Sanjay Sipahimalani

"Take your Al-hallucinated definitions and send them in a rocket ship to Mars, baby!" The LA Times list of best books of 2025 includes...a dictionary. Excellent.

Nobel Prize in Literature 2025 The Nobel Prize in Literature 2025 was awarded to László Krasznahorkai "for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art"

László Krasznahorkai’s Nobel Prize lecture is, typically, a series of extremely long sentences.

www.nobelprize.org/prizes/liter...

The etymology of 'asteroid'. Well done, young Kanishk Sharma.

I don’t know if the word “immense” can be used as a word of praise for a short poem, but it was the one that came to mind.

Oh no.

Judging a book by its cover.

Wrapped, shmapped. What I need is Spotify Napped, to let me know how many hours I slept while listening to podcasts.

From Mark Galeotti’s ‘Homo Criminalis: How Crime Organises the World’.

After reading the book, says TLS reviewer Peter Geoghegan, it's hard to disagree.

www.the-tls.com/history/twen...

I think the elephant gives the room a certain textured, earthy vibe.

China's grand plan to dominate global publishing - Asia Times If current trends hold, China is on track to become the most influential force in global publishing within the next decade. Its rise is powered by

China is on track to become the most influential force in global publishing within the next decade, with help from AI and the government’s push to become a “cultural powerhouse”.

asiatimes.com/2025/12/chin...

A good antidote to a gloomy December.

“Mrs Almeida said she would buy the fish herself.”

Wrote about Nalini Jones's sensitive, moving 'The Unbroken Coast' set in a fictionalised version of Mumbai's Bandra (and why the novel reads like a game of online solitaire).

scroll.in/article/1086...

Tom Stoppard's Ordinary Magic “The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives…”

When asked what ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ was about, Stoppard replied that it was about to make him a lot of money. He used to reply, when asked where he got his ideas from: “Harrods.”

www.commonreader.co.uk/p/tom-stoppa...

From Dylan Thomas’ shopping list to a note from Sylvia Plath’s doctor: newly uncovered case files reveal the hidden lives of famous writers Exclusive: Hardship grant applications to the Royal Literary Fund, including unseen letters by Doris Lessing and a note from James Joyce saying that he ‘gets nothing in the way of royalties’, show aut...

Dylan Thomas’ grocery bill. A note from Sylvia Plath’s doctor. A grief-stricken letter by E. Nesbit. I get the fascination with writers’s private lives, but there’s something sordid about this.

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...

"All literature is political...by virtue of its active space, what you’re engaging with, or its negative space, what you’re choosing to ignore." Omar El Akkad, author of 'One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This'.

Read this exploration of the titles on the Wolfson History Prize Shortlist for an understanding of what so-called popular historians can achieve, and how.

fivebooks.com/best-books/t...

Selma Dabbagh | Rebranding Genocide The killing of Palestinians has continued, sometimes surpassing pre-ceasefire levels and accelerating viciously in the...

“‘Ceasefire’ has become something we are expected to be grateful for, now that ‘ceasefire’ means continued genocide”: Selma Dabbagh

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/no...

Surrealism Against Fascism • EQUATOR A century ago, artists who survived the trenches captured humanity’s capacity for destruction. What can they teach us about confronting the far-right in a new age of genocide?

A very readable, deeply-informed piece by Naomi Klein that combines genocide, the Surrealists, fascism then and now -- and Mamdani.

www.equator.org/articles/sur...

Sally Rooney books may be withdrawn from UK sale over Palestine Action ban, court told Rooney has said she intended to use royalties from her work "to go on supporting Palestine Action."

Sally Rooney: "I myself have publicly advocated the use of direct action, including property sabotage, in the cause of climate justice. It stands to reason that I should support the same range of tactics in the effort to prevent genocide."

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Joe Sacco Asks Why History Repeats Itself In his latest graphic narrative, cartoonist Joe Sacco investigates the stories people tell themselves about political and sectarian violence.

On Joe Sacco's 'The Once and Future Riot', about the deadly 2013 Muzaffarnagar clashes: "an analysis of how people in conflict refashion facts, indulge in ersatz nostalgia, and create stories that serve their worldviews..."
www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

How to turn democracy into despotism without anyone noticing. Scarily familiar.

From Erica Benner’s ‘Adventures in Democracy’.

1500+ pages. In the words of Captain Oates, I may be some time.

Raise money to lose money. The continuing annals of late capitalism.

When a lukewarm review of a history of global capitalism mentions Marx only to bring up his unfortunate comments in ‘On the Jewish Question’, it’s hard to take the reviewer seriously.

‘He was just trying to earn a few kopecks’: how newly translated stories reveal Chekhov’s silly side With daft jokes and experimental wordplay, the first comprehensive translations of his lesser-known stories show Anton Chekhov in a new light

Chekhov’s earliest stories were “childishly comical”. During the translation process, says Rosamund Bartlett, “we would just collapse in fits of giggles”.

www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Interesting that they specify “plot-driven”. Would have liked to discover non-plot-driven books, too.

“The Golden Boy,” by Daniyal Mueenuddin Bayazid had never quite given up the fantasy he nurtured in boyhood, of discovering himself a child of some minister or prince.

Welcome back, Daniyal Mueenuddin. An extract from his forthcoming ‘This Is Where the Serpent Lives’.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Omar El Akkad's "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This" wins the National Book Award One of the year’s most important books gets its due, as its author calls on other writers to speak truth to power

“If we are to do this work of language, we have an obligation to stand in opposition to any force—including those enacted by our governments—that if left unchecked would happily decimate every principle of free expression and connection that we’ve come here to celebrate.”

the.ink/p/omar-el-ak...

Alicia Kennedy: “Who Was the Foodie?” Alicia Kennedy on Ruby Tandoh’s All Consuming , Marion Nestle’s What to Eat Now , and the evolution of the foodie

Think of yourself as, ugh, a foodie? Two books that ask you to "remember the corporate and political power behind every option at the supermarket, and to be conscious of how various kinds of media are selling us certain sorts of gastronomic pleasure".
yalereview.org/article/alic...