LONDON — When Prime Minister Andy Burnham arrived a few minutes late to a meeting with regional mayors on Thursday, his Cabinet ally Angela Rayner had a name for it. She joked they were on “Andy Time.”

The rest of Britain is beginning to learn what that feels like.

Burnham entered 10 Downing Street three months ago promising a “new economic model.” However, the prime minister’s first budget next Wednesday will ask voters to wait a bit longer for it.

John Healey, Burnham’s top finance minister, is expected to announce cuts to business regulation, new steps to move power out of Whitehall and targeted cost-of-living help as energy bills surge due to the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

But while London’s banking sector is resigned to a tax rise, Healey is broadly not expected to completely overhaul tax regimes that many in Burnham’s center-left Labour Party have long seen as unfair. These include business rates, which treat high street shops more harshly than out-of-town delivery warehouses; capital gains tax, which charges less on income from assets than from work; and council tax on homes, which is based on valuations from 1991. 

Healey and his allies are already rolling out a pitch for lower-key changes to tax and spending than his predecessor, Rachel Reeves, insisting budgets are about more than their bottom-line “scorecard.” They point instead to thinning the “sludge” of business bureaucracy and helping “bloody-minded” entrepreneurs.

The reason behind this is about much more than war dragging on the British economy and keeping inflation high. Many radical reforms just aren’t ready yet. 

Next Wednesday will mark just 100 days since Burnham took office, after a whirlwind special election that ended the Greater Manchester mayor’s decade-long absence from parliament.

Burnham’s much-touted “10-year plan” to rewire Britain’s public realm is far from finished; its publication date is edging closer to Christmas. And many granular details of his plan for reform — including higher defense spending, welfare reforms and ownership of the water sector — will only come at a multi-year spending review some time in 2027. Healey is still trying to decide when that will happen.

POLITICO spoke to 22 current and former government officials, MPs and people who speak regularly to Downing Street to map out Burnham and Healey’s strategy, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak frankly. 

Several offered the view that Healey’s budget was designed to act as a stepping stone toward the 10-year plan and spending review, while not spooking the bond markets — which Burnham complained Britain was “in hock to” last year. That is despite Britain inching closer to a general election that the prime minister must call by summer 2029.

“They want it to be a non-event,” one person who speaks regularly to both 10 and 11 Downing Street said of the budget. 

Expectation management

This narrative has already left Healey’s allies bristling.

People are “accusing us of not making decisions and kicking the can down the road when actually this budget is incredibly difficult,” said one government official. This person added: “This is the first budget of this country that will have come to the House of Commons for scrutiny while the war in the Middle East is raging and an illegal invasion of Ukraine continues by Russia. The idea that this is by any means small is quite difficult to stomach.”

A second U.K. government official argued the budget would be “as ambitious as possible within the political context.” But a third government official said they believed the budget would be more “steady as she goes” than finished solutions to Britain’s problems.

Ruth Curtice, a former Treasury official who is now chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, a think tank focused on living standards, added: “In some ways it’s quite surprising to have such a small budget, given we have a new prime minister and chancellor and quite a lot has happened in the world since the last one.”

The opposition Conservative Party is preparing to seize on this “deferral budget” theme. Tory strategists are ready to paint it as a cowardly act from an administration they claim prefers sweeping vision to hard decisions. “Why act tomorrow when you can act today?” said one shadow cabinet minister. “Have some balls!”

Cameron Brown, a former Tory special adviser in the Treasury, was more sympathetic. “There’s no need to crystallize any kind of savings or cuts now,” when the spending review is looming anyway, he argued. Brown predicted a “tight and concise” but “intellectually coherent” package: “[Healey] will have some buffer at the end, a nice little cost of living package, Labour MPs will be happy, he’ll target the bad people — gamblers and banks — and he’ll push things down the road a bit.”

A Labour official voiced concern that a cautious budget could lose the goodwill Burnham has built with the public — as happened to his predecessor Keir Starmer, who promised “change” in his 2024 manifesto.

And Reeves’ former Political Secretary Matt Pound urged “caution” on deferring too many decisions to the 2027 spending review. “The truth is that they could end up putting a monumental amount of pressure on that spending review,” he told POLITICO’s Westminster Insider podcast in an interview released Friday. “There are already a lot of pressures they will need to fund.”

Hard to get

“Energy” will be the key thread linking Healey’s messages for the budget, a fourth U.K. government official said — from “breathing space” help with bills to building a more resilient infrastructure network. 

There will also be a “fiscal devolution roadmap” on budget day, setting out terms of how regional mayors can get more power and money and drawn up partly by Burnham’s new Manchester outpost, No. 10 North. Legislation to let them impose tourist taxes will be published in the coming weeks. And officials have talked behind the scenes about procurement and boosting Britain’s heavy industries; the budget needs to find almost £5 billion to plug a hole in a defense investment plan unveiled under Starmer.

Targeted cost-of-living measures appear likely to include scrapping “standing charges” on domestic gas bills, which cost the average household just over £100 a year. Burnham said Wednesday that he had asked Healey to look at the issue — though any help could be eclipsed by a predicted £276 rise in domestic bills this January.

The other message will be that the Treasury can do big, consequential things without raising taxes. Healey will make “a political argument that actually there are other types of budgets that you can have,” said the first government official quoted above, “busting through some of that sludge and ripping up a lot of that red tape.” Cash-strapped chancellors have reached for regulatory reform before, with mixed success.

MPs are looking closely at cost-of-living support. One backbencher in an affluent seat said any help had to be significant, because even their well-off constituents were struggling to take the holidays they wanted. Defense, by contrast, barely comes up on the doorstep: “There are hardly any votes in it, but it’s just something we have to do.”

There has been heavy engagement with Labour MPs, whose detachment from No. 10 helped force Starmer out in July. Treasury ministers Torsten Bell and James Murray are among those engaging while Chief Secretary to the Treasury Emma Reynolds handles tricky negotiations with Cabinet ministers, alongside No. 10 chief of staff James Purnell.

Healey has negotiated with Cabinet ministers and spoken to union leaders, banks and MPs — though not lobbyists. “No one can get to Healey,” said one. “It’s very smart. Let him do his job.”

Markets will look at the “headroom” — a snapshot of the buffer between Healey’s five-year plans and his self-imposed fiscal rules. The fourth official quoted above said Treasury officials have considered having only a small “headroom” buffer compared to the £21.7 billion left by Reeves, as it could be increased in future years. 

Reeves’ former political secretary, Pound, warned against this, telling Westminster Insider: “If the headroom is so low that it’s clear that they can’t clear the defense investment plan, for example, or the wider defense pressures, then I think that that could then start to have a bit of a knock-on effect that would be quite negative.”

However, headroom is merely a snapshot, often out of date by the time it is published. It is likely to be buffeted further by any events in the Middle East arising from the U.S. midterm results on Nov. 3.

And as with all budget briefings, some opposition politicians believe there is an element of expectation management. Conservatives suspect that headroom will come out higher than predicted — which Healey can paint as a victory.

Time is ticking

Then it’ll all be over — and Westminster will immediately start preparing for the next step.

A date was never confirmed for Burnham’s 10-year plan (beyond the latter part of 2026), but some officials believe it has already slipped slightly from the original intention. 

Downing Street and Cabinet Office officials remain determined to publish it in December, though some in Whitehall worry it might be delayed. “Knowing the things on the horizon and how big they are, I genuinely don’t see how you could make space for it,” said one official in another department.

While some Cabinet Office civil servants were first tasked to work on the plan in August, others only joined the team this month as it has grown, according to one person with knowledge of the staffing. Burnham’s ally Louise Haigh, the first secretary of state, is leading three “task forces” ahead of the plan on the cost of living, public control of utilities and the renewal of run-down high streets.

The 10-year plan won’t have all the answers, though. POLITICO reported this week that while it will contain a high-level vision, priorities and principles for the water industry’s future, much of the granular detail of how future ownership models will work is expected in the 2027 spending review. 

One Labour figure who has spoken to the government about the water industry said they believed ministers will choose “different horses for different courses” — an array of ownership models for various firms depending on how stricken they are. A second Labour figure talking to the government said: “You can’t do this in two years.”

The Labour official quoted earlier in this story said they feared the 10-year plan would be a let-down. “These big plans governments are always throwing forward to have a habit of turning out quite thin,” this person said. “At which point we all realize there was never a big plan all along.”

There are other plans to come, including an imminent plan to reform the welfare system by the former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Milburn, and a white paper in December that is due to set out a timetable, legislation and borders for plans to move more power outside Whitehall.

Devolution is one area where Burnham has moved quickly, pleasing many regional mayors. But some officials in the union movement fear that Burnham’s initial focus on devolution risks taking up bandwidth that could have been spent on other issues. A fifth government official added that they were worried all the conversations between different public bodies could crowd out the push for growth. They said: “I sit on Teams calls that are 30 people, all from different arms of the state. Sometimes I think — ‘You do know none of us are making this money?’”

