Fiction critic at the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/news/author/sam-sacks); editor at Open Letters Review, formerly Open Letters Monthly (https://openlettersreview.com/) sam_sacks [at] hotmailhttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mwvkumm53s2x'“Your problem is to give value to the irrational,” Pavese wrote to himself. “Your poetic problem is to give it value without removing its mythical essence.”' I commend to you Max Norman's beautiful piece on Cesare Pavese, whose reissues have had too little attention. https://harpers.org/archive/2026/10/missing-in-action-max-norman-cesare-pavese-review/02 Oct 2026 14:18 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwvkumm53s2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mwt2vudgns22For National Poetry Day "Jamesian" By Thom Gunn (From 'The Man with Night Sweats,' which has just been reissued by FSG.)01 Oct 2026 14:27 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwt2vudgns22https://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mwqm2kdefs2h"During my time with Barry, I seemed to overhear that dialogue of self and soul. One moment, he appeared to be on the cusp of revelation; the next, he would retreat, change the subject, crack a joke." From Giles Harvey's beautifully written profile of Sebastian Barry. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/magazine/sebastian-barry-family-ireland-secret.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FFE.WvB8.U1ty0CuphcDx&smid=url-share30 Sep 2026 14:56 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwqm2kdefs2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mwkdmmaff22fhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EItxiYaSWRA28 Sep 2026 03:09 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwkdmmaff22fhttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mweesbdi5c25All this TV palaver has made me deeply wistful for Television Without Pity. The episode recap (by an unremembered genius named Sara M) of the series finale of that Christian-themed WB show 7th Heaven, remains one of the funniest things I have read on the internet. https://web.archive.org/web/20140402185141/http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/7th-heaven/and-away-we-go/25 Sep 2026 18:14 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mweesbdi5c25https://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mwebrjrxd22fHere's the biggest accusation of AI writing in the literary world so far, a book that was likely to win the Prix Goncourt. The author has been disqualified due to separate cases of plagiarism, so the question of whether Pangram can be used as evidence remains open https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/sep/25/thelyson-orelien-goncourt-prize-france25 Sep 2026 17:20 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwebrjrxd22fhttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mwe65t3dzs2ghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MJ1db_RqBI&list=PLGlBvoez9XSP2826YqSFNzJrSBg4yIOmV&index=10 [contains quote post or other embedded content]25 Sep 2026 16:15 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwe65t3dzs2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mwe4rse6tc2c"To talk about The Gods Must Be Crazy, we have to start with the VHS tapes." I really liked this Carey Baraka exploration into the legacy of the 80s film franchise that was, for me too, a video cassette touchstone of childhood. https://www.equator.org/articles/the-gods-are-still-crazy-film-carey-baraka25 Sep 2026 15:51 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwe4rse6tc2chttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mwbw7l3wns2x"When mocked in the locker room for carrying what looked like a woman’s purse, he yelled back, 'It’s a European handbag!'" Hilarious Jennifer Wilson piece on the tragedy (?) of Tom Brady https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/09/28/brady-an-american-story-and-the-price-of-greatness-lars-anderson-review24 Sep 2026 18:48 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwbw7l3wns2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mwbjrq3aas2yJust noticed that Trader Joe’s has made its paper grocery bags about 20 percent smaller. Stay alert out there, folks.24 Sep 2026 15:05 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwbjrq3aas2yhttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mw4x52hpc22rOut today is Laura Kolbe's 'The Decadent Movement,' a poetry cycle about pregnancy, birth and motherhood organized in reverse chronology. It's beautiful, intimate and destabilizing, somehow strange and familiar all at once. I strongly recommend it. https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-decadent-movement-poems-laura-kolbe/2deefc59e52d616622 Sep 2026 19:21 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mw4x52hpc22rhttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvzuqna3ks26David Murphy reviews Jonathan Parshall's '1942: Crux of War,' a micro-macro history of the Second World War: micro in that it focuses on a single year--“the critical year of World War II, and its tipping point”--and macro in that it's 1300 pages long. https://openlettersreview.com/posts/1942-crux-of-war-by-jonathan-parshall21 Sep 2026 14:00 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvzuqna3ks26https://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvzuiu6afs26In