Where breathing is unhealthy and protesting is a crime.

"Here, the line between fiction and nonfiction has only just begun to vanish in the minds of authors and their editors." A survey of French literature's focus on family-driven memoirs and autofiction in 2025. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Inflated statistics, selective narratives, and weakened institutions: Christopher de Bellaigue in @nybooks.com on "hype and fraud" in Modi's India. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Dylan Thomas

The French Lieutenant’s Boots. www.bbc.com/news/article...

“there are only 7 full-time book critics left in the US: three at NYT ( Jacobs, Garner, Szalai), 2 at WaPo(Rothfeld, Charles), 1 each at WSJ (Sacks), NY mag (Chu), Slate (Miller) more people have walked on the moon than write book reviews for a living” worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/septemb...

Once more, with feeling.

Since everyone is going to be commenting on those quotes from Nabokov's 'Lolita', a reminder that this is the one that matters.

The 52 most banned books of the last four years in US schools, including works by Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Judy Blume. pen.org/top-52-banne...

Sales of non-fiction titles are down, which comes as a surprise to me. One reason: "The world is exhausting, so readers are seeking refuge rather than clarity." However: "are we simply publishing less high-quality nonfiction?" www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

Reincarnation, conservation, and fish: wrote about Amitav Ghosh's new novel, ‘Ghost-Eye’. scroll.in/article/1089...

Shoshana Zuboff: "AI is simply surveillance capitalism continuing to evolve and expand with some new methodologies, but still based on theft." english.elpais.com/technology/2...

Very moved by the Journey Through Time podcast series on the Paris Commune with @sarahchurchwell.bsky.social and @davidolusoga.bsky.social youtu.be/4b44qyAZfL4?...

“You can't offer poverty wages to staff who kept the British Library running through the cyber-attack, then offer bonuses to directors who benefit from their hard work.” @graceblakeley.substack.com asks: who are Britain's cultural institutions really for? graceblakeley.substack.com/p/you-should...

A headline from new India.

Graham Greene’s ‘The Quiet American’, 70 years later: “its message transcended Vietnam and has therefore endured.” jacobin.com/2025/12/quie...

You may disagree with the choices, but we need more such lists of the worst fiction of 2025. stevedonoghue.substack.com/p/the-worst-...

"Take your Al-hallucinated definitions and send them in a rocket ship to Mars, baby!" The LA Times list of best books of 2025 includes...a dictionary. Excellent.

László Krasznahorkai’s Nobel Prize lecture is, typically, a series of extremely long sentences. www.nobelprize.org/prizes/liter...

The etymology of 'asteroid'. Well done, young Kanishk Sharma.

I don’t know if the word “immense” can be used as a word of praise for a short poem, but it was the one that came to mind.

Oh no.

Judging a book by its cover.

Wrapped, shmapped. What I need is Spotify Napped, to let me know how many hours I slept while listening to podcasts.

From Mark Galeotti’s ‘Homo Criminalis: How Crime Organises the World’. After reading the book, says TLS reviewer Peter Geoghegan, it's hard to disagree. www.the-tls.com/history/twen...

I think the elephant gives the room a certain textured, earthy vibe.

China is on track to become the most influential force in global publishing within the next decade, with help from AI and the government’s push to become a “cultural powerhouse”. asiatimes.com/2025/12/chin...

A good antidote to a gloomy December.

“Mrs Almeida said she would buy the fish herself.” Wrote about Nalini Jones's sensitive, moving 'The Unbroken Coast' set in a fictionalised version of Mumbai's Bandra (and why the novel reads like a game of online solitaire). scroll.in/article/1086...

When asked what ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ was about, Stoppard replied that it was about to make him a lot of money. He used to reply, when asked where he got his ideas from: “Harrods.” www.commonreader.co.uk/p/tom-stoppa...

Dylan Thomas’ grocery bill. A note from Sylvia Plath’s doctor. A grief-stricken letter by E. Nesbit. I get the fascination with writers’s private lives, but there’s something sordid about this. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...

"All literature is political...by virtue of its active space, what you’re engaging with, or its negative space, what you’re choosing to ignore." Omar El Akkad, author of 'One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This'.

Read this exploration of the titles on the Wolfson History Prize Shortlist for an understanding of what so-called popular historians can achieve, and how. fivebooks.com/best-books/t...

“‘Ceasefire’ has become something we are expected to be grateful for, now that ‘ceasefire’ means continued genocide”: Selma Dabbagh www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/no...

A very readable, deeply-informed piece by Naomi Klein that combines genocide, the Surrealists, fascism then and now -- and Mamdani. www.equator.org/articles/sur...

Sally Rooney: "I myself have publicly advocated the use of direct action, including property sabotage, in the cause of climate justice. It stands to reason that I should support the same range of tactics in the effort to prevent genocide." www.bbc.com/news/article...

On Joe Sacco's 'The Once and Future Riot', about the deadly 2013 Muzaffarnagar clashes: "an analysis of how people in conflict refashion facts, indulge in ersatz nostalgia, and create stories that serve their worldviews..." www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

How to turn democracy into despotism without anyone noticing. Scarily familiar. From Erica Benner’s ‘Adventures in Democracy’.

1500+ pages. In the words of Captain Oates, I may be some time.

Raise money to lose money. The continuing annals of late capitalism.

When a lukewarm review of a history of global capitalism mentions Marx only to bring up his unfortunate comments in ‘On the Jewish Question’, it’s hard to take the reviewer seriously.

Chekhov’s earliest stories were “childishly comical”. During the translation process, says Rosamund Bartlett, “we would just collapse in fits of giggles”. www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Interesting that they specify “plot-driven”. Would have liked to discover non-plot-driven books, too.

Welcome back, Daniyal Mueenuddin. An extract from his forthcoming ‘This Is Where the Serpent Lives’. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

“If we are to do this work of language, we have an obligation to stand in opposition to any force—including those enacted by our governments—that if left unchecked would happily decimate every principle of free expression and connection that we’ve come here to celebrate.” the.ink/p/omar-el-ak...

Think of yourself as, ugh, a foodie? Two books that ask you to "remember the corporate and political power behind every option at the supermarket, and to be conscious of how various kinds of media are selling us certain sorts of gastronomic pleasure". yalereview.org/article/alic...

“I think of it as a travelogue by someone who stopped travelling.” Anuradha Roy on her new book, ‘Called by the Hills’, an account of her life since 2000, when she and her husband moved with their dog to Ranikhet in Uttarakhand. www.thehindu.com/books/in-con...

Speaking Ja-pun-ese: “Older Japanese, who remember puns as a cringy nuisance, still see them as outdated. For younger users raised on text-based communication, however, these neo-dajare puns are a fresh, low-stakes way to connect.” www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2025/11...

Stephanie Merritt, author of the marvellous Giordano Bruno series and one of the judges of the 2025 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, discusses the shortlist for "the funniest book of the year". fivebooks.com/best-books/t...