Sam Sacks
@ssacks.bsky.social
Fiction critic at the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/news/author/sam-sacks); editor at Open Letters Review, formerly Open Letters Monthly (https://openlettersreview.com/) sam_sacks [at] hotmail
Now happening in Central Park
November 8, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Now happening in Central Park
if you see this, post an album cover with a motor vehicle on it
November 8, 2025 at 6:32 PM
if you see this, post an album cover with a motor vehicle on it
It's been a James Schuyler day. The Manhattan sublime, from his Payne Whitney poems.
November 7, 2025 at 2:50 AM
It's been a James Schuyler day. The Manhattan sublime, from his Payne Whitney poems.
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly calls Daniyal Mueenuddin's 'This is Where the Serpent Lives' a "masterpiece." And it's true, this will be one of the finest novels published in years. Out in January, put it on your radar! www.publishersweekly.com/9780525655152
November 6, 2025 at 2:57 PM
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly calls Daniyal Mueenuddin's 'This is Where the Serpent Lives' a "masterpiece." And it's true, this will be one of the finest novels published in years. Out in January, put it on your radar! www.publishersweekly.com/9780525655152
My wife's relatives discovered a 1940 diary her grandfather wrote on parchment paper (he was a baker in Lille) during the German invasion of France. He recounts chauffeuring French officials, frantically fleeing Lille with his pregnant wife and three children and being taken prisoner.
October 30, 2025 at 4:09 PM
My wife's relatives discovered a 1940 diary her grandfather wrote on parchment paper (he was a baker in Lille) during the German invasion of France. He recounts chauffeuring French officials, frantically fleeing Lille with his pregnant wife and three children and being taken prisoner.
RIP to David Bellos, a great translator, teacher, scholar and popularizer. Here's a charming little essay about what he learned from his landmark translation of Georges Perec's 'Life: A User's Manual'. online.wsj.com/article/SB10...
October 27, 2025 at 4:38 PM
RIP to David Bellos, a great translator, teacher, scholar and popularizer. Here's a charming little essay about what he learned from his landmark translation of Georges Perec's 'Life: A User's Manual'. online.wsj.com/article/SB10...
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.
October 9, 2025 at 5:25 PM
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.
(And here are the mass markets)
October 8, 2025 at 4:50 PM
(And here are the mass markets)
I bought a new bookshelf--some kind of end-of-supply sale at the Container Store--and have finally made a little library of my literary criticism. I don't think any other kind of book has given me as much uncomplicated pleasure. (The Beckett is just a stopgap bookend, it will go elsewhere.)
October 8, 2025 at 4:48 PM
I bought a new bookshelf--some kind of end-of-supply sale at the Container Store--and have finally made a little library of my literary criticism. I don't think any other kind of book has given me as much uncomplicated pleasure. (The Beckett is just a stopgap bookend, it will go elsewhere.)
I currently have the best view in New York, on the staging area for the African American Day parade
September 21, 2025 at 3:52 PM
I currently have the best view in New York, on the staging area for the African American Day parade
This sign in Central Park about adult cicada killer wasps is raising a lot of questions already answered by the sign
September 9, 2025 at 5:35 PM
This sign in Central Park about adult cicada killer wasps is raising a lot of questions already answered by the sign
Just got a great gift from a Japanese friend—sake in a juice box
August 21, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Just got a great gift from a Japanese friend—sake in a juice box
"This was a woman who used the written word the way a highway patrolman uses his cruiser: as a work tool, instrument of power and control, weapon, badge of office, carapace, and home on wheels." Beth Gutcheon on the strengths and eccentricities of Edna Ferber. hudsonreview.com/2025/08/the-...
August 14, 2025 at 3:05 PM
"This was a woman who used the written word the way a highway patrolman uses his cruiser: as a work tool, instrument of power and control, weapon, badge of office, carapace, and home on wheels." Beth Gutcheon on the strengths and eccentricities of Edna Ferber. hudsonreview.com/2025/08/the-...
The most photogenic of today's unnecessary bookstore purchases
August 12, 2025 at 8:45 PM
The most photogenic of today's unnecessary bookstore purchases
And something I got just this summer, from Massolit Bookstore in Budapest. Frank O'Connor's two cents in an 'Appreciation' series that Ireland's Metropolitan Publishing put out in the 1940s. Always love when these things wind up on the other side of Europe--and it has now found a home in New York.