the Hedgehog Review, Ivan Kenneally has a nice piece on Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer and patriotism, whose healthy forms must be “manufactured on a man’s own premises…reasoned out in the man’s own head, and fire-assayed and tested and proved in his own conscience.” https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/twains-patriotism21 Sep 2026 13:56 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvzuiu6afs26https://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvsx3un7ms25"She manages to preserve the impression of terse economy while effectively amplifying the fragment." Emily Greenwood has a terrifically appreciative essay on Mary Barnard's landmark translations of Sappho--which have been, and remain, the Sappho for me. https://yalereview.org/article/emily-greenwood-sappho18 Sep 2026 19:54 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvsx3un7ms25https://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvsqfqpeps2gThere's a ton of wonderfully enriching background in Ariel Dorfman's justly positive review of Mario Vargas Llosa's final novel, 'I Give You My Silence.' (Dorfman is a bit of a fussbudget about the translation, though.) https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/10/08/the-strange-music-of-mario-vargas-llosa-i-give-you-my-silence/18 Sep 2026 17:54 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvsqfqpeps2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvsq6sko7c2gA standout from my WSJ Fiction Chronicle for this weekend is "Wishbone," Laia Jufresa's deftly done reverse-chronology novel that involves a world famous color museum in Oaxaca City and a lot of octopuses. It's new from the small press Fern Books. Gift link: https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/fiction-soldiers-sailors-by-terrence-holt-95a06215?st=XEF1Vd&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink18 Sep 2026 17:50 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvsq6sko7c2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvpvkahtkc2kShe won't win (and apparently being on these lists causes her endless headaches), but just to say that Ersi Sotiropoulos, the least familiar name here, is quite brilliant. 'What's Left of the Night' (about a young Cavafy) and 'Zigzag Through the Bitter-Orange Trees' are dark, sensuous gems. [contains quote post or other embedded content]17 Sep 2026 14:48 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvpvkahtkc2khttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvoodthxo222Tonight's jam is the newest song by my incredibly talented cousin, Ben https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9759FnucfQ17 Sep 2026 03:06 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvoodthxo222https://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvned4tyc223“The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam.” RIP Annie Dillard, poet, visionary and genius. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/books/annie-dillard-dead.html16 Sep 2026 14:34 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvned4tyc223https://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvktdhscy226"But mostly, this life of Sargent is less concerned with wine and roses and more with whine and poses." Steve Donoghue on Devon Cox's John Singer Sargent biography 'Beyond Beauty,' distilling my earlier point about reviews that can both praise and take the piss https://openlettersreview.com/posts/beyond-beauty-by-devon-cox15 Sep 2026 14:25 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvktdhscy226https://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvksiutk7k26All the excellent Anita Brookner coverage has reminded me of one of my favorite works of literary criticism, this Mary Hawthorne piece on 'Hotel du Lac' and the Brookner oeuvre, from a 2011 essay anthology. Here's the opening paragraph. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Good_of_the_Novel/VGrrEabmIXgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=mary+hawthorne+life+of+sisyphus&pg=PT99&printsec=frontcover15 Sep 2026 14:10 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvksiutk7k26https://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvid2qxgoc2hAnd one more boost for my piece on Machado de Assis from the latest Portico Quarterly, which also features writing on Cormac McCarthy, Andre Dubus, Jean Toomer, the lost art of LP connoisseurship, Vasily Grossman, Washington Irving, Robert Frost and much more: porticoquarterly.com/books/ [contains quote post or other embedded content]14 Sep 2026 14:29 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvid2qxgoc2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/ssacks.bsky.social/post/3mvicpo3lxc2hFrom the weekend's WSJ Books issue, my Fiction Chronicle on "Exit Party," the trippy latest from the Emily St. John Mandel-verse, complete with new quote tattoo ideas; and "Our Noble Selves," a wonderfully Wodehousian comic novel by Kate Atkinson. Gift link: https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/fiction-exit-party-by-emily-st-john-mandel-dfeede4f?st=33tC2y&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink14 Sep 2026 14:22 +0000at://did:plc:i2mhsuqwk4pitsibrffigdpv/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvicpo3lxc2h