matthewteller.com - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

On 9 February, Israeli police arrested my friend and co-author Mahmoud Muna with his nephew Ahmad in their bookshop in Jerusalem. They were accused of disturbing public order—a malicious and fabricated charge. But booksellers are not criminals, and #BooksellingIsNotACrime

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

The arrests were 9th Feb. Court hearing was 10th morning. Story across global media 10th afternoon. SoA issued statement 13th. To say they didn’t have info is yet more obfuscation. It must stop >>Writer quits Society of Authors over union’s ‘betrayal’ www.theguardian.com/books/2025/f...

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

I've resigned from the UK Society of Authors

submitted 4 days ago • 9 comments

Joanna Hodgkin writes about when her mother Nancy Myers—first wife of Lawrence Durrell—lived and worked in Gaza in 1944: joannahodgkin.com/a-different-...

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Read ⬇️⬇️⬇️

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Given what happened to Mahmoud and the Bookstore, I am reposting the interview I recorded with him some time ago. If you don't know the Educational Bookstore in Jerusalem, this is a great opportunity to get know this amazing place. shows.acast.com/612edc98c1af...

submitted 13 days ago • 2 comments

Singapore people (and global book lovers)—please join Mahmoud Muna and me for a discussion of our book DAYBREAK IN GAZA, hosted at Wardah Books, 58 Bussorah Street ➡️ Thurs 27 Feb ➡️ 8pm Singapore (7am New York, 12 noon London, 4pm Dubai) ➡️ Register: wardahbooks.com/blogs/events...

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

A beautiful piece on the criminalisation of bookselling, by publisher Simon Liebesny writersmosaic.org.uk/close-up/boo...

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Join us on 2 March for an event in solidarity with the Educational Bookshop, raided last week by Israeli forces. We have an incredible line-up of writers coming together in support of Palestinian rights and culture, an exhibition and book stall – not to be missed! 🎟️ going fast: shorturl.at/h76lW

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

London, 2 March. Book now. It's going to be quite an event actionnetwork.org/ticketed_eve...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Recommendation from Yair for the win ✅

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Freezing rain in small-town Leamington Spa today

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Omg. Seriously, @societyofauthors.bsky.social, you might as well have not bothered.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

A particularly good op-ed on the arrest of Jerusalem booksellers Ahmad and Mahmoud Muna, by @yairwallach.bsky.social artreview.com/mahmoud-muna...

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

British publishing has not exactly showered itself with glory over solidarity with writers under fire in these gen0cidal times—so when some good emerges, it deserves encouragement. Emergency appeal by @saqibooks.bsky.social. Support it. Bookselling is not a crime www.gofundme.com/f/jerusalems...

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Outlandishly opaque statement from @societyofauthors.bsky.social: anonymous bookshop, no people, no jailing, no mention of locations or police forces, bizarre & irrelevant assertion about democracy WTF is going on there? “Thoughts and prayers” would be better societyofauthors.org/2025/02/13/a...

submitted 9 days ago • 3 comments

WSJ sub: “Indian Partition went smoothly enough, right? Will try to remember to check this before publishing.”

submitted 10 days ago • 486 comments

I am speaking about Gaza and Palestine—and signing copies of my books—in London tomorrow ➡️ Thurs 13 Feb ➡️ 7pm ➡️ Free ➡️ Yunus Emre Institute, 10 Maple St, W1T 5HA ➡️ Register: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-signi...

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

There are books, and there are books, and this is an extremely important one 🙏 If you still haven’t got it, now is the perfect time to show your support for Mahmoud Muna 📖 @matthewteller.com @saqibooks.bsky.social @stanfordstravel.bsky.social

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

History rhyming: George Messersmith, US Consul General Berlin in 1933, 90 days after the Enabling Law was passed.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Ahmad Muna was released earlier today, and Mahmoud Muna in the last hour - both under house arrest and other restrictive conditions, though the charges against them are obviously fabricated. Even the Israeli judge recognised that the police have no case. When will our complicit governments act?

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

We called for solidarity when Hungary's govt targeted bookshops over queer stock, & again when feminist bookshops were targeted in the UK, & we relied on solidarity when our own booksellers were harassed into closing: Book lovers must stand together against persecution of ALL book workers!

submitted 12 days ago • 3 comments

My statement on the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Muna and Ahmad Muna:

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

We – Mahmoud and Ahmad's friends and colleagues in the UK – are in touch with the family. We have no further news. This is an entirely inexcusable and illegitimate act

submitted 13 days ago • 3 comments

As @archive.org continues to record content from rapidly-disappearing US government websites via the Wayback Machine, now is the time to be grateful that Hachette and other big publishers haven't yet driven it out of business. www.wired.com/story/intern...

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

Gotta say, the mainstream media is simply not doing the minimum amount of work to communicate that a bunch of Nazis implicated in child pornography have all of our banking information and can turn off social security whenever they want.

submitted 15 days ago • 52 comments

"Every once in a while someone pops up and thinks he has rights to our homes. I am 62 and do not remember a peaceful day," my friend, a Palestinian academic living in Bethlehem.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Heartbreaking stories of patients and medics in Gaza. Al Awda was the only hospital that managed to stay open in North. A doctor killed there left a message saying “tell them we did what we could”. And At Al Shifa I saw efforts to start to rebuild vital lifesaving healthcare.

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

The intro alone goes incredibly hard: “The problem of undemocratic professional associations is coming more & more to the fore as members attempt to hold [them] accountable over the genocide in Gaza & its concomitant scholasticide. A new & necessary genre has emerged: the resignation letter."

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

All men must grow beards, all women must look feminine, no exceptions

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

I managed to do this. Am now @matthewteller.com :)

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

In which Selma Dabbagh, Dr Abdul Rahman Azzam and I discuss Jerusalem from multiple perspectives — such a privilege to share the stage for such a topic Recorded July 2024 at Bradford Lit Fest (UK). CC @profilebooks.bsky.social @saqibooks.bsky.social rss.com/podcasts/bra...

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

This is such a great question that I think it deserves a whole thread. The cuneiform writing system included numbers, and we know how to say the names of many of these numbers in both Akkadian and Sumerian (languages that cuneiform was used to write). Let's start with Sumerian.

submitted 19 days ago • 10 comments

This is true and would be admirable were it not being published by the NYT, one of America’s most insidious vectors of Trump-belief

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

This afternoon I read this 1978 essay on the socio-cultural rise of Anti-Semitism in Imperial Germany. Primarily because I sensed there would be some shared vibes with the right-wing obsession with DEI as a cultural code for racism/sexism and signalling in-groupness. And ho-boy. Thoughts. ⬇️

submitted 20 days ago • 14 comments

A brilliant, insightful, heartwarming review of DAYBREAK IN GAZA by eminent journalist Daoud Kuttab, who—of course—understood exactly what we were trying to do. CC @saqibooks.bsky.social daoudkuttab.medium.com/palestinian-...

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

📢 February event coming up at the PEF! 'Mormons in the Holy Land: Pilgrimage, Exploration and Adventure in 19th Century Palestine' with Matthew Grey. 🗓️ 20th February 🕕 6pm 📍5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich SE10 9FP ✍️ RSVP by emailing [email protected]

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

Track 15 is all I'm saying archive.org/details/lp_i...

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments