Sam Sacks

‘Effingers’ Review: Days and Nights in Berlin A 1951 novel traces a German-Jewish family and its fortunes through the generations.

And Dorian Stuber writes beautifully about Gabriele Tergit's 1951 German-Jewish epic "The Effingers," a novel with everything in it--"weddings, children’s games, art auctions; Passover seders, prisoner-of-war camps, love letters"--that somehow never feels stuffed www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

‘Bernie for Burlington’ Review: The Mayor Was a Socialist Bernie Sanders made a small dent in Vermont’s 1972 gubernatorial election. But his support in working-class Burlington portended his future.

Tunku Varadarajan has perhaps surprising praise for Dan Chiasson "Bernie for Burlington": "an admiring, even loving, account of the life of a man [Chiasson] observed from 'a front-row seat.' It’s not a hagiography—the author is too astute for that." www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

‘Chicago Homes’ Review: Shelter in the Windy City Chicago boasts some of the world’s most imposing skyscrapers, but its humbler buildings have a charm of their own.

Angelina Torre has a brief piece on a book about the wonderful hodgepodge of Chicago architecture, where "Queen Annes can be found all over the city—the south side’s Hyde Park, the north side’s Logan Square—as can stately greystones, made of Bedford limestone." www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

‘Michelangelo & Titian’ Review: The Renaissance’s Odd Couple Michelangelo remarked of his Venetian colleague, “it was a shame that in Venice they did not learn to draw well.”

Eric Gibson review a dual biography of Michelangelo and Titian, who really did meet in person and whose admiring rivalry "sounds like the setup of a Tom Stoppard play" www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

‘The Surgeon, the Midwife, the Quack’ Review: Not-Yet-Modern Medicine In Renaissance England, skillful surgeons and herb-dispensing healers competed with charlatan doctors.

Brandy Schillace reviews a hair-raising history of quack medicine in the Renaissance, an era that "glitters as a bridge period that helped bring about the modern age. So long as you did not get injured or ill, or hope to have a baby." www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

‘After the Flood’ Review: Dylan’s Rebirth A dive into Bob Dylan’s late career has produced the best book on the musician in ages.

A lot of really good WSJ book reviews recently. Like a piece from the unmissable Wesley Stace, who writes about Robert Polito's "enjoyably imperfect" study of Dylan's late albums. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Immigration Raids in South Texas Are Starting to Hit the Economy Trade groups are raising alarms about aggressive immigration enforcement hurting businesses in the region.

“They are basically taking everyone in there working, whether they have proper documentation or not,” said Mario Guerrero, chief executive of the South Texas Builders Association. "When you are terrorizing jobsites, people are afraid to go to work.” www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

*Green card application in process and work permit, married to US citizen
*Lived in US for 20 years, no criminal record
*In detention for five months with no charge, despite judge approving release
*He disputes ICE claim that he signed forms agreeing to deportation

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.

Hundreds of kids are still detained.

We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

Metry and her husband of 4 years go to DHS to get their I-130 in motion. "Good news" a DHS employee told them, the form to start her naturalization was approved.

DHS employee asks the husband to follow him through a secure door. When it locks behind him, ICE detains his wife to deport her.

just appalling

DHS has requested expedited deportation proceedings against family of Liam Conejo Ramos The federal government has filed a motion seeking to end asylum claims for the family of Liam Conejo Ramos, according to the lawyer representing the family.

BREAKING: The federal government has filed a motion seeking to end asylum claims for the family of Liam Conejo Ramos, according to the lawyer representing the family.

‘Nobody gives me information’: Jacksonville-area man held in ‘Deportation Depot’ for weeks talks conditions, challenges Macario Pablo-Reyes, 49, has been held for weeks at the Baker County Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, sometimes referred to as the “Deportation Depot.”

Legally here on a work permit. Arrested when he went to renew it. Not fighting his deportation. Yet he's been in detention 29 days. No access to a lawyer. Has been given no information about his case. Family inquiries also ignored. ICE only responded when local news requested comment.

Mathias Énard: ‘I write with a bastard tongue’ The Prix Goncourt-winning novelist on the myths of the Middle East, the horrors and wonders of history, and life at a Madrid museum

I spent a couple of hours walking around the Prado with Mathias Énard observer.co.uk/culture/book...

I’ve Been Laid Off. I’m Not Done. After 20 years at The Washington Post, I’m suddenly on my own — and still writing about books.

After 20 years, I've been laid off at The Washington Post.
substack.com/home/post/p-...

