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Mark Sarvas

@marksarvas.bsky.social
3.4K followers 1.2K following 2.5K posts

American Book Award winning author of MEMENTO PARK (FSG). HARRY, REVISED (Bloomsbury), @UGMAN (ITNA). Hero: John Berger. Dog: Berger “ … ceaselessly intelligent” - Joseph O’Neill. "Chilling, flawlessly executed" - Kirkus Reviews www.marksarvas.com

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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 2h
A draft is born! 104K words, 445 pages. My biggest book to date, and my favorite. I have never had so much fun writing a novel in all my life. Rough, of course, but into the drawer until my November residency in Scotland, when the real work begins. Today we celebrate.
A big stack of’ manuscript pages!
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Returning to teaching in January and looking to refresh my Novel 2 syllabus. I structure the whole course around a single book. Here are the finalists, help me choose!
8 novels in a vertical stack. Includes Baldwin, Ferrante and Nunez.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Returning to teaching in January and looking to refresh my Novel 2 syllabus. I structure the whole course around a single book. Here are the finalists, help me choose!
8 novels in a vertical stack. Includes Baldwin, Ferrante and Nunez.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
@amitava.bsky.social has the crowd eating out of his witty hands at the 2026 SALA Festival in Atherton. Great talk with Manil Suri and Vikram Chandra.
Author panel at SALA 2026
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Two hours ago, I hadn't a clue in all the world that Ari Emanuel had written a memoir, and now, six chapters in, I cannot set it aside ...
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Congressman Greg Casar @repcasar.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Good news: a federal judge just paused Wilber's deportation. The government shouldn’t be allowed to shoot you from an unmarked vehicle and then cover it up by deporting you. Keep speaking out, it's working.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Happy paperback pub day to Marisa Silver! If you missed this one, I urge you to catch it now. Funny, wise, moving. A book for grown ups. 🥂👏🏻
Cover of AT LAST by Marisa Silver.
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Fight For A Union @fightforaunion.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
San Frans Opera demanded a 5-year wage freeze for its musicians while the General Director's salary jumped from $424k to $729k. 30 minutes before opening night, the orchestra packed up and walked out to join the picket line for the first strike in the opera’s 100 year history.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"The disappeared*" was a term for those the military dictatorship in Argentina imprisoned/tortured/murdered during the dirty war. *"detenidos-desaparecidos" (detained-disappeared)
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
💯
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Absolutely terrifying. Not if, but when.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Just barely more than a quarter way into the century, the New York Times is proclaiming the one hundred best shows of the century? Embarrassing, idiotic clickbait. I no longer recognize the Times.
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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I was deputy M.E. at the WSJ when Murdoch took over, with a similar “editorial independence board.” Within 4 months, our top editor was gone, replaced by a loyal Murdoch deputy. That board raised a quivering objection, but the deed was done. If the Ellisons own CNN, they’ll do whatever they want.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I just can't quite with the whole "Yeah, no" construction. It's weird, innit?
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Friend shared this video of a man unveiling the library he hid when he fled Damascus in 2011. It’s incredible
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This.
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Lynda Carter @lyndacarter.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Our music and our memories are being wiped out. AMERICA built this city. Not a president. Join us!
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
You know how funny this is? This is "I don't give a rat's ass about sports OR podcasts and I am still laughing my ass off" funny ...
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Berger & Berger, occasional series pairing John Berger quotes with my dog Berger. JB: The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Berger:
Berger & Berger, occasional series pairing John Berger quotes with pictures of my dog Berger.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Berger & Berger: “The precondition for thinking politically on a global scale is to see the unity of the unnecessary suffering taking place.”
My dog Berger paired with a quote from his namesake, John Berger.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
💖
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
A hot take I agree with. Jagger's hacky on-the-nose lyric embarrasses me every time I hear it ...
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Ordered a major appliance without checking the hookups because I was sure I knew. Reader, I was wrong.
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John Williams @johnwilliams.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Annie Dillard, John Updike, and Larry McMurtry at a public Q&A session in 1983. Dillard and Wendell Berry leaving us so close together is as good a reminder as any to get outside, which I’m going to do now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vX7...
youtube.com
John Updike, Annie Dillard, and Larry McMurtry at the University of Richmond, 1983
YouTube video by UR Digital Engagement
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
An absolute giant. What a sad day this is.
