In this episode, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to novelist Emily Franklin about her new book Love & Other Monsters, which narrates the story from the point of view of the fifth member of the group, Mary Shelley's stepsister Claire Clairmont, whom Mary tried to erase from history. #books #literature

824 Why Did Mary Shelley Try to Erase Her? The Claire Clairmont …

It's an often-told, momentous story: how in the summer of 1816, four friends, including famed Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, along with Mary Go…

historyofliterature.com

And all the next day Toad played music for his seeds.

In Episode 823 (a rebroadcast), @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to James Shapiro (Shakespeare in a Divided America) about how Shakespeare offers insights about America's past and future. #books #literature #shakespeare @penguinbooksusa.bsky.social @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social

823 Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, and Shakespeare in a Div…

United States President Abraham Lincoln and his assassin John Wilkes Booth were both deeply immersed in Shakespeare's works. And yet, the conclusions they reached a…

historyofliterature.com

"Her daylight courage and self-importance, and her shuddering delight in the mystery, irritated me beyond words." – Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Circular Staircase #botd #literature #books #mysteries

"The perception of a character in a story written with compassion is, for both the reader and the writer, a perception closer to divine than human." – Andre Dubus, "At the Algonquin" #botd #books #literature #stories

"Soon fly the leaves in throngs. O love, though once I lay Far from its sound to weep, When night divides my sleep, When stars, the autumn stream, Stillness, divide my dream, Night to your voice belongs." – Louise Bogan, "Song for a Lyre" #botd #poetry #literature #books

@jackewilson.bsky.social talks to Lydia Willsky-Ciollo about her book Wildness: Henry David Thoreau and the Making of an American Theology, which describes how Thoreau's experiences in nature helped him imagine and develop a distinctly American theology of the wild. #books @undpress.bsky.social

822 Wild Thoreau (with Lydia Willsky-Ciollo) | My Last Book with…

Henry David Thoreau was not a traditional Christian, and yet he was a deeply, profoundly religious man. In this episode, Jacke talks to Lydia Willsky-Ciollo about h…

historyofliterature.com

Toad took a deep bow. Frog looked smaller as he shouted, “Hooray for Toad!”

Then Toad poured a glass of water over his head.

For more about the Romans, take a listen to @jackewilson.bsky.social's conversation with Edward J. Watts, author of The Romans: A 2,000-Year History. #books #history @basicbooksgroup.bsky.social

764 Two Thousand Years of Roman History (with Edward J. Watts) |…

What do we talk about when we talk about ancient Romans? For many of us, it's typically a fairly narrow slice of history: the toga-clad figures of Cicero and Caesar…

historyofliterature.com

Los Angeles Review of Books@lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 2w ago

"Watts’s stress on the 'adaptability' of Rome produces a strangely efficient and benign portrait of empire" Harry Sidebottom explores Edward Watts's "The Romans: A 2,000-Year History": http://lareviewofbooks.org/article/romans-2000-year-history-edward-watts-political-historiography

James Baldwin, b. Aug 2, 1924 In this episode, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to Nicholas Boggs, author of Baldwin: A Love Story, the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades. #books #literature #biography @fsgbooks.bsky.social

768 Young James Baldwin (with Nicholas Boggs) | My Last Book wit…

The American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin (1924-1987) spent the second half of his life as a fixture in American intellectual life. But what forme…

historyofliterature.com

The kiss! What could be more romantic? In this episode, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to author Katie Barclay about her new book, The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power. #books #literature @uchicagopress.bsky.social @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

821 A History of the Kiss (with Katie Barclay) | Wonderland Book…

The kiss! What could be more romantic? And yet, as historian Katie Barclay discovered when writing her book The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power, she found non-…

historyofliterature.com

Really enjoyed the exhibition on that most gifted of Elizabethan poets, Christopher Marlowe, as a son of Canterbury at the city's Beaney Museum. Congratulations to @memsunikent.bsky.social's @loughnrv.bsky.social and the team on a stimulating show.

"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask." – Herman Melville, August 1, 1819 #books #literature

481 Moby Dick - 10 Essential Questions (Part One)

Here we go! Moby-Dick; or, the Whale (1851) by Herman Melville is one of the greatest - and strangest - novels you will ever read. Call it what you will - a literar…

historyofliterature.com

reading a bit of balzac's bio. imagine frantically turning to novel writing as a career because you have debts! what a different planet 18th-19th century france was. #balzactogether

Our 8/20 issue is now online, with @danielmendelsohn.bsky.social on the Odyssey, Michael Greenberg on the DSA, Mark Danner on Trump in decline, @lauramarsh.bsky.social on John Lanchester, @davidcole-gtown.bsky.social on the Supreme Court’s power grab, a poem by Anne Carson & much more.

