New Grub Street

New Grub Street is website about books, film, music, and other art. It is named after George Gissing's novel New Grub Street.

How to read New Grub Street

I strongly recommend that you print out the posts that you find interesting. I advise this because I want you to read what I have written. Printing posts on real paper is the preferred way to read this website. People do not read content on the web deeply.¹

Alternatively, you can save and send posts to an e-reader, such as a Kobo or a Kindle. These devices are distraction-limited, present text in a typographically elegant (and customizable) way, and don’t require constant backlighting.

You can also save posts to Instapaper. Instapaper offers various font options and tracks your reading across devices. However, it normally requires a self-luminous display (e.g., a phone or monitor), which is inferior for reading. Kobo e-readers offer built-in Instapaper support and Instapaper can forward articles to a Kindle.

RSS is a standardized syndication system that you can use to propogate new posts to the reading platform of your choice. If you use a RSS reader, you can add New Grub Street's feed using: https://newgrubstreet.com/feed/

Lastly, you can read articles on this domain in your browser. I don’t recommend this method as it encourages sloppy reading habits, such as scanning the text, clicking on hyperlinks, and revisiting open tabs.

General notes

New Grub Street is built on Bear Blog. It was originally built using Hugo.

Updated February 16, 2026