The US-China confrontation; beliefs vs facts; Tennyson, science and catastrophe; Iris Murdoch’s poetry; Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein; a history of shamanism – and much more. The new TLS is out now: www.the-tls.com/issues/curr...

Ah, the cold brutality with which colleagues decline beautifully-worded Outlook invitations to the bookish event you have organised

"In the world of Parisian publishing, rumours – even legends – emerge around certain books that help to shape their success. Adèle Yon has written one such book" Marie Darrieussecq on Mon vrai nom est Elisabeth in the new @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/literature/f...

@stuartmaconie.bsky.social alas, it seems that Madonna never actually was part of Patrick Hernandez’s dance troupe, but they did share a flat! www.parismatch.com/People/Patri...

It’s here: the newly refined and now fortnightly TLS. www.the-tls.com/

'Rich, readable... Jones is a compelling tour guide through time' Russell Williams in the TLS on Colin Jones's The Shortest History of France. Out now in hardback. @thetls.bsky.social @rwilliamsparis.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/regular-feat...

'More than one visitor will be caught off-guard by “Ballet des pauvres”, an assortment of clothes, tin trays and metal chains suspended from the ceiling, suddenly jerking into action.' Russell Williams on playing outside

I wrote about Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely and Pontus Hulten at the Grand Palais in this week's - the last before relaunch as a fortnightly - @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/arts/visual-...

💡 More than a French fry – Le Dictionnaire Roland Barthes dans The Times Literary Supplement ! merci à Neil Badmington pour cet article éclairant et d’avoir mis en avant ce projet colossal porté par Claude Coste aux éditions @honorechampion.bsky.social #rolandbarthes #frenchtheory

CFP: The Group of the Rue Saint-Benoît: Rethinking Intellectual Practice - Paris, 9 January 2026 atoposophie.wordpress.com/2025/03/19/t...

"The Dictionnaire Roland Barthes invites us to consider the relevance of the work it surveys. Its subject has been dead for nearly half a century, the high days of French theory a distant memory" @barthesstudies.bsky.social (who else?) in the new @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/philosophy/h...

[email protected] have a 50% off summer sale on until 20 July. Using code 27SUMMER means you can order my book Humour in Contemporary France for £12.49 plus P&P. www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10....

"What do Wedgwood tea sets, plumed tricorn hats and French revolutionary paper money have in common?" Biancamaria Fontana on The Revolutionary Self by Lynn Hunt in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/philosophy/h...

"Once, left-wing academics assumed that they were looking to the future, which they usually regarded with optimism. Now there is a melancholy tone" Richard Vinen on Didier Eribon and Nicolas Renahy in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/history/twen...

"A model of archival research and historical analysis of the things that can be known" Christopher L Miller on Miranda Spieler's Slaves in Paris in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/history/mode...

The Birthplace of Arthur Machen: Wales’s Master of the Macabre A quick pilgrimage to the Caerleon home of Wales’s greatest horror writer and high priest of the uncanny. Pretty in pink — I’m sure the fair folk approve… and are watching.

Black Sabbath are the originators. Many thanks to Mary Anne Hobbs for giving me a platform to talk about metal, art, race, disability & Birmingham…

For @thetls.bsky.social this week I wrote about the French romantic comedy Jane Austen Wrecked My Life and the long shadow of Richard Curtis.

Note to relevant people: I would happily receive more invitations to star-studded galas

I wrote about Erik Satie, Ian Penman and Les Dawson in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/arts/music/e...

I wrote about Erik Satie, Ian Penman and Les Dawson in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/arts/music/e...

I asked Windsor Davies for a pen

« Shane Haddad is a descendant of Flaubert and Duras and she recounts moments of intimacy with hesitancy, never preaching morality, but rather fluttering between nonchalant panic and sudden, joyous surprise » Marie Darrieussecq in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/f...

« To be human, she suggests, is to live always in the country of others » Delighted to read Adina Stroia on the final volume of Leila Slimani’s autobiographical trilogy in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/f...

