Michael Patrick Brady

If you like reading about books, why not start the week off by subscribing to my Substack? (link in bio) You too could be as pleased as these four very satisfied customers:

@MattZeitlin If I would... could you?

we need to be talking more about alice in chains

These upcoming @CharcoPress titles look pretty exciting.

My review of @McNallyEditions "Beloved Son Felix" is up at the Wall Street Journal today. wsj.com/arts-culture/b…

@MilesPerHoward This is in the Seaport, isn’t that kind of like complaining that there aren’t more mom and pop shops in Times Square?

“Crazy rent prices” is obviously one of the reasons why so many new businesses in Boston are places like this. But another reason (and one that’s harder to solve) is that Boston leaders just don’t seem to care that much about the loss of local culture.

@en_cohen Bad grades from Rolling Stone and SPIN were a badge of honor for indie fans in 2004, though. If anything it gave them a boost. I still laugh when I think about how the one-sheet for this album said "this is our Bad Moon Rising." Incredible.

Revisiting the second Liars album, what indie band in the current day could’ve possibly survived this

@pourfairelevide But then you also comes across some great deep cuts: biblegateway.com/passage/?searc…

in Catholic high school we had to read the Bible straight through page-by-page in sophomore year and I gotta say I was surprised and amused by how all the good stories you’ve heard of happen in the first like 20 pages

fascinating how the core message of ferrante’s neapolitan novels, the thing they repeat again and again, is that being a writer is the worst, most boring, most cowardly thing you could do with your life, and that instead you should be like lila and found a b2b Saas startup

My review of Owen Rees’s The Far Edges of the Known World: Life Beyond the Borders of Ancient Civilization is up at The Wall Street Journal today. wsj.com/arts-culture/b…

I reviewed Anika Burgess's fun new history of early photography for the Washington Post: washingtonpost.com/books/2025/07/…

My review of Laura Spinney's PROTO: How One Ancient Language Went Global is up @WSJ wsj.com/arts-culture/b…

My review of Joe Mungo Reed’s Terrestrial History—a speculative, but emotionally grounded exploration of climate collapse and interplanetary colonization—is up today at the Boston Globe. bostonglobe.com/2025/04/08/art…

At WBUR, I spoke with Harvard professor Joyce E. Chaplin about her new book “The Franklin Stove” (3/11, FSG) and the 18th century roots of our modern expectations around domestic comfort, climate, and consumerism. wbur.org/news/2025/03/1…

New Thriller by Michael Patrick Brady! "It was one of those preposterous summer nights when the sun forgot to set. We swarmed through the endless yellowed yards, a dirty dozen of us, defeating countless forbidding fences in pursuit of our prey." unchartedmag.com/stories/come-o…

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Arts & Letters Daily has been my browser homepage since high school, and the articles I've found there have had a profound impact on my reading, writing, and thinking. So I'm overwhelmed and incredibly grateful to find my own work featured today.

My review of Morgan Falconer’s HOW TO BE AVANT GARDE in yesterday’s Boston Globe.

I’m up at the Boston Globe today, writing about Morgan Falconer, Dean Kissick, and whether contemporary art needs to take some cues from the past. bostonglobe.com/2025/02/11/art…

At WBUR today, I wrote about a new collection of Edward Gorey’s private works from @NYRB_Imprints. wbur.org/news/2025/02/0…