Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

#Writing: “Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.” ― Erma Bombeck

January 6, 2026 at 4:00 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"Juicy new info suddenly emerged."

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer Jeffrey Gettleman & @nytimes.com!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/i...

Just Before Publishing, a Reporter Receives a Crucial Tip

www.nytimes.com

January 6, 2026 at 2:48 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

#Writing: "Excessive affection often turns to violent hostility." – Karl Abraham

January 5, 2026 at 4:00 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"The most successful scare story of our times."

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @berytia.bsky.social & @aeon.co!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

aeon.co/essays/there...

aeon.co

January 5, 2026 at 2:54 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"Gathered in one sweeping narrative."

Today's book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author @carriegibson.bsky.social & @groveatlantic.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

January 5, 2026 at 2:44 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

If you're interested in reading the Nuremberg screenplay by James Vanderbilt, adapted from my book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, here's your chance. deadline.com/2025/12/nure...

‘Nuremberg’: Read The Screenplay For The Post-WWII Drama From James Vanderbilt That Puts Evil On Trial

Nuremberg is James Vanderbilt's edge-of-the-seat courtroom drama about the real-life work at the end of World War II to bring the Nazis to justice.

deadline.com

January 4, 2026 at 9:20 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

Do you like Oscar Wilde? This auction is selling loads of his guaranteed authentic merchandise. www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-n...

Major Auction of Oscar Wilde Manuscripts, Letters, and Photos at Bonhams

Bonhams has announced a major sale dedicated to Oscar Wilde's life and works which will take place on February 18.It will feature the collection of noted Wilde collector, bibliophile, and former…

www.finebooksmagazine.com

January 3, 2026 at 7:46 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

Now out: the January issue of DAMN HISTORY, my free monthly newsletter for #history readers and writers. Otherness in politics, hostile fan mail, eating Capt. Cook, volcanoes and the Black Death, Klan codes, defunct malls, + more.

Read/subscribe: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

January 2, 2026 at 9:24 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"Overflow with trash."

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer Emily Topping & @currentaffairs.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-sin...

How Corporations Convinced America that Litter is Our Fault

The "Keep America Beautiful" campaign urged Americans to pick up their trash—so that companies could keep producing it.

www.currentaffairs.org

January 2, 2026 at 8:02 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"Scars of violence still run deep."

Today's book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author @spaincivilwartours.bsky.social & @hurstpublishers.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

January 2, 2026 at 7:46 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

#Writing: "I don't see any special virtue in making my private emotions the quarry for the statue I'm carving. I can do that kind of writing, but it tends to go off, like fruit." – Tom Stoppard

December 31, 2025 at 5:30 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"Standing in the wreckage."

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @curiouslana.bsky.social & @hazlitt.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

hazlitt.net/longreads/de...

The Dead Mall Society | Hazlitt

Standing in the wreckage of these spaces unlocks a sensation people often crave, but can’t name.

hazlitt.net

December 31, 2025 at 4:01 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"Primed for tragedy long before."

Today's book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author @matthewaverett.bsky.social & @umissouripress.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

December 31, 2025 at 3:36 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

#Writing: “When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.” ― Louise Erdrich

December 30, 2025 at 5:00 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"#Biographies soared."

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer
@egarritzen.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

cliosfootnotes.wordpress.com/2025/12/22/i...

Indulging Passion for Private Lives of Notable Men and Women: Victorian Readers, Writers, and the Allure of Biographies

The Bookman, a trade organ of booksellers and publishers, announced in December 1892 how reminiscences were “Among the most successful books of the month” and “Memories of living men” were more suc…

cliosfootnotes.wordpress.com

December 30, 2025 at 3:53 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"A new perspective on an old problem."

Today's book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author Jens Ludwig & @uchicagopress.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

December 30, 2025 at 3:29 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

#Writing: "It is seldom the rare, exotic, and beautiful plant that proves the most interesting; more often it is some common, familiar, and despised weed that is discovered to have undreamed-of virtues." – Euell Gibbons, who died 50 years ago on today's date

December 29, 2025 at 5:30 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"Cesium-137."

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer
@inverting-vision.bsky.social & @jstordaily.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

daily.jstor.org/the-radioact...

The Radioactive Reindeer Problem - JSTOR Daily

Cold War nuclear testing left troubling levels of Cesium-137 in caribou, prompting years of research into Arctic fallout and its risks to human health.

daily.jstor.org

December 29, 2025 at 3:06 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"A minute-by-minute account of the January 6 riots."

Today's book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author Nora Neus & @beaconpress.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

December 29, 2025 at 2:43 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

#Writing: “To fall in love you have to be in the state of mind for it to take, like a disease.” ― Nancy Mitford

December 26, 2025 at 6:30 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"Quasi-divine operatic divas."

Today's forthcoming-book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author @daledebakcsy.bsky.social & @penandswordbooks.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

December 26, 2025 at 5:08 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

"Ideological fantasy."

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @cjfinlay.bsky.social & @theconversation.com!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

theconversation.com/how-hannah-a...

How Hannah Arendt can help us understand this new age of far-right populism

One of the main lessons of Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism is that we must actively think in the now, and try to grasp new realities on their own terms.

theconversation.com

December 26, 2025 at 4:53 PM

Jack El-Hai

@jackelhai.bsky.social

Just out – I'm interviewed on Ray Harris's History of World War II podcast about my book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist and its adaptation into the movie Nuremberg. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJeE...