The.Ink: The Ink Book Club

The desperate theory running America

Leigh Haber — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 18:57:53 GMT

We talked live with our April Book Club author Ibram X. Kendi about his provocative and timely latest New York Times bestseller, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this week significantly narrowing the scope of the Voting Rights Act, Kendi’s work is more urgent than ever. That ruling is a real-time reminder that adherents of Great Replacement Theory are in control of many of our government’s levers — and those of many other countries around the world. Professor Kendi talked to us about:

How deeply Elon Musk has interfered with elections here and elsewhere, on the basis of the false notion that “whites are a rapidly dying minority”
The Justice Department’s case against the Southern Poverty Law Center and what it portends for other organizations;
The tactics used by propagandists to persuade voters to fight for privileges provided by dictators instead of the power provided by democracy
How to resist hopelessness and despair in the face of these anti-democratic measures

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How to participate in the Book Club

Each week, we’ll post questions, and on alternate Wednesdays we’ll meet for a discussion with the Club or a visit from an author or other special guest (occasionally we’ll schedule special events on alternate days or times, but we will let you know). Look out for posts with further details.

In between meetings, we invite you to chat or comment on our posts with your insights and questions. The Book Club will meet next on Wednesday, May 6 at 12:30 p.m. Eastern.

To participate in our meetings and author talks on Substack Live, join from your phone or tablet with the Substack app. You can also watch from your computer at The Ink, and comment and ask questions in our chat, but you won’t be able to join the live video discussion. Make sure you enable notifications, and when our meetings begin, you should receive an email alert; if you can’t find the message, just check the notifications tab (the small bell-shaped icon to the upper right of the website or lower right of the app at the time of the event to find a link.

Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!

Inside the Coachella of books

Leigh Haber — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:27:15 GMT

Can the book-publishing industry survive shrinking attention spans, endless streaming options, the AI onslaught, and the prophesied disappearance of the American reader?

I braved cross-country air travel last weekend in the hope that the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books would offer some answers—or at least bring me face to face with multitudes of fellow book nerds who also greet news of, say, a new Ann Patchett or Colson Whitehead novel with the passion of a Swiftie. And along the way, I got to meet Stacey Abrams and read her a special message Oprah sent me to read to her.

Come with me.

BOOK CLUB: Ibram X. Kendi on birthright citizenship and great replacement theory

Leigh Haber — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 18:53:00 GMT

Earlier today — just as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Donald Trump’s latest assault on the 14th Amendment and the concept of American citizenship — we spoke with historian and author Ibram X. Kendi, the Carter G. Woodson Endowed Chair in History and the inaugural director of the Howard University Institute for Advanced Study about his brand-new book, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age. We talked to Kendi about “great replacement theory” (the notion that a shadowy global elite is recruiting one group — people of color — to replace another — white citizens — to reshape the West), how far-right movements around the world are using a shared playbook to steal livelihoods and destroy democratic values. But, Dr. Kendi tells us, solidarity, knowledge, and antiracism are the tools we need to push back.

Just click on the video player above to watch the conversation now.

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How to participate in the Book Club

Each week, we’ll post questions — our discussion guide — on Sunday, and on alternate Wednesdays we’ll meet for a discussion with the Club or a visit from an author or other special guest (occasionally we’ll schedule special events on alternate days or times, but we will let you know). Look out for posts with further details.

In between meetings, we invite you to chat or comment on our posts with your insights and questions. The Book Club will meet again with Ibram Kendi on Wednesday, April 22, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern.

Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!

Available for iOS and Android

BOOK CLUB: Who invented fear of immigrants?

Leigh Haber — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 10:30:48 GMT

Chain of Ideas: The Origins of our Authoritarian Age is the How to Be An Antiracist author Ibram X. Kendi’s groundbreaking new book — and it’s already a New York Times bestseller. As Trump and other would-be autocrats around the world move to turn back the clock on progress so many have worked long and hard to achieve, Chain of Ideas traces the spread of our current xenophobia to the promulgation of “great replacement theory,” popularized by French novelist and immigration conspiracist Renaud Camus in his 2011 book The Great Replacement.

For those unfamiliar with the idea, great replacement theory proponents hold that “powerful elites are enabling disadvantaged groups to steal the lives, livelihoods, cultures, and electoral power and freedoms of privileged groups, who now need authoritarian protection.” Under this view, “One’s life, one’s job, one’s status, one’s way of living, one’s freedoms, one’s nation — all can be perceived as lost, slipping away, in need of authoritarian protection and restoration.” Democracy becomes collateral damage in this worldview, as white privilege is prioritized over all else.

Obviously, this rings a lot of bells. Trump’s entire playbook vis-à-vis his opposition to immigration, diversity, abortion, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights; his suppression of the history of slavery; and countless other policies can be understood as growing out of the embrace of great replacement theory.

Later today, Wednesday, April 1, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, the Ink Book Club will sit down live with Ibram Kendi to learn more about his eye-opening, perspective-shifting work. This time around, Kendi will introduce us to the book’s concepts, and then — since the book runs more than 500 pages — he’ll join us for a second live conversation later on Wednesday, April 22, once we’ve all had the chance to dig in. And while you’re reading, you can consult Kendi’s extensive notes at chainofideasbook.com.

Ibram X. Kendi is an author, activist, historian, and Howard University Professor. He won the National Book Award for 2016’s Stamped From the Beginning, which Kendi’s production company made into an Emmy-nominated documentary. Join the Ink Book Club today to learn more about why we are where we are, and how to curb the further spread of this dangerous theory, and call it out when we see it.

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Below, you’ll find some thoughts to consider in advance of Friday’s conversation. The Ink Book Club’s events are open to all paid subscribers to The Ink. If you haven’t yet become part of our community, join today. And if you’re already a member, consider giving a gift or group subscription.

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BOOK CLUB: What the hell is happening in Iran?

Leigh Haber — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 18:31:02 GMT

Today we talked again with journalist Scott Anderson, author of King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution — A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation. In his second conversation with The Ink Book Club, we talked about the many lessons the U.S. has failed — or has been unwilling — to learn from past experiences in Iran, and how those failures are shaping the unfolding conflict in the Middle East.

Anderson talked to us about the breakdowns of intelligence under Jimmy Carter’s administration that shaped U.S. policy in the region, how the Ronald Reagan campaign exploited the hostage crisis to win the 1980 election, Donald Trump’s apparent lack of even the concept of a plan for the current war, and why he thinks Ayatollah Khomeini’s brutal Iranian Revolution was a transformational moment — the event that laid the groundwork for our authoritarian era.

If you’re looking for real insight into what’s actually happening in America’s latest war, click on the video player above to watch now.

And catch up on our previous conversation with Anderson at the link below:

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How to participate in the Book Club

In between meetings, we invite you to chat or comment on our posts with your insights and questions. The Book Club will meet next on Wednesday, April 1, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, with Ibram X. Kendi, for the first of two conversations on his new book, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of our Authoritarian Age.

Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!

Available for iOS and Android

Ex-Washington Post book critic Ron Charles on judging a book by its cover

Leigh Haber — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 23:30:55 GMT

We just talked live with acclaimed ex-Washington Post book critic Ron Charles about why it’s okay to judge a book by its cover; the books that are speaking to him now—and that he’s featuring on his new Substack; and also why he finds no pleasure in panning books. Nearly 700 of you joined us as we discussed:

Our mutual love of Tayari Jones’ novel Kin, and that time on the Oprah cruise…
Two debuts Charles is particularly excited about;
Charles’ enduring passion for Anne Tyler;
The pleasures and challenges of reviewing without a net;
Some of the spring/summer books we are looking forward to reading, like Ann Patchett’s Whistler and Douglas Stuart’s John of Johns.

You won’t want to miss any of it. Just click on the video player above to watch our conversation.

We are thrilled to announce that our April Ink Book Club selection is Chain of Ideas: The Origins of our Authoritarian Age, by Ibram X. Kendi. This monumental new work from the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning looks at “great replacement theory” and what we can do to defend our democracy from further erosion by this insidious threat.

Dr. Kendi is a prominent historian and also author of the international bestseller How To Be an Antiracist. He will join us for the first of two live conversations next Wednesday, April 1, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern here on Substack.

And this Friday, March 27, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, join the Ink Book Club and King of Kings author Scott Anderson as we do another deep dive into how we got into the mess with Iran, and where things stand now.

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And if you haven’t already, please also subscribe to Ron Charles’s newsletter.

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How to participate in the Book Club

In between meetings, we invite you to chat or comment on our posts with your insights and questions. The Book Club will meet next on Friday, March 27, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, with Scott Anderson, author of our March pick, King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution—A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation.

Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!

Available for iOS and Android

BOOK CLUB: Laura Beers on George Orwell’s lessons for our times

Leigh Haber — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 19:30:31 GMT

This afternoon, the Book Club met live with Laura Beers, author of Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century, to talk about George Orwell’s 1984 and the lessons of that novel — and the author’s politics — for our lives. Beers talked to us about Orwell’s prescient criticism of technocracy and the surveillance state, the experience of Orwell as a writer (and her own intellectual journey through his work), the way Orwell has been taught to Americans as a Cold War anticommunist, his personal contradictions and blindness on gender and their lasting challenges for the left, and how to recapture his faith in democratic change and social revolution through some of the worst years of the 20th century as a model for today.

