Sam Sacks

"The deaths of children had been declining at least since 1990 thanks to delivery of vaccines, medicines, better nutrition and access to healthcare to mothers, babies and young children."

An assault on Jackson Heights and our way of life in Queens - Epicenter NYC Jackson Heights woke up to the sound of helicopters. Almost instantly, there were posts on Facebook and text messages reporting sightings of ICE at 89th Street and 34th Avenue.  But […]

This happened 13 blocks from where I grew up, videos show neighbors with whistles coming out in force. No mistake they’re targeting the most diverse neighborhood in the entire country epicenter-nyc.com/an-assault-o...

Andy Breckman, a comedy writer who used to play comic folk music, sometimes opened for McLean and thought he was a total prick. So sometimes, to end his set, just before McLean was going to come on, he would play 'American Pie.'

The Best Books of 2025: Debut Fiction 2025 was a very nearly disastrous year for fiction in the US mainstream market, with publishers pumping out gallons of garbage in frantic pursuit of the steadily-shrinking fraction of the public that ...

Open Letters editor Steve Donoghue continues his Best Books of 2025 with this year's Debut Fiction - see them now at his Substack, Stevereads:

stevedonoghue.substack.com/p/the-best-b...

Yesterday, the Deportation Data Project posted new FOIA data on ICE arrests through October 15 and it’s staggering how much it instantly disproves every claim the Trump admin has made about targeting “criminals” during its splashy arrest operations.

Here’s arrests in Illinois since April.

Opinion | I’m an Immigration Lawyer. Trump Is Shattering My Clients’ Lives.

True and maybe even obvious-- but we need to keep saying things like this to protect our sanity.

"Inflicting collective punishment based on the heinous and isolated crimes of one person is not a rational, appropriate or moral policy response."

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/o...

It got a nice sturdy paperback edition too!

Either you're on board with this or you're not, it's pretty much the whole game

The 10 Best Books of 2025 Ten works of fiction and nonfiction that stood out among those our reviewers read this year, selected by the Journal’s books editors.

The Wall Street Journal has posted its picks for the 10 Best Books of 2025. Gift link here--have a look and congrats to the authors! www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Agents in Key Largo, Florida ripped this woman wearing medical scrubs out of her car as she screamed she is a US citizen. Agents cuffed her and put her in one of their cars.

She was eventually let go, per David Goodhue of the Miami Herald, who also took this footage:

Actually, it seems to be pop music

Thank God for poetry. Where else would novelists get their epigraphs?

The Best Books of 2025: Literature in Translation Another book culture indicator I tend to use when looking back at the year in books is to look at how interesting and energetic was the year’s literature in translation.

Open Letters editor Steve Donoghue continues his Best Books of 2025 with this year's Literature in Translation - see them now at his Substack, Stevereads:

stevedonoghue.substack.com/p/the-best-b...

ICE is arresting massive numbers of people who have no criminal history of any kind, and it is smearing their reputations by calling them criminals, gang members, and thugs. It is depriving thousands more of due process by arresting them at courts so they can't clear their names

ICE Arrested and Separated Chinese Father From 6-Year-Old Son, Advocates Say The father and son were detained at an ICE check-in on Nov. 26, advocates say. The son’s location is currently unknown, while the father is being held at an upstate ICE facility.

A 6-year-old boy is missing after ICE arrested him and his dad in NYC last week and shipped them off to separate facilities. www.thecity.nyc/2025/12/02/i... @thecity.nyc @gwynnefitz.bsky.social

I have known him more by reputation than his work, but this has been a lot of fun to read and it is inspiring in a way

Hardcover copy of Anatole Broyard's 'Aroused by Books'

A great gift from a friend, this collects Broyard's deadline reviews for the New York Times between 1971-73. Authors known and unknown, all eloquently bantered over with energy and humor and pique. My favorite sort of book.

YouTube video by Travel Channel Anthony Goes Raccoon Hunting in the Ozarks! | Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations | Travel Channel

(Here's the Bourdain clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3zm...)

I'm hoping Daniel Woodrell will get some more appreciations. I like 'Tomato Red' most but there are many I still have ahead of me. This was a good profile by Benjamin Percy--about, among other things, the time Woodrell was almost killed on camera by Anthony Bourdain. www.esquire.com/entertainmen...

For World AIDS Day, Housing Works will again be taking part in the reading of the names of New Yorkers lost to AIDS. The rally and vigil will start at noon at the Memorial Park on Greenwich Ave and W 12th St. A few sign-up times for the reading are still available. www.nycaidsmemorial.org/wad2025

Virginia Faulkner was smart as a whip, funny as a heart attack, unfiltered in her cigarettes and opinions, and utterly uninterested in talking about herself.
So the last thing she would have wanted was for someone to write her biography.

www.nebraskapress.un...

Fiction: ‘The Name on the Wall’ by Hervé Le Tellier Plus Olga Tokarczuk’s “House of Day, House of Night” and Hamid Ismailov’s “We Computers.”

A round-up of some interesting literature in translation for the WSJ this past weekend: Hervé Le Tellier's anomalously factual WWII narrative; Olga Tokarczuk's reissued 1998 Silesian collage novel; and Hamid Ismailov's wild, comic fusion of AI and Arabic verse (gift link) www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Timothy Farrington - A Yearn to Return Timothy Farrington: A Yearn to Return - True Nature: The Lives of Peter Matthiessen by Lance Richardson

On Matthiessen:
literaryreview.co.uk/a-yearn-to-r...

Daniel Woodrell, ‘Country Noir’ Novelist of ‘Winter’s Bone,’ Dies at 72 His tales of violence and squalor in his native Ozarks had the timeless quality of fables and inspired several movies.

Daniel Woodrell, the author of “Winter’s Bone” who was known for his tales of violence and squalor in his native Ozarks, died on Friday. He was 72.

A photo of feather ice gathered across a piece of bark and some dead leaves.

First time I've seen feather ice.

Very glad to hear this! And if it worked for you, I'm sure you will love the novel. I think it's a tremendous work.

Three of the most memorable theatre experiences of my life— Arcadia, the Real Thing and Leopoldstadt—were Stoppard plays. Hard to process that there won’t be any more.

Five-byline alert: 🚨

“.. the full scope of [Witkoff’s talks] went much further, according to people familiar .. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line .. to the dividends. 🇺🇦

www.wsj.com/world/russia...

ICE arrests military spouses during Green Card interviews; families shocked Several foreign-born spouses of US citizens were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while attending green-card interviews in San Diego.

ICE arrested military spouses at green-card interviews. Think about that: people married to U.S. service members, following the legal process, pulled into detention. If even military families aren’t safe, then no one is.

Read: www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/u...

After a frantic 48-hour search, her family received a call from her on Saturday from Honduras, a country she had not lived in since she was a child. The federal government had quickly deported her, the lawyers said, and Lopez Belloza had found her way to her grandparents’ house and called her father.

Our government is disappearing people and subjecting their families to unimaginable terror.