they’re calling it the strongest sunday scaries in recorded human history

Book 2: My Struggle, Book 5, by Karl Ove Knausgaard Bad news: I only have one book left in this series I really like. Good news: That one book left is 1,200 pages. 😅 This one is tied with No. 4 as my favorite. Why are these so compelling?! #books #booksky substack.com/profile/3501...

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Book 1 of 2026: The Running Ground, by Nicholas Thompson One of my metrics for judging a good running book is whether or not it gets me motivated to run. This one did. Maybe as much as or more than just about any running book I’ve read. substack.com/profile/3501... #books #booksky

One last time for New Year’s Eve: My favorite #books of 2025. open.substack.com/pub/thenewdo...

Even if you don't factor in that this guy is a MAGA moron, this was the WORST contract in sports history, and it's not close. The Angels paid $11.1 million PER HOMER for this effing clown. www.mlb.com/news/anthony...

The older I get the less I understand about writing or reading and the more I just want to experience it in my bones. It's that uncertainty, however difficult, that gives me great joy. I think this is why AI is so appalling. It offers, and still can't even deliver, lifeless, bland certainty.

Writers! Do you jolt awake at 3:30 am thinking things like "James would've been wearing a coat, so there's no way they could've seen what was printed on his T-shirt," or are you a normal and well-adjusted writer? (Follow up: Is "normal and well-adjusted writer" an oxymoron?) #writersofbluesky

I don't think this is a new photo, but it's new to me -- look, there's the distinguished @andymboyle.bsky.social browsing at Madison Street Books in this year's city bookstore rankings! www.timeout.com/chicago/shop...

Last bookstore shift of 2025 — 11 years and counting! Highlights of this year included selling books at an offsite Pulitzer on the Road event, hosting runner Keira D’Amato at a packed in-store event, and making fun of the Zon. Lucky to get to do this. The world is on fire. Read more books.

Book 73: What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan A structurally and thematically inventive meditation on the lives of artists, their inspirations and processes, and truly what we can (and mostly can’t) understand about them from what they leave behind after they’re gone. buff.ly/Bf9AW5g #books #booksky

Radical left scum…and their humans.

Best albums of 2025, says me: 5. Machine Head, Unatoned 4. Sleep Token, Even in Arcadia 3. Black Map, Hex 2. Deftones, private music 1. Spiritbox, Tsunami Sea 🤘🤘🤘

Lovely piece in the @chicago.suntimes.com about how a reporter's love of @rebeccamakkai.bsky.social's novel THE GREAT BELIEVERS inspired her reporting and long article about Unit 371. chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/12...

People who are trying to cram a bunch of really short books into the last week of the year to meet an arbitrary book-total reading goal are the same people who don't understand why total innings pitched isn't a precise metric for gauging pitcher durability. 😎

The Ls are piling up, Donnie.

This year's been tough, but we found plenty of joy, too.

C'mon, Bluesky. This post KILLED on Threads 🤣

@meganstielstra.bsky.social's "Urgency and the Personal" essay class begins on 1/8 -- this 4-session online class focuses on how to tell our own stories in ways that make them equally urgent to others. Don't miss this! buff.ly/oNFCsxM #writingcommunity

I hope somehow more people see it this way than if she had just let it run.

At the end of the year, we think it's vitally important to celebrate wins! In our latest newsletter, we spelled out our 10 best successes of 2025: buff.ly/2hlmao1 #writingcommunity

I wrote about environmental issues for 15 years. What he's talking about (though he has no idea it's what he's talking about) is called embodied energy. The embodied energy to build wind turbines is FAR less than their lifetime output. So yes, wind turbines are green, you blithering idiot.

While we already ran a list of the best books we read in 2025 last week, it pains us to leave so many out. Sooo we’re offering another “best of 2025” list—introducing the best debuts we read in 2025. chireviewofbooks.com/2025/12/22/t...

The @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social has a fantastic list of the best debuts of 2025! My contributions: Deep Cuts, by Holly Brickley; Pan, by Michael Clune; Sky Daddy, by Kate Folk, and The El, by @tvayyyy.bsky.social. chireviewofbooks.com/2025/12/22/t... #books #booksky

This is wild. Nothing is real anymore.

