iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sam Leith @questingvole.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Or is it just, like, pure vibes, from the “it’ll have a secret room full of robot ninjas” school of monumental design?

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Sam Leith @questingvole.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Triumphal Arch I can sort of get. Triumphal Arch with snipers on top just seems like painting the lily. Is the idea to be able to take out BLM protesters on the Mall?

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Sam Leith @questingvole.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

No (tbh it’s very baffling that the AI is ostensibly talking to itself), but new combinations can create or suggest new meanings, affinities, connotations; which is what I meant when I said it accidentally fits into an interesting literary-experimental tradition. Also why I still prefer Jeff.

Sam Leith @questingvole.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

It’s amazing, isn’t it? I stand by my view that Jeff’s work from that period is like the VU’s first album

Benjamin Myers @benjaminmyers76.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Reposted by Sam Leith

I bloody love Cobralingus. It might actually be a masterpiece. (My first ever book was with the same small press publisher, a year later).

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Sam Leith @questingvole.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Ha. That’s lovely. But maybe he’s nice and does that to everyone. At the launch event for my book I talked about having Kipling read to me as a kid, and Philip was, like, me too…

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Reposted by Sam Leith

Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The ability of the richest & most powerful men in the world to position themselves against "the elite" - a category that excludes the world's richest man, its biggest media magnates, the UK's richest party & the biggest donors in UK history - may be the most effective lie in modern political history

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Sam Leith @questingvole.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I mention both those books! He’s pretty good, though, old Kurlansky

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Reposted by Sam Leith

Josh Spero @joshspero.ft.com · 10/09/2026

Oh thank goodness Sam has written this. “A History of X in [number] Objects” is not just annoying as a title but lazy as a concept too

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Now three fire engines just streaked across Parliament Square. It’s all going on.

IDK, maybe it’s some sort of false alarm. Still: a bit disconcerting to have police with submachine guns go trotting past you looking urgent.

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Hoping getting on a bus to Camberwell will do the trick

Sam Leith @questingvole.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Something is up round Westminster. St James’s Park tube shut; armed cops running around; police cars all over the place.

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Always said Harry was a wise fellow

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Sam Leith @questingvole.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Haha. In Chuck Norris mode, I approve this message.

Sam Leith @questingvole.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

It certainly is daft. But if you like daft stuff, as I do, you’ll like this. You can absolutely jump in wherever (like the books).

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Haha oops, sorry. Yes ofc. Sebastian had a book with a similar title

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I don’t of course have a precise answer, so I think you’re arguing with the headline (about which I’ve been skeptical) more than my piece. I wrote just: “a great deal of what he says in it about those verifiable features of the historical record seems to have been codswallop”.

Funnily enough, Junger went on to write a very interesting and strange book about a near-death experience a year or two ago

That’s the definition I offer too.

In other news, Amazon’s Reacher series has really found its line and length. Season Four is just ridiculously fun, IMO.

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The reporting has been detailed and evidenced, and it has been in news pages across the political spectrum. Arday himself conceded many of the points. I think it would be truly silly to try to argue, as nobody is, that everything in Great And Unfortunate Things is factually reliable.

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I don’t have a point-by-point but the reporting on this has been pretty extensive

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FWIW it is selling very strongly as far as I can see, which is why I inclined to think recouping was a possibility

Not an expert on publishing economics but pretty sure cancelling it is a worse outcome than going ahead, cash-wise. Will it recoup? IDK. Depends on true size of advance and whether JA’s exposure and death has increased or dented the market for the book.