I wrote about Alan Moore and Steve Moore’s jolly good fun and massively informative Bumper Book of magic in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social. Delighted to have mentioned Keith Harris and Orville in the paper. www.the-tls.co.uk/religion/rel...

Great review of Maya Angela Smith's recent book for our Singles series!

"For all its horror, The Tower of Love is an unflinching yet entertaining glimpse of the ugliness of depravity and the terrible isolation that nurtures it against – or perhaps with – nature" Lauren Booker on Rachilde in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature-b...

"An unbridled Jacques Brel can be un peu trop for anglophone audiences, especially if they’ve conflated the sound of Scott Walker with what they think he should sound like" Delighted to have @jeres.bsky.social on Ne me quitte pas in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/arts/music/n...

Edmund White, novelist and great chronicler of gay life, dies aged 85

This is a hell of a thing to read.

Great review of a great book - I found this such a compelling set of stories.

I wrote about The Deserters by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell, in this week's @thetls.bsky.social cc @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/f...

Very pleased that The American University of Paris is awarding writers Édouard Louis and Marina Warner as well as artist Julien Creuzet honorary degrees at graduation this week. www.aup.edu/news-events/...

"In France, writing that challenges the ubiquitous myth of “the family” as a loving and protective place has become something akin to a literary tradition" Nelly Kaprièlian-Self on books by Vanessa Springora and Blandine Rinkel in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/lives/autobi...

This week on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social we dive 🤿 INTO THE DEEP, into La France profonde and the 🇫🇷 fascination with the briny depths. Where and whom does this Gallic passion come from? (And I also help @suzanneraine.bsky.social tell Cousteau apart from Cocteau and Clouzeau.)

Welsh folklore warns us to take it easy on the Thursday before Easter: "Maundy Thursday was important for doing good deeds. If anybody performed unnecessary work on this day they would be in danger of being stricken by thunder & lightning" Folklore of Wales 1909 #FolkloreThursday

Over the past two decades, Paris has eliminated 50,000 parking spaces, turned car lanes into bike paths and added green space. The results are in. Stunning work by Naema Ahmed and @chicoharlan.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solu...

Capturing Dante; tech bros left and right; precarious shorelines; Dickens’s feverish imagination; overflowing bookshelves – and much more. This week’s issue is out now: www.the-tls.co.uk/issues/cu...

I enjoyed Luz's new bande dessinée about the life of Otto Mueller's painting "Zwei weibliche Halbakte" so much I wrote about it in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-feat...

I enjoyed Luz's new bande dessinée about the life of Otto Mueller's painting "Zwei weibliche Halbakte" so much I wrote about it in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-feat...

First barbecue of the year. Enjoyed singing "The Meat Thermometer" to Armand van Helden's 1996 dance floor smash, "The Funk Phenomena". www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRpJ...

"Told by a poetic subject , the Cahier is unflinching in its critique of colonialism and its legacies of violence" Franklin Nelson on Aimé Césaire in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/r...

Procès RN : Marine Le Pen jugée coupable de détournement de fonds publics avec huit autres eurodéputés

I've very much enjoyed listening to this these last few weeks. Worth a listen, nicely unsettling.

"Varda was an auteur of 'the serendipitous moment', ready to take the surrealist encounter between an umbrella and a sewing machine as an inspiration" Alice Blackhurst on Agnès Varda in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/arts/film/a-...

Me disconnecting from someone on LinkedIn and that person trying to connect again with me the next day is a bit creepy, is it not?

Delighted to have @robrubsam.bsky.social on Giono in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social

Publishing Wales, welcoming the world to our stand at the 2025 London Book Fair #LBF Croeso mawr i'r byd gan Gyhoeddi Cymru! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿📚🌏 @bbccymruwales.bsky.social @bbccymrufyw.bsky.social @nation.cymru @golwg.360.cymru