Whether you’ve been joining us as we reread 1984 or you haven’t looked into it since high school, you won’t want to miss this conversation. Just click on the video player above to watch now.

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Your support is how we keep the lights on, pay our writers and editors a fair wage, and build the new media we all deserve. When you subscribe, you help us reach more people.

Join us today, or if you are already a member, give a gift or group subscription.

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Get 20% off a group subscription

How to participate in the Book Club

Each week, we’ll post questions — our discussion guide — on Sunday, and on alternate Wednesdays we’ll meet for a discussion with the Club or a visit from an author or other special guest (occasionally we’ll schedule on alternate days or times, but we will let you know). Look out for posts with further details.

In between meetings, we invite you to chat or comment on our posts with your insights and questions. The Book Club will meet next on Wednesday, March 25, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, with former Washington Post book critic Ron Charles. And on Friday, March 27, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, we’ll have our second conversation with Scott Anderson, author of King of Kings.

Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!

Available for iOS and Android

BOOK CLUB: Our Orwellian -- or Blairian --times

Leigh Haber — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 10:03:08 GMT

In an afterword to the 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell’s 1984, novelist Sandra Newman writes that Orwell’s classic dystopian saga is actually an expression of “negative utopia,” a response to the traumas of the world wars, the prospect of nuclear destruction, and the ensuing “mood of hopelessness which pervades our age.” Would dehumanization — the mechanism by which “the Party” maintains absolute power — win the day, or could people throw off despair and the erosion of integrity and spirit, and reclaim their empathy, their ability to freely think, create, and love? Those are Orwell’s central questions in 1984 and in much of his other writings, which today feel urgent and prescient.

As I reread 1984, I was reminded of how many terms he coined that continue to pervade our culture: “thought police,” “doublethink,” “Big Brother is watching you,” “Ministry of Truth,” “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” There is also the “Two Minutes Hate,” the daily ritual during which Party members are required to gather around a screen and watch a film depicting the “Enemy of the People,” programmed to incite “compulsory rage” in its audience. Orwell apparently envisioned the rise of certain podcasts and the likes of Fox News.

Later today, Friday, March 20, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, the Ink Book Club will sit down with American University professor Laura Beers, the author of Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century and a leading expert on the subject of what Orwell has to teach us. If you’ve felt as I have these last weeks, perhaps you, too, need that lifeline.

Beers writes that “many of the core problems that Orwell identified in his own time continue to haunt us in the twenty-first century. Most crucially, the tension between individual liberty and social solidarity… 1984 was, in a sense, an exercise in truth-telling, in that it was an effort to open the readers’ eyes to the existential threats to truth, and thereby to freedom, posed by all-powerful states.” Those threats have materialized in the Trump era.

In the course of rereading 1984, there were a few times when I had the TV news playing in the background. Our own “Ministry of Truth” had leader Trump contradicting his own statements about the status of the war in Iran, if, indeed, he could admit that the assaults underway constitute a war. Trump lackeys parrot and parse his words, and tell us what we are seeing and hearing with our own eyes and ears isn’t what is actually happening. Our institutions are being decimated, often gleefully. The mysteries of the Epstein files deepen, redactions spreading like oil spills. Heroes we thought were above reproach turn out to be monsters.

It’s all positively Orwellian.

Though it’s startling to remember that George Orwell was really Eric Arthur Blair, lifelong anti-fascist, and 1984 a warning. And, perhaps, that these are also Blairian times?

There will be much to unpack with Professor Beers tomorrow. Hope you’ll join us for some “Thoughtcrime.”

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BOOK CLUB: The Iran war and America’s addiction to regime change

Leigh Haber — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 18:35:05 GMT

We just talked live with journalist and author Scott Anderson about King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution — A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation a history of the fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Reza Pahlavi, an exploration of that country’s complex geopolitical history and its entanglement with the United States, and how the mistakes of the past set up the mistakes of the present.

Anderson talked to us about the book, how the cardinal sin of previous American administrations — believing their own propaganda — laid the table for Donald Trump to replay the Bush administration’s campaign against Iraq, launch this war on Iran, and kick off the spiraling crisis consuming the Middle East and the world economy, why this war is so unlikely to remove the current Iranian regime, the dangers facing reporters today, and much more.

If you’ve been looking to understand how we got into the current Middle East crisis, you won’t want to miss this. Just click on the video player above to watch now.