‘Rubber hits the road’

Then there is the 2027 spending review. 

It will set out how the state allocates money across its arms for the next three to five years — turning these plans and the difficult trade-offs they require into reality.

The Treasury has previously confirmed it will set out the entire pathway to lift U.K. defense spending from 2.6% of GDP this year to 3.5% by 2035. It is also likely to address questions about Burnham’s pledge to create a state-funded national service for social care, funded by reducing the rise in the state pension.

There will be months of to-and-fro between Whitehall departments and a Treasury looking for cuts, efficiency savings or both to balance the books.

“The spending review is when the rubber hits the road,” said the fifth government official quoted above. “It’s already beginning. Departments are beginning to work out sacrificial lambs to offer up.”

Three people with knowledge of the conversations said Healey still hasn’t decided when in 2027 he wants to hold the spending review, though it is broadly expected no earlier than the summer. He has been privately musing with allies about the options.

Curtice said Healey’s options are essentially to hold a small fiscal event followed by a spending review next summer, or to hold a spending review with an annual budget simultaneously in fall 2027.

She added: “The big question we’ve posed for this budget — that we’re not necessarily expecting an answer to — is what is the spending total for the spending review that we know needs to come next year? Until we know the answer to that question, we don’t really know whether we can believe the path of tax and borrowing that is set out in the budget.”

Senior Conservatives argue the spending review will be so difficult that Burnham could call a snap election before it is due. He has insisted he will only force it in 2029.

Until then, much of the spending review work will fall to Reynolds. Her predecessor Darren Jones argued the existence of the 10-year plan and spending review meant it would be sensible for next week’s budget to be a little low-octane.

“The prime minister’s been clear that the 10-year plan is going to be the political strategy for the government,” Jones told POLITICO. “So I think it makes sense to do all of your public spending decisions after the publication of the 10-year plan. It would be odd if this October’s budget tried to deal with all the big trade-offs on defense, mayoral budgets, or more ownership of public utilities.

“So I think in many ways, actually the 10-year plan is more interesting this autumn in terms of the political strategy of the government. 

“And then 2027 will be the year in which ministers will have to start thinking about how to implement that strategy operationally, including in public spending decisions.”

Much of that will fall to Burnham himself.

Crowdsourcing

Rayner’s joke about “Andy Time” was not without cause.

Unlike Starmer, Burnham gets into the weeds of an issue even if it derails his schedule. The prime minister chews things over with colleagues so much that some have joked they could just remove his Downing Street desk, said the third government official quoted above. By contrast, Starmer used to retreat to No. 10’s first-floor study to read away from the hubbub.

Burnham’s approach can lead to Downing Street making decisions late in the day. One former No. 10 official said: “A Prime Minister needs to do 80 things in a day and if that goes to 60, then you end up massively behind.”

The flipside is that ministers and officials know what their leader actually wants from them — even if they are left to work out the detail.

“It’s like we’ve woken up from a political coma,” one backbench MP enthused. “I know what the prime minister thinks,” added the third government official quoted above.

Aides used to complain that Starmer, by contrast, tried to be efficient but would end meetings without setting a clear political direction. “Keir was always a stickler for time, even if the issue wasn’t resolved,” as one former colleague put it.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, suggested this week that Burnham was failing to flesh out the detail behind his vision. “Talking about it is not making a decision,” she said of social care reform at prime minister’s questions. Burnham was visibly frustrated—insisting he was making the long-term decisions other politicians duck.

And for the prime minister’s allies and most of his MPs, the vibes remain good. The No. 10 environment is more relaxed and open. Junior ministers, in meetings over bacon sandwiches, feel they can share their views and be heard.

“There’s definitely still a buzz,” said the person who talks regularly to Downing Street, who was quoted earlier in this story. “But you don’t want to spend too much time buzzing while Rome burns. There’s a reality check that I feel is going to come imminently.”

Patrick Baker, Sascha O’Sullivan, Esther Webber and Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.

he world is starting to understand that there is no way to fully and lastingly protect itself from President Donald Trump.

The man just can’t let things go — and he’ll get creative to get what he wants.

The latest blowup over Ukraine is emblematic of Trump’s wily persistence, and it suggests a challenging two years lie ahead for the international set even if Democrats gain some power in the midterm elections.

Not that long ago, Trump seemed to have patched up ties with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Kyiv made gains against Russia. Trump signed legislation last month that was championed by his late friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), to impose heavy new sanctions and tariffs to punish Russia for its war on Ukraine.

This month, the original Trump — the one who fawns over Russian leader Vladimir Putin and despises Zelenskyy — roared back. He waived many of the legislation’s penalties on Russia, moved to buy Russian diesel and signaled he’s more interested in doing business with Moscow than seeking justice for Kyiv. Ukrainians suspect the U.S. has pressured them by throttling its satellite connections and intelligence-sharing. (The Trump administration disputes much of this.)

“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine,” Trump said Monday as he welcomed the idea of an arms control summit with Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that might include talks about Ukraine.

The lesson, foreign officials and others steeped in diplomacy tell me, is that you cannot truly change Trump’s mind or stop his overall trajectory. Even if Trump seems briefly chastened or stages a tactical retreat, he will eventually return in new, often-surprising modes to push his original views and goals. He will try to exhaust you into submission.

Imagine how startling it is to be Ukrainian these days as Trump pressures you to make concessions to Russia by blaming you for a global energy crisis he caused by launching a war on Iran. Or what it’s like for officials across European capitals trying to craft a response, knowing there’s never an end to the process.

“There is no immunity to Donald Trump. He makes a deal in order to make a better deal the next day,” one senior European official mused, having been granted anonymity because the topic involves sensitive diplomacy.

It’s hard to blame world leaders who think they’ve learned to manage Trump only to be bewildered by a sudden left hook on his part. Foreign policy is often driven by hope when you lack good options. And Trumpology is a confounding, but still a relatively new, subfield.

Besides, Trump’s messaging is inconsistent, incoherent and nonstrategic — characteristics that can obscure his single-minded pursuit of his goals. So the global actors dealing with him — whether it’s the Gulf Arab states who shower him with gifts or the Canadians furious over his trade and territorial threats — sometimes think they’ve come to terms with him only to find they’re fighting on a newly configured plane.

A Supreme Court ruling that gutted many of Trump’s tariffs earlier this year was good news in many capitals. But since then, the so-called Tariff Man has moved to impose the import taxes under pretexts not considered by the court, including turning to accusations involving forced labor.

The White House doesn’t dispute Trump’s aggressive tactics.

“There is no greater fighter for America First interests than President Trump — and he is willing to look anyone in the eye to deliver wins on behalf of the United States,” spokesperson Anna Kelly told me in a statement.

The Greenland saga shows the limits of trying to mollify Trump.

In his first term, Trump wanted to buy the frozen island. The idea was shelved amid global laughter, but authorities in Greenland and Denmark made it clear to Trump that they welcomed more U.S. investment in the Danish territory.

In his second term, Trump huffed and puffed about an all-out U.S. takeover of Greenland, only to agree in September to an expanded U.S. military footprint that he could have gotten anyway under existing, decades-old diplomatic accords without all the drama. The whole affair has led to lingering anger in Europe about what Canada’s leader called a “rupture” in the global order — but many European officials hoped that the saga had faded away.

Yet, it’s far from certain that Trump has given up on possessing Greenland. Just days ago, he touted on social media plans to start oil, gas and mineral exploration in “our new and beautiful Greenland.”

The use of “our” is more than a little suggestive.

Defying Trump, too, can get you only so far.

Brazilians effectively told Trump to take a hike when he used tariffs and sanctions to punish the country for charging its former president, Jair Bolsonaro, in a coup attempt.

A few months later, as Bolsonaro was about to start his prison sentence, Trump seemed to admit defeat in his effort to help his political ally. “That’s too bad,” he said in November 2025, with little emotion. (“Brazil Defied Trump and Won,” The New York Times declared.)

But Trump wasn’t done with Brazil. He and his team have pursued efforts to undercut the current Brazilian government while quietly backing Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio, in his efforts to win the presidency this year. The runoff election is on Sunday, and it’s tight.

World leaders are doing what they can to make their countries Trump-resistant, if not all-out Trump-proof.

That has meant everything from diversifying their sources of trade and security alliances to joining Trump on ventures that, on the surface at least, can be helpful to them. (Then there are the many countries, especially in Africa, that diplomats privately tell me are happy to be off Trump’s radar.)

My takeaway from watching all of this, though, is that it’s not enough to stay one step ahead of Trump. You have to stay several steps ahead, and you have to be wildly imaginative about the lengths to which Trump and his devoted aides are willing to go to complicate your life.

The second Trump administration is filled with people who have turned to unique, bizarre and clever interpretations of law and reality to push his agenda. It’s not always clear who is behind which move, but it’s hard to imagine Trump isn’t fine with most of what’s happening.

