John Self
@john-self.bsky.social
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Book jockey
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Who went bra shopping with John Berger? Whose childhood routine involved visits from the snake charmer? Who disliked the âbig, unfriendly giantâ Roald Dahl? Was it the same person Dahl told to try childrenâs fiction because âthe little bastardsâd swallow it?â I read some memoirs by Booker winners:
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Ten of the best memoirs by Booker Prize-winning authors | The Booker Prizes
Discover the inner workings of some of the greatest Booker Prize-nominated authors with our list of captivating memoirs
https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/ten-of-the-best-memoirs-by-booker-prize-winning-authors
6 days ago
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Peter Kravitz
23 minutes ago
Sheâd forgive you! Itâs Agnes Owensâ centenary in May 2026 and thereâs going to be reissues of her Collected Stories and her o/p Collected Novellas. Her archive has also now found a home at the Alasdair Gray archive in Glasgow
@agrayarchive.bsky.social
@aowensarchive.bsky.social
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Janine Gibson
about 9 hours ago
Sleigh bells ring are you listening? In Hyde Park, coke is glistening A typical sight, a massive fist fight Brawling in the Winter Wonderland
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Handypersons! Help me remove a drawer from my bedside table. (A book has fallen down behind it and now it wonât close fullyâŠ) The drawer has a single underside slider in the centre of the drawer bottom. No clips or levers to release it. Itâs from Laura Ashley, if that helps. Best pics I could get:
about 10 hours ago
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âMy mother read a lot, sighed a lot, and went to bed early.â Reading Anita Brooknerâs Incidents in the Rue Laugier (1995).
about 11 hours ago
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<Primary Salutation>
about 12 hours ago
Just used a plastic fork to remove several Madeira cake crumbs from my right turnup.
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Simon Spanton
about 12 hours ago
"Ask me, though, about the most incredible time in my life, and u questionably it was those weeks in the fall in Galen before the winter and the dead began."
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I like the way they have incorporated the effect of the experience into the warning of the experience.
about 13 hours ago
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Edward Luce
about 14 hours ago
Everyone associated with Trump will sooner or later be destroyed, including Trump himself. Most are too dumb or avaricious to grasp this.
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RedScharlach
about 23 hours ago
Rare footage of St Paulâs Cathedral testing its giant flamethrower
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Becky Aizen
1 day ago
Nominative determinism at its finest.
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Jacob Aron
about 23 hours ago
This is probably fine
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d.ly
1 day ago
Mr. Beast, all my friends and I were saying how good at boxing youâd be
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Giraffe Or Possibly Popehat
1 day ago
Me: I donât see the appeal of boxing TV: OK but what if itâs professional boxers savagely brutalizing influencers Me:
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David Whitley
4 months ago
The signing of Thomas Skinner for Strictly should excite those of us who like seeing the word 'regretfully' in press statements.
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Rich Neville
1 day ago
Jake Paul, youtuber turned eats-through-a-tuber.
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Levi Stahl
2 days ago
Tomas Tranströmer, from âSolitude.â
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Emily âšđ
2 days ago
Feeling patriotic đ«Ą
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Beryl Bainbridge enters her charactersâ heads so beautifully. Here are Annâs post-coital thoughts (âWhat did you think when I first met you?â âI thought I had fluâ) in Sweet William (1975).
2 days ago
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Clickbait Robot Re-Enactment Society (2015-2023)
2 days ago
8 Things Only Serial Port Lovers Will Understand 6th Feb 2016 đ 11 đ©¶ 9 [
url
]
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âIâm not an expert on Hitler by any meansâ
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3 days ago
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Every time there's a breaking story about a celeb's treatment of women, everyone in the book world asks, "Is it finally Walliams?" Well, it finally is.
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Exclusive: David Walliams dropped by publisher over inappropriate behaviour towards women
Telegraph investigation into best-selling childrenâs author uncovers claims that he âharassedâ junior female employees at Harper Collins
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/9197cdb1761216ba
3 days ago
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If only this was for all users and not just professional accounts and pages. A glorious opportunity to throttle the relentless flow of shit in our lives, wasted.
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3 days ago
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Anita Brookner novels from the 1980s and 90s in Penguin 1990s orange-spine paperbacks. I think these are the only books of hers that Penguin published with orange spines. Unless of course you know different.
3 days ago
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Moose Allain
3 days ago
I also want to say thank you to the person who introduced me to the French word 'beaucoup' this year. It means a lot.
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Jim Waterson
3 days ago
ProTEct truSTed LocAL nEWS This isn't even designed to wind people up and hope they share it. It's just an exploitation of Birmingham Live's privileged position on Google Discover/Apple News. The whole point is to deceive people into clicking. An industry built on total contempt for its audience.