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Your support is how we keep the lights on, pay our writers and editors a fair wage, and build the new media we all deserve. When you subscribe, you help us reach more people.

Join us today, or if you are already a member, give a gift or group subscription.

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Get 20% off a group subscription

How to participate in the Book Club

Each week, we’ll post questions — our discussion guide — on Sunday, and on alternate Wednesdays we’ll meet for a discussion with the Club or a visit from an author or other special guest (occasionally we’ll schedule on alternate days or times, but we will let you know). Look out for posts with further details.

The Book Club will meet next on Friday, March 20, also at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, with Laura Beers, author of Orwell’s Ghosts.

Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!

Available for iOS and Android

BOOK CLUB: Deja vu all over again in Iran

Leigh Haber — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 13:31:10 GMT

For those Ink Book Club members who, like me, aren’t Iranologists, our March selection will be illuminating — and deja vu-producing. Scott Anderson’s Kirkus Prize-winning King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution–A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation probes Iran’s complex geopolitical history and underscores that our country’s leaders have failed yet again to get Iran right.

Anderson is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and author of several widely praised books, including Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East, a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics’ Circle Award. Presumably, Anderson didn’t know while researching his book that eight months after its publication, we would be at war with Iran.

What does he think about this turn of events? With his vast knowledge of the country, what are his thoughts about the path this war might take? And what does he make of the Trump administration’s various rationales for it? We’ll ask the author about that and much else tomorrow, Friday, March 13, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, when he joins us for a live Ink Book Club conversation.

King of Kings couldn’t be more timely, as it asks critical questions about what the U.S. is trying to achieve right now: Have we learned nothing from our past mistakes in Iran and elsewhere in the region? Are there remaining experts in the State Department and elsewhere who would have urged a different course of action if consulted? Does King of Kings provide a useful backstory for why we are where we are, or is this uniquely Trumpian?

Meantime, there is something Shakespearean about the saga of the “King of Kings”---Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi — who the U.S. helped re-install in the Iranian throne in 1953, after a CIA coup dubbed Operation Ajax overthrew the country’s prime minister, who’d nationalized Iran’s oil industry. It’s still all about oil….

Anderson opens his account in 1977, as protests against the Shah are being secretly nurtured by an ascendant cleric named Ayatollah Khomeini. By this time, the Shah had essentially lost the people’s confidence, but, surrounded by sycophants and feted by the Carter administration, he’s oblivious to the winds of change, even with access to the intel and muscle of his feared secret police, SAVAK. And while there were a few American voices who detected the seeds of the Iranian Revolution taking root, those voices were silenced — even censured — by the Carter Administration, so firmly did it believe in the Shah’s invincibility and their own worldview.

Soon thereafter, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 blindsided the Carter administration and the Shah himself, forcing the leader into exile and sparking seismic reverberations throughout the world — effects Anderson likens to the far-reaching impacts of the French and Soviet revolutions.

Willful blindness and a failure to comprehend the mood of the Iranian people were our enemies then. How does Anderson analogize that series of errors in the context of today’s stream of blunders? What are the lessons we could be deriving from a deeper knowledge of that period? And why have our current leaders been caught unawares by the resilience of the Iranian regime? In its adoption of the so-called Mosaic Doctrine, had the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) anticipated the current U.S. attacks and specifically prepared to defend against them? These are some of the questions we’ll pose to Anderson tomorrow.

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BOOK CLUB: Canaries in the coal mine

Leigh Haber — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 11:31:06 GMT

Why are we at war with Iran? Trump, Hegseth, and Rubio have offered an array of rationales, none of which add up, for a war without a clear mission — and one that neither the American public nor our allies are supportive of. Terrifyingly, our own leaders seem completely ignorant of how the Iranian regime they are attempting to topple emerged decades ago, and how the “obliviousness” of previous U.S. administrations led directly to the 1979 Iranian revolution and the rise of the Islamic Republic in the first place. Worse, they seem set on repeating the mistakes of the past.

Scott Anderson’s Kirkus Prize-winning King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution — a Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation is our March Ink Book Club selection. It is a stunning, revelatory work of narrative history that argues that the U.S.’s inability to predict and comprehend that seismic power shift has thwarted American ambitions and influence and damaged countless lives across the Middle East ever since.

