Look, Middlemarch is a great novel. It complexly mediates class conflict, the commodification of all life, emerging ideological structures in Victorian capitalism. I just personally think it’s more impressive when a novel does that through a story about a guy who hates a weird fish.

It's your boys @rezekjoe.bsky.social and me in The Boston Globe! In print on Sunday! (We are in a big fight about how to interpret the ending of Poe's novel and the illustration poignantly captures the strain in our friendship.)

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/24/a...

Axios writer: I melted my brain with AI. Not only can I no longer read, but I don't even understand the purpose of reading anymore. Here's how you can also do this.

www.axios.com/2026/08/11/r...

Very interested to see this film, especially given the positive reviews from Cannes.

CLARISSA, an adaptation of MRS DALLOWAY set in modern-day Lagos. The Film Comment reviewers have been raving about it, too. #FilmSky #BookSky 💙📚

www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ma...

A better version of the image for the Cat's Cradle read-along (our feed is bsky.app/profile/did:...) 🧊

Caught up and even slightly ahead, I’d been lulled by slow unfurling and was shocked when the plot started moving. 🧊

Would be remiss not to highlight Bokonon’s tiger poem and make the comparison:

Hung out with a couple of pocket homies I’d never met today and it was pretty cool. meet your mutuals, folks

A few years later I tried to convince a lecture hall filled with undergraduates that Miss Havisham experienced erotic pleasure by deploying Estella as a romantic menace to men — that Estella was basically a metaphorical dildo (this claim exists in Victorian scholarship!). They hated me so much.

Which Jane Austen book should the bs bookclub read in May? Select one. 📖

1️⃣ <a href="https://poll.blue/p/GFKmm4/1" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link="bsky">Persuasion
2️⃣ <a href="https://poll.blue/p/GFKmm4/2" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link="bsky">Sense and Sensibility
3️⃣ <a href="https://poll.blue/p/GFKmm4/3" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link="bsky">Emma

📊 Show results

The fun thing about reading a 400 year old comic novel is that you can google a scene and find a dozen renderings of it almost instantly. #dq25

Maritornes, the poor maid, causing a slapstick scuffle with Don Quixote while trying to find her dude.. I think the first one here is a colorized Doré.

I wrote about the pleasures of book clubs, particularly when invited to join book clubs reading my work. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...