"An Indian conservationist and mountaineer, Suryawanshi pursues the creature through the Himalayas and Gobi desert. This is a gritty and detailed portrait of an often misunderstood and endangered species in an increasingly hostile, crowded and hot environment." www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

The Ghost of the Mountains by Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi review – the secrets of the snow leopard

An Indian mountaineer follows in the footsteps of explorers and conservationists in search of an enigmatic animal

theguardian.com

The diarrhea lettuce company, Taylor Farms, uses slave labor contracted from the Arizona Dept. of Corrections. The backbreaking labor is often performed by imprisoned Mexican nationals who would be otherwise ineligble to work in the US. They are paid $1.50 an hour.

The Diarrhea Lettuce Company Has Been Linked to Forced Labor

The lettuce-producing Taylor Farms was linked to the widespread use of prison labor before its involvement in a cyclospora outbreak.

futurism.com

A few things that I read & enjoyed in the past couple of weeks: Eve Babitz's razor-sharp essays; magic realism in 1950s Iran from Shahrnush Parsipur; and a polyvocal pageturner by Donal Ryan. 📚

"The Broken King is an extraordinary read – deeply personal and intimate, but also expansive and free-ranging, taking in everything from TS Eliot (the title comes from Eliot’s poem Little Gidding) to James Baldwin, Brazilian football and the Rolling Stones." www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

‘I had a really crippling break’: how author Michael Thomas lost 20 years to mania, depression and more

In 2006 the novel Man Gone Down made Thomas famous and won him a €100,000 prize. He expected to produce a follow-up within a year – but life had other plans

theguardian.com

"It’s been 10 years since the publication of “Hillbilly Elegy,” by Vice President JD Vance, and we finally have an Appalachian memoir worthy of its origins, by a Gen Z writer — an eighth-generation Appalachian — who is too smart, and too authentically of her place, to reinscribe stereotypes."

Book Review: ‘All That’s Unseen,’ by Emilee Hackney (Gift Article)

“All That’s Unseen,” by Emilee Hackney, an eighth-generation Appalachian, offers a portrait both loving and cleareyed of the region that formed her.

nytimes.com

Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.

This is a sad and shocking loss. #speirgorm #spéirghorm Glen Hansard, singer, frontman of The Frames and Oscar winner, has died aged 56 jrnl.ie/7116253

Glen Hansard, singer, frontman of The Frames and Oscar winner, has died aged 56

The Oscar-winning songwriter and longtime Frames frontman has died.

jrnl.ie

Glad to see this sad loss to the hardcore scene - and to music generally - being recognized in @theguardian.com 🎸🤘 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Lou Koller, frontman of New York hardcore band Sick of It All, dies aged 59

Keller, who co-founded the celebrated band in 1986, had been battling cancer of the esophagus

theguardian.com

"The chapter on Carnegie and Sumner also conveys something else. It’s the scholars and writers in this book who often turn out to be some of inequality’s most vehement ideologues." www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/b...

The Men Who Believed Some Men Are More Equal Than Others (Gift Article)

In a new book, the historian Kim Phillips-Fein chronicles a “shadow tradition” of anti-egalitarians who fought against America’s founding ideals.

nytimes.com

"The mechanics of it all are tantalisingly opaque, but it seems as though the outage at the datacentre has produced a glitch that has jumbled up time, space and consciousness, opening a portal between a modern subjectivity and a medieval fantasy world." #MedievalSky

Air by Christian Kracht review – a metaphysical jigsaw puzzle

A portal opens from our modern world of data centres and interior design into a medieval fantasy realm, in this playfully surreal tale from the author of Eurotrash

theguardian.com

shutting down academic programs is virtually never about the quality of those programs and often it’s not really even about their actual student numbers or “appeal” very little management policy towards the humanities is specifically “about” research or teaching in the humanities at all, in fact

Matt Gabriele@profgabriele.com · 2w ago

just got an email from my (former) chair that the university has acted & the state has approved the formal closure of my department. this was done without any faculty input on the decision or the process, & has ended a vibrant, growing (!), humanities department that won teaching and research awards

just got an email from my (former) chair that the university has acted & the state has approved the formal closure of my department. this was done without any faculty input on the decision or the process, & has ended a vibrant, growing (!), humanities department that won teaching and research awards

Matt Gabriele@profgabriele.com · 12mo ago

Anyway, happy Monday! The Dean is shutting down my department - Religion & Culture, the only 1 of is kind in the country & home to the innovative Major in Humanities for Public Service. There is no immediate budgetary or political pressure for this decision

Duty-bound to do this, I'm afraid: "global" is an inappropriate framing. This is a hemispheric thing. The hemispheres are separate until the Columbian exchange.

Carlos Noreña@carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 2w ago

Ancient history has gone global. This is surely the most exciting development in the field in the last 30 years! But what "global antiquity" is and how we should study it—and why anyone should care—are all open (and challenging) questions. Some thoughts on all of this for @aeon.co.