In reading King of Kings, it becomes clear that accurate warnings of what was transpiring on the ground in Iran were roundly ignored. Sane, intelligent voices like Michael Metrinko, a Farsi-speaking U.S. diplomat, were suppressed by superiors, who viewed him as a kind of dissident in their ranks. About a month prior to the revolution, Metrinko was barred from a meeting where he intended to share what he feared would soon transpire: that the U.S.-installed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi would fall; that Iranian anger towards America was bottomless; that Ayatollah Khomeini’s movement was ascendant. Metrinko would become one of the 52 American hostages held for 444 days at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

In a New York Times review of King of Kings published when the book first came out last August, author Mark Bowden called the book “masterly,” saying it “illustrates the stubborn American blindness that hastened the shah’s demise and helped the mullahs prevail.” In our current moment, it provides essential context for what has already transpired and what may still be to come.

When we sit down this week with Scott Anderson for the first of two Ink Book Club live conversations on Friday, March 13, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, we’ll have lots of questions, among them: How did we get here? Where do we go from here?

What questions will you have for him? Let us know in the comments below.

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Additionally, this month, we will be in conversation with Laura Beers, the author of Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century, as we reread 1984, by George Orwell. Beers’ utterly fascinating account won the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, and was described by The New Yorker as “lucid” and “powerful.”

Our live conversation with Laura Beers will take place here on The Ink on Friday, March 20th, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern. So get out your dog-eared copy of 1984, or pick up the 75th-anniversary edition, released last year. (Did you know that Orwell initially wanted to title the novel The Last Man in Europe? His publisher suggested “1984” would be better received by the public. That’s an understatement!)

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BOOK CLUB: Building the beloved community

Leigh Haber — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 15:30:40 GMT

Yesterday, we had a special Friday afternoon live Ink Book Club conversation with Emily Yellin, the coauthor of Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love. This monumental work is the posthumous memoir of Reverend James Lawson Jr., a peer of Martin Luther King, Jr., theoretician and strategist of the civil rights movement, and mentor to the late Congressman John Lewis and the Freedom Riders. Joining us was Rev. Lawson’s son, California Superior Court Judge John C. Lawson II. Fittingly, our talk took place on the day of “The People’s Celebration,” Reverend Jesse Jackson’s memorial service in Chicago. We talked about:

Rev. Lawson’s beginnings and the advice from his mother that led him to nonviolence
On being willing to die for your country and your cause — but not kill for it
What Rev. Lawson learned from the independence movement in India
His first meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., and how he became a leading theoretician of the civil rights movement’s use of nonviolent direct action
His relationship with other civil rights leaders, and his extension of the fight for equality to achieve economic justice
How he continued King’s work, working with the labor movement, for immigrants’ rights, and for women’s rights
His thoughts on Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, and the lessons of the civil rights movement for our times
Rev. Lawson’s vision of the ultimate expression of nonviolence: the beloved community

By the way, today, March 7, is the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when civil rights marchers (including Rev. Lawson) led by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chair and future Congressman John Lewis were beaten, whipped, and tear-gassed by police as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. The public outcry over the violence at Selma and against other peaceful marches that month led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In our times, it’s a reminder that the future remains unwritten, and that people can come together to change minds and make change.

For insight into the life and work of one of the key minds of the civil rights movement, you’ll want to hear the entire conversation. Just click on the video player above to watch.

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Your support is how we keep the lights on, pay our writers and editors a fair wage, and build the new media we all deserve. When you subscribe, you help us reach more people.

Join us today, or if you are already a member, give a gift or group subscription.

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Get 20% off a group subscription

How to participate in the Book Club

Each week, we’ll post questions — our discussion guide — on Sunday, and on alternate Wednesdays we’ll meet for a discussion with the Club or a visit from an author or other special guest (occasionally we’ll schedule on alternate days or times, but we will let you know). Look out for posts with further details. We invite you to chat or comment on our posts with your insights and questions in advance of our meetings.

Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!

Available for iOS and Android

BOOK CLUB: How revolutions are made

Leigh Haber — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 14:31:12 GMT

Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love is the posthumous memoir of Reverend James Lawson Jr., a peer of Martin Luther King, Jr., theoretician and strategist of the civil rights movement, and mentor to the late Congressman John Lewis and the Freedom Riders.

There are so many timely questions to discuss around life and work of this largely unsung hero of the civil rights era, including how he came to believe so strongly in the power of nonviolent protest; what he might make of the gleeful bluster around war we’re seeing from the likes of Pete Hegseth; and what we might learn from his experience about how to more effectively use — and turbocharge — the tools of resistance.

Join us this Friday, March 6, at 12:30 pm Eastern for a special edition of the Ink Book Club live, when we’ll sit down with journalist Emily Yellin, co-author of Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love. Reverend Lawson’s son, John Lawson, will also join the conversation.

