oh god I just remembered I had another one of those dreams where I meet Donald Trump and he’s very nice to me and I feel really guilty and upset about it even though it’s obviously not my fault that he’s being nice to me
Naomi Alderman
@naomialderman.bsky.social
I write novels (eg The Power, new novel is The Future), I make games (eg Zombies, Run!), unorthodox Jew. not-getting-into-pointless-arguments-on-the-internet is an act of revolution. However complex you think things are, they're more complex than that
I was on Radio 4 today talking about the Couch to 5k for Reading www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Call You & Yours: How do you focus on reading?
Call You & Yours: How do you focus on reading?
bbc.co.uk
it's "tragedy: the worst person you know just made a great point" but in reverse. one does not want it to be true, and yet.
James Ball@jamesrball.com · 4d ago"Asked if the £5m figure was accurate, Arday clarified to the Guardian that the money was raised with the help of “many fundraising collectives over a two-decade period”. When asked to identify other people…Arday said he had signed NDAs preventing him from disclosing that information." 🤔🤔🤔
Reading got me through a difficult childhood with alcoholic parents, dramatic teenage years and a pandemic. It's getting me through whatever this thing that is happening now is, and I highly recommend it.
Naomi Alderman@naomialderman.bsky.social · 3d agoI wrote this for the Guardian about the Couch to 5k for Reading. You can start today, I have a whole 'read across August' idea in this week's post: naomialderman.substack.com/p/ovids-exil... and here is my Reading Clinic: substack.com/chat/2882751... www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...
ah yes. Radio 4 once asked me to debate Milo Yiannopoulos and no. No I do not debate him.
Kameron Hurley@kameronhurley.com · 3d agoYes. Yes. Yes.
I wrote this for the Guardian about the Couch to 5k for Reading. You can start today, I have a whole 'read across August' idea in this week's post: naomialderman.substack.com/p/ovids-exil... and here is my Reading Clinic: substack.com/chat/2882751... www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...
Could a couch-to-5k for books get you back into reading?
With smartphones stealing our attention, we’re picking up fewer books than ever. A novelist shares her eight-week scheme to get you back into the habit
theguardian.com
We are doing 45 minutes of silent reading together online tonight at 10 pm UK time / 5 pm Eastern / 2 pm Pacific. Come along and read with a group of invisibly encouraging strangers! Take back the internet from short-form video! open.substack.com/live-stream/...
LIVE SOON: Silent reading together for 45 minutes
Starting Aug 2 at 5:00 PM EDT
open.substack.com
I fucking love this. Christopher Nolan has done exactly what a blockbuster director should do, and Emily Wilson is doing exactly what a classics academic should do. Top marks all round!
EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 4d agoI cannot rest from discourse. I will see that film again tomorrow. I will drink life to the lees. Again I will enjoy greatly, will suffer greatly, both with those that love me, and in Pleasantville NY. I am become a meme. Film showing: burnsfilmcenter.org/booking/the-...
I used to think that people who did this kind of thing were unhelpfully self-obsessed, but @cate.bsky.social 's very good new book has convinced me that soliciting totally anonymous feedback might be a royal road to some kinds of understanding that are hard to achieve any other way.
Found via the Recommendo newsletter this is really fun: a site that tells you what places near you are mentioned on Wikipedia: en.nearbywiki.org/map/#18/50.8...
NearbyWiki: Wikipedia places nearby
Explore interesting places nearby listed on Wikipedia. Discover sights and destinations in your area or a travel destination.
en.nearbywiki.org
I wrote about a complicated man who is exiled far from home and prevented from coming back by an angry god. Yes, that's right, Ovid. open.substack.com/pub/naomiald...
reading is being in good company
week 5 of the Couch to 5k for reading including: Ovid, thoughts from Anna Wharton, and the reason to do your washing up in silence sometimes
open.substack.com
sometimes the thought crosses my mind of using an LLM to suggest a scene for a novel. It's so helpful at eg finding a restaurant near a tube station or how to return a faulty item. But even READING one of its stupid poorly-argued ideas for my book wd feel like someone vomiting on a holy shrine.
in other news I got a pitch email from an outfit called Impresshyn and apart from anything else I am simply not going to be working with anything spelled that way
I'm feeling like maybe I should write something on: how to start a community. You start with you and one friend trying to live near enough to each other that you can walk to each other's houses. You host a regular meal for other friends who live nearby, at home or somewhere local and cheap.
