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Harare Review of Books
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✍🏾 Jacqueline Nyathi, librocubicularist, friendly neighbourhood "You *Must* Read This" person.

https://hararereview.com

📝📚 @thecontinent.org, @strangehorizons.bsky.social etc

(Incidentally, also @shonatiger.hararereview.com
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Harare Review of Books, OctoberNovemberDecember 2025 open.substack.com/pub/shonatig...
Harare Review of Books, OctoberNovemberDecember 2025
Happy New Year!
open.substack.com
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Grateful to see my forthcoming SF thriller THE FIST OF MEMORY on this list of excellent African fiction in 2026. 🙏🏾
January 16, 2026 at 3:08 AM
The Paris Review on IG

www.instagram.com/p/DTiZJQfEo_...
January 16, 2026 at 12:27 AM
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Reviews are for readers not for authors. They are criticism not fluff pieces. Authors should expect their work to be pulled apart and put back together in ways they did not expect. Honestly, I think good writers are grateful for this even when it doesn't go their way.
January 15, 2026 at 5:13 AM
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A critic is rigourous and honest to the point of bluntness because criticism is an essential part of a literary scene getting *better* and the pressure towards PR rather than criticism is ever present.
January 15, 2026 at 5:11 AM
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New climate fiction 🌱

2026 has been a rough start. If the headlines are heavy, today’s new Imagine 2200 story offers a wider lens—and a little hope.

The Very Important Case of Rami and the Rainbow Bird
grist.org/climate-fict...

#Solarpunk #ClimateFiction #CliFi #Fiction #Writers
The Very Important Case of Rami and the Rainbow Bird
Original climate fiction: When Rami Saleh’s porcelain bird is broken, the schoolyard gets on the case in a caper about finding truth, belonging, and safety in a world on fire.
grist.org
January 15, 2026 at 6:35 PM
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It cracks me up that there are like nine companies named for lord of the rings and eight of them are strictly monstrous evil and one of them makes super nice and extremely practical old fashioned bicycles
palantir has always sounded like the antagonist corporation in a max payne game
January 15, 2026 at 3:20 PM
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At @reactorsff.bsky.social, I previewed some indie press books due out in January and February. reactormag.com/cant-miss-in...
Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for January and February 2026 - Reactor
Stories of near-future societies, uncanny filmmakers, and virtual gaming gone wrong...
reactormag.com
January 15, 2026 at 7:11 PM
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oh hey, it's me! I liked this book a lot! It has a really strong focus on relationships and community-building among the main characters, and while there is a romance too, it's not the main point of the story.

also very fun to read, and an exciting debut! hijinks! gay! New York!
"In a fantasy landscape dominated by romance-forward stories, it felt like a treat to read a story where romance just isn’t the point—but relationships still are."

@readingtheend.bsky.social reviews the warm, bustling, occasionally chaotic witchy fantasy An Unlikely Coven, by AM Kvita!
An Unlikely Coven by AM Kvita Is Full of Delightful Shenanigans - Reactor
If you’re chasing a sense of belonging in what can feel like an ever-more-alienating real world, An Unlikely Coven is the book you need.
reactormag.com
January 15, 2026 at 7:16 PM
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At Oregon Contemporary this Saturday, 1/17, gather under the oak tree as Ursula K. Le Guin’s daughters, daughter-in-law, and one of her granddaughters read a selection of her children’s books.

The event is free to attend and open to all! Storytime begins at noon.

Photo by Mario Gallucci Studio.
January 15, 2026 at 7:22 PM
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I have updated the POETRY HUGO website with new interviews with Marie Brennan, winner of the first poetry Hugo! We are looking for additional coverage on this historic moment, journalists! www.poetryhugo.com
Speculative Poetry Initiative
What Works Are Available for Nomination in the 2026 Awards?
www.poetryhugo.com
January 15, 2026 at 7:15 PM
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Nyuol Lueth Tong on pushing past the (so-called) "difficult" sentences of László Krasznahorkai, a reward built on "the sensation of having stayed with a mind thinking at full stretch." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/nobel-laureate-laszlo-krasznahorkai-long-sentences-essay-satantango/
January 15, 2026 at 7:34 PM
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Announcing the shortlists for the second annual MIT Press Faculty and Alumni Book Awards! This year’s shortlisted titles exemplify the intellectual ambition, creativity, and impact that define the MIT community.

