He was secretary of state for international development when he launched an unsuccessful bid to become Tory leader in 2019. Later that year, he resigned from the party to stand as an independent in the London mayoral elections. He co-hosts the podcast The Rest Is Politics and is the author of prize-winning and bestselling books including The Places in Between and Politics on the Edge. His latest is Middleland.
Book Gossip, a newsletter about what the literati are really thinking, is entering a new chapter. I'm Jasmine Vojdani, a senior newsletter editor at New York, where I also cover books and culture. I first moved to the city to start a degree in creative writing, choosing the M.F.A. and NYC (and, naturally, debt) - and I have lots of thoughts about that.
Joel Miller opens his new book, The Idea Machine, with this famous scene from The Confessions because it sparked his own epiphany. Not a spiritual conversion, mind. What struck Miller during his recent reread was how Augustine marked his place with his finger. This seemingly unremarkable detail - a move any reader has made countless times - forced Miller to reevaluate books as not simply a vessel for ideas, but as history's most successful "information technology."
In a chaotic and distressing year, books provided a respite, a chance to commune with works of coherent voice and vision. Some people find it harder to read during days overflowing with one-minute distractions and incessant notifications, but when I took the time, I was rewarded with a slightly bigger foothold in a world of decency, humanity, patience, and compassion. Here are 10 good reasons to give that a try.
The best gifts aren't always the biggest or the priciest. Sometimes they're just the ones that add a little joy, a bit of ease, or say, This made me think of you. And with money tighter than ever this year, many of us are searching for low-cost but high-impact gifts. Fortunately, there are plenty of unique finds out there at a price point that won't make your eye twitch.
It's been so exciting to witness, from afar, the opening of Shooster Arts + Literature in Sag Harbor, New York this past summer. It's a project from one of my nearest and dearest friends, Lauren Shooster: a living gallery of fine art, antiques, and rare books that Lauren has collected over the years. She has a gallery location (197 Madison Street in Sag Harbor) and also operates out of her own house, a 19th century whaler's cottage nearby.
At some point over the past year, Kyla Scanlon seemed to be everywhere - at least on my feeds. I first heard her on Bloomberg's Odd Lots in the summer of 2024, tied to the release of her book In This Economy?: How Money & Markets Really Work, which is a kind of economics primer for the TikTok generation. Recently, she surfaced on The Ezra Klein Show, expanding on a Substack post about the political juice of both Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump,
The artificial intelligence company Anthropic has agreed to pay $1.5bn to settle a class-action lawsuit by book authors who say the company took pirated copies of their works to train its chatbot. The landmark settlement, if approved by a judge as soon as Monday, could mark a turning point in legal battles between AI companies and the writers, visual artists and other creative professionals who accuse them of copyright infringement.
This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 664 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books.
The cyberattack coordinated by Israeli and U.S. government hackers known as Stuxnet, which damaged the centrifuges at the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz, is almost certainly the most well-known hack in history. Because of its impact, its sophistication, and its sheer boldness, the attack captured the imagination not only of the cybersecurity community, but the larger public as well.
In one chapter, Ricker found a way to turn five-minute bedtime stories into five-second stories! One line stuck with me: 'For 30 years you felt like Batman, and you woke up one day and you were Alfred.'