Naomi Alderman@naomialderman.bsky.social · last wk.Communities also obviously have the effect of making us happier. Whereas so much climate praxis seems to be about things you can give up and ways you can make yourself more miserable.
I’m doing a live half-hour let’s all silently read together at 10pm UK time tonight (5pm ET/2pm PT) if you want to join in. Nothing happens, I just read a book on screen for half an hour & you can say what you’re reading in the comments if you want open.substack.com/live-stream/...?
LIVE SOON: Quiet reading together online for 30 minutes. That’s it!
Starting Jul 26 at 5:00 PM EDT
open.substack.com
Naomi Alderman@naomialderman.bsky.social · 2w agoWeek 4 of the Couch to 5k for reading is here! You can still jump in any time, or jump back on if it got away from you last week! open.substack.com/pub/naomiald...
Week 4 of the Couch to 5k for reading is here! You can still jump in any time, or jump back on if it got away from you last week! open.substack.com/pub/naomiald...
the more you read, the easier it gets
week 4 of the Couch to 5k for reading. the more you read, the more you want to do it, and the more ideas you get of what you want to read
open.substack.com
The most authentic way to hear the stories of Homer is told to you by the best living bard you can find in your time who knows the tale and wants to tell it. So that’s all settled.
God(s) I bloody loved the Odyssey. Weaving in the end of Palace Culture and the Sea Peoples was EXTREMELY strong work.
The people who commented that most of LA isn’t like this, and that I, an ignorant British / East Coaster, know nothing about the city, are quite right. I will only add that Homer almost certainly knew nothing first hand about Ithaca. It was all hearsay and tropes.
Thanks @naomialderman.bsky.social for both this project and her book 'The Future,' which helped me embrace an episode of insomnia this morning ... 200 pages later, and I didn't want to stop reading. I really really like the 'Couch to 5k' frame for reading! naomialderman.substack.com/p/couch-to-5...
reading instead of scrolling will make you happier
'couch to 5k' for reading, week 2: some lovely readers have made us *trackers*! and: how has it gone?! how are you enjoying it?
naomialderman.substack.com
I am going to tell you some of my most embarrassing AI and internet use. Just because I think it's maybe helpful to normalise this stuff. Internet: sometimes when I'm feeling sad about something I am working on, I go and look at only the five-star reviews of my books on Goodreads. Only for 5 min.
Look I’m just doing some academic boasting but: I just got a distinction in my first year undergrad maths with the OU and I’m feeling very proud of myself. 😁
Weirdly I have come to suspect that the biggest victims of cognitive surrender right now are some people who work in the AI industry
Aurelien Mondon@aurelmondon.com · 2w ago"Cognitive surrender" is a fascinating concept to think about the impact of AI as it exists under reactionary tech Preventing people from thinking for themselves and imagining different worlds is a godsend for authoritarians thenextweb.com/news/wharton...
It is amazing how much I’ve accomplished in my life and yet every time I’m meeting someone new in person there is a part of my brain figuring out how to handle it if they turn out to hate fat people. It doesn’t happen that often but it’s always wildly unpredictable who will.
my favourite opinion about Homer is: it’s an oral text so it is much MORE authentic to listen to the audiobook than to read the Iliad or Odyssey on the page. watching it as a film while people around you eat, drink & chat is more authentic than reading it quietly to yourself in a silent library.
If you’re up and scrolling you could be up and reading. Just ten minutes to get started, it does feel better than scrolling 🥰 open.substack.com/pub/naomiald...
'reading is a radical act'
"Couch to 5k" for reading week 3. includes: an interview with Emma Gannon! a celebration of reading plays! and: how to memorise a poem! (if you want to)
open.substack.com
Now 828-741 to England. The match cannot be stopped. Players running around in tears. Bellingham spinning on the spot. The ball is screaming.