Not now, haunted Victorian shoes

ICYMI: The overvaluation of influencers in commercial publishing has real impacts, says Jannat Ahmed in our recent Comment piece 👇 #BookSky

Always a preferred strategy! :)

📚🎁 Reminders for everyone looking for specific books to purchase online as gifts: 1. If you haven't called your local independently-owned book shop, try there first. (If you don't have one, try Bookshop.org) 2. Don't put it off - shipping time for Media Mail can be 12 days. Priority is 5 📦

Happy First Saturday in December to all who celebrate! Be nice to your retail workers. Wish them comfortable shoes!

ICYMI: Rebecca F Kuang has announced she will be withdrawing her participation from the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature citing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ call for a boycott of the United Arab Emirates following the "current events in Sudan" 👇 #BookSky

Out: Woke In: Awake

"Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance." Remembering Baldwin, who left us on this day in 1987, with his abiding wisdom on creative work:

On this World AIDS Day, we leave you all with a message from @drdemetre.bsky.social former Director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. #WorldAIDSDay #2025 #AIDS #HIV #PublicHealth #Prevention #Treatment #Remember

GOAT!!

I would love for someone to write the YA novel (or series of novels) where a well-dressed teenager with a love for classic detective fiction actually *is* called in by the French authorities to help solve improbable crimes.

Tylenol took another one

Apparently all you needed to do to predict the NYC election results was read that one N.K. Jemisin novel.

I don't want Congress getting paid during shutdowns, no lifetime retirement and healthcare benefits, no more international travel, only 2 trips to DC per year. We decide pay raises, allowances and expense funds. No stock market no redecorating offices. We decide the rules they must follow

"Nobody actually knows the future," said @margaretatwood.bsky.social as she accepted the Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award at the Eleanor Roosevelt Banned Book Awards, co-presented by PEN America, but noted: "When you're halfway down the slippery slope, it's not far to the bottom."

In just over a week, I will be in upstate New York talking to @willhermes.bsky.social at @goldennotebkbooks.bsky.social. He is the author of the excellent Lou Reed biography King of New York. Please stop by! goldennotebook.com/e... Paperback out Nov 4 from @PublicAffairsBooks.

Author @jodipicoult.bsky.social is being banned in two mediums this fall — her books and now a high school musical. “It’s devastating... kids who put in hundreds of hours of hard work had that torn away from them because of the objections of a single parent,” she says. apnews.com/article/jodi...

i will never physically adjust to a 979 ISBN

Well, everyone knows the US Constitution mandates three branches of government. What this administration presupposes is... maybe there is only one.

The lesson of history is that tyrants cannot be appeased. Appeasement only feeds their insatiable hunger for power. Tyrants prey on people who feel unsafe and vulnerable. But without mass submission, a tyrant is powerless.

A friend of mine co-owns this bookstore. This is not great. www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/d...

Tired of letting algorithms divine what you care about, decide what you see, and distract you with ads? Try the Marginalian newsletter—an oasis of undistracted inspiration and illumination, free, ad-free, algorithm-free, fully human since 2006: themarginalian.org/newsletter

Hi, I’m Dana, I was the first out trans person in syndicated comics, and I draw unicorns and kids really seem to like them. Grownups too sometimes. bookshop.org/p/books/phoe...

Richard Burton’s diary, October 3rd, 1971: “It's a beautiful morning and I'm in love with my wife....I have a whole day with E and books and ships and cabbages and kings...I shall have a cup of tea or coffee and smoke a cig and read and waste myself indolently down the day.”

Yale University Press London's Little Histories window display competition has been won by Pritchards Bookshop in Crosby, Merseyside 👇 #BookSky

In a country where bankruptcy due to medical care costs exists, America has decided to end all preventative disease infrastructure

NEW: Huge anti-Trump protests happening across the US for Labor Day. This is the current scene in San Diego. A seemingly endless line of thousands of people on the streets! @50501movement.bsky.social #workersoverbillionaires #NoKings (🎥 10-97 News)

But now, no more words, only kisses, and many of them, for a thousand reasons, since it is Sunday. Franz Kafka, 1912.

As Trump threatens to increase ICE presence & bring the National Guard to Chicago, we're thinking about the soldiers who disobeyed & refused to serve empire. Join Aaron Hughes & Arti Walker-Peddakotla with Bill Ayers on 09/27 to talk about this history. pilsencommunitybooks.com/events/47484

Amazing that before hard drives, this is how humans stored information.

This is the make or break moment for Powell's @federalreserve.gov. If they do not defend Lisa Cook and treat her as still on the Board, the fight over the Fed as an independent agency will officially be over. see my Friday piece. www.crisesnotes.com/trump-vs-pow...

Read “Black History Minute,” a poem by Harryette Mullen from the collection Regaining Unconsciousness.

Few things beat supporting independent bookshops with Libro.fm audiobooks 😏 You get audiobooks ➡️ You support a small, employee-owned business, authors, and narrators ➡️ Your indie gets a portion of the sales ➡️ Your local community reaps the benefits. That's a win-win-win-win!

@tomzellerjr.com explores how medical misogyny impacted the practice of neuroscience (and the treatment of migraines).

Tired of letting algorithms divine what you care about, decide what you see, and distract you with ads? Try the Marginalian newsletter—an oasis of undistracted inspiration and illumination, free, ad-free, algorithm-free, fully human since 2006: themarginalian.org/newsletter

Sometimes it takes an Irish walking stick to hold up two authors. Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

From one of the greatest writers and greatest noticers of the 19th century, a wonderful read on the art of noticing and what artists can learn from naturalists www.themarginalian.org/2022/07/26/j...

Have YOU preordered the library at hellebore yet? @casskhaw.bsky.social isn't on here much, but I am. Consider snagging one from @merrittbookstore.bsky.social (there's a neat raffle for a cool plate!) or @mystgalaxybooks.bsky.social or @goldennotebkbooks.bsky.social (two faves)!

Making it (more than) halfway through the year calls for sharing the 25 Best Books of 2025 (So Far) 📚 Check out the full list: bookshop.org/lists/25-bes...

🙂

This Prime Day (& every day): ➡️ Support the small businesses making a positive difference ➡️ Get book recs from people who actually read—not algorithms ➡️ Visit your indie, immerse yourself in books, maybe chat with real people, & leave feeling happy ➡️ Support your indie with audiobook purchases

Last week, a Russian missile attack damaged PEN Ukraine’s Kyiv warehouse storing books to distribute to libraries on the front lines through their #UnbreakableLibraries project. The damage is yet another example of the war’s devastating impact on Ukrainian culture. pen.org.ua/en/unaslidok...

The billionaires who funded the fascist-neonazi campaign of our current regime so they could afford one more mega yacht are henceforth known as the Yachtzis.

Imprisoned online commentator and journalist Le Huu Minh Tuan must be released from prison in Vietnam, says PEN America. The medical neglect he is facing "is both cruel and inhumane." pen.org/press-releas...

John Dos Passos said it well in the overture to his U.S.A. trilogy almost a hundred years ago. Happy Independence Day, if you can keep it.