It’s why a teenager is being held in immigration detention for the actions of his grandmother decades ago. It’s why Congress can scream and shout about its spending orders yet Trump ignores it.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said other nations should not hope that the Republican Party will shed Trump’s worldview, including his disdain for allies, once Trump’s out of power.

“I would love for our allies to know that we have consistent common adversaries that we’re going to work together to fight. I just don’t know that you can make that guarantee,” Murphy, a frequent Trump critic, told me. “That’s painful to say, but given the state of the Republican Party right now, it’s true.”

I understand why Ukraine and the European Union are trying to diversify their sources of intelligence and military industrial bases as Trump keeps chasing love from Russia.

Despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claims, the reality is that the United States can no longer be trusted for such security assistance.

But it’s not enough to find new intelligence partners or weapons manufacturers. You have to ask bigger questions, like, “What are the untapped streams of intelligence that no one knows are out there? What’s a potential weapon no one has considered? How can I acquire what I need before Trump stops me?”

Governments need to have plans — now — for scenarios that seem completely crazy. Better to be wrong than unprepared.

Still, even if you do all of that … “I don’t think it’s possible to stay two or three steps ahead of Trump,” said Charles Kupchan, a former senior national security official during the Obama administration who apparently enjoys raining on parades.

“He acts on impulse,” argued Kupchan, who has a new book out on the crumbling world order. “We need to try to limit the damage he’s causing and ride him out.”

A Democratic win in November’s midterms — one or both chambers of Congress — is unlikely to do much to rein in Trump’s actions abroad during his final years, current and former U.S. and foreign officials tell me.

He still has the veto and has been willing to ignore congressional demands. There’s also the fact that presidents have significantly more power to act in unilateral ways overseas than they do domestically.

Ukraine, the European Union, the world — all will be dealing with a politically wounded Trump who’s likely to double down on what he feels he must have.

“He’s going to be angrier,” Murphy predicted.

ROME — Former paratrooper General Roberto Vannacci portrays himself on social media as a Roman legionary and charioteer. He has declared he prefers women “without skirts” and posted an AI-generated image of a female junior minister with exaggerated cleavage.

None of these projections of masculinity and anti-woke culture are clumsy gaffes. The insurgent far-right star of Italian politics is making a deliberate play to the so-called manosphere to transform himself from an internet provocateur into a heavyweight political force.

For Italy’s first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, Vannacci now poses a serious problem as she needs to decide whether he is an asset or a liability. With elections expected next spring, his National Future party is polling at about 8%, making him a potentially crucial factor in building a right-wing coalition.

“It is disgusting to think you can manipulate the image of a woman for such deplorable propaganda,” the center-right junior minister in Meloni’s coalition whose image was manipulated, Matilde Siracusano, told POLITICO.  “I don’t think we have ever sunk this low, especially from someone aspiring to be a national political leader.”

Vannacci’s provocations may look like familiar trolling from a politician who has built his reputation on saying the unsayable. But behind them lies a broader political project, tapping into the grievances of young men who feel alienated by feminism and progressive culture.

Emanuele Pozzolo, a National Future parliamentarian who defected from Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, believes young men have become increasingly constrained in their relationships with women.

“I think young Western men are very often almost castrated in their instinct for dealing with women,” he said, arguing that even legitimate romantic approaches risk being treated as aggression. 

“The cultural problem is that sometimes everything seems to be harassment, everything abuse, everything violence,” he added, while stressing that genuine abuse must be punished.

Mediterranean patriarchy

Vannacci combines inflammatory online messaging and an alpha-male persona with a political program that promises to restore traditional roles for men and women. National Future even has a name for its preferred social order: “Mediterranean patriarchy.”

Its political program calls for the formation of “strong men” capable of controlling their emotions and passions, protecting women and sacrificing themselves for society. It opposes the recently introduced crime of femicide, condemns feminism, and declares the defense of life “from conception to natural death” and the “natural family” among its non-negotiable values.

The architect of this vision and principal author of the program is Lorenzo Gasperini, a conservative Catholic philosophy teacher from Tuscany, who has opposed vaccines and abortion rights on social media and blamed feminism for violence against women.

The result is a political offering that combines different traditions: conservative Catholic ideas about family and sexuality, older Italian ideas of virility and the much newer online politics of male grievance.

The manifesto seeks to put traditional family values into practice with proposals to pay parents who leave work to raise children, and reward parents of large families with tax exemption and public sector jobs.  

Some proposals echo Benito Mussolini’s fascist-era “Battle for Births,” which offered similar incentives while promoting motherhood as a patriotic duty.

Luca Sforzini, a former Vannacci ideologue who has since broken with him, said the Mediterranean label was a clever piece of marketing.

“It’s like talking about the Mediterranean diet,” he told POLITICO. “You think of Italian food, mozzarella, tomatoes, olive oil.” The result, he said, was to conceal a patriarchal model with men above women behind “bucolic, positive images. It’s monstrous,” he said.

Pozzolo rejected the suggestion that the program advocates for male supremacy.

“It is exactly the opposite,” he said. “When we talk about Mediterranean patriarchy, the main idea is to recover, preserve and pass on the responsibilities of being a man within the family and society.” Men, he argued, had a duty to show women respect, love and protection, while rejecting violence or coercive control.

He defended the “without skirts” remark as “extremely funny” — picking up on a reference to Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani advocating long skirts — and not remotely offensive, comparing Vannacci’s ability to connect with ordinary Italians to Silvio Berlusconi’s. 

At a recent rally in the Umbrian city of Orvieto, Vannacci defended the Mediterranean patriarchy concept as not “oppression and possession” but “duty, fidelity, sacrifice,” and said it was the family model that had allowed “us to prevail over the last 2,000 years.”

Elisa Ercoli, president of the women’s rights organization Differenza Donna, condemned the program as “a return to the supremacy of the white, cisgender alpha male, and the woman as his handmaiden.”

Appealing to alphas

Vannacci, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, became a media sensation in 2023 with the self-published book “The World Upside Down,” a broadside against immigration, feminism and homosexuality. In it, he told gay people: “You are not normal, get over it.”

Lionized by fans as a defender of common sense against progressive politics, he received more than half a million votes as a candidate for the anti-immigration League in the 2024 European elections, before founding National Future in February.

Polling analysis suggests that about 62% of National Future’s prospective voters are male, including strong support among manual workers and the unemployed.

Pozzolo denied National Future was deliberately targeting male voters, insisting the party’s ambition was to reach Italians of all backgrounds who felt unrepresented.

Federica Formato, a lecturer at Brighton University in the U.K., who studies gender and the far right, said Vannacci was “testing the waters” to see whether he can reach a younger male audience, tapping into what she described as the “aggrieved entitlement” of young men.

A career soldier, he has repeatedly portrayed himself through images of physical strength, competition and military prowess. On social media, AI-generated versions proliferate of Vannacci as an ancient Roman in scenes recalling the Ridley Scott epic Gladiator.

For Formato, the Roman imagery projects “virility and hyper-masculinity,” while Vannacci’s army background itself helps construct the image of an “alpha male.”

Humor, memes and deliberate provocation are particularly effective with a younger online audience, Formato said, allowing relatively complex ideological messages to be reduced to instantly comprehensible images. “He is not naive,” she said. “He says things to provoke and get more attention.”

That presents Meloni with a headache. Vannacci’s party is drawing voters from her Brothers of Italy and Matteo Salvini’s League, while offering a more uncompromising platform on immigration, social issues and foreign policy.

Yet Vannacci has opened the door to an alliance with Meloni if she needs his votes. He has described National Future as a natural partner for the center-right, while insisting that any deal must respect his party’s principles. With Italy’s new electoral law offering a parliamentary majority bonus to coalitions winning at least 42 percent of the vote, those votes could matter.

That presents Meloni with an uncomfortable choice: Keep Vannacci outside the coalition, or bring into her government a movement whose appeal rests partly on the grievances of men who believe feminism has gone too far.

For Formato, Vannacci is exploiting a space in Italian politics that has so far lacked a figure capable of turning those grievances into an organized political constituency.

Vannacci, with his promises to restore traditional masculinity, appears determined to occupy it.

“There is an empty chair,” she said.

An underground monorail, non-existent bizarrely skinny killer whales, directions to extinct attractions, guide maps that bear no resemblance to reality. AI-generated Disney theme park guide books are flooding the market, filled with hallucinated slop that would drive a trusting tourist insane with misinformation. — Read the rest

The post AI-written Disney guidebooks send tourists to rides that don't exist appeared first on Boing Boing.

One of my favorite publishers of beautiful books, Beehive Books, has a Kickstarter for Death Is a Room: Illustrated Gothic Tales by Women Writers.

It has nine Gothic horror stories by women writers, including Virginia Woolf, Kate Chopin, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Susan Glaspell. — Read the rest

The post A book of Gothic horror stories designed as a nine-room boarding house appeared first on Boing Boing.

Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

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Barnes, J.S.: Ebenezer Scrooge: Ghost Hunter (Titan Books UK 978-1803362946, $27.99, 288pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/20/2026)

Horror novel. Seven years after the events of A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge now works as an eradicator of troublesome spirits.

