MasterThief Press
@masterthiefpress.bsky.social
Small Small Publisher Art and Literature | Artist Books Author and Artist Generated Founded by Peter Lyssiotis 1980. Novel | Man Alone https://www.asterismbooks.com/product/man-alone Original profile cover artwork Scarlett Hesterman Sykes
Cusk's narrators encounter people in two-dimensional form. Perhaps we all do that. But the problem is, why bother putting it into an artful narrative? We know how shallow we are, or can be. But with art, something transformative is possible. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/28/m...
Rachel Cusk Tried to Caricature Natalie Portman. She Only Caricatured Herself.
Her latest novel appears to savage a celebrity. But Cusk has, once again, managed to turn herself into the victim.
nytimes.com
Europe's right wing now concerned that Africans are immigrating to Africa. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/w...
Europe’s Far Right, Once Marginal, Now Sets Tone on Spain Migrant Crisis
Europe sheltered many refugees in 2015. Its hard-line reaction to a new crisis in Ceuta shows how, 11 years on, the far right has reshaped European attitudes.
nytimes.com
Forgive us all for wondering "Our ABC" but why do you give so much media time and attention to this piece of slime? This is an extensive article on racial division. Unless you editorialise that you are against it, then it sounds more like you're enabling it. THINK. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07...
Hanson laments end of White Australia policy on Tommy Robinson podcast
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has blamed the end of the White Australia policy for migration issues in the country during a controversial podcast appearance with a far-right activist in the UK.
abc.net.au
We did a whip around the office for Wikipedia. There's good shit there. Something has to be real, it can't just be about billionaires and AI. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Con...
The Concept of Mind - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
So, Australia still has copyright laws. And the tech companies don't like that. They want a world without intellectual property laws. So basically they admit they steal off everyone's hard labour and use it for their own ends. So, they steal. It's not even for art. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07...
A 60-year-old law could decide if Australia gets billions in AI investments
Tens of billions of dollars in investment, and Australia's ambition to become a global AI power, could hinge on a law written in 1968 for an era of black-and-white television, film and radio.
abc.net.au
Clearly the art world is f**king clueless if an award committee know nothing about the art world. Can't wait for this kind of scam to become mainstream. And is anyone left who knows how to read in the literary world who can tell if a book is ripped off? www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06...
Award-winning artwork revealed as 'blatant copy'
The Doyles award committee is investigating why it took nearly 12 months to discover a winning landscape painting was an imitation of another artist's work.
abc.net.au
Wonder how long it takes for everyone to work out that the money came from Gina Rinehart bots. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06...
Live: One Nation fundraising drive receives $1.6m in donations
One Nation says it has received $1.6 million in donations after launching a drive in response to a Labor fundraising campaign. Follow live.
abc.net.au
Deeply troubling news. The share of wealth going to billionaires will only grow each year. It can only be stopped by wealth taxes and inheritance taxes. These people own the assets that even if passively invested yields enormous return. And they mess with politcs www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Australia’s 178 billionaires are $25.7bn richer than last year as 3.7 million live in poverty
Oxfam finds the 20 richest Australians now hold more wealth than the bottom 3 million households
theguardian.com
Save the sugar gliders from conservative stupidity, NOW. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Anti-abortion activist concedes pictures of human foetuses may have been sugar glider joeys
Joanna Howe posts on social media that if purported images of human foetuses are in fact sugar gliders, ‘it doesn’t actually matter’
theguardian.com
Sonny Rollins gone. Great talent. Brought us beautiful music. We need more of it. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05...
Jazz legend Sonny Rollins dies at 95
Rollins, one of the greatest saxophonists of all time, played with everyone from Miles Davis to The Rolling Stones.
abc.net.au
Wow, a pointless book driven by sensational media coverage of an event wins major prize.Garner's sensationalising tactics earn her more accolades, claims something just bothers her about it all. Just get plugins straight to the brain. Reading/thinking is pointless. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05...