Murakami signing with the White Sox is bizarre enough it feel like something that would only happen in a Murakami novel.

Improbable? The Bears recovered an onside kick. The Bears scored on a 4th and 4. An undrafted rookie scored his first NFL TD. The Bears scored on a walk-off TD in OT to a running-on-fumes DJ Moore who beat the guy who cheap-shotted him earlier in the game. What a game. #beardown

Book 72: My Friends, by Fredrik Backman I’m the kind of reader who takes it personally (only half-jokingly) when someone says mean things about a book I loved. So I won’t say mean things about My Friends, because I know A LOT of readers loved it. But I didn’t. #books #booksky

There is absolutely no way this just happened but this just happened

Unredacted

Get a first-look at the new books coming out of the Chicago literary community in 2026 at our CHICAGO WRITERS SHOWCASE on January 21, 6:30pm at the Book Cellar! It’s our next evolution in our mission to uplift the voices in our city’s creative community 🧵 chireviewofbooks.com/2025/12/19/j...

🤖 u only need a few notes or lines or a paragraphs. a first draft is mostly taking notes anyway. the hardest bit is the pre-writing dread + those first few minutes where it feels like i've got nothing, but you can get past that. even if you don't, it's fine. the best part is having written. ❤️

Thank you @blockclubchi.bsky.social for highlighting the urgent need to shop local. Barnes & Noble left Chicago because they didn't think bookstores were viable here. Indies did it the right way and made it work. And now B&N's trying to steal our scene. blockclubchicago.org/2025/12/19/a...

Such a great list! My contribution: Paper Girl by @bethmacy.bsky.social

For Lit Hub, I rounded up the best book *reviews* of the year. This time, I focused on great openers. Criticism is literature! lithub.com/the-10-best-...

This was unquestionably a challenging year…but we still managed to find as much joy as we possibly could. Thank you all for helping to make this writing community so strong, vibrant, and yes, just a whole lot of fun!!! #writingcommunity

Photo shoot outtake: What is Winnie yelling at Baxter? All answers are right answers.

Odds for tonight's speech: 2/1 -- War with Venezuela 4/1 - Hamberders are now official US food 8/1 - Susie Wiles has been sent to the gulag in Idaho 15/1 - The Earth is Mars now, and we live there. 1 billion/1 - Resigning

Lit Hub's got a funny round-up of most scathing book reviews. Ron Charles on Mitch Albom's novel TWICE is a particular favorite. buff.ly/98yIJXi

Of all the years that have been years, 2025 has definitely been one of them. Here's The New Dork Review Year In, Um, Review: buff.ly/Er6wwn1 #books #booksky

I set up a little motivation writing bot for my First Draft Novel in a Year course, and you're welcome to follow it for daily writing motivation if you want! It's over at @niay-cheer-bot.bsky.social

Of all the years that have been years, 2025 has definitely been one of them. Here's The New Dork Review Year In, Um, Review: buff.ly/Er6wwn1 #books #booksky

Book 71: Dead and Alive: Essays, by Zadie Smith Reading Smith generally, but her essays particularly, is like having a conversation with the most affable genius ever. substack.com/profile/3501... #books #booksky

It is impossible to overstate how accurately this book predicted the rise of a certain type of guy

Recipients of the so-called “CHIRBy” Awards include Eve L. Ewing, WBEZ’s Adriana Cardona-Maguigad and New York Times bestselling author Samira Ahmed.

Thanks to @wbez.org for this great piece on the CHIRBys! www.wbez.org/books/2025/1...?

"We are going to continue to read. And we are going to continue to write. And we are going to win." --Samira Ahmed, accepting tonight's Adam Morgan Literary Leadership Award winner for her work with @authorsabb.bsky.social.

Congratulations to tonight's 2025 Chicago Review of Books Award winners!

I just hit 10k words on the fiction thing I'm working on -- which is by far the longest fiction thing I've ever written. Will someone deliver my cookie, or do I have to go pick it up? 😅 #writingisfun