From Dr Seuss to All Quiet on the Western Front: 19 books to help you find hope, sense and resistance in difficult times

Low Threshold Book Club 2025: We read a whopping 3 books! 1: A topical 🇺🇸 book on feminism. We could not stand the writing. Abandoned. 2: A romantasy. They loved it, I struggled. Took months to synch, months to recover. 3: Winner! The gorey murder novel Victorian Psycho. Finally! #libfaves2025

Oh he angry.

Chomsky had deeper ties with Epstein than previously known, documents reveal

“May your hope always outweigh your doubt, until this whole world finally punches you out” -Todd Snider. I’ll play your music extra loud today. Thanks for the words when I lack them. RIP.

Too often than I like, @ingalangfeldt.bsky.social sends me PP presentations from the world of Academia. Ya know, when I need an excuse to cry.

“[Chatbots] implicitly invite the user into the illusion that they’re interacting with a presence that has agency. This illusion is powerful even if intellectually we might know otherwise.” @ajutla.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Trip to #Melbourne summed up in coffee: Nespresso Double espresso Single latte Nespresso Japanese bottled coffee Strong latte Cold brew Single latte Double latte Strong flat white Cappuccino Magic Nespresso Double espresso Espresso Espresso Iced latte Nespresso Iced latte

A break from the routine reminds you that you’re still that girl with the wind in her hair and who wears adventure on her sleeve.

My fave book of 2025. Jim and Huck escape from home and travel along the Mississippi River. The storytelling is just so…so… ✨ @percivaleverett.bsky.social

Ah, Paris ❤️ Where the fumes from the traffic and the cigarette steam make my eyeballs well up like life is a dream. -Hollie McNish

A war monument at my old school. Elverum folkehøyskole is where the King 🇳🇴 said «no» to joining its invaders. Everything was bombed in the city spare a few buildings, including my old school.

!!! youtu.be/6Hq4yFSMZbQ?...

If you read anything I've written lately, I hope it's this post. open.substack.com/pub/oliviaca...

How very similar and how very different we are to the versions of ourselves with each decade. leahplotz.substack.com/p/missent-po... #postcard #travel

Vinneren av brosjyrene gjennom hele denne valgkampen: @sv.no ! Tydelig, ryddig. Føler meg informert og inspirert 🤔 Taperen: @mdg.no. 😔 OK: stem på dere, og så…kommer ikke KfF frem. Men, jeg kjente ikke at det SA (ga) meg noe. Hilsen PR rådgiver. Godt valg!

“People are holding back…and we are losing because there are stories that are not being told.” Thank you, Chimamanda Adichie, for an unforgettable night. What a force. #DreamCount

Opining about the male loneliness crisis while women are losing access to reproductive rights, the maternal mortality rate is rising, and women are being forced out of the workforce is a real choice. It is a choice to ignore the deaths of women to promote the perceived victimhood of men.

Maybe I’m not bad at accepting gifts after all. Maybe I just needed the perfect gifts…? 😍 Always happy for another @holliemcnish.bsky.social book. She is brilliant, just brilliant. This LP will pair well.

"Writing is the adult equivalent of a kindergartner playing inside a cardboard box, believing it’s a rocket ship that will take her to the moon. Adorable, but ultimately sad." (via @mcsweeneys.net)

I just really really enjoyed Cloudstreet by #TimWinton. Two captivatingly castarophies of family units living under one roof in post-war Australia. Thankful to Matilda bookshop in Adelaide’s hills for the rec to start there.

"In every age the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found among demagogues." -Thomas Macaulay (1849)

Kjære deg, kjære pust, kjære natt. Les den.

Reggie Watts, yes please and thank you. “Music is free energy.” @reggiewatts.bsky.social

Capitulation: Word of the week in search engines. Word of the year for humanity. youtu.be/BD8Nf09z_38?...

Einar Skjæraasen en gang skrev «august er det mykeste myke jeg kjenner,» men i år kjennes det som løv mot kinnet. Som om oktober kommer etter; vi hopper over september. Det er bare noe med lufta.

