Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt - out on 5th May.

‘After all the horrible things we’ve been through,’ he said to me, ‘if I die of cancer, it will make a bad story’: Siri Hustvedt on losing Paul Auster First there was the double tragedy that tore the family apart – then came a deadly diagnosis. The writer reflects on life after the death of her novelist husband

An extract from Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt, her memoir of life with Paul Auster, their love and intellectual friendship over decades, and his death from cancer. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

A genius. He excels both at narrative and abstract dance. The partly improvised percussion strand in Quantum Souls and how it responds to dance is astounding. www.standard.co.uk/culture/danc...

The Cocaine Kingpin Living Large in Dubai Daniel Kinahan, an Irish drug dealer, commands a billion-dollar empire from the U.A.E. Why isn’t he in prison?

Background reading on the (just arrested) Daniel Kinehan by the brilliant @edcaesar.bsky.social who spent a year researching this story www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

A chart-topping double! The Names and London Falling are both number 1 Sunday Times bestsellers across fiction and non-fiction. Couldn’t be happier for these two outstanding books and writers. 👏

What a Time to be Alive!

Marina Hyde on tour…

There are state-of-the-nation novels. This is a state-of-universities novel. Is university education worth it? ‘As moving as it is hysterically funny’ says Gary Shteyngart. Out in September in US and Canada and next year in UK. LORDS OF SERENDIPITY by Randy Boyagoda.

Scam emails impersonating editors ‘on the rise’ as author vigilance urged Authors are being “strongly urged” to be vigilant amid a rise in scam emails impersonating editors at publishing houses including Pan Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Bloomsbury, HarperCollins and Hac...

This is a menace and everyone should stay vigilant. We need an industry-wide email verification system. That would be a good use of tech and AI. www.thebookseller.com/news/scam-em...

How the mysterious death of a teenager reveals London’s seedy underworld In London Falling, Patrick Radden Keefe uncovers the life and lies of a 19-year-old who jumped from luxury Thameside flats — and proves he’s still the master of non-fiction

Wonderful review of LONDON FALLING by the great Craig Brown in the Sunday Times.

Patrick Radden Keefe: ‘I plan like crazy. And then … I write quite quickly. I feel … if it's working, I want the book to come out of me with a kind of velocity. I want to capture that velocity on the page…I want the reader to feel that sort of energy.’
www.thenerve.news/p/patrick-ra...

DOLLHOUSE A teeny peek behind a teeny scene of the TV series The Testaments, launching April 8 .... This gets meta.

‘Are all novels doll’s houses really?
(…) And: in our age of politics as performance: Is child’s play the thing/ In which to catch the conscience of the not-a-king?’ open.substack.com/pub/margaret...

A gangster, a bogus inheritance and a dead 19-year-old: the mystery Patrick Radden Keefe couldn’t ignore When Zac Brettler jumped to his death in London, the coroner recorded an open verdict, admitting: ‘I don’t know what happened.’ The acclaimed author of Say Nothing and, now, London Falling, talks abou...

‘We can steer our kids in the right direction, but at the same time, they’re going to be who they’re going to be. You can do all the right things – and it may not be enough.’ www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Sadly, also true.

True story

Author Patrick Radden Keefe: ‘London is a 24-hour laundromat for dirty money’ The American journalist is known for his daring investigations into the rich, powerful and dangerous. Now he turns his attention to Britain

www.telegraph.co.uk/books/author...

Sensational word-of-mouth behind The Names by Florence Knapp. Top of the charts this weekend and edging close to a million copies sold. Congratulations, Florence!

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe: Mastery of timing makes this investigation a page-turner New Yorker writer’s drive to get to the truth again brings impetus to ask ‘just one more thing’

‘A page-turner,’ says The Irish Times about London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe ‘we are fortunate to have him pounding the pavement to expose real-life darkness’ www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

We are a very happy number two again, with a staggering 24,000 copies sold in one week. The Names by @florenceknapp.bsky.social is out in paperback and I cannot recommend this beautiful,moving and thought-provoking novel enough!

A Sunday Times bestseller - SISTERS IN YELLOW by Mieko Kawakami, a masterpiece of teenage dreams and adult cruelties. 🍋

Out on 7th April. Book a night in.

London Falling by @praddenkeefe.bsky.social

What Philippa Perry did next!

‘A joy! Cosy crime with a side order of psychological insight’ says Jennie Godfrey. ‘Wickedly witty, with delightful, quirky characters and a cracking plot’ says Jacqueline Wilson - out 7th May

BookBar Presents... An Evening with Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Jesse Armstrong | BookBar The author of Fleishman is in Trouble and Long Island Compromise, journalist and screenwriter, joins us at BookBar for a rare London appearance, in conversation with Succession creator Jesse Armstrong.

Book Bar presents an evening with Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Jesse Armstrong www.bookbaruk.com/event-detail...

I worked in a hostess bar — now I’ve written a novel about one In Sisters in Yellow, Japan’s rising literary star Mieko Kawakami reveals the grimy underworld of Japanese nightlife and the struggles of working-class women

‘With Sisters in Yellow she proves she is still the most exciting Japanese novelist at work today’ says The Times of Mieko Kawakami and SISTERS IN YELLOW - a rave! ‘This is not the Japan you find in novels about cats, cafés and bookshops.’

www.thetimes.com/article/9203...

Indispensable

Government scraps copyright exception as preferred option for AI training in win for creative industries

The UK government has today published a Copyright and Artificial Intelligence report outlining that it is moving away from the proposed copyright exception for AI training, widely rejected by the creative industries.

Read more 👇

Margaret Atwood (@margaretatwood) Check out my new post!

‘Do you think he’ll call me back? Will he send flowers? Is he really a psychopath? (…) Be still, my beating heart!’ Margaret Atwood talks to Claude substack.com/@margaretatw...

‘Pain is a violent lover’: Daisy Lafarge on the paintings she made when floored with agony Suffering from a connective tissue disorder and enduring endless calls to try and get benefits, the poet and novelist turned to painting – resulting in work that could change perceptions of disabled p...

‘Disability, she says, shouldn’t be seen as something removed from the everyday, or a separate category of personhood…. ‘We are one in four’. Poet and novelist Daisy Lafarge on pain and art. www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

A Philosopher ‘Prophet’

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

Hungry for Affirmation, Vulnerable to Scams: As a Writer, I Know the Feeling

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...