BBC Radio 4 - Take Four Books, Rachel Kushner

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002h9n8

31 Novels Coming This Summer

Taylor Jenkins Reid heads to space, Megan Abbott climbs a pyramid (scheme) and Gary Shteyngart channels a 10-year-old. Plus queer vampires, a professor in hell and an actress's revenge.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/books/review/new-fiction-books-summer-2025.html?smid=em-share

Bad news for democracies

From The New York Times: Thinking Is Becoming a Luxury Good That’s bad news for our democracies.

...An electorate that has lost the capacity for long-form thought will be more tribal, less rational, largely uninterested in facts or even matters of historical record, moved more by vibes than cogent argument and open to fantastical ideas and bizarre conspiracy theories. If that sounds familiar, it may be a sign of how far down this path the West has already traveled...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/opinion/smartphones-literacy-inequality-democracy.html?smid=em-share