Julia Lloyd George

Thinking of Virginia Giuffre today

The End of Books Coverage at the Washington Post Becca Rothfeld, a former critic at the Washington Post, on the death of the paper’s books section.

writing book reviews often feels like playing the violin on the Titanic these days, but Becca Rothfeld has written about it so beautifully that I dare say my spirits are buoyed: www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

This is a very cool history, but it’s also sad to think of how this “coaching tree” model is essentially dead in the current age of TV

😎😎😎😎 GOOD THINGS CAN STILL HAPPEN 😎😎😎😎

Thank you to the fabulous @jlloydgeorge.bsky.social and @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social for this Q&A on my new book, JUST PILLS, chronicling the extraordinary history of abortion pills—and of feminist networks putting these pills into women's hands despite the odds!
lareviewofbooks.org/article/pill...

The abortion pill is safe. But why should Trump let facts get in the way of his agenda? | Moira Donegan

"The review of mifepristone marks the second time in less than a week that the Trump administration has marshaled false medical claims and junk science in an effort to constrain the freedoms of pregnant women and curtail their access to relief," writes Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan.

It’s going to break your heart how many people you know, love, and respect will turn out to be cowards. Prepare yourself as best you can. You are not alone, but you are your own center. Be a strong center.

it’s pretty nuts that 9 months into trump 2.0 we need a whisper network just to get a fucking covid vaccine

More than a set of data points If you squint, the dystopian future of Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel looks a lot like our present reality. The rules of this meticulously drawn world are

I wrote about Laila Lalami's "The Dream Hotel", a dystopian novel I still think about every time I have to sign a service agreement, for @thetls.bsky.social

New TV Novels | Lisa Borst It’s a literature of dimming stars, smoggy drives through flammable chaparral, frequent benders, prostitutes. Flash periods of productivity where somebody bangs out a script in a week. There’s at leas...

Loved this @nplusonemag.com essay on the TV novel and the “uneasy, mutually needy relationship between writing (or reading) fiction and making (or watching) television” www.nplusonemag.com/issue-50/rev...

In Defense of the Traditional Review Far from being a journalistic relic, as suggested by recent developments at the New York Times, arts criticism is inherently progressive, keeping art honest and pointing toward its future.

“A review is whatever a work of art brings to mind; everything is criticism.”

I’ve read a lot of “defenses” of criticism from the past decade or so, and this Brody essay is the best by a country mile. What a knock-out.

www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Amen

I’m so sorry! I will miss seeing your byline there

Propagating chaos | TLS The most impressive fact about the Spanish film-maker Albert Serra’s fragmented memoir, A Toast to St Martirià, is that its central essay came from a speech that was “entirely improvised”, according t...

Reviewed a director's memoir for the first time. 'Twas a challenge! Though I'll never complain about watching films as "homework." www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-feat...

Havoc by Christopher Bollen | Book review | The TLS The chaos agents who drive Christopher Bollen’s latest thriller belong to two of the most easily overlooked demographics: an old woman and a child. The

I had so much fun reading and re-reading Christopher Bollen's "Havoc", a thriller set in an Egyptian hotel during lockdown, for @thetls.bsky.social. If you're sad about "The White Lotus" ending this Sunday, this might be for you!

I wish people hated fascism half as much as they hate feminism

A reminder that fiction — books, film, games, what have you — is always political. The willful absence of “politics” in any work is itself a political choice and a political act. Who gets to tell (and sell) stories is political. It might be an undercurrent — covert, not overt. But it’s there.

I honestly believe our most powerful position in a toxic time that feeds on cynicism, apathy,& despair is to genuinely care and act for a better world.

Cynicism is our enemy. We should check it, incl. on the left. It’s not intellectually superior. It’s the virus they’re trying to infect us with. NO

Thinking about the time some guy was trying to convince me that RFK Jr was “carrying the torch for the Kennedys”

Lazarus Man by Richard Price | Book review | The TLS Resurrection stories typically aren’t a hard sell; readers are seduced by the promise of miracles and by the possibility that they too can rise again to

Wrote my first book review for @thetls.bsky.social! Feeling very thankful www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-feat...