For the Guardian, I reviewed the latest (and last?) novel by Michel Houellebecq. www.theguardian.com/books/articl...

Annihilation by Michel Houellebecq review – the failure of politics

The chaos element of the populist right disrupts France’s weary liberal regime, in a novel of sadness and eerie serenity that marks a new direction

We may, tragically, never get to see the film. For now though we can at least admire this brilliantly written, nuanced, deeply thoughtful account of it. www.nytimes.com/2024/09/08/m...

The Prince We Never Knew

A revealing new documentary could redefine our understanding of the pop icon. But you will probably never get to see it.

England still scratching its head over this complex mystery.

Whenever I come back from the supermarket and they were sold out of something I say to my partner “it’s broken Britain” so I’m excited to get to speak about this more widely.

Yes I had to delete that and post it again because I’d tagged the wrong people. No I am not confident I’ve got it right this time.

Saturday 7th September, as part of the FT festival, I’ll be talking about the state of the nation and the state of the nation novel with @jonathancoe.bsky.social@frederick65.bsky.socialukftweekendfestival.live.ft.com/agenda

FT Weekend Festival

Join us for our annual UK edition, in London, online & on demand, on Saturday, 7 September 2024 for a chance for FTWeekend readers from all over the globe to engage with our journalists and one anothe...

I can't recommend enough Christian Lorentzen's broadside in Granta against a critical trend that treats literature as a corporate product and readers as consumers--a view that "amounts to a distracting narcissism, looking in the mirror when our eyes should be on the page." granta.com/literature-w...

Literature Without Literature | Christian Lorentzen | Granta

‘Corporate publishing is the channel through which literature happens to flow at this moment in history.’ Christian Lorentzen dissects the literary establishment.

Relatedly, here’s Christian Lorentzen on “an age when literary discourse is in flight from the literary”: “Fiction recedes behind the chatter it generates and is judged according not to its intrinsic qualities but to the sort of reader whose existence it implies.” granta.com/literature-w...

We just get the same sort of ambient books content endlessly regurgitated. I read a Christian Lorenzen piece this week where he said that literary culture is in flight from the literary - I think that’s perfectly put.

Everyone agrees that “articles about books” and “reading” are Very Important but everyone also agrees that actual literary criticism is Very Boring, and so we’re stuck with a literary discourse that looks like this.