Free Republic

Why young men don’t read — and publishing doesn’t care.A quiet crisis is consuming the world of literature, and no one seems to care.Male writers are vanishing — not by fluke or market whim, but by design, denial, and quiet cultural disdain. Fewer men are reading fiction, and fewer men are publishing novels. (RELATED: Male Novel Readers Are Not Fiction)Men are reading less because the literary world no longer offers them mirrors.This isn’t a lament for some patriarchal golden age, where men smoked pipes, quoted Hemingway, and felt vaguely superior just for owning hardcovers. It’s a warning. The decline of...

Okay Freepers, you are a magnificent resource to draw upon. I'm hoping that among you are some who have already broken the ground I now seek to tread, and maybe you can give me some advice. Perhaps even tell me if I'm doing something wrong and could change up my approach.A lot of people have told me over the years that they wanted me to write my life story. It took ten years of on and off labor (and there came to be even more things to write about in that time) but in the end this past November I...

Hadi Matar finally went on trial Tuesday for attempting to murder the novelist Salman Rushdie back in Aug. 2022. There is little, if any, doubt about Matar’s guilt .. for he stabbed Rushdie multiple times in full view of a shocked crowd at the Chautauqua festival. .. Barone managed to delay the trial for over a year. Now that it has begun, both Barone and his opposite number, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt, seem curiously intent on preventing any discussion of Matar’s motive. Matar tried to kill the man who, at the time of the stabbing had carried for...

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a group of Maryland parents who sued a school board over its refusal to allow elementary school children to be taken out of classes with LGBTQ-themed storybooks. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines Friday, the justices overturned a lower court ruling that found the parents needed to show that their kids were being coerced to act differently than their religious beliefs. The high court concluded that the parents “have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction” because they “are likely to succeed in their challenge to the Board’s policies. “The...

Protests against the arrest of a pro-Palestine Columbia graduate student are being organized by a Marxist revolutionary group that is pro-Communism, anti-Israel, and has potential links to the Chinese Communist Party. Mahmoud Khalil, a leader in the pro-Palestine and anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University, was detained earlier this month by the Trump administration, with the Department of Homeland Security arguing that he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” The People’s Forum helped organize some of the campus chaos and is now organizing protests to free Khalil. Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) is the pro-Palestine and anti-Israel group...

(Conscientious Questions may have importance approaching that of the answers they evoke.) Wilhelm Reich was a Freudian, Marxist and early Sexual Revolutionary. He realized that most people have no interest in religion as such, but most are fascinated by sex. So he counseled that rather than trying to convert a seminarian by logical arguments, you just need to sexually corrupt him. (It's alleged that French students participating in large scale civil disobedience in Paris in 1970, threw copies of Wilhelm Reich's "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" at Police.) Reich died in prison. He was engaged in radiation experimentation which the...

Incredible new post-apocalyptic novel based on conservative ideals and current events Hey folks, I’ve just finished a newly released novel titled “Ivy Moon Total Eclipse” and I have tell people about it. Trust me, it’s like nothing you’ve ever read. It’s by a guy named Bill Furney who lives in North Carolina where I live and the story takes place in the eastern part of the state. Technically, it’s a young adult novel, but in the vein of Hunger Games, which simply means there’s no sex, drugs, or profanity. But the story revolves around adult themes and conservative principles that...

A special section inserted into the Sunday Chicago Sun-Times featured page upon page of fun summer activities, including a list of 15 books to bring along while lounging by the pool or relaxing in a favorite reading spot. The only problem: The authors are real, but most of the books don’t exist. Artificial intelligence, employed by a Chicago freelance writer, simply made them up. Readers looking to fill their carts with titles such as “Tidewater Dreams” by Isabel Allende, “The Collector’s Piece” by Taylor Jenkins Reid or “Hurricane Season” by Brit Bennett were likely disappointed to find the elaborate plot...

I'm looking for a service or app that will take a book in text form and make an audiobook of it. I know there are some quality voice generators now days. I'm just looking for one that is legit and not too expensive. I reread a large number of books I loved from years ago but many aren't in audio format. More are getting converted all the time but I'd use a good app for some others if it had good feedback.

Conservatives, not liberals, are best positioned to build—and in many cases, are already doing so. The Democratic Party is in total disarray. Its exhausted leadership has struggled to focus on any single front to concentrate its fire on the new administration, while AOC and Gavin Newsom do their warmups for the 2028 primaries. DOGE cuts and trade wars could give Democrats a launchpad for retaking the House in 2026, but it does not give them a positive platform in any meaningful sense. Perhaps that is why a new book from Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson has captured the policy world’s...

