Can’t believe this hilarious joke didn’t take off. Luckily I didn’t think of it till after recording this conversation with @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social about Odysseys through the ages
Nolan vs Homer
Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · 26 July · 52min
podcasts.apple.com
Thomas Jones@moonjets.bsky.social · 2w agoI was so ready for Matt Damon to tell the Cyclops his name was Nolan. Disappointing.
JD Vance: "I think Nixon's historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and deservedly so. I joked that if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12 hours news story. The idea that it took down a presidency is crazy."
Bill Clinton called the White House the ‘crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system’ -- but that’s not how Jill Biden saw it. I wrote about her new memoir for the LRB blog. (With much gratitude to @moonjets.bsky.social) www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ju...
Deborah Friedell | Lemonade and Flowers
Bill Clinton called the White House the ‘crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system’ but that’s not the way...
lrb.co.uk
"You call this fiction, but it is more.” @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social really excellent here on Ben Lerner: www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
‘Facing the Past’ | Christopher Tayler
Ben Lerner’s dazzling new novel, Transcription, plays variations on the conflicts and bonds that are felt among three generations.
nybooks.com
‘Other recent first lady memoirs can make the job seem wearying – one demand after another, unrelenting scrutiny – but not in Jill Biden’s telling.’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on the Bidens in the White House – and leaving it – from the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ju...
Deborah Friedell | Lemonade and Flowers
Bill Clinton called the White House the ‘crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system’ but that’s not the way...
lrb.co.uk
Gavin Newsom learned from his mother that identity was elective. After all, she spoke with a "cut glass English accent" despite being a lifelong Californian. (She picked it up after watching Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady" and never stopped) My piece @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...!
‘Newsom sometimes used to open speeches by saying: “My name is Gavin Newsom and I helped elect George Bush” – a joke, but not a funny one.’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on the California governor. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Deborah Friedell · ‘Gavin, Gavin, we love you!’: Will Newsom run?
Gavin Newsom describes himself as an ‘accidental politician’. The San Francisco mayor Willie Brown anointed him as...
lrb.co.uk
“As Larry Brilliant, who helped to eradicate smallpox … observed, ‘Outbreaks are inevitable. Pandemics are optional.’ The eating of bush meat can’t possibly explain the epidemic, but grotesque and growing disparities in access to care … can.“ By Paul Farmer, from 2014:
Paul Farmer · Diary: Ebola
The Ebola virus is terrifying because it infects most of those who care for the afflicted and kills most of those who...
lrb.co.uk
This pretty much says it all. Thanks to the brilliant @estheraddley.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
‘I am invoking Martha’s rule’: how a woman saved her father from near death in hospital
David Osenton almost died because of medical mistakes and delays, but new rule allowed Karen to demand a second opinion
theguardian.com
Will be heading to the @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk on May 21st to hear the great Lauren Elkin (@laurenelkin.bsky.social) launch "Vocal Break: On Women, Music and Power" www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lauren-elk...
Lauren Elkin & Shahidha Bari: Vocal Break
Lauren Elkin & Shahidha Bari: Vocal Break
eventbrite.co.uk
"Here the four of us were born; here my grandmother died; here my mother died; here my father died ... " For £2 million, you too can live & die at 22 Hyde Park Gate: www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/det...
Hyde Park Gate, London SW7, United Kingdom, Hyde Park,, 2 bed flat for sale, £1,950,000 - Zoopla
2 bed flat for sale in Hyde Park Gate, London SW7, United Kingdom, Hyde Park,, selling for £1,950,000 from UK Sotheby's International Realty. See property details on Zoopla or browse all our range of ...
zoopla.co.uk
I'll be asking the great Gwendoline Riley about new novel The Palm House, and some of the other six, at Daunt Marylebone on 15 April. Be there dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/events/...
dauntbooks.co.uk
RIP Tracy Kidder, who was always one of my writing heroes. His profile of Paul Farmer for @newyorker.com is worth going back to read and treasure. www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...
The Good Doctor
From 2000: Tracy Kidder on Paul Farmer’s mission to heal the world, beginning in Haiti: “The fact that the poor are dying of illnesses for which effective treatments exist is, like many global facts o...
newyorker.com
Calling all young UK writers aged 11-14. Great prizes, and a chance to have your writing published. www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...