Ancient history has gone global. This is surely the most exciting development in the field in the last 30 years! But what "global antiquity" is and how we should study it—and why anyone should care—are all open (and challenging) questions. Some thoughts on all of this for @aeon.co.

"Now along comes Cool Machine ... which pitches us into the ... 1980s. That means hip-hop on the stereo, graffiti on the subway cars & a widening gulf between rich & poor. ... a plot that plays like pop-art Marxist noir, jam-packed with cultural references & thrumming with class & racial tensions."

Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead review – final part of the Harlem Trilogy is freewheeling fun

The grit and grandeur of 80s New York drive this rollicking story of an underground wheeler-dealer

theguardian.com

A Woodstown Update Wonderful to see Woodstown featured in today's Irish Times in a great article by Libby Marchant! Do check it out if you can. We're currently working in post-excavation analysis at the moment, so hopefully we'll have more updates to come.

Vanquished by the baby you washed is some Athena bullshit

Thomas Paine’s 'Rights of Man' sold more copies in Ireland than any other country, helping to shape political debate in the years leading up to the 1798 Rebellion. In the latest issue of History Ireland, Fergus Whelan examines his enduring influence in Ireland. historyireland.com/thomas-paine...

THOMAS PAINE, IRELAND AND THE IRISH GHOST - History Ireland

By Fergus Whelan Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, England, in 1737. He had worked as a staymaker and a customs officer before emigrating to the North American colonies in 1774, where he quickly foun...

historyireland.com

"There are no big epiphanies: time unfolds in quiet increments; new losses are accrued; mysteries are set up only to remain unanswered. ... In Armstrong’s meditative and profound novel, such uncertainty, so exquisitely rendered, is more than enough to sustain us to the end."

The Red Mouth by Sheila Armstrong review – profound exploration of Ireland’s deep time

Sinister bogland discoveries haunt the intersecting lives of four characters in this meditative, exquisitely written tale

theguardian.com

"His goal has been to write 10 books per week, which is the maximum Amazon allows." www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t...

Someone Used A.I. to Write an Unauthorized Biography of Me. I Don’t Recommend Reading It. (Gift Article)

Someone used A.I. to write my biography. Thousands more of those books are polluting Amazon. Who is behind all this drivel?

nytimes.com

Lol. 😭

maura quint@mauraquint.bsky.social · 3w ago

I respect France's commitment to not working on a holiday.

France were supposed to help me celebrate my daughter's Bastille Day birthday. It did not go according to plan 😭⚽️

Elizabeth Boyle@thecelticist.bsky.social · 3w ago

Can't believe that I am the mother of a 20 year old! 😱 Happiest of birthdays to my beautiful Nora!

"The full details of this analysis are yet to be released, but it appears that the shaman had Beaker ancestry, which was typical in Britain at the time. The skeleton’s biological sex came as a surprise, however." www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Ancient DNA analysis reveals Wiltshire’s Upton Lovell Shaman was a woman

Exclusive: Analysis offers ‘smoking gun evidence’ that overturns previous assumption that bronze age individual was male

theguardian.com

Can't believe that I am the mother of a 20 year old! 😱 Happiest of birthdays to my beautiful Nora!

'“Of all the vices, I find books to be the least dangerous,” Mizrahi said.' www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/s...

Too Many Books? (Gift Article)

Mendel Uminer faced a crisis when his landlord objected to the 10,000 volumes in his New York studio apartment.

nytimes.com

Some good recommendations here if you're looking for a short read! 📚 www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

Pressed for time? 20 brilliant books you can read in a day

From novels by James Baldwin and Han Kang to a guide to quantum physics – a former Booker prize judge recommends immersive one-sitting wonders

theguardian.com

📢 Applications are open for the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association's Advocacy & Engagement Fellowship. Theme: Openness & Transparency 💰 £4,000 stipend + £1,000 project fund 📅 Deadline: 17 August 2026 Link: digitalhumanities-uk-ie.org/2026/07/06/2... #DigitalHumanities #OpenResearch #DH

"His histories of the movies are invitations to a seance, a chance to participate in the kind of ecstatic trance or dream-state that Cousins himself goes into, almost free-associating from film to film but with an overarching ... theme ... and always with something shrewd, pertinent and humane ..."

The Story of Documentary Film (The 1980s) review – Mark Cousins educates and intrigues once more

The film-maker and critic traces a decade of documentaries, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to Michael Moore, via Klaus Barbie and The Wombles

theguardian.com

I had not posted about it but as I am now earnestly grappling with it: I am writing another book for @bodleian.ox.ac.uk Bodleian Publishing, 'Tales of Horror from Medieval England'. Expect translated narratives of violence, sorcery, fearsome creatures, the undead, and the end times.

'The semicolon, for example, was created by a Venetian master printer named Aldo Manuzio, who hung a sign on his door that read: “Whoever you are, Aldo asks you again and again what it is you want from him. State your business briefly, and then immediately go away.”'

On the Mark by Florence Hazrat review – a fascinating history of punctuation

This lavishly researched book shows that dots and dashes are an essential component of style, whether you’re a medieval monk or Donald Trump

theguardian.com