Peter Kravitz

Just dropped at NPR. This set from Brìghde Chaimbeul & Shahzad Ismaily is pure genius. She’s coming to London, Glasgow, Perth, Antwerp, Amsterdam…

In some cases, disinformation influencers use the "Free Speech" debate as a red herring and an intentionally wrong cognitive framing of the problem, to deflect attention away from accountability for their corruption. I talked about this with @jimludes.bsky.social. youtu.be/1p5r1VLEDvg?...

A chastening paper that highlights a sea change from advisors and spin-doctors to paraphenomena that “occupy a space that is neither entirely inside nor outside the state, exercising real power through proximity, delegation, and informal authority”

If I see my city as beguiling and bewitching then my life must be too. Oran Pamuk, Istanbul.

‘almost any excuse will do not to write, and reading is one of the best. I used to think that going for a walk was an excuse not to write, but I see now that I really need to go for a walk. That I can actually write on a walk.’ Renata Adler centerforfiction.org/interviews/r...

‘I’ve got a job,’ I told Adam. ‘Good for you. I can now relinquish all responsibility for this household then?’ ‘And I can save up for a divorce.’ ‘So, let’s celebrate,’ said Adam. {plucked by Paris Review from A Working Mother just reissued by McNally Editions/USA & Polygon/UK}

The foreword from my new book with @blackheraldpress.bsky.social is now online: www.blackheraldpress.com/post/what-li... If you order it, two great things will happen: a wonderful publisher gets a boost and I get a reader. Merci 🙏 🖤

Wonderful trailer montage includes this reminder that Ross Macdonald paid homage to Spade and Archer in naming his character Lew Archer…

‘No lying marble I desire’

This is lovely. And elsewhere, talking about how she differs from Cy Twombly, she says her modus is to: stop think apply

Remembering the legendary Delroy Wilson who was born on this day in 1948. Delroy was a teenage star in the 1960s who graduated into one of the all-time great reggae singers in the 1970s, such as on this glorious 7" from 1973... youtu.be/KWKQDIsJWBw?... #reggae #reggaesky #vinyl #music #musicsky

Saddened to read about the death of composer George Fenton. His wonderful score for Dangerous Liaisons has been the soundtrack for several of my Cesare Aldo novels: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Surprising…

For Henry Van Dyke, #BornOnThisDay in 1928, my thoughts on LADIES OF THE RACHMANINOFF EYES. A fabulous coming-of-age story featuring a precocious black teen raised by 2 eccentric women in 1960s US. Witty, barbed, tender & poignant. A 5-star read for me! 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/06/23/l...

Welcome to my late summer deckchair SNOW LIT REV 17. There’ll be a reading on October 21st in London. Details to follow. abar.net/snow.pdf

The Rulers by Cecilia Rikap looks accurate and necessary (unfortunately). Pair it with this comment from pavement art at Pond Street London NW3 on how the powerful profit from bubbles:

‘In front of the sarcophagus, Valentino gave a Roman salute, made the sign of the cross and wrote “Ti voglio bene” (“I love you”) in the visitors’ book.’ @danigaravelli.bsky.social on the neo-Fascist cult of Mussolini: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

This is great, a liberating mix of prose and poetry, and prescient too, given the catalyst for Letford’s apocalypse is a sneaky wee radge AI called Andy, which has gone “full Shawshank.”

‘Where Manhattan dreams of congestion, London dreams of decongestion – of fields, parks and gardens, of leafy suburbs and garden cities…Many who have lived in London will know that it grows on you; indeed, that London grows you.’ from ‘Nature’s double’ by Irénée Scalbert

Ok, final teaser from my minicomic as syllabus for my new Comics in Ed course! This spread was, ummm, kind of dense! A lot going on, and it points to a lot of what we are going to do/cover along the way. It probably needs footnotes :) I'll finish & post the whole thing early next week. Stay tuned!

Good news from a great publisher…

RIP Frances Stonor Saunders. Here, her program for BBC radio four, on the ‘exciting, seductive, dynamic…cul-de-sac of excessive self-consciousness’. And this on a wonderful exhibition she curated (from @davidnice.bsky.social): davidnice.blogspot.com/2018/12/what...

Adding these two Barbara Hanrahan novels from the glorious Pink Shorts Press, with glorious covers by the author…

Nice documentary from 2013 about rooftop farming in Brooklyn: filmsfortheplanet.com/brooklyn-far...

I want you to promise me that you will go home and finish this book. You’ll do nothing other than go home and finish writing this book. If anything happens to upset you, remember that I’m standing right behind you like an old elephant, flapping my ears to cool you down John Berger to Arundhati Roy

Tolstoy, born on this day in 1828, which is a good excuse for Maira Kalman’s imagining of him having breakfast. From her “still life with remorse (family stories”

‘Swift and sure was his foot on hill and valley’

If you've been reading a lot about climate change and insurance and you were curious what insurance companies were up to *before* everything felt like a crisis, check out our new paper! Edoardo di Vincenzo and I trace how the American insurance industry planned for climate change starting in 2012.

Out 21st September! Updated & with new photos & extra chapters including Dexys, Tim Burgess, The Bluebells, Tanita Tikaram & the magical Laugharne festival. New adventures & circles completed. www.route-online.com Cover design by leah@leahs-studio.art

Two wonderful adverts for Strathmore writing paper, 1968-69.

Why is it that when I miss my self-imposed deadlines I feel like a failure and when I meet them I assume whatever I've written can't be good enough?

Some causes & consequences of current distress…

Jackson State choir. And God.

This wonderful Gwen John exhibition has landed in Edinburgh until January 2027…

Scottish Borders last night

It’s just 4 days to go: www.thi-wurd.com/building-a-w...

And hats off to @deepvellum.bsky.social who have just this week done her Nelly’s Version: “A middle-aged woman suffering from amnesia checks into a small-town hotel under the pseudonym Nelly Dean with a suitcase full of cash and no idea where it, or she, came from…”

Read this book some time ago, with all the weather and yellow grass it comes to mind. It’s a dark but compelling story. Also known as ‘No Blade of Grass‘. After the death of grass a small group escape a cordoned London & head north.

Squish! A mosquito caught between the pages of Isaac Barrow's mathematical lectures, printed in 1684 #WorldMosquitoDay

Life, a user’s manual at Paddington Station this morning…

My toddler is starting to speak; I write about the things around me, the future tense taking a hold on my daughter. Thoughts slide over the 90s Big Breakfast, Lispector, Rupert Sheldrake, The Cloud of Unknowing, Renata Adler, Steiner, Bergson, Housman. 1st pub. @tearsinthefence.bsky.social, 2013. 5/

I just preordered The Children Of Light, not just because it's getting rave reviews, but because Luke's batting 1.000 when it comes to picking interesting, exciting translation projects (as anyone who read his translation of Masters Of The Nefarious can tell you). bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Comment on yesterday’s By-Election from The Children of Light by Jean Pleyers, albeit made in the early 1980s. Just translated for @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social from the French by @lukevburns.bsky.social

This quietly challenges the if-you-have-then-I-haven’t-got ‘want’ type of scarcity. As opposed to that of basic needs for shelter, food, safety. There is another way to live.

It was an honour to write The Scotsman’s obituary of Turner Prize nominee Christine Borland - an extraordinary artist and wonderful person. Longer version at www.scotsman.com/news/people/...

A tender piece on a superb artist. This is her ‘I Say Nothing’: