Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Alex Shephard @alexshephard.bsky.social · 9h

I went on the best soccer podcast to talk about books

Michael Caley @michaelcaley.bsky.social · 10h

new subscriber @doublepivotpodcast.bsky.social !

we are joined by @alexshephard.bsky.social to talk about the Nobel Prize for Literature

but as sports

www.patreon.com/posts/analyt...

Analytics, Awards, and the Nobel for Literature with Alex Shephard | The Double Pivot Podcast

www.patreon.com

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 11h

oh no

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Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 11h

Unbelievable story of Afghan refugee, a highly vetted fluent English speaker who helped the US against the Taliban and now lives here with his US citizen kids, declared “illegal” and perhaps about to be shipped home by the Trump admin to his likely death

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 12h

He supported America’s war, escaped Afghanistan and started a family in the U.S.

Then ICE arrested him.

If he is deported, he expects the Taliban to kill him.

America saved him from the Taliban. Trump wants to send him back.

He supported America’s war, escaped Afghanistan and started a family in the U.S. Then ICE arrested him. If he is deported, he expects the Taliban to kill him.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 1d

This seems hinged to me. My addendum would be that the categorization of ‘translated literature’ is disastrous for those books.

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 1d

Don't miss Tom LeClair, loving but tough, on the new Pynchon: '“Nothing so loathsome as a Sentimental Surrealist,” says Pynchon in Gravity’s Rainbow, but the word “sentimental” is all over the text of Shadow Ticket' openlettersreview.com/posts/shadow...

Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon — Open Letters Review

A review of the new novel from the legendary Thomas Pynchon

openlettersreview.com

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 1d

Steve Donoghue on Lance Richardson's 'True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen': "a brilliant biography, bristling with ground-clearing primary-source research, filled with every findable fact about this writer and...written with serious narrative flair" openlettersreview.com/posts/true-n...

True Nature by Lance Richardson — Open Letters Review

A brilliant new biography of the legendary 20th-century author

openlettersreview.com

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Eric Weinberger @ericweinberger.bsky.social · 2d

ICE sent a Massachusetts 7th grader 500 miles away without his parents or even telling them

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility - The Boston Globe

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested.

www.bostonglobe.com

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Drop Site @dropsitenews.com · 2d

Joshua Reed Eakle via X (@JoshEakle)

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Levi Stahl @levistahl.bsky.social · 2d

Issue 4 of my newsletter, this one a commonplace book issue full of quotes about parents and children, went out yesterday. Come for one of Waugh’s children calling him a sadist, stay for a comedian reflecting on making out in cemeteries as a teen.

Levi Stahl @levistahl.bsky.social · Aug 25

I started a newsletter, friends.

this-not-that.ghost.io

This, Not That

Reccomending some good books, movies, music, and more

this-not-that.ghost.io

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Tom Joscelyn @tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 2d

“I spent three nights and three days in federal custody. During that time, I was never told what I was charged with, was not allowed to shower despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, had no phone call to my family, and no access to an attorney.” - George Retes, U.S. citizen and veteran.

I’m a US citizen and a veteran. ICE arrested me for no reason.

Jailed for three days without an explanation or ability to notify anyone, George Retes argues the only path to healing starts with the government taking accountability for its actions.

newsletter.ofthebrave.org

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Lynn Becker @cmgiulini.bsky.social · 3d

After spending 43 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, evidence hidden by the prosecution reversed his conviction. Rather than finally enjoying freedom, ICE abducted him for deportation

Depraved.

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

He was wrongfully imprisoned for 43 years. Moments after being released, ICE took him

Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam now faces deportation.

www.miamiherald.com

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David Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · 4d

www.wweek.com/news/2025/10...

Bynum Demands End to ICE Raids After U.S. Citizen Allegedly Abducted by Masked Agents

Bynum compares ICE’s conduct to U.S. Marshals hunting down Black Americans under the Fugitive Slave Act.

www.wweek.com

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 4d

He was previously with Random House over here. I'd guess the explanation (in the U.S.) is simply that MCD decided to splash out and won the bidding war. I am surprised 'The Orphan Master's Son' didn't get any traction where you are; maybe North Korea isn't a subject of as much fascination as here.

Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 4d

It's unusual because MCD is a division of FSG that, in my memory, usually publishes offbeat paperback original debut fiction. But Johnson is a (deserved) Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner. I've been reading him with awe since his great short story 'Teen Sniper' ran in Harper's in 2002.

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 4d

It's the Fall Books double-issue at the WSJ and it's terrific. Moira Hodgson on Susan Orlean, Hugh Eakin on Douglas Cooper, Franz Nicolay on Talking Heads, Anna Mundow on John Banville, Kyle Smith on Marty McFly, Gioia Diliberto on Jane Birkin, Thomas Mallon on Updike! www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

‘Selected Letters of John Updike’ Review: Restless Correspondent

John Updike worried that success would make him lazy. But his literary output—and his letters—kept up the pace.

www.wsj.com

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 6d

Now online is my WSJ review of Adam Johnson's 'The Wayfinder,' a fantastical epic set during the height of the Tu'i Tonga Empire in Polynesia. It's a book about storytelling that teems with wondrous stories. It is, I think, a genuinely great novel. Gift link here: www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

‘The Wayfinder’ Review: Uncharted Waters

Adam Johnson’s epic is a story of power, survival, loss and courage, set in the Polynesia of centuries past.

www.wsj.com

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 4d

Thoreau, Oct. 10, 1856. While moving the fence to-day, dug up a large reddish, mummy-like chrysalid or nymph. [Pupa of white-lined sphinx moth by Wendy Hanson Mazet, adult by UW-Milwaukee]

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 5d

I know, and I had it once, too! What a good magazine that was.

I loved following your travels with a donkey in the Cevenne, by the way--it's something I've really wanted to do.

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 5d

Oh, you don't have the Cahiers Series chapbook of Krasznahorkai's 'Animalinside'? That's cool I guess, though it's kinda the skeleton key to the author's whole chthonic oeuvre.

photo of obscure literary pamphlet to accompany humorously pretentious lit-bro post

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Neglected Books @neglectedbooks.com · 5d

I had a great conversation yesterday with Daniel Akst, novelist and now publisher of Tivoli Books, a new press devoted to old and new neglected books, including @jonathangibbs.bsky.social's terrific novel of the art world, Randall. Interesting revivals in the pipeline from Tivoli.

tivolibooks.com

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Jenny Croft @jenniferlcroft.bsky.social · 5d

I took this picture of Olga and László in London in 2018. Congrats to Krasznahorkai and his translators, including George Szirtes and @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social, and long live a Central Europe free of dictators (foreign and domestic) and full of magnificent minds like these!

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The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 5d

Hungarian novelist and screenwriter László Krasznahorkai was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

László Krasznahorkai Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

The Swedish Academy in Stockholm credited him for his ‘compelling and visionary oeuvre’

on.wsj.com

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Andrei @theuntranslated.bsky.social · 5d

Congrats!

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Brad Heath @bradheath.bsky.social · 6d

WSJ: President Trump believed his Truth Social post demanding prosecutions of James Comey and other political foes was a private message to his attorney general, and "and was surprised to learn it was public."

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

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Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 6d

I'm going to take a flyer on Ibrahim al-Koni. A great and prolific writer whose books harness the power of both history and fable. And he's the undisputed laureate of a fraught part of the world that needs more global attention.

James Hell Brooks @kleinman.bsky.social · 11d

Nobel Literature Predictions
FAVORITES: Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Colm Toibin
DARK HORSES: Antonio Munoz Molina, Abdellatif Laabi
MAYBE IT'S FINALLY THEIR YEAR: Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood
REALLY I JUST DON'T WANT HIM TO WIN: Peter Nadas

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