Enjoyed this very fun NYer review of Arthur Brooks’ latest, but especially loved this aspect which I talk about in my own book: the Serious Scientific Life Formula gag from self help gurus trying to shore up false authority. I mean, ranking the Pope over your kids! www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Wrote a Substack about everyone trying to make a bunch of money on Substack – and what that means for writing and journalism (mostly bad things!) sarahmanavis.substack.com/p/you-could-...
I feel bad for people trying nonmonogamy in 2026. I'd bet in ~20 years a lot of the below, among other similar details in this piece and ones like it, will be less prevalent as it's normalised – but currently every story I hear about it in the media/personally sounds like a little polycule of hell
i mean yes, but honestly it's very manipulatable (real word?) so it's not even like you have to "make sure". if you think about rolling a blob of dough into a thin rod, it's kind of the same process - it will just smoosh down and spread out into whatever shape you want it too without much effort
exactly! new to knitting and i'm a wool evangelist now. this is what makes it amazing. up close you'd see the individual fibers are covered in scalloped scales which makes it hook onto itself, meaning you could take a clump of sheared wool and roll it into a long strand between your hands like dough
do you mean like how does it hold together and then stay in shape to become a long single thread? if so: wool is essentially like velcro and clings hardcore to itself, so it's v easy to spin and roll those tiny fibers into single strands - fairly similar with things like cotton, linen, silk etc
Wrote about the flaws, fallacies and flimsy evidence underpinning the Mel Robbins NYT estrangement article, which fundamentally misunderstands modern relationships - and a little bit about my book (on Substack)
sarahmanavis.substack.com/p/life-too-s...
Sharing this five days late but after being galled by Jia Tolentino's sponcon I started a Substack and wrote about it, which you can find (free) here! If you like this/my work generally please subscribe for what will soon be more regular stuff
sarahmanavis.substack.com/p/playing-du...
thank you for sharing and for your support as ever simon!
Good news! @sarahmanavis.bsky.social has joined Substack, better but much less surprising news, her first piece is excellent open.substack.com/pub/sarahman...
It's hardly the least of her offences here, but it does just court this influencer image that a lot of writers want to project that I'm sure she'd be eager to deny (funny enough, it's an event style that is increasingly common amongst BookTokers!)
Gratuitously sharing this piece I wrote in 2021 about this exact thing! The lack of accountability while making your entire brand – and it is a brand – anti-capitalist anti-colonialist leftism does feel beyond the pale at this point www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...
I have long been sceptical of her politics even though I often like her writing, but Jia Tolentino breaking her "RIGID personal sponcon ban" to do a collab with Airbnb – one of the main targets on the BDS list; when her last post was about fasting for Gaza – does feel a little on the nose
I do think he is ultimately super insecure about his status as a podcaster and always looking for new ways to validate his success via traditional channels (imo one part of why he does Dragon's Den) - but indeed, I don't think they will! Realistically he's not even going to ask any good questions!!
Was talking about this with a friend last night, but the choice to do this with someone with dedicated stans does sort of suggest (rightly) a lack of confidence in the concept
I wrote about what we want from our relationships – in dating, monogamy, even friendship – and the growing number of people not actually seeking real connections, but instead someone to playact a fantasy they learned online: observer.co.uk/news/opinion...
A few years ago I got asked to review Molly Mae’s book and this is exactly why I said no - like a) who thinks this is going to be good? and b) what is the purpose other than to provoke her fans/to give her haters a moment to self-congratulate? It’s not criticism, it’s content
There’s a real problem of low-hanging fruit in criticism atm where people keep doing “spicy” “takedowns” of art/people with no real power or relevance - or that no one even considers good. Critique should tell you something new or different, not go: “That bad thing? Well… it sucks!!!”
Thanks so much man!
It’s also going to be published by One Signal (Simon & Schuster) in the US, and so far has also been sold to Peninsula in Spain. Truly over the moon and if you’re a therapist - call me!
Some thrilling news from me: my debut book TELL ME ABOUT MYSELF, about the rise and impact of psychotherapy on how we see ourselves and each other, as well as my own experience in therapy over the last 20 years, will be published by HarperCollins in 2027 www.thebookseller.com/rights/harpe...
thanks man!!
Some exciting, slightly belated news from me: as of this week I’ve joined the Observer where I’ll be writing across opinion, the magazine and on the new website - alongside some of my favourite editors and journalists. More soon but catch me there from this weekend!
Hello: I'm going to be on 5 Live this morning with Adrian Chiles from 11-12 – talking about Donald Trump, Jeffrey Goldberg, the spring statement and scatter cushions. Tune in!
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Something about the Atlantic editor getting added to the war planning group chat thing feels very British
Some of the replies to this are evidence of what I mean
I really want to like this site, but every time I log on I feel like I've entered a simulation of the worst parts of UK politics Twitter in 2016
IMO there seems to be an obsessiveness here vs the other place where you get one-off weirdos saying something annoying but ignorable, but here it’ll be someone sending you their thirteenth reply to the same post - where often they aren’t even necessarily disagreeing with what you’re saying
A lot of women I know have noticed it in the last year and I do wonder if there's something to be written about how messy that's gotten more acutely in the wake of Trump's re-election as the left tries to reckon with how to bring people back (or over for the first time). If you're an editor etc etc
Muting this bc the some of the replies are more insane than the ones I've gotten on Twitter, but I want to emphasise this desire to avoid calling misogyny misogyny atm – which I think is partially an overcorrection on the left in response to the last decade of pop culture, but also is... misogyny!