To paraphrase Browning, I think the reach of the Booker Prize winning title exceeded its grasp.

“This was what the world did: press in on you with its bad-news this and so-sad that, snatch away what little time you had to see to your own affairs, fill your head with pictures you wished you’d never seen.” - Nalini Jones, ‘The Unbroken Coast’

Ntsika Dapo learns from Mahmood Mamdani: the lines dividing citizen from stranger can be traced back to the way empire organised identity and labor. africasacountry.com/2025/11/the-...

As we wait for the 2025 Booker Prize winner to be announced later today, here’s my look back at Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s 'Heat and Dust', which won the prize 50 years ago. Would it have been published today? scroll.in/article/1087...

Every now and then, there are reports on the decrepit state of George Orwell’s birthplace. Here’s the latest: “in a state of utter disrepair, with a rusting iron gate, a front yard overrun by weeds, partially collapsed roofs, cracked plaster, and the rooms full of faecal matter.”

The dapper youth in a fedora outside the Louvre? He’s a teenage fan of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot who just happened to be at a real crime scene. “I like to be chic. I go to school like this.” www.bbc.com/news/article...

Also worth remembering Rosalind Franklin, whose work on DNA was crucial to the discovery of its structure.

Sunil Amrith: "Who gets left out if we frame climate justice entirely in nation-state terms? Where does that leave communities who are exceptionally vulnerable precisely because they have been marginalised in the countries where they live?"

Alas, alack: Amazon is introducing an AI-powered translation service. (Via the Literary Saloon.) www.aboutamazon.com/news/books-a...

Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.

Trump/Gramsci

Guess which cover is designed for readers in India and which one is meant for those in the West.

"Art Deco is more than a style—it is a language of elegance, rhythm and balance that has spoken to generations across a century." www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/11/05/a...

Re-upping the dedication of Mahmood Mamdani's 2020 book, 'Neither Settler nor Native'.

“Authoritarianism, religious extremism, and violent nationalism are so embedded in global society today, like a toxic smog that is everywhere.” Sonia Faleiro on her new book, ‘The Robe and the Sword’. tricycle.org/article/the-...

The meltdown begins…

"The three things to look for are resolution, quality and length." How to spot an AI-generated video (for now). www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Oh no, who will they give the next Nobel Peace Prize to now?

Releasing later this month—looking forward to reading.

“In five or 10 years, they’ll be able to do all the jobs and there will be none left for us.” It's unsung, underpaid labour that's embodied in technology designed to make labour obsolete. www.latimes.com/business/sto...

Yoga as a competitive sport? Such a bad idea.

“Sometimes the world reads like a Salman Rushdie novel. The fact that a ban [on the Satanic Verses] is reversed because they couldn’t find the original document banning it — it’s beautiful.”

“In a fair system, these brilliant Dalit artists would have had the world eating out of their hands but they’ve gone unnoticed and excluded.”

Walter Ong, Neil Postman, Elizabeth Eisenstein: what Naomi Alderman recommends you read to understand the information age. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

Since its publication in 1818, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has served as "a projection screen for the dangers and limits of science...Once it was genetic manipulation, then nuclear energy, and now artificial intelligence." english.elpais.com/culture/2025...

“It is extraordinary how the idea of the West is thrown around as if its meaning were obvious and stable, when it is nothing of the kind,” writes Hans Kundnani in this review of Georgios Varouxakis’s ‘The West: the History of an Idea’. www.the-tls.com/history/the-...

Oh no, how will he survive this?

I think writer's block should be tackled the old-fashioned way. By cleaning the entire house to avoid writing a single sentence.

“The theme that unites our first stories is the passing of a grand illusion: the illusion that the whole world was on a trajectory, however delayed or disrupted, toward Western modernity.” The launch issue of @equatormag.bsky.social www.equator.org

The age of literary slop? An AI-generated novel has claimed the top spot on Kakuyomu, a popular web fiction site launched by one of Japan's largest publishers. (Via the Literary Saloon.) decrypt.co/346608/ai-no...

“The book’s finest pieces wrangle, in elegant prose, with humanity’s contradictions; the weaker ones indulge in name-dropping, footnotes and op-ed invective.” On Zadie Smith’s new essay collection. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

A reminder that the word “meritocracy” was coined by British sociologist Michael Young in a book that was a warning about the negative consequences of assigning social status based on formal educational qualifications.

What ho! It’s the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2025  shortlist. www.wodehouseprize.com

A government of the people, for the people, so long as the people don't threaten the bottom line. (Barbara Smaller in the New Yorker.)

A podcast in which Bill Nighy attempts to answer your questions? Yes, please.

AI is now coming for your teeth. In case of a data breach, your plaque report will be available for the world to gasp at.

Delving into the shortlist of the NIF Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize 2025.

Heaven help us.

“A guidebook for how to remember responsibly, helping us to avoid both nostalgia and nihilism, heroic fables and corrosive despair.” Brandon M. Terry’s book on the US civil rights movement offers lessons in writing history everywhere else, too. www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/1...

"The call for moral ambition is noble, but in a society governed by capital, morality alone cannot redirect where human talent flows." Excellent and insightful letter in the FT.

“Man is born free but everywhere he is in cubicles”: Nikil Saval. That’s why we now have open plan offices.

“Reading – especially shared reading – really helps build the apparatus of happiness inside a child”: Frank Cottrell-Boyce, chair of the newly announced Children’s Booker prize, which will have a mixed panel of adult and child judges. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

Philosophy as a never-ending form of therapy, a continuing “battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” Anthony Gottlieb on Ludwig Wittgenstein. lithub.com/on-the-simpl...

After winning the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Sanjana Thakur’s surreal yet emotionally grounded short story, 'Aishwarya Rai', now features in 'The Best American Short Stories 2025' edited by Celeste Ng. Read it here: granta.com/aishwarya-rai/

For the Library of Alexandria, it was fire and neglect. For Baghdad’s House of Wisdom, it was an invasion. For American universities, it’s the spreadsheet.

Another scholar deported. Such a proud and strong civilisation. thewire.in/rights/globa...

The oligarchs are racing to build AI that replaces workers before workers wake up and replace them.

"There’s only two kinds of politics these days, and you can’t breathe the same air as the other kind.” Amen, Bill Nighy, amen. observer.co.uk/culture/inte...

"The book lovers of Australia have spoken." The results of ABC Radio National's poll to determine the top 100 Books of the 21st century. As the Literary Saloon points out, very much a 'popular' list. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

Cory Doctorow explains 'enshittification'. jacobin.com/2025/10/ensh...