 

Blacke, Olivia: The Key to a Killer (St. Martin’s/Minotaur 978-1250336736, $29.00, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Supernatural mystery novel, third in the Ruby and Cordelia series. Roommates and co-investigators Ruby (living) and Cordelia (ghost) investigate their most difficult case yet: Cordelia’s own hazily-remembered death.

 

Blackwood, Lauren: Knight of the God King (St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books 978-1250891167, $21.00, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Young-adult fantasy romance novel. Aspiring knight Calliope and her handsome squire Beric are drawn into the schemes and secrets of a God King, who’s been waging war with something called The Dark for centuries.

 

Blake, Olivie & Adams, John Joseph: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2026 (HarperCollins/Mariner 978-0063441521, $19.99, 432pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Year’s best anthology, 12th in the series, with stories from 2025 by authors including Thomas Ha, Sarah Langan, Naomi Kanakia, and Alex E. Harrow. Introduction by guest editor Blake; foreword by series editor John Joseph Adams, who also provides a list of additional notable stories.

 

Card, Orson Scott: Ender’s Tribe (Blackstone Publishing 979-8228744219, $29.99, 288pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Collection of 8 science fiction stories from the Ender Universe. Includes the original story version of “Ender’s Game.”

 

Clarke, Susanna: The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City (Bloomsbury Circus US 978-1639739813, $16.99, 96pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Fantasy short story set in the universe of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Faeiries attacking medieval Durham surround it with trees, and the savvy Bishop seeks the new King, leader of the fairy host. llustrations by Victoria Sawdon. Simultaneous with the Bloomsbury Circus UK edition.

 

Cooke, C.J.: House of Cursed Daughters (HarperCollins UK 979-0008775681, $20.00, 400pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/22/2026)

Historical supernatural novel. In 1312, 1865, and 2026, three women in England and France confront terrifying curses and madness.

 

Daniel, Katherine: When the Night Comes Knocking (Penguin Random House/Berkley 979-8217191338, $30.00, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Horror novel. Siblings Jane and Thomas, estranged after a near-fatal accident, encounter a mutilated man at a gas station in the North Georgia Appalachians.

 

Dewitt, Amanda: Devil’s Advocate: The Anti-Divine Comedy (Peachtree Teen 978-1682638682, $19.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

YA contemporary fantasy novel. Ada Faust, daughter of the devil, attempts to become her father’s successor by sabotaging a do-gooder senator, only to fall for Hasan, a half-angelic intern.

 

Everson, John: The Witching House (Flame Tree Press UK 978-1805520238, $26.95, 366pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 10/20/2026)

Horror novel. Giana tests an urban legend by writing the name “Madelyn” in blood on the mirror, only for Madelyn to appear and demand revenge for her murder.

 

Foster, Alan Dean: Lost on Paradise (Blackstone Publishing 979-8236033794, $32.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

SF novel. Trash scavengers Jonos and Liina try to escape polluted Earth for the alien-run planet Paradise, which they’ve seen in videos.

 

Grothe, Taylor: Lethal Kiss (Tor/Nightfire 978-1250433879, $19.99, 384pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Horror romance novel. A new hire at Preston University, Marcella is a monster that feeds on humans, but a spate of murders that don’t involve her cause her to align with desperate postdoc Lacie. Simultaneous with the Macmillan/Tor Nightfire UK edition.

 

Harrow, Alix E.: The Slantwise Histories and Other Stories (Tordotcom 978-1250345363, $29.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Collection of stories, centered around alternate timelines and pasts. Includes 5 new stories and Hugo-winner “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies.”

 

Hellmund, Wanda: Our Dark Incantations (Ace 979-8217190737, $32.00, 528pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. In a university of deadly magic and demonology, ex-healer Mira encounters Aidric, a frustratingly handsome soldier, only to discover a mystery that threatens the kingdom.

 

Kikic, Natalie: The Haunting of Lavender House (Harlequin/Park Row 978-0778307198, $30.00, 162pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Horror novel. Magdalena, a healer in 1895 Croatia, is suspected of being a witch; in 2026 Petra learns that her Croatian grandmother is still alive, living in their ancestral home surrounded by lavender fields.

 

King, Ani: Family Night (Mason Jar Press 978-0951853259, $21.00, 156pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 10/20/2026)

Collection of 52 magical realist flash-fiction stories. Queerness, family, and retro oddness center in tales, including a girl summoning her missing mother with yacht rock and a woman tries to raise daughters from the bones of her rabbits.

 

Marie, I.V.: Twisted Vows (Penguin Random House/Delacorte 979-8217234530, $17.99, 192pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel, third in The Souls of Blackwood Academy series. Wren is dropped at the gates of Blackwood, a school in purgatory, and is assigned a project with bad boy August.

 

Morris, Mark: Ghost Lights (Flame Tree Press UK 978-1805520115, $26.95, 288pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, 10/20/2026)

Horror anthology, 7th in the ABC of Horror series. Contains 20 original stories by Josh Malerman, Eric LaRocca, Rachel Harrison, and more.

 

Onoh, Nuzo: The Turning of Sally-Mae (Titan Books UK 978-1-835416075, $18.99, 320pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Horror novel. Assaulted and impregnated by wealthy ranch heirs, Sally-Mae Jenkins is sent from Texas to Africa on a missionary ship, and her unborn twins become the focus of Aja-Mmo, a spirit entity who’s also claimed local healer Amara.

 

Qurratulayn: Soot & Sacrifice (Page Street 979-8890035028, $22.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Young-adult historical horror novel, second in the Blood & Breat duology. Evan Wilde got her revenge, but in the process unwittingly freed many devils from their Necro masters, and must team up with Rhys to stop the devil Jack.

 

Raughley, Sarah: The Queen’s Command (HarperCollins 978-0063344433, $19.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Young-adult historical fantasy. Victorian courtier and heiress Vicky Davis attends Cheltenham Ladies College, where a secret game among senior girls allegedly grants the winner’s wish.

 

Robert, Katee: The Tarot Trials (Tor 978-1250412355, $32.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Fantasy novel, first in the Tarot Trials series. Kestrel, daughter of the executed Moon Champion, enters the deadly Tarot Trials to try to find the other Champion who killed her mother. Simultaneous with the Macmillan/Tor UK edition.

 

Singer, Alex T.: Angel Country (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1668216521, $20.00, 448pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/20/2026)

Historical horror novel. Scientist Ada Franklin wakes in her own grave in 1904 and finds her lab abandoned and her life’s work — a device that enables human-angel communication — missing.

 

Woodroe, Alex: Tatratea (Clash Books 978-1968043360, $17.95, 164pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 10/20/2026)

Eco-horror novel. Armed with gear and sanity-check protocols, researcher Errata investigates strange signals coming from Tatratea, an abandoned Romanian manner, while the world outsidegoes insane.

 

Wynne, Douglas: Wellspring (Promethean 979-8995262510, $20.00, 318pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/26/2026)

Folk horror novel. Three former bandmates, fans of the classic rock band Bad Mother, investigate their friend Adam’s disappearance, all surrounding an infamous well that inspired Bad Mother’s magnum opus and drove its lead singer to madness.

 

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LONDON — Kemi Badenoch warned Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Tuesday not to repeat the economic mistakes of her former boss Liz Truss in his first budget next Wednesday.

The Tory leader said higher national debt, increased gilt yields and extra government spending are creating a gloomy economic picture — and demanded sharp spending cuts from the ruling Labour government next week.

“The lessons of the mini-budget are: if you don’t balance your budget, if you give away £150 billion in subsidizing people’s energy bills, but you don’t cut spending, then the markets will react,” Badenoch said, citing former Tory leader Truss’ ill-fated mini-budget in 2022, which triggered a sharp sell-off in U.K. government bonds and saw the value of the British pound fall.

Truss — Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, who spent just 49 days in Downing Street — announced Tuesday she is publishing a new book setting out “what really happened” during the mini-budget in 2022, according to a press notice issued by her spokesperson.

“Bank Job: A short book on how the Bank of England broke the bond market and brought down the government” will be published later this month.

The ex-PM has blamed the mini-budget’s consequences on the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog.

Badenoch told a press conference in London she does not believe Labour is paying attention to the consequences of that Conservative budget by failing to reduce spending: “They are the ones who want to repeat the mistakes of four years ago, we are not going to be making that mistake again.”

“We need to live within our means,” she said. “We have to stop borrowing so much, but instead, Labour are taking out more loans to pay the interest on our existing loans.”

Questioned on why the public should trust her judgement on economic competence, Badenoch, who served as Truss’ international trade secretary, told POLITICO: “I am not Liz Truss and I think that the public can tell the difference.”

Badenoch said she only saw the mini-budget when it was presented and collective responsibility “doesn’t mean that you agree with all of the decisions that are made.”

“She needs to take responsibility for it, one way or another,” Badenoch said. “That is her issue.”

