Sarah Crown

“You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.”

Very proud indeed of @xanbrooks.bsky.social and his excellent book.

Northumberland walk

At last!

On this bluest of blue Mondays, thanks to @tomhamilton.bsky.social for performing the near-miraculous feat of making me laugh

Thank you!! Off to read…

AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably

This is - actually, I’ve been staring at this story for 10 minutes, and I’m not sure *what* it is. ‘Existentially diminishing’ might cover it.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

So true. It was a brilliant entrance line. It managed to put the onus on us, for standing in our kitchen, rather than him, for marching uninvited into it.

Xan LITERALLY said “feel free to leave the crumble!” as he legged it out the door. He was too thrown and traumatised to appreciate our attempt at bonhomie. We’ve had to settle for after eights instead 🤷‍♀️

Nope! Just a bit of splendid Christmas randomness. We are still laughing. Happy Christmas to you and Louise! 😍

Festive season well & truly ushered in here by the young gentleman bearing an apple crumble who opened our front door, strode into our kitchen (where we were making dinner) & demanded “where is everybody?”. 30 secs of confusion later, we established he had the wrong house. And to all a good night!

So many applications!

“It is your fault that you don’t want the thing that we want you to want”

The 20 best books of the year, ranked Our chief books critic Martin Chilton chooses his very best reads of the year, from state-of-the-nation novels to surprising memoirs

Much gratification, in our house, to learn that @xanbrooks.bsky.social wrote the 13th-best book of the year 😍
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

Can billionaire media moguls be trusted in Trump’s America? | Emily Bell The new gatekeepers use ‘trust’ to discredit the press and talk about removing bias with AI - distracting us from their own shift to the right

Thoughtful and (unsurprisingly) unnerving piece by @emilybell.bsky.social about news media, AI, truth, bias, and billionaires www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Seconded, while declaring wife-of-the-author conflict of interest

I feel like this was meant for you, @xanbrooks.bsky.social

Please, if you're able, support Independent bookshops in the run up to Christmas.

Their curation and knowledge will help you choose books that no algorithm can.

And algorithms don't smile and chat to you either.

@bookcornerhx.bsky.social
@forumbooks.bsky.social
@blackwellsmcr.bsky.social

I know, right??

Opinion | Trump’s Project 2025 May Not Be What It Seemed. It’s Worse. (Gift Article) Trump’s version of Project 2025 may not be what it seemed. It’s worse.

This is ... quite a read. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/o...

oh HELLO!! good to see you over here! and of course I'd LOVE a copy of your latest...

@librarychampion.bsky.social I’ve found you! Immediately feeling much more at home 😍

So here for this. In the absence of Oxford commas, sentences tend to be unwieldy, inelegant, and on occasion incomprehensible.

That’s very well, and generously, done.

🤣

I mean: it’s v possible that the job of the editor in this case was simply to shout “SPIKE!” at the top of his/her lungs. The combination of the statutory rape apologia and the lubricious prose nearly made me lose my breakfast

Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century: “I Loved Him. He Was My Safety.” When he was 42, Cormac McCarthy fell in love with a 16-year-old girl he met by a motel pool. Augusta Britt would go on to become one of the most significant—and secret—inspirations in literary history...

Dear god, this Vanity Fair piece. Where oh where oh WHERE was the editor? Where was the person whose job it was to say “there is a jaw-dropping story here which must and should be told, but the version you’ve got down is NOT it?” www.vanityfair.com/style/story/...

🤣

Chronic pain and ravaged mental health: this is the brutal reality of Britain’s new working class | Aditya Chakrabortty The story of former Amazon worker Karolina Sobczak reveals much about the people who keep our society running – at huge personal cost, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

Deeply impactful piece by the always-exceptional Aditya Chakrabortty (who I can’t find on here yet?) on the plight of the post-industrial workforce that sends out our Amazon parcels. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Ah Fi I knew you’d be in favour!! He’s a right daft lad but I’m very fond of him 😍