August 20, 2026 Summer Issue

Table of Contents

nybooks.com

Anahid Nersessian on Jorie Graham’s unflinching poetry

Refusing to Look Away | Anahid Nersessian

In Killing Spree, the poet Jorie Graham pursues an essentially ethical impulse to find a true language for the evil in the world.

nybooks.com

"The silence folded in about the heart Whispers strange longings to the broken soul" – Eva Gore-Booth, "The Incarnate" In Episode 820, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to Sonja Tiernan about her book Eva Gore-Booth: Irish Radical Poet, Rebel, and Reformer. #books #literature @manchesterup.bsky.social

820 Irish Radical Poet Eva Gore-Booth (with Sonja Tiernan)

After reading an email from a listener in Ghana, Jacke talks to Sonja Tiernan about her book Eva Gore-Booth: Irish Radical Poet, Rebel, and Reformer, which tells th…

historyofliterature.com

From the archives, celebrating Emily Brontë #botd In Episode 763, @jackewilson.bsky.social takes a look at the five reviews of Wuthering Heights that Emily Brontë clipped and kept in her desk drawer between the book's publication and her tragically early death at the age of 30. #books #literature

763 Emily's Desk Drawer

After the publication of her debut novel Wuthering Heights in December of 1847, Emily Brontë - still writing under her pen name Ellis Bell - joined Currer and Acton…

historyofliterature.com

For more about Stein, take a listen to @jackewilson.bsky.social's conversation with Stein biographer Francesca Wade. #books #literature #biography @scribnerbooks.bsky.social @simonandschuster.bsky.social

766 Gertrude Stein (with Francesca Wade) | Ruskin on the Only On…

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) has long been one of the most famous - and most polarizing - figures in modernism. Was she a trailblazing genius? Or a literary charlatan…

historyofliterature.com

Publishers Weekly@publisherswkly.bsky.social · 3w ago

A recent cluster of genre-spanning books variously interpret, adapt, and play with the life and legacy of the modernist icon, as well as that of her longtime partner Alice B. Toklas. Their shared subject matter is probably a coincidence—or is it?

"There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality." – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America #botd #books #history

In the mail: been holding back with the review-copy-requests as I settle in and wait for my US library to arrive (it's almost here ...), but nice to get a quartet of ... exquisite things and strange wonders, from @harvardpress.bsky.social Looking forward to all of these.

Some writers are lucky and really love both writing and their day job. I count myself in this group. The California Department of Justice did a video on my writing life and my role as a Senior Assistant Attorney General. Proud to serve California! youtu.be/i6y2_pydbnU?...

Meet Your DOJ: Daniel Olivas

YouTube video by California Department of Justice

youtu.be

"Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more." – Elizabeth Hardwick #botd #books #literature

Totally agree - the lighthouse-building family background, the sometimes frail body with the radiant eyes and presence, the pursuit of his wife across the continent, his itinerant lifestyle… and those books!

Daniel A. Olivas@danielolivas.bsky.social · 3w ago

Loved this episode with Glenda Norquay! As a young boy, I fell into the spell of Treasure Island and Kidnapped. I just re-read Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and appreciated it more as an adult. Robert Louis Stevenson lived such an interesting life.

Loved this episode with Glenda Norquay! As a young boy, I fell into the spell of Treasure Island and Kidnapped. I just re-read Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and appreciated it more as an adult. Robert Louis Stevenson lived such an interesting life.

Previous winners Douglas Stuart and Marlon James lead a Brit-heavy Booker prize longlist

Previous winners Douglas Stuart and Marlon James lead a Brit-heavy Booker prize longlist

Chair of judges Mary Beard said each of the 13 books in contention for the £50,000 award ‘takes the reader to new places’ • Comment: This Booker longlist may have two previous winners, but it’s keen to experiment Douglas Stuart and Marlon James, two previous winners of the Booker, have been named on this year’s longlist, alongside three-time nominee Elizabeth Strout, in a collection that “rewards risk”. The 13 novels selected for the 2026 prize, announced on Tuesday, feature authors of seven nationalities across three continents, with almost half from the UK. Ten of the writers are appearing on a Booker longlist for the first time, including three debut novelists: Kenan Orhan, Rebecca Perry and Djamel White. Continue reading...

theguardian.com

"Each image fits into place, with the calm Of not having too many, of having just enough. We live in the sigh of our present." – John Ashbery, "Blue Sonata" #botd #books #literature

@drjamesbailey.bsky.social She hasn't been able to put it down. She's even bought it out with her. She days it's brilliant.

In this episode, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to biographer Glenda Norquay (Robert Louis Stevenson: A Critical Life) about the amazing life of Robert Louis Stevenson, the Scottish author of classic works like Kidnapped and Treasure Island. #books #literature @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

819 Robert Louis Stevenson (with Glenda Norquay) | The Rise of H…

After discussing a news article detailing the rise of "hot literati," Jacke talks to biographer Glenda Norquay (Robert Louis Stevenson: A Critical Life) about the a…

historyofliterature.com