.com/news/story/g...

It's unlikely you'll have read these books which are not on the radar of most reviewers! Judging this prize has been an honour: all these superb novels deserve a place on the front tables @waterstones.bsky.social @hatchards.bsky.social etc www.thebookseller.com/news/five-in...

A truly berautiful review (you can't often say that) of what sounds like an extraordinary book. I've not read Mary Costello. But I will now. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

A brilliant argument for Doris Lessing's continued relevance. Lessing is still golden, says Catherine Taylor aeon.co/essays/what-...

Republic of Consciousness Prize (now the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize) news alert. The SHORTLIST is out. therepublicofconsciousness.substack.com/p/the-queen-...

A no brainer. The rolling back of trans rights that we've seen across a range of institutions emboldened by the supreme court ruling that biology is everything is an absolute tragedy.

Venture Global LNG. Cheniere Energy. Just two of the big US energy companies set to benefit from the hike in oil and gas prices in the Middle East, according to @nytimes.com — both big donors to Trumps election campaign.

A brilliant and scary piece, offering a taste of the near climate changed future. From the ever vigilant @gavinmevans.bsky.social aeon.co/essays/how-d...

From one writer to as many others as I can reach. You're welcome. aeon.co/videos/ai-is...

Had to laugh listening to debates on the @bbcnews.bsky.social about whether Andrew MW was or wasn't in public office when 'serving' as a trade envoy for the UK. His very existence is a public office, from nappies to prison cell.

Really? You're reporting on rubble? Why aren't you asking why Trump is the only person of interest missing from the redacted Epstein files? Why aren't you asking whether Pam Bondi isn't in contempt of her office? Or why the DoJ is in the pocket of the POTUS?

It's a funny feeling seeing a longlist that you've carefully poured over with your fellow judges @stuhennigan.bsky.social @susannacrossman.bsky.social - both of them discerning and serious about Indie fiction. You feel a tenderness towards each book. Every one on this list was a brilliant read.

We're very good in the UK at making a lot of noise & feeling outraged. Mandelson is self-serving, treasonous, under investigated. But what will come of it? I'm wiling to bet nothing. Nothing has happened with Baroness Mone, Boris Johnson is still a free man. etc

She's always good, but today she's raging and righteous. And it rocks. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Just sharing a guide from @parismarx.com to getting off US tech and switching to politically disinvested and largely European-owned companies like Proton and Zoho. disconnect.blog/getting-off-...

Excited to announce the new Psyche profile. A portrait written from the inside out. psyche.co/portraits/st...

AI has no imagination, empathy or inner life, so can it write novels? Hell yes, just not good ones. aeon.co/essays/sure-...

This is unbelievably sad - for me there's so much recognition, same era, equally complicated time with parents who saw their children as alien. The mother who had next to no kindness in her. So painful. Bravo www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

Just when you think, just maybe the Oscars might be rewarding merit for once, you look at the nominations and are instantly disabused. That pile of crap F1 is up for best pic. In what warped world is that possible?

It happened to Japanese POWS to Jews in the camps, to women in every war zone. Rape is a weapon of war. Brave Palestinian prisoners speak out about their treatment in Israeli prisons www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

"It looks like a British government has, most unusually, turned against a police chief – and for the sake of an Israeli football club." @rachelshabi.bsky.social offers the most clear-eyed analysis yet of Birmingham police vs Maccabi Tel Aviv. rachelshabi.substack.com/p/maccabi-te...

A dazzling essay from a young American writer, on why Hume is better than Marx at explaining the landholder/stockholder divide and why Right and Left don't always neatly align with class. Read it. Share it. It will change the way you think. aeon.co/essays/why-h...

Carole Cadwallader fighting the good fight. On the UK deal with Palantir: 'We have embedded a notorious US military surveillance company whose founder is a close ally of President Trump into the heart of our military at a moment in which the US is threatening to invade our NATO ally, Greenland.'

Bristoleans this is for you.

I've been dormant on X for a couple of years. Today I deactivated. Feeling cleansed tbh.

Another razor sharp analysis from Timothy Snyder snyder.substack.com/p/maduro-in-...

Post-Brexit UK is America's whore, unable to call out #regimechange as an international crime. Labour now spouting hokey US cover up - 'evil dictator' gone / smooth change to democracy! - while Tump anoints current deputy PM & refuses to recognise already elected democratic leaders. One word: Oil.

Amen to critiques like this one. On the banality, intrusiveness, and unreliability of AI: the everywhere technology whose use is far from obvious or clear, and yet power-driven by mad over-investment on the say-so of socially deficient libertarian man-children.

What a brilliant start to 2026. One in the eye for Trump.

Wonderful organisation with first rate platform and resources. I've had a great experience teaching and mentoring upcoming writers with them.

This handsome volume arrived by post today. Congratulations @juliahbell.bsky.social - I think this may be destined to become a classic.

Today Aeon Magazine publishes the last of 3 essays by Afghan women writers (smuggled out of the country in secret) that we've worked on for the past year in partnership with Untold Narratives. It ends the series on a note of hope. aeon.co/essays/i-am-...

Green Catholicism is no oxymoron, but an extension of the Church's age-old radical tradition and commitment to environmental justice. aeon.co/essays/the-c...

Now here's a list what is a list. lithub.com/100-notable-...

Went to Daunts to stock up my shelves for December. Came home with treasures by Katie Kitamura @laurenelkin.bsky.social @alicejolly.bsky.social

Pioneering first person pieces on Psyche magazine focus on insights that are hard won and, often, hard to swallow. This is a fantastic example of what the form can do. Firefighting on all fronts. psyche.co/turning-poin...

We anthropomorphise AI all the time. So why haven't we twigged how narcissistic it is? psyche.co/ideas/why-ai...

Georgia O'Keeffe claimed New Mexico as her own. And painted it as thought is was empty. It wasn't. Native populations have always lived there. This is a lovely piece of revisionism from an indigenous writer. aeon.co/essays/some-...

Updating my LEGO White House

You do hsve to wonder sometimes if the world can roll back from Trump when he's gone.