Read Terrestrial by @suzyeynon.bsky.social, finally, and wow she's good at making you feel for a character without laying it on too thick with the pathos

Just finished OCUMO: A LATIN AMERICAN NOVEL, and with the disclaimer that I know the author I have some quick thoughts

Good quarter for books by author friends. Very excited to finally recive my copy of Terrestrial by @suzyeynon.bsky.social. Alas I'm currently re-reading The Odyssey in preparation for the Nolan adaptation, so on the pile they both go.

It's turning out to be a good year for books by writer friends. Here we have a sociological story about a place told through the pov of a multitude of characters. Very interesting to read. I'm also eagerly awaiting Terrestial, which should be arriving any day now.

When you listen to as many history podcasts as I do, you learn to recognize certain phrases as markers of a good bit coming up. A favourite of mine is: 'Sources disagree about what happened next'

What in the Jean-Jacques Rousseau is this nonsense?

Tilly Norwood’s most recent Instagram post, which is 2 weeks old, has 280 likes and 30 shares. No one other than reporters has any particular feeling one way or the other about Tilly Norwood.

There’s a guy, great king, incredible king. Prester John. Scepter made of emeralds. Descended from the Maggie. Sent me a letter, beautiful letter, tears in his eyes. Begged me to let him help open the strait, big strong guy. I’m giving Iran 24 hours to comply or, Prester John, I might tell him yes.

Good

@thoc.creator.blue please confirm historical accuracy

Losing (completely shitty) coal jobs to technologically progress toward green energy? Politically unacceptable. Losing (actually pretty decent) office/creative jobs to move toward AI? Politically acceptable, for some reason.

NEW: Trump accepted $37m worth of donated steel for his WH ballroom project from the Luxembourg-based company ArcelorMittal. Days later, the WH made adjustments to Trump's tariffs that could benefit ArcelorMittal.

BREAKING: Following the American threat of an “Avignon Papacy,” Robert Kennedy has begun a Diet of Worms

BIG NEWS: Now that the Opium War series is over (& never to be repeated), I've decided that it's time to take a long-deserved sabbatical from chronological national history. To that end, I am pleased to announce a new chapter for the podcast going forward! Hello, and welcome to...

''To follow the history of deterioration in government from the decline of the Hojo is to gain a strong impression of gradual and inevitable decline, a tragic sequence that had to run its course, because a military society is bound to seek military solutions of its problems. That is its curse.''

I love watching people use LLMs in public. They’ll reply to a breaking news article and say “@grok is this true?” Babe where do you think it’s about to pull its answer from

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

The NY Times dutifully reporting that the Supreme Court sided with Trump only 42% of the time and with Biden 54% of the time sort of leaves out the necessary context that Biden was doing normal, completely legal presidential stuff, and Trump was doing insane crimes

The Project 2025 architect who promised to put federal employees “in trauma” is spending $15 million of former USAID funding—money that would have gone toward fighting HIV, polio, malaria, and other diseases—to bankroll his security detail. trib.al/TSV3cmb

Hearing Marco Rubio speak at Munich and sound like (let's call a spade a spade here) a nazi, only to get standing ovations because he praised Mozart or something is deeply, deeply embarassing

LMFAO

your vote has weight outside of election day. regardless of how you end up voting, until then you can bargain with it. the lesser evils are watching you, if you promise your vote for nothing you'll get nothing. say you wont vote for bad candidates. say you'll only vote for policies you like

Aided by genAI models like ChatGPT, “writers” hoping to get paid for fake stories have become an even bigger problem for publications big and small. One such writer almost pulled one over on COYOTE — until @soleilho.com, who is a nerd, spotted a key idiosyncrasy.

Today at writing meetup I said something that started a heated discussion about the use of form as a storytelling device/making a story harder to understand on purpose vs the virtues of simplicity etc. I walked away with this raging, feeling like the action star slow walking from an explosion

Understand that we’re not for everyone and not everyone can buy books and especially that no one can buy every book—but, we have a lot of expenses coming up rapidly and every bit of support, from big to small, helps: malarkeybooks.com/support

He's learned

Appears this is also true for fascism.

CRASHOUT FOR THE AGES

Can't believe they didn't give the peace prize to the guy who says, "If I don't get a peace prize, than I'm going to start a bunch of wars!"

Protestors are placing doughnuts under cages only to spring their devious traps by pulling a piece of string when our brave men and women in uniform attempt secure the treat. disgusting

My dad called, asked if he could come over. When he did he pulled this out of his pocket, handed it to me, then just left

So excited to share a cover reveal for Terrestrial, out May 2026! I've admired Angelo's book covers for other Malarkey books and I'm thrilled it was my turn to need one. I love what he designed for it.

I think the AI angle of this is obscurant. It doesn’t matter that grok is “an AI” whatever you take that to mean. Suppose X hired a team of guys to photoshop the clothes off of women and children whenever anyone asks. That’s functionally identical what happening here. It’s not complicated.

Charlie Kirk was a husband and a father. We heard it over and over again Only certain types of people get to be husbands and fathers. Some people are simply civilians. Faceless, nameless and without consequence. Civilians die. It's what they do

He's attending dinner

Almost timely with my reading for once

Extremely funny to call the pope “holier-than-thou”

I acquired the most cursed candy for the office Christmas game

The way this administration has instituted corruption as a standard mode of government would make Huey Long blush

I tried to pet him but he thought hand was more useful as a pillow (unfortunately hand was needed for essay writing)

Convincing you to read my short story with the first sentence. Share yours if you want. (Opening line of ''The Desecration of City Hall,'' which you can read here: medium.com/after-the-st...)

"World's first potential trillionaire has killed 600,000 people, including 400,000 children" is the only headline that anyone should ever read about Elon Musk

Sleepy literary critic

Truly, one of the worst to ever do it www.bbc.com/news/live/c4...

When the article gets too real out of nowhere

On my break at work today a new colleague sits down in front of me and says 'I'm not on my break, I'm just gonna eat this banana'. Then she dead ass looks me right in the eyes while she eats her banana. Honestly, power move