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Matthew Gertz @mattgertz.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Sending a message to your current audience that you'd prefer to have a different audience results in losing the former without gaining the latter. www.thewrap.com/creative-con...
thewrap.com
Refurbished ‘60 Minutes’ Debuts to a 19% Ratings Drop
The “60 Minutes” Season 59 premiere drew 7.7 million viewers, down 19% year over year.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Chacun à son goût and all, but The Diplomat was one of the most consistently stupid shows I can recall ever having sat through, and yet all this nomination love. Bewildering.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
No SCOTUS scholar here, but is it at least possible that Kavanaugh's "concurrence" is really a wedge to leave the issue viable for 2028? Smarter folks than me will surely weigh in.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Thrilling and well-deserved.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Literally the ONLY reason for a Harris candidacy ...
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Lanterns episode 3 is a rather tedious infodump, innit? Hoping episode 4 picks back up.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Today's recommended read. (Like you need me to tell you to read O'Hagan on anything ... ) www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Andrew O’Hagan · Omelettes and Whisky: Anita Brookner’s Edge
Over the course of 24 novels and 87 years, Anita Brookner achieved many dislocations of selfhood and may have become...
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
ICYMI, everyone enjoying dunking on Douthat tonight will have even more fun with this ... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...
podcasts.apple.com
Pundit Portrait: Ross Douthat
Podcast Episode · If Books Could Kill · August 28 · Bonus · Subscribers Only · 1h 12m
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Astra Taylor @astra.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Pause talk coming from the tech barons (which is not new, they've played this tune before) sounds to me like hedging for a shift in power after the midterms more than anything else. We should regulate them, but they should not be rehabilitated.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I really can’t abide this “loss of innocence” narrative. Loss of naïveté, maybe. There is no innocence in America’s history.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Late to this. Enthralled. www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4a4...
youtube.com
James Wood: Reflections on the Practice of Literary Criticism
YouTube video by Einstein Forum
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
LOVED this book.
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Carolina A. Miranda @cmonstah.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Just want to remind you all that my Bluesky Starter Pack features only the weirdest, most visually driven accounts. Need random quotes from Moby Dick and photos of hyenas every hours? I got you. go.bsky.app/CUczzsz
go.bsky.app
The Strange and the Curious
Join the conversation
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
There are some days, like today, when it actually delights me not to understand a single fucking word of this post ...
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Dr. William Horne @wihorne.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
The unwaged labor machine is certainly designed to kill us, but probably in some un-fun way like starving or resource depletion rather than with a “kill the humans” button.
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
First on energy and now on West Bank settlements, the UK's Ed Miliband has emerged as that rarest of center-left Anglophone politicians: a guy who actually does stuff www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Ed Miliband has overturned decades of Foreign Office inertia on illegal Israeli settlements
Foreign secretary ends UK’s feigned helplessness with sanctions and condemnation of ‘ethnic cleansing’
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
It is a sign of how thoroughly out of step with the times I am that I found this trailer repellent, unwatchable. Anyone who is excited to watch this remains a true mystery to me.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Mood
Roger Moore, smokes and drinks.
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Happy George Lazenby’s Birthday to those who observe.
The Bond from Oz
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Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
"There’s a kind of magic to being a woman among women. As if, for just a second, you get a glimpse into what sisterhood can mean." Gina Tomaine interviews Meg Howrey about her new novel "Body Language": lareviewofbooks.org/article/meg-how…
a photo of Meg Howrey
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Funny how everyone just kind of forgot about Mitch McConnell … (Not actually funny, though.)
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Oh no. Shit shit shit shit shit 💔
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Tonight in Pasadena! Come and join us! vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-0...
vromansbookstore.com
Andre Hardy, in conversation with Mark Sarvas, discusses & signs Tear the City Down
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Holy smokes. Could be the best description I have ever heard: "She once, brilliantly, described novel-writing as 'trying very hard to remember something which has not yet taken place'." www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Anita Brookner by Hermione Lee review – an enigmatic literary great given her due
This exhaustive biography of the Booker winner brings her properly out of the shadows for the first time
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Mark Sarvas @marksarvas.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Moulton is a suck-ass centrist who has no business in the Senate; but no one should be celebrating returning another 80-year-old to office, most likely to finish up like McConnell or Feinstein. The gerontocracy will be the end of us ...
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