Philosopher Michael Sandel calls for moral and spiritual values in public discourse, urging us to pursue the moral impulses we are moved by. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/b...
02.03.2026 21:15
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Philosopher Michael Sandel calls for moral and spiritual values in public discourse, urging us to pursue the moral impulses we are moved by. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/b...
Recommend! @praddenkeefe.bsky.social has found an extraordinary story with an incredible cast of characters that really encapsulates the weirdness of how London has changed these past decades. It's gripping and published by @picadorbooks.bsky.social
Writers, beware - these literary scams have mushroomed in recent months. The scammers are very patient and their messages can be fairly sophisticated. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/b...
Mary Magdalene, painted in 17th Century by Artemisia Gentileschi, freed from male gaze, exists for no one but herself - Katy Hessel www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
Tunnel 29 creator Helena Merriman excels at revisiting modern history in a fresh way and shaping it into a breathtaking story. Here she does it again with Putin ad the Apartment Bombs - if you are looking for something gripping. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
How to Win a Trade War by Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown is your essential and friendly guide to unfriendly times. Everything you need to know and more.
'What trips us up, she says is our longing to believe, especially in things that conform to our understanding of the world.'
'But wait, I ask, if we’ve evolved the ability to fool each other with our stories why do we lack an equally strong defence to detect when we’re being sold a bill of goods?
“Let’s make a distinction between knowledge and belief,” Atwood says. “Knowledge is provable(...)'
'At other times Atwood has called attention to the doubled-edged nature of Darwin’s gift. This is because people tell stories not just to explain where the next meal is coming from or share tips about where danger lies. Stories are also for deceiving competitors and camouflaging our intentions.'
'As Atwood writes, the cues that humans pick up from their environment can be mentally organized “as a series of events and actions centring around a cast of characters.” From there, it’s a short step to the first proto-Shakespeare'
'she makes the case for storytelling as part of humanity’s evolutionary legacy.Some scientists have argued that the neural wiring that allowed our(...)ancestors to track animals & reconstruct their movements across the landscape is the same cognitive hardware that makes us natural-born storytellers'
Margaret Atwood on the evolutionary underpinnings of storytelling. We are hard-wired to tell them (what the Maddaddam trilogy is partly about: our need for stories and our need for beliefs). www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/book...
Siri Hustvedt reflects on over forty years of love and life with Paul Auster - GHOST STORIES: A MEMOIR @sceptrebooks.bsky.social
‘Preston captures the fractured legacy of British Intelligence and the ghosts it leaves behind with haunting precision. I was captivated from start to finish.’ Peter Frankopan
A STRANGER IN CORFU is out today @alexpreston.bsky.social
An unforgettable love story and a state-of-the-nation thriller that asks universal questions about desire, complicity, and what happens when your sense of self collapses with the world around you. MY ONLY BOY by Rosa Rankin-Gee
Wayne McGregor’s ballet Woolf Works reaches the kind of emotional and intellectual intensity that leaves you stunned. Impossible not to respond to its beauty. Sold out now but you can see it live in cinemas and it’s worth it. www.rbo.org.uk/tickets-and-... Based on the works of Virginia Woolf.
How I became an agent, in praise of working for the best in the industry and what publishing could do better www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/free-ar...
For the month of February the best charity pairs up with the best bookshop. @bookshop.org @booktrust.org.uk
Read it forward.
The Sunday Times on the crisis in non-fiction - we lost 17million non-fiction book sales in just over half a decade - with some good contributions from Mark Richards and my colleague John Ash. A) we have been here before B) non-fiction needs to be the best it’s been
www.thetimes.com/article/d1be...
Congratulations to @oliverbullough.bsky.social as Everybody Loves Our Dollars is a Sunday Times bestseller! Review in the same paper calls his investigations ‘eye-opening’, his writing ‘fine’ and ends with a memorable ‘The man has balls’.
www.thetimes.com/article/3044...
‘Until I thought, what if I just tell the truth? And then it fell out of me - it didn’t even pour, it fell.’ Fatima Bhutto on her remarkable new memoir www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j... @dauntbookspub.bsky.social
Paapa Essiedu, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Bryan Cranston in Ivo van Hove’s production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is the best thing out there right now. Refreshingly gimmick-free. Just great performances. www.wyndhamstheatre.co.uk/whats-on/all...
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
8th April, Disney Plus @margaretatwood.bsky.social
Fatima’s most personal and moving book yet. Visceral and intelligent. It will speak to anyone who has loved. I am so taken by Jay Griffith’s beautiful description: ‘A tender and exquisite story of love held in the safekeeping of a dog’s vast heart.’ @dauntbooks.bsky.social
Thanks to the Guardian for publishing this extract from my new book. It's about one of the many very bleak aspects of the global anti-money laundering system.
My favourite part: ‘He is thorough, his sources are impressive, and he has a lovely, easy style (…) He also has a fine sense of moral purpose, which puts his reporting on to a different level from the show-and-tell paperbacks that fill airport bookshop shelves.’ @oliverbullough.bsky.social
Everybody Loves Our Dollars by
Oliver Bullough, ‘one of Britain’s finest investigative reporters,’ says @theguardian.com is a ‘much needed exposé’ and ‘jaw-dropping’. A rave.
www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j... @oliverbullough.bsky.social
A gorgeous children’s edition of The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel
Minor note: Brisingamen is pronounced ‘Bree-sing-ah-men’.
For the National Year of Reading, Sarah Perry chooses THE WEIRSTONE OF BRISINGAMEN by Alan Garner. I am struck by her perfect description of writing that gives children the dignity and honour to demand as much beauty and strangeness as adult readers do. (1h 52min in) www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