The COVID-19 pandemic raised parents’ awareness of disturbing content in children’s public school curriculum. Many parental advocacy groups continue to argue that the indoctrination in children’s classrooms and libraries effectively grooms children to become future patients of Planned Parenthood. As Live Action News has reported, Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth (with digital media arm AMAZE), and SIECUS are all members of the Future of Sex Education (FoSE) coalition and part of a web of sex miseducators. However, the FoSE coalition is not just providing sex education curricula in classrooms. Because the American Library Association (ALA) and affiliated organizations share many...

Today we have a new audio book release, this time from Edward Bernays with his 1928 work "Propaganda". Download the audio here. There is a lot to learn about progressivism in this book. Among other things (prior post on this) Bernays believed the following items which were captions on a newer reprint cover: As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented(Page 39)Nowadays the successors of the rulers, those whose position or ability gives them power, can no...

See new posts Conversation Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 @julie_kelly2 NEW: Justice Alito's dissent in SCOTUS' mindboggling 1am Saturday ruling to halt deportations in Alien Enemies Act lawsuit in northern Texas absolutely nukes his colleagues for such a hasty, unprecedented act 9:09 AM · Apr 20, 2025

Just in time for Easter, the faith-based animated film from Angel Studios “King of Kings” continues to dominate the box office, coming in second place ahead of the holiday weekend.From the same studio responsible for the sleeper hit “Sound of Freedom,” the movie tells the story of Jesus Christ from his birth to his crucifixion and resurrection.RedState was able to watch the film and can offer our readers a review of the animated movie that takes on Charles Dickens’ short story “The Life of Our Lord," which was never published until decades after he died in 1934, as the Hollywood...

“The Master and Margarita” filmmaker Michael Lockshin is locked in a legal battle over his blockbuster Russian-language adaptation of the celebrated Soviet novel, with the director accusing two producers of blocking his efforts to bring his movie to U.S. cinemas. The lawsuit, which was filed by sales agent Luminosity Pictures and shared with Variety, alleges that producers Svetlana Migunova-Dali and Grace Loh, who are planning their own English-language adaptation of the book, cannot prove legitimate ownership of the rights to the novel. The suit also contends that “The Master and Margarita” — which was first published in the 1960s —...

By 1259, following the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after the death of Möngke Khan, the Golden Horde became a fully autonomous political entity. It absorbed and replaced earlier nomadic confederations, notably the Cuman-Kipchak federation, and established itself as a dominant force in Eurasia. Batu Khan led the infamous Mongol invasions of Kievan Rus’, Poland, and Hungary between 1237 and 1242. The destruction wrought during these campaigns allowed the Horde to subjugate key principalities of Rus’, which became tributary states. Batu’s forces halted their European campaigns only after the death of Ögedei Khan in 1241, which required Mongol leaders to...

Ok, sorry it has a paywall---this is only my review of it. Everyone needs to read this powerful book. It's DENSE, and took me about 4 hours to read, but the insight into how the big social tech companies are stealing our lives is important. Previously in my substacks I had written part 1, covering the first 1/3 of the book. This covers the last 2/3.

An explosive new book set for release this July by Simon & Schuster could force a national reckoning with the truth behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the brutal prison murder of Kenneth Trentadue, long suspected to be tied to a mistaken identity cover-up by the FBI, and likely murdered by federal authorities.

Is this the real-life Atlantis. A 90-foot “pyramid” submerged just off the coast of Japan is turning heads — and could shake up everything we thought we knew about ancient civilizations. Sitting 82 feet below sea level near the Ryukyu Islands, the Yonaguni Monument has baffled scientists and divers since it was first discovered in 1986. The enormous stone structure, complete with angular steps and flat terraces, looks uncannily like the ruins of a man-made temple — despite being over 10,000 years old. That timeline, if proven accurate, would date it thousands of years earlier than Egypt’s pyramids or England’s...

They’re deep thinkers. Mayor Eric Adams copped to believing the “deep state” is real this week — echoing President Trump and the MAGA movement. “I don’t want to sound conspiracy theory, but there’s a permanent government,” Adams told comedian Andrew Schulz on the “Flagrant Podcast” Wednesday. “There are people that see presidents and mayors come and go. Their attitudes will wait you out.” The admittedly tin foil hat stance from Adams came on the same day a judge dismissed the federal corruption case that has dogged him since September. Adams — after Manhattan federal Judge Dale Ho tossed the charges...