The Martha Mills Young Writers’ Prize 2026 | London Review Bookshop
The London Review Bookshop is proud to announce the fourth year of the Martha Mills Young Writers’ Prize. Inspired by the curiosity and imagination of Martha Mills, the…
londonreviewbookshop.co.uk
"Melania" is now streaming on Amazon Prime. I just rewatched the opening sequence to make sure I hadn't hallucinated the use of "Gimme Shelter" ...
London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 5mo ago‘She claims to speak French, German and Italian, but her encounters with French, German and Italian speakers suggest otherwise.’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on Melania Trump. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Hegseth confirms “the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since WWII.” I guess he missed the LRB podcast on the sinking of the Belgrano? www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...
The Belgrano Diary
lrb.co.uk
‘She was an executive producer on 𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘢, with editorial control, yet the film often seems as though it’s been edited by someone who despises her.’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on Melania Trump. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Deborah Friedell · Short Cuts: Versions of Melania
The enduring liberal fantasy that Melania Trump is unwilling, trapped, in need of rescue, #FreeMelania, has never...
lrb.co.uk
"In 1884-5 Gilles de la Tourette, a pupil of Charcot, described the astonishing syndrome which now bears his name" Oliver Sacks in the LRB archive: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v0...
Oliver Sacks · Witty Ticcy Ray
lrb.co.uk
On Wednesday, @jamesmeek.bsky.social will be at the @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk to discuss his latest novel, ‘Your Life Without Me’ with Lara Pawson. Tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/james-meek...
Same thought -- especially after reading @moonjets.bsky.social on 'Lives of the Caesars' www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Thomas Jones · Lords of the World: Keeping Up with the Caesars
As Mary Beard has put it, ‘How could you control and defend a vast empire, stretching from Spain to Syria, with a...
lrb.co.uk
Dr. Jeremy Swist@metalclassicist.bsky.social · 6mo agoAll these Epstein revelations are making me less and less skeptical of what Suetonius wrote about Tiberius on Capri.
The lecture that I gave on January 16 in London, the second of the LRB Winter Lectures, is now available online. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Adam Shatz · Another Country
America is a ‘battlefield’, Simone de Beauvoir wrote, ‘and you can only become passionate about the battle it is...
lrb.co.uk
Keeping the flame of civilisation burning, I wrote about what's really important (English novelists in the Seventies and Eighties) - harpers.org/archive/2026...
The Zone of Silence, by Christopher Tayler
Beryl Bainbridge’s dramas of failed attachment
harpers.org
‘Editors silently rewrote passages that seemed tawdry, or just left them out; it was routine to excise Pepys’s sexual escapades while preserving his wife’s rages, which just made her seem unhinged.’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on Samuel Pepys’s diary. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Deborah Friedell · Lifted Up: Pepys Deciphered
Pepys was a meticulous – some might say compulsive – record-keeper. Into his diary’s pages went social debts (who...
lrb.co.uk
‘In February 1660, Pepys noted that the government was so unpopular that “boys do now cry ‘Kiss my Parliament’ instead of ‘Kiss my arse.’”’ @deborahfriedell.bsky.social on the decipherment of Samuel Pepys. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Deborah Friedell · Lifted Up: Pepys Deciphered
Pepys was a meticulous – some might say compulsive – record-keeper. Into his diary’s pages went social debts (who...
lrb.co.uk
A book I especially loved this year: "The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary" by @kateloveman.bsky.social. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Deborah Friedell · Lifted Up: Pepys Deciphered
Pepys was a meticulous – some might say compulsive – record-keeper. Into his diary’s pages went social debts (who...
lrb.co.uk
“the diary became Pepys’s secret ledger, the place for him to record bribes (‘considerations’) and the elaborate justifications he might one day need to defend them.” @deborahfriedell.bsky.social in @lrb.co.uk
Deborah Friedell · Lifted Up: Pepys Deciphered
Pepys was a meticulous – some might say compulsive – record-keeper. Into his diary’s pages went social debts (who...
lrb.co.uk
