My magnum opus - a unified field theory of why the post-literate society is a catastrophe for civilisation as we know it https://t.co/V0xxKeS8MJ

really must finish writing it...

Exciting (to me) news.

How Nietzsche wrote about how music and love are alike is beautiful: This is our experience of music: we must first learn to hear, make out and distinguish a figure and a melody at all, to isolate and demarcate it as a living thing in its own right; then it requires a certain

"Moral indignation is only thrilling when it is wielded by insurgents. When it is the establishment mood, it becomes sour and directionless. At whom can an ... art gallery level accusations of moral impurity? At its visitors? At itself?"—@j_amesmarriott

Join us live for 'The slop-ification of literature' as Substack’s @edwest, The Times’ @j_amesmarriott and UnHerd’s @Docstockk come together to discuss the twilight of literary culture and the dark dawn of scrolling culture.

Here are the best books I read in 2025: from Richard Dawkins to Sylvia Townsend Warner via Tim Blanning. Fiction, memoir, science, ideas, history and more. https://t.co/2vz4kuOTjM

Really enjoyed this conversation with @NPR about the dawn of the post-literate society. Especially interesting to get some push back on the idea - very dear to me - that everything is better if everyone reads. https://t.co/cJ55TSk9dt

This is obviously a disaster.

I wrote this about why I am a pessimist about democracy. Modern democracy is a recent, relatively untested and historically very weird phenomenon. Above all it is the product of some highly unusual historical circumstances that no longer obtain. https://t.co/1JchWsO9VM

My favourite Christmas playlist. A masterpiece!

Really enjoyed this conversation with @NPR about the dawn of the post-literate society. Especially interesting to get some push back on the idea - very dear to me - that everything is better if everyone reads. https://t.co/cJ55TSk9dt

I wrote this about why I am a pessimist about democracy. Modern democracy is a recent, relatively untested and historically very weird phenomenon. Above all it is the product of some highly unusual historical circumstances that no longer obtain. https://t.co/1JchWsO9VM

My latest newsletter rounding up everything interesting I read last week in books and online: the decline of deviance, we are living in the age of stupid, why meerkats are evil, defining philistinism and why we are never going to outer space https://t.co/DJNwbHkl4D

"If the two hemispheres of the world were composed in the form of such a glass, and all the world calcined and burnt to ashes, and all the ashes, and sands, and atoms of the world put into that glass, it would not be enough to tell the godly man what his treasure is"

Stumbled across this on Spotify. You have to get past the somewhat fruity and theatrical 1930s accent if you can it's amazing. An album of readings of some of the best bits from John Donne's Meditations and sermons. Especially love this one. https://t.co/hAKL1oJvZa

My latest newsletter rounding up everything interesting I read last week in books and online: the decline of deviance, we are living in the age of stupid, why meerkats are evil, defining philistinism and why we are never going to outer space https://t.co/DJNwbHkl4D

Couldn't agree more!

The Kate Clanchy affair wasn't about social justice - it was about envy. Brilliant from James Marriott on how 2021's 'moral revolution' was actually the world's oldest story: successful people being torn down by the resentful...

The BBC documentary about the cancellation of Kate Clanchy is a reminder of an insane time. In hindsight a lot of cancel culture wasn't about culture wars or social justice at all. All too often the unspoken factor was professional envy and resentment. https://t.co/380D46UsEB

I really enjoyed this conversation with the Smart Cookies podcast about how the internet is destroying our minds https://t.co/qqI3BxderH