In his sweeping new novel, Chad Harbach studies the crisis of being a college student in 2015—and of being a writer trying to redeem realist fiction.

“Blockers,” “Exhibit G,” “Passengers,” and “Few and Far Between.”

A new biography of the great director inspires wonder at his irresistible vision of America and his immigrant journey.

A remarkable memoir recounts a writer’s struggles with alcoholism and religious faith—and the unsettling ways in which each has fed her longing for the other.

For the past several months, I’ve been writing my second novel—a story that means more to me than I can put into words (and that’s coming from an author). There’s something indescribably fulfilling yet cripplingly vulnerable about crafting an entire world, fit with complex characters and achingly relatable plots, from the depths of your own soul.

It’s an experience I wish everyone could have at some point in their lives, and one that isn’t reserved for just the “professionals.” If you’re interested in writing a book, follow these tips for a more seamless process. 

1. Treat Each Book Like a Marriage

While writing my current book, I’ve been tempted to trash the entire manuscript a handful of times. In fact, over the last few years, I’ve started, discarded, and restarted a few different novels, making little progress on any projects due to my lack of commitment. You can’t write a book when your focus is divided among countless other pursuits.

Writing a book is much like tying the metaphorical knot: you must commit to one idea and find a way to see it through. Sure, there will be plenty of other tempting concepts out there. Some might tease a simpler path, while others might test your loyalty along the way. Choose the story that lights your soul on fire—and prove your dedication until you have nothing else left to give it.

2. Create a Writing Ritual

Sometimes, I feel as though ideas land in my brain from somewhere above—God? The Universe? My higher self who knows exactly what narratives I need to dive into?—and I’m just the conduit for them. When I enter a flow state, words pour out of me so forcefully that it’s difficult for my fingers to keep up. They tip-tap their way across my keyboard as the emotion builds in my chest, seeking its final, poetic escape.

For me, writing is a spiritual experience—and I treat it as such. I have specific candles that are dedicated to novel-writing sessions, curated playlists with songs for each scene, and meditative practices that help me transition back into the world I’m creating. Whatever you need, be it a steaming cup of coffee, a moody environment, or a dozen scattered papers with scribbled notes covering your desk, honor your unique writing ritual.

3. Experiment With Method Acting

Many actors use method acting to improve their performance. This technique helps the artist get into the mind of their character to better understand their thoughts, feelings, perspectives, and quirks. Writers can engage in the same practice.

For example, maybe your main character is an edgy, daring individual, while you—the writer—are cautious and reserved. Challenge yourself to “try on” your character’s traits. Maybe this looks like embracing a bolder style, taking kickboxing, or getting out of your comfort zone in some way. You might be surprised what you learn—both about yourself and your character.

4. Lean Into Passion When You’re Feeling Discouraged

Writing it isn’t always pretty. It takes real guts and grit to be a writer—to transmute your pain for all to witness. And, of course, there are the more logistical aspects of penning a novel: the relentless editing, fact-checking, researching, proofreading, storybuilding…

Not only do you need discipline to keep you in line, but you also need passion and love for your story to carry you through the inspirationless nights. Think back to the marriage metaphor from earlier: If you were in a long-term relationship, you (hopefully) wouldn’t walk away at the first sign of trouble. Instead, you’d choose your person day after day, leaning into your love for them to get through tough times. 

Life is filled with uncomfortable, unflattering, and downright defeating moments. When writing becomes too overwhelming, remember why you started in the first place. The world needs your story.

The post How to Write a Book Without Giving Up on It Halfway Through: A Guide appeared first on VICE.

R. Sikoryak is a cartooning mimic of incredible ability, drawing in the style of any other cartoonist with absolute precision. Boing Boing has written about his previous projects taking legal documents and illustrating them using various famous cartoonist styles and comics characters. — Read the rest

The post R. Sikoryak's latest word-for-word comics adaptation of America's foundational documents appeared first on Boing Boing.

Back in 2019, author Margaret Stohl was handed a manuscript written by Jason Jones, who's best known as the co-creator of sci-fi gaming series Halo and Destiny. The two had worked together at Bungie, and Jones wanted Stohl's opinion on a book he was writing about AI taking over the world. It was an oral history of the fictional events, with around 100 characters spread across 40 countries, all detailing the AI uprising from their own perspectives. Pretty quickly Stohl realized that this idea could be much more than a single book.

"I was floored but not surprised," she says of her reaction to the original manuscript. "He's a worldbuilder who …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Le livre “Nous les Français” cartonne en librairie et suscite l’intérêt des politiques à l’approche de la présidentielle. Il dresse en 100 thèmes une radiographie de ce qui caractérisent les français en 2026. Air fryer, doudounes, usage des vocaux, pratiques d’hospitalité, poids de la nostalgie, phénomène Voisins vigilants et solidaires… Où se crée du commun ? Qu’est-ce qui nous divise vraiment ? Où se niche le politique ?

Pour cet épisode spécial enregistré en public au sommet sur la compétitivité économique organisé par POLITICO mardi 13 octobre à Paris, Anthony Lattier reçoit Laureline Dupont et Jean-Laurent Cassely, deux des co-auteurs de l’ouvrage publié aux éditions Robert Laffont.

To camp with kids makes me question my sanity. I crush tasks. Setting up the tent, laying out the bedding, stacking coolers on a bench. The picnic tables are skeined with leaves after a season of rain. I peel and drape their skeletal outlines over a nurse log. Forest doilies. We brought bikes. Our sons pop wheelies in the parking lot, safer than it sounds because few campers have braved late spring at Seaquest State Park.

On the drive along Spirit Lake Highway to Mount St. Helens, the houses are few and well-priced. I marvel; Brian scoffs. That’s because this whole place was destroyed forty years ago. Having timed our trip to the eruption’s anniversary, we ascend through what had been a trail of devastation. Once seared by lahars, the landscape has greened into a wildlife corridor that winds around the Toutle River.

Scientists didn’t think life would come back this fast. Scant weeks after the blast, fireweed poked its green head through the ash, sending purple flowers skyward by July of 1980. The next year, I was born. We don’t always know where hope resides. I spent four decades guarding a secret. Quietude is a fertile state. Sure, I published hundreds of articles with my byline. But I rarely disclosed my own truths.

To this sunny weekend, I had invited a couple that Brian and I met in Seattle. Like him, they’re from the Midwest. Friendly people. She sang at our wedding with her two sisters, one of whom was our officiant. They moved to Portland a year after we met. We have stayed friends, which says something because I have lost contact with people who live in north Seattle. Together we decide on the Hummocks Trail. It’s only 2.5 miles long. I used to burn for monthlong expeditions, but it’s a good length for short legs.

I had never heard of hummocks before, which is the privilege of choosing one’s encounter with destruction. Hummocks are pieces of the mountain blown off by the eruption and carried downhill by a landslide. By the time we arrived, they had settled into place.

Upon these chunks of rock, ecosystems arise. Beneath the alders, bushy green horsetails wave in the unaccustomed sun. Their bright stalks, notched like bamboo, are topped with long fronds that grow in a feathery circle, like squirrel tails. With more than 300 million years of evolutionary strategy in the making, horsetails are hard to remove when they take root. It doesn’t matter how many times you pull them. I was charmed when they touched down in my garden. There, like here, they grow high enough to tickle my children’s hands along the path.

Our boys throw sticks into the ponds. Called the lifeblood of the hummocks by helpful plaques I read at a gallop to keep the kids in sight, the ponds are more like seeps. Or rainfall catchment basins. They were born when chunks of shattered glacier melted, forming pits filled by water then buried in ash. No longer held together by the mountainside, the hummocks slumped apart. Water dribbled through gray crannies. Now exposed to the sky, the ponds are thick with algae and cattails. Damselflies and dragonflies lay their eggs in the stillness. In springtime, the toad and frog eggs hatch into tadpoles which wriggle through the murk.

The ponds are unstable and evaporate quickly. To survive their home, the creatures must reproduce early and often. By the time I birthed our boys, I was in my thirties and had fortified my self-regard. Each autumn, the frogs and toads bury themselves in the muck to wait for spring. I had no knowledge of such metaphors when I was a girl. But I waited for my season to come.

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Fireweed has many uses. I can only name a few. Epilobium angustifolium fights inflammation, bacteria and aging, among other properties. What I can say about fireweed — I know what it is to harden in resistance, to become a seed that flowers in adversity. I work to overcome a tendency toward hypervigilance and its attendant crises of critique and anxiety. My husband has a hard time getting me to relax.

He is practiced. I am wary of his wiles. But Brian loves the prickly spine of me. He did not show up just to harvest the blossoms. He takes time to water the roots. He opens channels to the sun. He accepts sudden rains for the blessings they bring. I married an easygoing man. He trusts eventuality. Our sons scamper down the path with their friends, secure in their innocence.