Winners will be announced in April 9th: mitpress.mit.edu/the-mit-pres....
January 15, 2026 at 8:01 PM
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"he, the Chaldean, stares without blinking, as if his eyelids have been cut off, and he sees time as the fly sees the world, at the same time backward and forward, through morning mist and ground fog, river vapors and evening haze, and through smoke from burning cities"
January 15, 2026 at 8:30 PM
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Because Wikipedia content is openly licensed for anyone to reuse for free, its servers are currently being hammered by AI scrapers. This enterprise deal gives the companies access to a high speed feed, a privilege they pay for. That’s all. No AI content in Wikipedia. techcrunch.com/2026/01/15/w...
Wikimedia Foundation announces new AI partnerships with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Perplexity, and others | TechCrunch
The AI partnerships allow companies to access the org's content, like Wikipedia, at scale.
techcrunch.com
January 15, 2026 at 7:03 PM
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In a future where AI controls everything, Hippocrates is the last of its kind. It's also not where Pok wants to study, but his father's death...and another kind of mysterious illness...begin to interfere.

We're sharing an excerpt from @justinkey.bsky.social's The Hospital At The End of The World!
Read an Excerpt From The Hospital at the End of the World by Justin C. Key - Reactor
In a near future where artificial intelligence runs the world, a medical student must unravel family secrets to investigate his father’s death.
reactormag.com
January 15, 2026 at 8:41 PM
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thinking about the observation (quoted by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz here: strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...) that "italics are a form of apology"

"I find myself asking: do we really need to explain everything to the imagined Western reader?"
January 15, 2026 at 5:41 PM
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THREAD of offers of guest lectures (via Zoom) for Minneapolis-area classes so faculty can offer their students a top-quality education while dealing with other crises

Seeing tons of extremely generous offers. I'll try to post 'em all here--please add your own w topics you can cover & how to contact
Finally, a note to the many professors in my networks: One other specific, small thing you can do from outside of Minneapolis is reach out to colleagues who are heavily affected (because of their own or their family's risk, or because they're very busy protecting neighbors) and offer a guest lecture
January 15, 2026 at 7:43 PM
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Ew, gross.
Also new in v1.114 today: cashtags! Like hashtags, but for stocks.

Tag your posts with #$AAPL, #$NVDA, whatever, then tap to see everyone else's equally unqualified analysis!
January 15, 2026 at 9:19 PM
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With “Wikimedia Enterprise”, AI companies have to use (and pay for) dedicated APIs to scrape data, which helps to limit the strain on Wikimedia servers. (See eg arstechnica.com/information-...) This is a good thing for Wikimedia and for its readers.
AI bots strain Wikimedia as bandwidth surges 50%
Automated AI bots seeking training data threaten Wikipedia project stability, foundation says.
arstechnica.com
January 15, 2026 at 6:52 PM
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I still they they should have sued them instead, for the strain and for using info without proper credit (it's "free to use", but only with credit) while taking away traffic

instead of making a deal w/ the fascists at all for a program that causes psychosis, has a body count + is killing the planet
Sure. AI companies have ALWAYS been training their models on Wikipedia content, which under the free and open access model is available to anyone — including AI companies. Agreements like these require AI companies to limit and offset the strain they place on Wikimedia infrastructure.
January 15, 2026 at 9:16 PM
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We've got a contender for worst map of the year and it's only the 15th Jan.
January 15, 2026 at 12:04 PM
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Today, @wikipedia.org turns 25 years old. It's never been more important — or under more attack from authoritarians. Here's what to know about how we got here, and what we can do to push for its future. There's no better example of the web we make together. www.anildash.com/2026/01/15/w...
Wikipedia at 25: What the web can be - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
www.anildash.com
January 15, 2026 at 7:56 PM
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MTC 3:1 is out. And is.quite a. Collection. mtc-journal.org/index.php/mt... (yes, there’s a great piece on punctuation)
Manuscript and Text Cultures
An open access journal for scholars of manuscripts, epigraphy, and texts from various pre-modern cultures operated by the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures at The Queen's College, Oxford.
mtc-journal.org
January 15, 2026 at 10:00 PM
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Emmy-winning actor and comedian Kenan Thompson (l.), the longest-tenured Saturday Night Live cast member, has co-written a debut picture book, Unfunny Bunny, with stand-up comedian and SNL senior writer Bryan Tucker. We asked the duo to discuss their collaborative process.
In Conversation: Kenan Thompson and Bryan Tucker
Emmy Award-winning actor and comedian Kenan Thompson and his colleague at 'SNL,' writer Bryan Tucker, discuss the collaborative process behind their picture book debut, ‘Unfunny Bunny.’
buff.ly
January 15, 2026 at 10:00 PM
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Stores like Paper & Pencil — packed with stickers, fountain pens and planners — have seen sales surge. Chicago shop owners credit social media and influencers who have marked this year as a return to analog.
Looking for a pen? Shoppers overwhelm Chicago stationery shops as social media touts 'return to analog'
www.wbez.org
January 15, 2026 at 9:21 PM