August 11, 2025 at 6:27 PM
And something I got just this summer, from Massolit Bookstore in Budapest. Frank O'Connor's two cents in an 'Appreciation' series that Ireland's Metropolitan Publishing put out in the 1940s. Always love when these things wind up on the other side of Europe--and it has now found a home in New York.
This seems to be the last remaining book memento from my university semester in Sevilla, bought from one of the many bookshops tucked away in the winding streets of the Barrio de Santa Cruz. My Spanish is good enough for Vallejo's dark & biting early poems; maybe not for the later surrealist stuff.
August 11, 2025 at 6:17 PM
This seems to be the last remaining book memento from my university semester in Sevilla, bought from one of the many bookshops tucked away in the winding streets of the Barrio de Santa Cruz. My Spanish is good enough for Vallejo's dark & biting early poems; maybe not for the later surrealist stuff.
This is from Richard Booth's Bookshop in the actual Hay-on-Wye. A cherished addition to my Arthur Waley collection. Here he translates, in his exceedingly free manner, a selection of verse from lesser known Chinese poets across the dynasties.
August 11, 2025 at 6:08 PM
This is from Richard Booth's Bookshop in the actual Hay-on-Wye. A cherished addition to my Arthur Waley collection. Here he translates, in his exceedingly free manner, a selection of verse from lesser known Chinese poets across the dynasties.
I found this in the overflowing book stalls in Redu, a "village du livre" in the Ardennes that is like Belgium's version of Hay-on-Wye. It's a Scottish Highlands nature memoir, a cheap (and evidently highly fictitious) Gavin Maxwell rip-off. But I'm stuck with it.
August 11, 2025 at 6:02 PM
I found this in the overflowing book stalls in Redu, a "village du livre" in the Ardennes that is like Belgium's version of Hay-on-Wye. It's a Scottish Highlands nature memoir, a cheap (and evidently highly fictitious) Gavin Maxwell rip-off. But I'm stuck with it.
This is from Kim's Bookshop, right next to the amazing Lahore Museum and across the street from the Zamzama Canon, invoked at the start of Kipling's 'Kim'. It's a pretty dry history but has been handy for reference. The Mughals are endlessly interesting.
August 11, 2025 at 5:56 PM
This is from Kim's Bookshop, right next to the amazing Lahore Museum and across the street from the Zamzama Canon, invoked at the start of Kipling's 'Kim'. It's a pretty dry history but has been handy for reference. The Mughals are endlessly interesting.
I'm doing a big library cull and remembering that sometimes I hold on to books purely as keepsakes, souvenirs of my travels. Like this marked-up student's copy of 'Orlando', which I bought from The Lucky Boomerang in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. (To my shame, I still haven't read it.)
August 11, 2025 at 5:48 PM
I'm doing a big library cull and remembering that sometimes I hold on to books purely as keepsakes, souvenirs of my travels. Like this marked-up student's copy of 'Orlando', which I bought from The Lucky Boomerang in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. (To my shame, I still haven't read it.)
A view of Fort Boyard, built during the reign on Louis XIV and currently the site of France's most famous game show
August 6, 2025 at 6:47 PM
A view of Fort Boyard, built during the reign on Louis XIV and currently the site of France's most famous game show
It's my own problem for not subscribing to the print issues, but the amount of hyperlinking in New York magazine online pieces makes them genuinely disagreeable to read. In this paragraph, for instance, it would make sense to link to the Harper's letter, but the rest is just clutter.
August 5, 2025 at 2:46 PM
It's my own problem for not subscribing to the print issues, but the amount of hyperlinking in New York magazine online pieces makes them genuinely disagreeable to read. In this paragraph, for instance, it would make sense to link to the Harper's letter, but the rest is just clutter.
"Count Tolstoî Not Obscene." The 1890 New York Times article reporting the court order that ended the ban on the distribution of 'The Kreutzer Sonata' imposed by the US Post Office and then-Attorney General Theodore Roosevelt.
timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine...
timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine...
August 5, 2025 at 11:40 AM
"Count Tolstoî Not Obscene." The 1890 New York Times article reporting the court order that ended the ban on the distribution of 'The Kreutzer Sonata' imposed by the US Post Office and then-Attorney General Theodore Roosevelt.
timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine...
timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine...