Called Lawetlat’la, Loowit, or Louwala-Clough, which means smoking mountain, Mount St. Helens didn’t remake itself overnight. The eruption began on the same day in March that our eldest was born and that the Attis passion week concludes. Lavatio. A public ceremony that washes the image of the mother goddess, following Hilaria, a time for celebration. Few continue to worship Cybele, if any, but her rituals persist in other guises. Images of the Madonna are promenaded through the streets of Catholic towns throughout Europe and South America. She is showered in petals gathered from the hills, just like in pagan times. Carried in procession, her image is exposed to public view so that she may confer protection upon that community. With sorrowful eyes and an enigmatic smile, she tells them a story about themselves.

Mount St. Helens collapsed in three separate blocks, the first of which hurtled toward where we are hiking. Standing in the sun, passing snacks, it is hard to imagine the ground — which feels solid under my feet — as it had been, spinning down the mountain at up to 155 miles per hour.

A few seconds after the first block slid, the second block broke through, powered by the blast of released pressure and the magma welling from beneath. Before Mount St. Helens erupted, scientists didn’t know how far away to keep onlookers. Geologists thought the volcano would blow its top upward, rather than sideways. The mountain did not perform according to plan. For this and other reasons — some decided to wait it out — fifty-seven people perished that day in May. Decades of subsequent study have shown that the earth held this knowledge for us, but we did not see it.

Scientists had noticed mounds near other volcanoes, but they believed the hills had formed from mudflows or glaciers. But they were, in fact, evidence of catastrophe. In New Zealand 23,000 years ago, Mount Egmont’s debris avalanche traveled 19 miles. Closer to home in California, Mount Shasta’s debris avalanche traveled 30 miles. In 1888 Japan, a debris avalanche traveled 7 miles from Mount Bandai and became a hilly forest that people now call home. Glistening in the sun, the scooped cone of Mount St. Helens’ summit can be seen from these hummocks which came to rest 14 miles from their source. Snowmelt unfurls from the crater like tentacles.

My home in Seattle is 3,093 miles from the island of my youth. It would take forty-six hours to drive that distance, or forty-two days to walk the diagonal across a country which has not always felt great enough to protect me. I hew to my beloved jagged coast. This place helped make me who I am, a woman who carries stories for our descendants. May they know greener times.

Seeds grow best when given space. To heal from my origin so that I could become myself and a mother, I have accepted estrangement as necessary. My parents are unable to reconcile our facts. They prefer façades. But to remain in relation with falsity is too deep a strain. My narrative belongs to me.

When this book is published, I anticipate my birth family will not speak to me again. While the pull toward my parents is real, separation brought relief to my body. Do these hummocks miss their brethren shoved against the valley walls? Their silt and silica trickle downhill together, grain by grain.

Most entanglements are quantum. The braids of Toutle River are akin to the Missoula Flood patterns, visible from astronomical heights which reveal our land’s history: A mighty ice dam gave way, again and again, to the water it held in abeyance. I have worked hard to pry apart the fractals that have locked my kin into repeating errors at various orders of magnitude. To move forward, I have relinquished the belief that my happiness depends on our unity. They don’t have to show kindness for me to heal. They have their reasons for being puzzles I no longer need to solve. Forgiveness does not imply reconciliation.

Releasing them has freed me to hold space for my own story. My liberation has stoked resentment and dissent. You’re hurting us, they accuse, meaning, You’re hurting our idea of us, and this idea is all that we are. In these pages, I remain in relation to forebears who no longer define my future. Our shared memories make us a family the way rivers carry snowmelt to the sea.

 

It can be hazardous to leave the path that was planned for you. Here on the hummocks, in full view of the mountain which mothered them, I step off trail and slide down scree that skins my shin into a shining ruby constellation. I don’t bother to shield my legs from the sun. My scars remind me: Forging a desire line can be dangerous. So is failing to follow your hope. When I think of my family now, I look for roots I’ve grown into the earth. Sturdy enough to bear witness, they send signals of welcome to you whose presence I embrace, unseen.

With our communion comes responsibility for what happens next. That, too, is mine to accept, though not control. The route to the goddess unmakes you. Our journey was never meant to be linear. Find the whole in the fragments.

Dusk cloaks the grove around our tents. A cinder cone rebuilds herself on a horizon I cannot see. Here I feel safe to revel in the gloaming. Evenings are ceremonial for parents. We remain open to the world in defiance of routines which structure our days. Rituals are made through repetition. We feed our children and tell stories. Not much remains to be done. In the forest, there is no bathing, except in beauty.

Our kids stay up. The campfire warms their small faces. Wet wipes provide the semblance of clean hands after s’mores. The fathers are tasked with bedtime. With kisses good night, my sons step into our tent. My husband zips up the door. From the fire circle, I hear their murmurs and laughter amidst the slight rustle of sleeping bags. My friend smiles, her eyes agleam with patient hope. She is ready for our song time. The night stills but for the crackles of sap. We sip from metal cups, our sparks spiraling toward the stars.

“Desire Lines” is available in print from Red Hen Press or as an audiobook narrated by the author, who is currently on a book tour. 

The post To become the mother I wanted to be, I had to let my parents go appeared first on Salon.com.

Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

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Anonymous: Helen of Troy (Flame Tree Collections UK 978-1835628072, $30.00, 368pp, formats: hardcover, 10/13/2026)

Anthology of stories based on the legend of Helen of Troy. Introductory essay by Bella Vivante, and foreword by Emily Hauser. Part of Flame Tree’s Myths, Gods, and Immortals series. This is an international hardcover edition simultaneous with the Flame Tree UK edition.

 

Anonymous: Of Blood & Petals (Flame Tree Collections UK 978-1835628096, $30.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, 10/13/2026)

Anthology of fantasy stories themed around forbidden love, with 25 illustrations. Foreword by Ella d’Avoine. Part of Flame Tree’s Romantic Fantasy series.

 

Anonymous: The Tarot of Love (Flame Tree Collections UK 978-1835628102, formats: hardcover, 10/13/2026)

Anthology of fantasy stories. Foreword by Niamh Rose. Part of Flame Tree’s Romantic Fantasy series.

 

 

Buehlman, Christopher: The Thrice-Bound Fool (Tor 978-1250621214, $29.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Fantasy novel, second in the Blacktongue series. Thief Kinch has to decipher a sentient ancient book that tries to kill him, and finds himself on the run with knight Galva. Simultaneous with the Orion UK/Gollancz edition.

 

Campbell, Annabel: The Void Dragon (Orbit US 978-0316580830, $19.99, 496pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Fantasy novel, second In the Shattered Lands series. Naila’s powers threaten to escape her control, and with dragonriders after her, she seeks sanctuary at the library of Awasef. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK edition.

 

Cassidy, Nat: Nestlings (Titan Books UK 978-1835418895, £10.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Horror novel. Ana, paralyzed by complications giving birth, wins an affordable housing lottery in a beautiful old NYC building, but after moving in with her husband, sees bite marks on the baby. Originally published October 2023.

 

Chambers, Becky: As You Wake, Break the Shell (Harper Voyager US 978-0062936066, $32.00, 480pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

SF novel, first in a duology. Cora, a pilot who guides a living ship and is struggling with “mindbleed,” forms a bond with Signy, a reclusive botanist, on the struggling planet Fortune. Simultaneous with the Hodder & Stoughton UK edition.

 

Dawson, Delilah S.: Monstera (Titan Books UK 978-1835416013, $25.99, 192pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Horror novel. Lucy moves into an old house in Savannah and is drawn into a propulsive romance with Saskia, a secretive bodybuilder who keeps a flourishing garden.

 

Dimitri, Francesco & McDougall, Sophia: Pan (Tor 978-1250406989, $28.99, 464pp, formats: hardcover, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Fantasy novel, blending elements of the Roman god with Peter Pan. Pan returns to present-day Rome, and children start dreaming of an island and fighting pirates. Translated from the Italian (Marsilio 2008) by Sophia McDougall. Ebook also available.

 

Dunn, Kat: Rottenheart (Zando 978-1638934653, $28.95, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Queer romance horror novel, a reworking of Hamlet. Odette, traumatized by her mother’s death and her father’s remarriage to the cruel Claudine, learns her mother’s ghost haunts their manor, Herne House. First US edition (Manilla Press UK 6/26).

 

Faubion, Rebekah: What a Nightmare (Penguin Random House/Berkley 979-8217192144, $20.00, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Queer horror novel. Repressed receptioning Haven Powers has a dream about her boss dying that comes true the next day, and feeling stifled by her family and conformist town, embarks on a path to revenge.

 

Forest, Susan: Rivers of Ivy (Laksa Media Groups 978-1988140636, $21.00, 446pp, formats: paperback, 10/13/2026)

Fantasy novel, first in the Addicted to Heaven: The Next Generation series. After family catastrophe, Ivy Garton feels to Highglen, a city where magic is enslaved and industry is on the rise, to infiltrate the corrupt elite.

 

Goldsmith, Amy: A Darker Act (Penguin Random House/Delacorte 978-0593814383, $12.99, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

YA horror. Hazel played the lead role in a local play based on legends of a huntsman on the moors, but something horrible happened — a year later, Hazel and her castmates have to face the presence they awoke.