The Ink Book Club’s events are open to all paid subscribers to The Ink. If you haven’t yet become part of our community, join today. And if you’re already a member, consider giving a gift or group subscription.

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Below, you’ll find some thoughts to consider in advance of Friday’s conversation — and some news about The Ink Book Club’s next pick!

BOOK CLUB: The power of connection

Leigh Haber — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 12:30:29 GMT

In our Ink Book Club conversation with George Saunders around Vigil this past Wednesday, we touched on some profound themes: death, the afterlife, capitalism, greed, sin, free will, and the value of kindness and comfort. That talk drew an audience of more than 2,000 on a weekday afternoon, which makes me think that more than anything else, what we crave most now — besides a sane and civil government — is community. We are so privileged to be able to come together around books.

Reading Vigil has prompted me to go back to Saunders’ past work, beginning with his debut, a collection of stories titled CivilWarLand in Bad Decline that was published in 1996. In the volume’s six stories and a novella, people struggle in a dystopian future, ”a degraded cosmos” where “Flawed” people stage historical reenactments for the wealthy. The politics of scarcity is the theme, with a Mad Max-ian twist.

We’d love to hear which of Saunders’ thirteen published works you’ve read, and if you now plan to dig into books you may have missed.

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On another note, last week we lost the great book editor and publisher Ann Godoff, who died of complications from bone cancer at 76. Her legacy is enormous, as is her loss. Over the decades, here are some of the authors she edited and published: Ron Chernow; Zadie Smith; E.L.Doctorow; Michael Pollan; Thomas Pynchon; Ocean Vuong; Caleb Carr; John Berendt; and The Ink Book Club’s own Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis. She came to book publishing in her early thirties after studying film at NYU under Martin Scorsese. She rose to become the head of Random House, and after being unceremoniously fired from that post, founded the Penguin Press.

In her New York Times obituary, one of her authors, Bill Shore, recounted his first meeting with her, during which she “described the book she’d like to see written, the book she said she’d want to read,” going on a “literary jazz riff.” She concluded by saying, “So, if that’s what you want to write, if you want to write a book about the cathedral within, then that’s a book I want to buy.” Shore then wrote The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back, which was published in 1999.

She was formidable, brilliant, private, and influenced countless editors who aspired to publishing careers as remarkable as hers. Her longtime Penguin Press colleague, Scott Moyers, characterized her influence on book culture as “incalculable.” He went on to say that “she made us all braver and better,” and that she lived by these words of poet Mary Oliver: “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

We will forever miss Ann Godoff.

On Wednesday of this week, we will announce our March Ink Book Club pick, so stay tuned. And on Friday, March 6, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, we’ll host a live conversation with Emily Yellin, co-author of the late civil rights activist Reverend James Lawson Jr.’s Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love, along with Lawson’s son, John Lawson. Please join us for an important and timely special edition of The Ink Book Club, and below you’ll find some questions to consider in advance of our conversation.

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George Saunders on capitalism, craft, good and evil, Epstein, Trump, Minneapolis, and America now

Anand Giridharadas — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 20:13:50 GMT

We just talked live with George Saunders, modern master of the short story and novella, essayist, and author of two novels, including the Booker Prize-winning Lincoln in the Bardo (soon to be a movie starring Tom Hanks), and the new Vigil, the Ink Book Club’s February pick. Saunders is also a dedicated educator of other writers, both as a professor of English at Syracuse University and here on Substack, where he runs StoryClub. We talked to him about:

Why a good book is never actually about anything
How this Trumpian era has challenged his ability to understand evil
How he has tried to locate the largeness of capitalism and other political forces in the intimacy of human interactions
His exploration of the tension between idiot and wrathful compassion
Why hearing from readers and students is like being in a dark room, reaching out, and feeling a smiling face
How to solve your writer’s block by thinking of writing as a gift, not a challenge
And some of the writers he admires most who deserve more recognition, among them Claire Keegan, Samanta Schweblin, Annie Liontas, Deb Olin Unferth, and Sydney Rende

Whether you’re a writer, a reader, a thinker, or all of the above, you won’t want to miss this conversation. Just click on the video player above to watch.

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And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to George Saunders’s newsletter, Story Club.

How to participate in the Book Club

Each week, we’ll post questions — our discussion guide — on Sunday, and on alternate Wednesdays we’ll meet for a discussion with the Club or a visit from an author or other special guest (occasionally we’ll schedule on alternate days or times, but we will let you know). Look out for posts with further details. We invite you to chat or comment on our posts with your insights and questions in advance of our meetings.

Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!

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BOOK CLUB: Saved, damned, or free?