Definitely worth noting since it wasn't announced in that way.

lizzie johnson @lizziejohnsonnn · 49m I was just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone. I have no words. I'm devastated. Quote lizzie johnson @lizziejohnsonnn · Jan 25 Waking up without power, heat, or running water. (Again.) But the work here in Kyiv continues. Warming up in the car, writing in pencil — pen ink freezes — by headlamp.

INBOX: Washington Post Ukraine Correspondent Lizzie Johnson announces that she has been laid off in the middle of a below-freezing war zone without power, heat, or running water.

I’ve Been Laid Off. I’m Not Done. After 20 years at The Washington Post, I’m suddenly on my own — and still writing about books.

I just subscribed.

Thank you for the great work, John, and good luck. We're rooting for you.

This is horrible. The WaPo's Books section has a brilliant band of critics and editors and has developed a genuine identity in the book world. I'm heartbroken for a staff that has done such consistently great and dedicated work.

Bullet hole raises questions about federal authorities' account of shooting Photographic evidence from the shooting scene of a Venezuelan man by federal agents last month in Minneapolis supports the account of witnesses there — and appears to undercut the narrative provided by federal officials. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly claimed that an officer fired a single shot in self-defense during a violent encounter involving a shovel and a broom on Jan. 14, shortly after a man fled from a traffic stop during a targeted enforcement effort. But at a federal court hearing in St. Paul on Tuesday, an attorney for one of the men accused of assaulting that officer showed a federal judge and several reporters photographs on his laptop depicting a single bullet hole through the front door of the north Minneapolis home. Additional photographs show damage consistent with a bullet fragment lodged in a bedroom wall down the hallway — suggesting it traveled between a mattress and a portable crib in a room where several small children sleep. That supports what family members have said all along: A federal agent shot at them through the front door, striking 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the thigh, while they were inside the threshold of the residence.

Here's the full post in the Star Tribune liveblog for posterity since it doesn't have a stable URL to link to:

The US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government every year from 1994 to 2023.

The Cato study provides the first-ever 30-year analysis of the fiscal effects of immigration on government budgets.

https://ow.ly/jy8a50Y8kM3

This cannot be something a civilian law enforcement agent is allowed to wear in the US — and an agency that has a culture that tolerates this cannot be saved.

Allan Massie, 1938-2026 Father died this afternoon.

We've lost the great Allan Massie. An absolute giant of Scottish literature and journalism, and an inspirational, kind and generous man, too. I think his son @alexmassie.bsky.social is only sporadically on Bluesky, but he has written a beautiful obituary. alexmassie.substack.com/p/allan-mass...

Wow bad look. Bias against inswinging corner kicks is real and harmful.

The snow in New York is just amazingly foul at this point. It works like those black lights that reveal that all your surfaces are actually covered in disgusting bodily fluids. Practicing the willful blindness necessary to living here is getting to be impossible...

The young Muslim woman detained in a locked Whipple bathroom with three men said she never thought this could happen to her. She saw America as a land of opportunity after a childhood in a refugee camp. She hopes to become a nurse or a flight attendant. Her criminal record, she said, consists of one speeding ticket. With Whipple's holding facilities filled, the woman said, agents eventually moved her to another locked bathroom by herself. There was an air vent at the door's bottom. When she saw federal agents' footsteps, she banged for help. On her third night of detention, agents took in two new detainees: an African immigrant and her 7-month-old baby girl. She said the immigrant told her they had been detained as the mother took her baby to a doctor to be treated for influenza.

"When the woman arrived, she was screaming and crying and yelling, 'My baby is already sick!' " she recalled. " 'I don't want my baby to die!' " The next morning, she said, the woman and baby were moved from the bathroom. It wasn't until her fourth day of detention when the young woman was allowed to use a phone at the facility. When she heard her mother's voice, she burst into tears. On the fifth day, agents drove her and two other recently released detainees to a light-rail station near Whipple. They took off her handcuffs and told her to call an Uber, even though she didn't have a phone. She borrowed one from another detainee. As they released her into the cold, she recalls their simple words: "You are good to go."

“You are good to go.” Good to go?!?!

This is what ICE tells a young woman they tossed out into dangerously freezing temperatures after four agonizing days in detention at Whipple.

Today’s front page Strib report: www.startribune.com/no-humanity-...

Drat. Poets themselves appear to be unsullied, though.

PBS Cuts Ties With Former Harvard Professor Elisa New Following Epstein Email Release | News | The Harvard Crimson PBS has stopped airing former Harvard English professor Elisa F. New’s show, “Poetry in America,” after emails released by the House Oversight Committee last month revealed close ties between New, her...

Alas, he did manage to infiltrate poetry www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Trying to remember to be *glad* that literature now has so little stature that Epstein never bothered to contact any novelists or fund a magazine