In other Michigan news, the state looks set to elect it's first transgender lawmaker. Joanna Whaley won her Democratic primary and will compete in November for a state house seat, beating a primary opponent who tried and failed to disqualify her for not running under her deadname

The Nero Book Awards should give a special prize to Gwendoline Riley for being the best novelist whose works frequently mention Caffè Nero

Unfathomable

Goodnight

“‘Manchester’ has been a metonym at least twice in the last two hundred years, escaping the orbit of a more generalised ‘North’.” I explore the achievements and failures of the current Manchester model.

London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 2d ago

‘Between 2015 and 2024, nearly a billion pounds of public money was lent on favourable terms to developers who built almost no affordable housing – almost two-thirds of it to one company.’ @harrystopes.bsky.social on Manchester, new on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/au...

Hit the north!

Asked my wife to read the draft of my new novel and she just wrote ‘utter woke nonsense‘ in every margin

love it when the printer boots up and it sounds like a Korn song

darling, funny, illuminated poet lieke marsman died on june 3rd in paris. this is a very difficult read but yes, putting it here.

from On Another Planet They Can Save Me - Asymptote

from God, PerhapsI don’t remember much from the day I was told that I was terminally ill. The one thing I do recall clearly is that I threw myself rather dramatically to the hospital floor,...

asymptotejournal.com

buying a book by hobsbawm: fuck yeah let’s go, this guy rules reading a book by hobsbawn: even after 1820, barley production on the island continued to rise, reaching an annual average of 40 tonnes per year by 1832, and this in a period when trade conditions greatly incentivised wheat production

Scoop: "Bob Vylan Frontman Deported From Germany for Chanting “Death to IDF” at Glastonbury" – my latest @theintercept.com theintercept.com/2026/07/30/b...

Bob Vylan Frontman Deported From Germany for Chanting “Death to IDF” at Glastonbury

Allowing the musician into Germany could “radicalise certain segments of the [German] population,” authorities warned.

theintercept.com

Went to the Tribune launch and it was very hot and crowded but I got to meet Terry Eagleton and gave him a copy of my novel 🙂

haven't seen the film, haven't read the essay

RIP Bill Oddie, I never really knew who you were but you were the subject of lots of great jokes in I'm Alan Partridge

Bill Oddie mentioned in Series 1 of I'm Alan Partridge

YouTube video by M Ward

youtu.be

There are lots of substacks I like that use the platform's newsletter/self-published magazine function but the regular 'feed' over there I find to be absolute poison. At least the literary corners of it are just full of mean-spirited and spiteful industry talk. Makes me feel horrible within minutes.

I would be genuinely gutted if I got to paradise and there were books there

Rae Radford@raeradford.bsky.social · 2w ago

Have you? #BookSky

The @nypost.com sent an undercover reporter, Sofia Pozansky, into our @socialists.nyc Academy session on the Constitution, and came up with this scandalous report: nypost.com/2026/07/25/u...

Exclusive | DSA calls US Constitution ‘rationalization of pirate kingdom’ in workshop to rewrite it

The NYC chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America bashed the US Constitution as “a rationalization of a pirate kingdom” last week at a twisted workshop where it brainstormed ways …

nypost.com

Just finished listening to @jemgilbert.bsky.social and @profafinlayson.bsky.social’s three part podcast series on the state of British universities - such a well informed and lucid analysis of the crisis and its historical and political causes, can’t recommend it highly enough

Universities in Crisis (part 1)

The history of the universities since the mid 20th century and how they have ended up in the current state of crisis.

culturepowerpolitics.org

Daunt Marylebone going for the twin ghosts display

Reading Illusions, a 1959 novel by Ruth Rehmann (translated from German by Rob Madole). Guess what it reminds me of? THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE!!!

Don’t kill yourself Start vape

Remembering the time I had to post a cheque to my analyst and this was the only stamp I had

still sounds great to me

At the point with the second novel where I’m convinced that if I sacked it off and did literally anything else, it would not only be quick and effortless but also a masterpiece

Always good to see a bunch of young lads engaged in the time honoured tradition of going over some shit ramps on bikes

Good entry from Isherwood’s 60s diaries

When I get to those pearly gates they’re gonna hand me a certificate commending my ‘impeccably public spirited conduct in queues and on escalators‘ and it will all have been worth it

Andy Burnham joins Robert Peel, Gordon Brown and Liz Truss on a list of prime ministers whose surnames are also culinary imperatives

Burnham should just sack everyone and not replace them, only way to keep the good vibes going