Leigh Haber — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 11:30:46 GMT

George Saunders’s work has provided his readers with immense pleasure over the years — as well as prompting any number of deep dives into the philosophical and spiritual realms — and his latest novel, Vigil, is both a pleasure and a provocation. Is there such a thing as salvation, and if so, does it come through an individual’s alignment with truth? Does free will exist, or are we pre-programmed to turn out the way we do, and to act the way we act?

When we meet with Saunders later today — and what a privilege that we get to do so — we’ll want to ask him how his thinking on these topics evolved in the writing of the novel, and where he came out at the end. We’ll also want to talk more about how he’s seen capitalism evolve in his lifetime. In a recent conversation with Ezra Klein, he remarked that he feels we are “increasingly handing over everything to sustenance…as corporations become so powerful there’s this push to give up more of one’s private space, one’s peace of mind, in order to live within the system.” How does Vigil fit into that worldview?

And of course, we’ll want to get into his process. How do his characters come to him? If, say, a novel like Vigil took him three years to write, how many drafts does he go through? What is his revision process? And, with K.J. Boone, for example, was there a real-life corollary he used in creating him, or an amalgam?

Saunders is one of our best living short story writers, whose first published collection was released in 1996 — CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for best debut fiction. His 2013 collection, Tenth of December, was a National Book Award finalist, and in 2017, he published his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Booker Prize. And if you haven’t already read his sublime homage to the Russian short story — A Swim in the Pond in the Rain — you’re in for a treat. He writes of the seven stories he highlights in that volume: “The resistance in the stories is quiet, at a slant, and comes from perhaps the most radical idea of all: that every human being is worthy of attention, and that the origins of every good and evil capability of the universe may be found by observing a single, even very humble, person and the turning of his or her mind.”

While the characters in Vigil perhaps cannot be described as “humble” — two spirit guides and an oil tycoon, after all — Saunders does usher us into their heads, where we try to puzzle out what makes them tick and what they signify for the writer, and for us, the reader.

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We hope you’ll join us today at 1:30 p.m. Eastern for our conversation with George Saunders. The Ink Book Club is open to all paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t yet become part of our community, join today. And if you’re already a member, consider giving a gift or group subscription.

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BOOK CLUB: Are we fated to be who we are?

Leigh Haber — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 12:30:29 GMT

The central tension in Vigil, by George Saunders, is whether human character and action are pre-ordained, therefore immutable, or if, by honestly confronting who you are and how you’ve behaved in the world, change and redemption are possible.

Jill, the spirit guide dispatched to help ease oil tycoon K.J. Boone into the afterlife, adheres to the former view and wants only to offer her charge comfort as he faces death. Then there’s the Frenchman (likely modeled on Étienne Lenoir, an early innovator of the internal combustion engine), who refuses to let sleeping dogs lie. He will use any means necessary to convince Boone to reflect on the environmental damage his work over the decades has wrought, and to get him to feel remorse for it, a process he himself has undergone.

In the end, though, does Vigil reconcile these conflicting beliefs? And does the novel reveal its author’s perspective on the matter?

In a recent interview with Ezra Klein, Saunders confessed that he is “big into contradictions” and likes to wrestle with them on the page. He was raised in the Catholic tradition, where sin necessitates judgment and repentance. Saunders says he defines “sin” as being “out of step with truth.” On the other hand, in Buddhism, a misalignment with truth has a karmic effect, causing suffering for the individual who has erred, which makes judgment unnecessary.

Vigil is also a contemplation of capitalism and power. For Boone, power is a safety net that enables him to believe he’s not a mere mortal, subject to the world’s vagaries. He is thankful “he was going home now, to God, his dear God…Thank you, Lord, thank you,” he prays, “for making me who I was and not some little squirming powerless nincompoop.”

Jill reflects on how Boone came to be Boone.

My charge had been born him…Then life had happened to that him, exerting upon it certain deleterious effects, including but not limited to: the powerful nature of his early desires, which had led him to strive, which in turn had led him to accomplish, and in accomplishing, he had brought about harm…It had all unscrolled just as it must.

This week, on Wednesday, February 25, at 1:30 p.m. Eastern (one hour later than usual), we’ll have a chance to discuss these questions with Vigil author George Saunders. Meanwhile, what are your thoughts?

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BOOK CLUB: How do you fix a broken world?

Leigh Haber — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:30:21 GMT

This afternoon, the Book Club met to dig into Vigil, George Saunders’s challenging second novel, and we examined what this brief tale of an otherworldly protagonist’s difficulties in carrying out her mission to comfort the dying might have to tell us about our own world, the place of the powerful and the powerless in it, and our responsibilities to one another.