Remembering a time at work when I complained to the guys in the writing studio that a coworker was underestimating my intelligence, so the writers kept interrupting a meeting with said coworker to ask me questions about history and schools of philosophy and so on 😂

Sommer i Norge er virkelig ekstra stas i år. #gaularfjellet

I've always thought about how it's not uncommon for people in the U.S. to not value the lives of those in other countries as much as their own. And now it seems some are doing the same with red states. Fuck off with that bullshit.

The last 20 days, I connect the news stories I read to emails containing first-hand accounts. And just remember, the logistics of each story simply getting out of Gaza is a flat out miracle. The impossible feat of communication with the outside bsky.app/profile/leah...

Norway still has a ways to go. www.nrk.no/sapmi/melkoy...

My first (!) graphic novel had to be this good. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a... Thank you Rachel Ang 🥹

I was lucky enough to go to summer camp because I had ample amounts of outside financial support. Summer camp was my safe space, like it is for countless other kids who don’t fit the mold. open.substack.com/pub/leahplot...

“I want to be clear: I went into this pretty open-minded. I don't have a side. I despise human suffering, and I hate that it exists.” zeteo.com/p/exclusive-...

“The best poems come barreling over the plains under a sky of stars.” Elizabeth Clark Wessel

Boys need their uncles. I think about this a lot, how boys need as many good male role models as they can get. War rips uncles away all too often. I’m so sad that this letter from Ukraine is from 2022. It should have stopped then. open.substack.com/pub/leahplot...

A friend of mine has entered Gaza on assignment. I can only send them words, no photos. I guess I better make them freaking worth it. @doctorswithoutborders.org

I'm just gonna say the amount of peacefulness that these large rallies where essentially nobody was in charge is stunning and fantastic.The media doesn't seem to be too happy though… Definitely looking for any violence they can play up. But the story should be how unbelievably wonderful it all went.

In an existence where America is so ugly, we forget there is still beauty in it. We forget the art, the soul, the beating hearts of so many beautiful people and art. Thanks Jon Batiste for reminding me of this tonight. …and for uniting blues with Beethoven.

“Look, even the missing are there, the gone and taken are with them in the shade pools of the peppermints by the beautiful, the beautiful the river.” Tim Winton, Cloudstreet

I’m looking over an English translation for a friend. Their large, rich publishing house claims to have done the work. The amount of corrections I’ve made proves that automation kills books. Praise be that they asked me for my opinion. #editing #booksky

Book launches will always be important, way beyond the commercial gains of them. Getting art out to the world is a community affair. A labor of love for more than one. Writing is not a vacuum. #keepwriting

At a time when people are understandably focused on the daily chaos in Washington, these articles describe the rapidly accelerating impact that AI is going to have on jobs, the economy, and how we live.

I’ve learned that grief is the only state of living that still feels raw ages after the urgency of it has healed. #grief #loss open.substack.com/pub/leahplot...

It's incredible that Iowa is the first state to take away civil rights protections for trans people and is experiencing a healthcare crisis with the closure of Planned Parenthood’s across the state, and the 1 Democrat currently running for governor has said nothing about those issues.

I’m always a little late to the social media party, resisting and then feel like I’m too late. I feel this with Bluesky but also with #Substack; how much trash algorithm has accumulated in the short time I’ve been there, not focusing on the writing. I march on as a personal exercise. #writesky

Either one of my parents when they finally go to the doctor. @theoatmeal.bsky.social

This book. It twists my veins and I cry for every character. I feel a piece of every one of them and want to reach through the pages and comfort them. For Natasha Rai, I hope it’s just the beginning. 🌹

When I first voted for @barackobama.bsky.social, I was a uni student furious at politicians and corps. I hated standing in line so I voted absentee from my car in the uni parking lot. I chanted «Yes we can» at a rally and tonight, seeing him talk, my heart whispered it once again.

Democracy is frustrating. It’s messy and ugly and it’s slow. That doesn’t mean we give up. That doesn’t mean our efforts don’t count. —Takeaway from my evening with @barackobama.bsky.social and Sofie Høgestøl.