The Mushroom Tapes, Mad Mabel and Memorial Days triumph at book awards
In May 2025, Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein, three literary true-crime writers, headed to Erin Patterson's trial. The resulting book just won an Australian Book Industry Award.
abc.net.au
It's really pointless arguing, it's about the times we live in. Though Persuasion is better than Emma and I'm pleased to see Tristram Shandy up there (someone has read their literature). But White Teeth is just Guardian appeasement. www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
The 100 best novels of all time
The top 100 novels of all time published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?
theguardian.com
Would prefer Booker to split into an international prize in translation and an international prize in English Literature. English is spoken across the world and we need works that challenge the language. Otherwise, well, we only get banality. www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
International Booker prize goes to novel originally written in Mandarin Chinese for the first time
Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, pulled off an ‘incredible double feat’ in succeeding as ‘both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel’
theguardian.com
So, Olga uses AI. Olga thinks long prose is no longer economically viable. Gloves are off, Flights was one long tiresome banality that would no doubt have benefited from AI augmentation (sarcasm, btw). Give the Nobel back for someone else who likes to write. mycompanypolska.pl/artykul/olga...
Olga Tokarczuk zapowiada ostatnią powieść w karierze: „Pisanie długich opowieści jest dziś ekonomicznie nieopłacalne”
Czy w świecie powszechnego pędu i pośpiechu jest jeszcze miejsce na duże, wymagające opowieści? Olga Tokarczuk wyraża obawę, że ta era dobiegła końca. Dlatego najnowszą powieść, uważa za ostatnią w ka...
mycompanypolska.pl
Needs a nudge. JM Coetzee sticks to his writing themes. www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026...
Complicity and collective guilt — JM Coetzee shuns Jerusalem literary festival
In late April, when South African literary giant JM Coetzee declined an invitation to a writers’ festival in Jerusalem, it meant a lot more than another throwaway tweet from a Hollywood celebrity. Wha...
dailymaverick.co.za
Bringing in a manager with 'big character' can't help a club like Chelsea which lacks any character at all. www.theguardian.com/football/202...
Chelsea players want new manager to be big character who can command respect
Chelsea’s players feel Liam Rosenior’s successor needs to be a big character who can command the respect of the dressing room and keep strong egos in line
theguardian.com
Good of LARB to share articles for free every day. If prestige fiction is in decline/dead, why so many writing courses? Unless they have no literary interests anymore, just genre reproduction. Is academia even interested in language or just reproducing banality? lareviewofbooks.org/article/nove...
Prestige Fiction Is Dead | Los Angeles Review of Books
Evan Brier’s recent book conducts a depressing literary autopsy, complete with case studies.
lareviewofbooks.org
Bansky is a collective, you fools! www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...
Banksy's anonymity has been shredded along with the mystery of his work
Does Banksy's success mean we are more entitled to demand he pull his mask off, show his face? Does it matter that he says his anonymity is core to his art?
abc.net.au
Walter Benjamin once wrote: “Capitalism is entirely without precedent. It is a religion which offers not the reform of existence, but its complete destruction.” He could clearly see in the 1930s what has come back into view for us now. Capitalist nihilism is back.
Does Chris Minns not understand that backing police for beating up muslims in prayer, prostrate on the ground, immersed in spiritual thoughts is about as bad as anything Pauline Hanson has ever said. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Australia news live: Chris Minns accuses Pauline Hanson of ‘racist intervention’, backs police who disrupted Muslim prayers at protest
Follow live
theguardian.com
Gary Stevenson is worth listening to. He's smart and comes from that end of town where people are now suffering. Referring to him as a millionaire is the ABC way of protecting property values by diluting his message. He's smart, and cares about what's happened. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02...
Millionaire economist's dire warning for Australian property market
British economist Gary Stevenson is on a speaking tour, warning Australia will follow the path of the UK with "poverty exploding" unless politicians deal with inequality.
abc.net.au
Sent a few copies of Man Alone to Denmark last week. We've now sold (outside of Australia) to USA, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece in three years. Yeah, we're small.