 

Goodman, A.B.: House of Atreus: Quest (Planetary Books 979-8233142161, $6.99, 154pp, formats: ebook, 10/15/2026)

SF novel, fifth in the House of Atreus series. In a world where the ancient Greek gods were actually ancient artificial intelligences, Orestes reunites with his sister and faces trial in Athens.

 

Hackwith, A.J.: Goblin Market (Titan Books UK 978-1835418970, £18.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Fantasy novel. Toast is a goblin changeling raised by humans, struggling to adapt to the Goblin Market; when human Sam is accused of murder, Toast has to prove her innocence. The author is Amanda Hackwith, who also writes SF romance as Ada Harper. Simultaneous with the Ace edition.

 

Jones, Stephen Graham: Off the Reservation (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1668225127, $32.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Horror novel, sequel to The Only Good Indians. Nate and some older Blackfeet set out to repatriate the bones of a Blackfeet boy who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, only to find that something has taken the bones first.

 

Jung, Lynn D.: Mothsblood (Bloomsbury USA 978-1639737888, $30.00, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Fantasy novel. Alchemist Larkspur investigates the death of her university’s headmistress, wary that the case is drawing her closer to the cult called Promethean Genesis. Simultaneous with the Del Rey UK edition.

 

Lamberti, Luciano: To Bewitch a Hunter (HarperVia 978-0063455726, $28.00, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Literary horror novel. An old stalker tells Julia Ruiz that she’s her real grandmother, and warns Julia her parents aren’t her real parents, forcing Julia to confront events during Argentina’s military dictatorship. Translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne.

 

Levine, Jenna: Love You to Death (Penguin Random House/Berkley Romance 978-0593819937, $20.00, 352pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Paranormal romance novel. Lucy is killed by a bus, and offers a deal to jaded, handsome reaper Daniel: six more weeks of life, and he can spend time on earth. Copyrighted by Jennifer Prusak.

 

Lewellen, Lyndsey: Karabos (Enclave Escape 979-8886052961, $35.37, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel. Winslet, homeschooled entomologist, enters the Tournament of Scarabs to save her family and become a magical insect hunter.

 

Liss, David: The Death and Birth of Iliana Marek (Tachyon Publications 978-1616964696, $18.95, 304pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 10/13/2026)

Paranormal crime novel. In rural Florida, Iliana, foster daughter of the corrupt police chief, suddenly starts defending Dan, the town’s most unpopular person — a drug addict who’s been told he led a woman to suicide ten years ago.

 

MacDonald, Alexander: The Spaceflight Narrative: A Literary History of Leaving Earth (MIT Press 978-0262056830, $45.00, 286pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 10/13/2026)

Non-fiction.A critical look at the “conceptual development of spaceflight” as it appears throughout science fiction history, covering works from the 1620s through the 1890s.

 

Maclean, Will: Solace House (Grove Atlantic/Grove 978-0802168689, $28.00, 512pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Horror novel. Alex, a university student clearing out a run-down Victorian mansion, uncover elaborate and eerie journals from a former owner about a mysterious realm next to ours First US edition (Atlantic UK 5/26).

 

Marlowe, Mallory: Entities to Lovers (Penguin Random House/Berkley 978-0593956335, $20.00, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Paranormal rom-com novel. Medium and ghost-tour guide Rory is forced to host a tour with cocky professor Ezra, only for them to upset a matchmaker’s ghost and end up hexed. Simultaneous with the Bloomsbury UK/Head of Zeus/Aria edition.

 

McDonnell, C.K.: Ring the Bells (Penguin Random House UK/Bantam UK 978-0857505392, $33.99, 400pp, formats: paperback, 10/10/2026)

Paranormal holiday murder novel. During a Chistmastime book club, a local librarian is possessed by a chaotic entity who’s set on murdering first the book club members, then the rest of humanity.

 

McGuire, Seanan: Be Sure, Volume II (Tordotcom 978-1250459305, $21.99, 576pp, formats: paperback, 10/13/2026)

Collection of the fourth, fifth, and sixth books in the Wayward Children series. In three adventures, children visit strange worlds and encounter strange creatures, from goblins to kelpies. Illustrated by Rovina Cai.

 

Miller, Rowenna: The Dancer and the Dream Thief (Orbit US/Redhook 978-0316571920, $19.99, 400pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Historical fantasy novel. During an alternate Prohibition where dreams are sold illegaly, dancer Evelyn investigates the disappearances of her fellow girls and joins forces with Raife, who sells human dreams to elves.

 

Mooney, Kate: The Woman of the House (Penguin Random House/Berkley 979-8217189885, $30.00, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Supernatural horror novel. In their lakeside house, Rose tries to hide her secrets from her husband, but scratches on her arms start appearing, and the woman who lived there before her vanished.

 

North, Claire: As We Fall Through Time (Orbit US 978-0316586467, $19.86, 416pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

SF time travel novel. A rupture in history disrupts the lives of Cal — a time traveler who falls in love with a Drench soldier doomed to die — and Fadimatu, an ancient woman who sees her own mummy in a modern museum. North is a pen name for Catherine Webb, who also writes as Kate Griffin. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK edition.

 

Norton-Kertson, Justine: Gutterspace (Stars and Sabers 979-8992845808, $13.99, 142pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 10/13/2026)

Horror novella. A washed-up Portland artist is pitted against a monster that lurks in the panels of an old comic book. Interior illustrations by Ahmed Raafat.

 

Proudman, Sandra: The End of Us (Penguin Random House/Joy Revolution 979-8217118199, $19.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Young-adult SF novel. In the post-apocalyptic Wasteland, Rico wins a lottery to the safe haven oasis, but gives it up for his lover Jules — only for him to find out that it was rigged, and Jules is in danger.

 

Rekulak, Jason: Look What the Cat Dragged In (Macmillan/Flatiron 978-1250895875, $29.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Thriller/horror novel. Cartoonist Penny agrees to catsit a strange feline named Godfrey, but after a week in her house, Godfrey seems to bring violent nightmares, disturbing new drawings, and insects. Features 80 pages of original artwork.

 

Rivers, Erynne: Wench (HarperCollins/Avon 978-0008798246, $24.90, 400pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Robin Hood-inspired fantasy romance novel. Maid Marian, unhappily betrothed to the Sheriff of Nottingham, is kidnapped in the forest by the notorious fae Merry Men and Robin Hood. First US edition (Avon UK 7/26). A first novel.

 

Roberts, Adam: Frankenstein Rex (Orion UK/Gollancz 978-1399617727, £25.00, 288pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 10/15/2026)

SF horror novel. Frankenstein’s monster, aided by his giant height and strength, becomes world dictator, and to prepare for his own death returns to his maker’s research to create an heir.

 

Sangoyomi, O.O.: Dreamweaving (Page Street 979-8890034465, $22.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Young adult fantasy novel. Deja, a newcomer at prestigious Tanglewood Preparatory School who’s been shielded by her family’s witch legacy, shares disturbing dreams with straight-A school queen Tóbi.

 

Silver, Josie: Merry Spooky Love (Penguin Random House/Dell 978-0593983041, $20.00, 288pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 10/13/2026)

Fantasy romance novel, third in the Melody Bittersweet series. Melody and the Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency face the ghost matriarch of a local department store, who doesn’t want her living children to sell out. The author has also written as Kat French.

 

Willett, Edward: On Spec 2026: New Canadian Literature of the Fantastic (Shadowpaw Press 978-1-998273-72-0, $29.99, 460pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 10/13/2026)

Anthology of 28 original stories of fantasy, science fiction, and horror by Canadian authors, a continuation of the magazine.

 

Zeller, Mathilda: It Looks Like You in the Dark (Tor/Nightfire 978-1250402035, $27.99, 288pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 10/13/2026)

Horror novel. When Tapeesa’s sister Esther goes missing from their Alaskan Inupiat village, Tapeesa must contend with white rare-earth miners and a hungry creature as the long dark of winter sets in. A first novel.

 

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To the average observer concerned with the future of American democracy, it might be easy to conclude that religion has been part of the problem — particularly over the last few years. Right-wing religious leaders, including the leading Southern Baptist televangelist Robert Jeffress, have endorsed “Christian nationalism”; other evangelical pastors and conservative Catholic intellectuals have been openly pondering if America should become more of a theocracy; Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who once called for an “American crusade,” evoking bloody medieval religious campaigns, has referenced Christian theology in statements about the Iran war.

To critics, these examples show that American religion is becoming an active threat to pluralism and tolerance — the ideas that make American democracy work. 

But what if the solution to this anti-democratic slide is also religion — more religion than the US currently has?

A new book by two thinkers from opposing ends of the ideological spectrum argues that declining levels of religiosity across the board, but particularly among liberals, have deepened political polarization, which in turn has corroded democratic norms. Now, they argue, one of the most effective ways for liberals to stand up for democracy is to engage with religious communities and their scriptural traditions with more respect, openness, and curiosity. The authors also urge liberals who are believers themselves to embrace organized religion and return to it themselves.