Is the book asking readers to get out of their comfort zone, confront the limits of their ability to empathize, and find the humanity in the most monstrous of men? Is Saunders telling a cautionary tale about those who are too certain of their place — or about those who assume they’re life’s central characters, entitled to “command the mighty levers” of civilization? Is it all an elaborate allegory for the predations of the Epstein class? Is he asking climate doomers to think past their dystopian scenarios? Vigil is a slim book that takes on some very big questions — and it doesn’t leave us with easy answers.

Next week, on Wednesday, February 25, at 1:30 p.m. Eastern (one hour later than usual), we’ll have a chance to ask George Saunders about the book’s many meanings. In the meantime, click on the video player above to catch up on today’s conversation — and then leave your questions for next week in the comments below.

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Your support is how we keep the lights on, pay our writers and editors a fair wage, and build the new media we all deserve. When you subscribe, you help us reach more people.

Join us today, or if you are already a member, give a gift or group subscription.

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Get 20% off a group subscription

How to participate in the Book Club

Each week, we’ll post questions — our discussion guide — on Sunday, and on alternate Wednesdays we’ll meet for a discussion with the Club or a visit from an author or other special guest (occasionally we’ll schedule on alternate days or times, but we will let you know). Look out for posts with further details.

The Book Club will meet next on Wednesday, February 25, at 1:30 p.m. Eastern (one hour later than usual), for a special author talk with George Saunders.

Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!

Available for iOS and Android

BOOK CLUB: George Saunders points us in the direction of kindness

Leigh Haber — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 14:38:18 GMT

In the face of news that grows ever more difficult to comprehend or accept, George Saunders’s Buddhism-infused kindness offers an alternative to free-falling outrage, and Vigil — Saunders’s second novel and our February Ink Book Club pick — is a sort of literary Rorschach test, with each reader deriving something different from it.

In this past week’s discussion of the novel, one of our Book Club members, Terrence Green, offered an incisive assessment of how kindness functions, and gets at one of the book’s central puzzles: what does an angel of forgiveness do when called upon to comfort someone who — it would appear — neither deserves forgiveness nor desires it? Boone is, as Jill observes, “as sure of himself as ever a charge of mine had been.”

Is there even a path towards “closure” here, as we’d typically understand it?

“Some things have to be accepted,” Terrence wrote, “if we’re going to stay honest about reality, and other things remain open to change… Vigil is about learning how to live inside that distinction.”

Terrence’s reading — in a way, a recasting, he suggests, of the Serenity Prayer — put us in mind of a passage from Saunders’s now-famous 2013 Syracuse University commencement address, in which he urged students to “err in the direction of kindness.”

As Saunders addressed the students at Syracuse in 2013:

“Becoming kinder” happens naturally, with age. It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish — how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”

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WATCH: Arguing for a diverse America with your friends on the other side

Leigh Haber — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 19:10:34 GMT

We just talked live with legal scholars and authors Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow about their new book, How Equality Wins: A New Vision for an Inclusive America, and how to reimagine diversity, equity, and inclusion — yes, DEI — right now, and for a post-Trump world. Yoshino and Glasgow reminded us that while our moment is a stress test for the rule of law, this isn’t the first time people have had to fight for democratic values as a white, male, propertied class tried desperately to hoard power for itself — and Americans shouldn’t be afraid to argue for DEI today. They also talked to us about:

How communities and organizations can make progress on diversity, even under the second Trump administration
Why DEI isn’t at odds with merit — and why merit is the idea that needs rethinking
The mistakes of the left that invited attacks on DEI — and how to reform diversity programs to get beyond them
How the Epstein files can inspire new efforts to push for real equity
What you can do now to work for diversity right now, wherever you live and work

For some hopeful thinking on getting beyond cynicism and practical ideas on fighting for a more diverse and inclusive America, just click on the video player above.

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Your support is how we keep the lights on, pay our writers and editors a fair wage, and build the new media we all deserve. When you subscribe, you help us reach more people.

Join us today, or if you are already a member, give a gift or group subscription.

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Get 20% off a group subscription

How to participate in the Book Club

Each week, we’ll post questions — our discussion guide — on Sunday, and on alternate Wednesdays we’ll meet for a discussion with the Club or a visit from an author or other special guest (occasionally we’ll schedule on alternate days or times, but we will let you know). Look out for posts with further details.

The Book Club will meet next to discuss George Saunders’s Vigil on Wednesday, February 18, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, then again on Wednesday, February 25, at 1:30 p.m. Eastern (one hour later than usual), for a special author talk with George Saunders.

Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!

Available for iOS and Android