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Mr Roger Quimbly
3 days ago
He saw the light.
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Mrjuliachild666
3 days ago
All ERIS Gems available now from
@columbiaup.bsky.social
cup.columbia.edu/series/eris-...
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James Felton
3 days ago
During the chase a man in the cinema told Paddington to "run, you cunt"
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Fascinating data by
@jburnmurdoch.ft.com
on how stalling economic growth has coincided with - and, he argues, caused - the growth of âzero-sumâ political parties on both the right and the left:
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Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics
A stalled economic conveyor belt is behind the rise of anti-system, anti-growth parties on both the right and left
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/b7cdcdac-ad66-470c-a182-9136df5bb69d
3 days ago
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The Onion
3 days ago
Unconventional Director Sets Shakespeare Play In Time, Place Shakespeare Intended
https://theonion.com/unconventional-director-sets-shakespeare-play-in-time-1819569151/
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Hislop: "If I want to know what happened one second ago, I look at my phone. If I want something well-written and interesting, I'll put my phone down." I read this earlier (in print!). Worth your time. đ
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3 days ago
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I swear the moment they release The Songs of CMAT Sung By Someone Who Doesnât Affect An Annoying Twangy Voice, Iâll download the shit out of that.
4 days ago
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Jason Hazeley
4 days ago
The last time I flew into JFK, it occurred to me: the reason Trump repeatedly puts his name on buildings is *because nobody else ever will.*
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In 1964, Ian Fleming and Georges Simenon met at Simenonâs chateau outside Lausanne and talked about Bond and Maigret. The conversation was published in Harperâs Bazaar, just after Flemingâs death in August of that year. Now the exchange is published on its own as part of the Eris Gems series.
4 days ago
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juux
4 days ago
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David
4 days ago
You may be cool but are you Nathaniel Oldâs sunglasses in 1837 cool? - portrait by Jeptha Homer Wade, seen tonight at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
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Who went bra shopping with John Berger? Whose childhood routine involved visits from the snake charmer? Who disliked the âbig, unfriendly giantâ Roald Dahl? Was it the same person Dahl told to try childrenâs fiction because âthe little bastardsâd swallow it?â I read some memoirs by Booker winners:
loading . . .
Ten of the best memoirs by Booker Prize-winning authors | The Booker Prizes
Discover the inner workings of some of the greatest Booker Prize-nominated authors with our list of captivating memoirs
https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/ten-of-the-best-memoirs-by-booker-prize-winning-authors
6 days ago
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays)
4 days ago
Matthew Goodwin objects to prosecuting this: âI think itâs time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter. Violence and murder is the only way now. Start off burning every migrant hotel then head off to MPsâ houses and Parliament, we need to take over by FORCE.â
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Matt Leys
4 days ago
The replies. Oh god, the replies
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My last commission of the year just disappeared with a pop, so to console myself I'm rereading this. Aside from anything else, this is the best cover from all Amis's novels when they rejacketed them in a series look about 20 years ago. It's just perfect.
4 days ago
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Joe-ho-ho Scaramanga
4 days ago
Who amongst us can honestly say they don't still fear the knock of a balliff who has managed to track down one of the many Britannia music accounts you created?
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Lissa Evans
4 days ago
#LiteraryAdventCalendar2025
Day 18. Alan Bennett on Thora Hird (are there five more evocative words in the English language?)
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Possible reasons doctors' strikes have lost support are (a) it's hard to communicate the job insecurity issues, and (b) they've had pay rises totalling 27% since 2023, so sympathy for more may be hard to come by.
4 days ago
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âIt is very seldom that a true-blue, hard-boiled reviewer, born and bred in the trade â a tough baby, in fact â reads a book that makes him want to go and shoot himself.â
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4 days ago
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âWorthy fellow writers, critics with pious and generous hearts! What a pity that no one is thinking of setting up a little inquisitorial literary tribunal in which you would be the torturers!â George Sand has a pop at literary critics in the introduction to her 1831 novel Indiana.
3 months ago
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays)
4 days ago
Maybe this White House exhibition will go on tour to Fifa HQ to celebrate Trumpâs Fifa peace prize
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Sorry if you thought falling inflation was good. Itâs actually bad, see? Try to keep up.
5 days ago
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Jacob Aron
5 days ago
It's astonishing how a technology called artificial intelligence has revealed the actual stupidity of so many people. This tweet hasn't been bettered
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BILL RYAN
5 days ago
we've regressed so far that once again, as were our ancestors, we are bewildered by cameras
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Luke Kennard
5 days ago
1. Bug Boy and the Nasty Attic 2. AXE 2: You Have the Right to Remain MURDERED 3. Thursday Morning at the Skull Cafe 4. La Wall et La Sky (Un Roman)
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