Conservative evangelical Christian Matthew Kaemingk and liberal Muslim writer Shadi Hamid argue in Can Religion Save Democracy? that there’s a necessary and unique role that religious institutions and organized religion must play in American public life. Religion serves a fundamental regulating purpose, tempering emotions, fundamentalism, and nihilism. And when that fades away, those base instincts and emotions get channeled into our politics.

They write:

As Americans exit churches in droves, they’re not leaving behind their religious passions. Instead, they’re transferring those passions to the political battlefield. In this new post-religious context, Christian faith and Scripture function less as moral constraints within evangelical circles and more as political cudgels to use against one’s opponents.

“We’re not trying to convert [nonbelievers],” Hamid told me in an interview. “Believing is one thing, but believing that religion can play a positive role is another. And we want to encourage secular readers to embrace the second proposition, even if they don’t believe religion is true or don’t believe God exists.”

What happens when religion recedes from the public square

At the core of Kaemingk and Hamid’s argument is a simple case: There is an innate religion-shaped hole in people in the 21st century, which has been slowly replaced with politics, unbridled passions, and secular ideologies. The loss of religion hasn’t meant a loss of religious convictions, but instead has meant the rise of a new fanaticism, either secular or fundamentalist, while depriving everyone of the good things that organized and institutional religion can do.

It’s not a completely novel argument; it’s a combination of St. Augustine’s famous line that “our hearts are restless until they rest in [God]” and of the political scientist Robert Putnam’s modern case that churches and religious communities provided the third spaces that fostered civic partnership, trust, meaning, and belonging. 

But they also connect these lines of thinking to what the Dutch philosopher Abraham Kuyper used to argue around the turn of the 19th century: that all people are religious, and that something very similar to religious fervor quietly powers all political movements. Religion is “pervasive, public, and pluriform” — an essential part of being human, whose absence leaves nihilism, fear, and distrust in isolated, but still fanatical, individuals.

“If Kuyper is correct that all human beings desire ultimate belief and belonging, then erasing or sequestering religion won’t extinguish our spiritual passions. They will simply shift elsewhere,” Kaemingk and Hamid write. And that shift has been toward politics, candidates, elections, and secular “creeds” that provide identity, belonging, moral certainty, and salvific promises without the accountability, guidance, and caution that religious traditions can provide.

It’s not hard to find examples of what Kaemingk and Hamid mean here. From 2016 to 2024, many observed elements of quasi-religious fervor in movements powering Trump and Woke 1.0. Trump’s strongman appeal generated a cult of personality around him, while anti-Trump resistance efforts and progressive social movements often took on qualities people also found quasi-religious: in-group markers, language, and customs, BlueAnon theories. What’s left is a stalemate, with more conservative religious believers bunched up on one end, and nonreligious but equally passionate citizens on the other end.

Kaemingk and Hamid argue that people on the left often respond by denigrating religion and religious people, dismissing those who try to defend or practice it in the public square, or forcing them to adopt secular language and thinking instead of letting religious people bring their full selves to the public space. But the way out of this current stalemate, Kaemingk and Hamid suggest, is for people on the left to be open, curious, and respectful with the devoutly faithful, whether they’re neighbors or candidates running for office. 

“For that audience, my desire is to say, ‘Hey, you don’t have to believe in religion, but you can recognize the positive aspects of religion,’” Hamid told me.

That involves practical, daily activities and more high-minded appeals. In regular life, the authors recommend prayer, or prayer-like practices for nonbelievers, to help better understand and forgive opponents. They suggest there can be benefits for both nonreligious and religious people to meditate on scriptural and theological teachings about forgiveness, debate, disagreement, salvation, and why earthly politics shouldn’t be taken so seriously. 

And they urge liberals in particular to reengage with religious communities and congregations. Religious liberals should avoid isolation or solitary, individualized faith, the authors recommend, and instead return to congregations and specific churches or places of worship to become part of a community and find purpose. For nonreligious liberals, Kaemingk and Hamid suggest they reexamine their own ideological priorities and be open to the possibility of being wrong on some of them, and potentially engage with organized religion to better understand a religious worldview.

Kaemingk and Hamid offer a specific challenge for liberals and secular Americans that might seem a bit unsavory: They have to realize that they are not blameless for the polarization and radical religious fervor that exists right now through their dismissal of organized religion. Their earlier denigration of organized religion around the turn of this century (think of the New Atheist movement), combined with many leaving institutional churches or failing to participate in religious life, has all contributed to the capture of these institutions by unsavory political opponents, or helped in the decline of more moderate congregations. And any attempt to stop this continued slide away from pluralistic democracy hinges on a collective effort between religious and nonreligious Americans to reverse these trends.

This argument has its limitations

Here’s an obvious question: If religion is so good at moderating people, why hasn’t it been able to temper emotions among the religious already? The most loyal Republican voters over the past few cycles have tended to be evangelical and nondenominational Christians, followed by white Catholics — both of which tend to report above-average levels of religious participation. They’ve stuck with Trump and the GOP over the last decade, which has been defined by polarization, authoritarian policies, and even moments of political violence, that both Kaemingk and Hamid say religion can fix. 

Here’s an obvious question: If religion is so good at moderating people, why hasn’t it been able to temper emotions among the religious already?

More generally, while there is evidence to suggest that evangelicals who leave their churches become more cynical and individualistic — a point in Kaemingk and Hamid’s favor — there’s not much evidence to suggest that the converse is true: that religious participation has actually tempered emotions, passions, and politics. Instead, there’s a case to be made, as the writer Robert P. Jones laid out recently, that the opposite seems to be true: The most religious folks tend to still be the most likely to support harsher Trump-era policies.

Hamid acknowledged that this is a challenge, but argued this isn’t about the religion itself — rather a Trump-specific phenomenon: “Many evangelicals have let partisan loyalties take precedence over religious commitments,” he told me. “This is the distorting effect that Trump has had on the evangelical movement.”

He emphasized that evangelicalism has suffered because many of the most fervent MAGA supporters who identify with that religious movement are not actually very religious. “Evangelicals aren’t going to church as much as they used to on average,” he said. “There has been a kind of process of de-institutionalization in the kind of Protestant domain. And the people who tend to be more fervent MAGA supporters tend to go to church less.” He compared the level of evangelical support that Ted Cruz and Trump got in 2016: Trump had an upper hand among unchurched evangelicals.

Beyond this, the practical reality is that, as things stand today, religiosity does not seem likely to bounce back to the levels it was at two decades ago — at least, not without the help of secular Americans.

What the authors prescribe for politics and elections

Still, it’s an attractive idea, and it’s not hard to see why people might be open to it. Even Democrats themselves seem to understand that writing off religious voters for years was a bad idea. Some of the most promising Democratic candidates in red states in upcoming midterm elections are religious, including Texas Senate nominee James Talarico and Kansas Senate nominee the Rev. Adam Hamilton. A dozen other pastors or believers are running in down-ballot races across the country, while potential 2028 presidential candidates like Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro talk openly about their personal faiths, the role of organized, institutional religion, and seem comfortable doing so.

“It’s promising,” Hamid told me about this trend. “Part of what we argue in the book is that Americans should be able to bring their full convictions into the public arena. If they’re editing themselves or suppressing their religiosity out of fear of alienating constituencies, that’s not good for democracy.”

And Kaemingk and Hamid also have a very influential intellectual ally in this mission: Pope Leo XIV just made a similar case in France for secular liberals to reexamine their understanding of religious liberty and how to balance it against the rise of right-wing religious politics.

“A Christian engaged in public service and guided by the light of his or her conscience, illumined by faith, cannot be considered a proselytizer or a threat to the unity of the nation,” he said in Paris, appealing directly to France’s fiercely secularized civic leaders. “Indeed, authentic secularity does not exclude religion but is capable of valuing it as an educational resource.”

Aboard a plane back to Rome, Leo continued, arguing that religion must have a role in the public square and pointing to the decline of religion in Germany as something that may have facilitated the rise of a far-right movement that cloaks itself in religious language.

“It would be interesting to study, analyze if and how there may be a relationship, for example, between the growth of these groups on the far right,” Leo said mid-flight, “…with some expression of a combination of these far-right points of view with a certain kind of religion, which…is not an authentic expression of Christianity.”

This may be an unsavory ask for liberals and secularists most upset about creeping religious nationalism in the Trump administration and around the country. The recent creation of a new Office of Religious Affairs in the Pentagon, the invocation of God and Scripture to support military action and immigration enforcement, and the attacks on the wave of religious candidates running as Democrats this year all make it understandable why there may be hesitancy in accepting this challenge. But Kaemingk and Hamid are undeniably right about one thing: In a diverse and pluralistic nation, we have no choice but to live with each other.

For generations, Japanese gangsters have styled themselves as heirs to the samurai—a mystique that helped them prosper in league with politicians, police, and big business.