John Self
@john-self.bsky.social
📤 9175
📥 379
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Book jockey
pinned post!
Featuring authors who: - feared dying in the middle of a novel "in case some bastard comes along and finishes it"; - lost "a large and expensive pork pie" (it never turned up); - hated being second fiddle to Amis and McEwan ("I'm way better"); & more I wrote about mid-life crisis Booker novels:
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10 Booker Prize-nominated books that explore mid-life crises | The Booker Prizes
From Bernice Rubens in 1970 to Ben Markovits in 2025, the mid-life crisis has long been a rich source of material for Booker-nominated novelists
https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/10-booker-prize-nominated-books-that-explore-mid-life-crises
6 days ago
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It’s very Bluesky that the tone this morning is of sour disapproval of April Fool’s Day. Bring on the stupid ads and silly news stories, I say. Let’s have more San Serriffe and spaghetti on trees.
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19 minutes ago
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Kyle Orland
about 4 hours ago
I get that this is legal boilerplate but it’s still a really bad look for a business product
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Angus Main
about 11 hours ago
“THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS RULING”
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Always nice to see Trump get a bloody nose in the courts, but did the judge write it like this because it’s the only punctuation Trump understands?
about 11 hours ago
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Alistair Coleman
about 13 hours ago
Superb work from BBC Sport getting the new Current Spurs Manager in the revolving door at Tottenham.
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Natalie Zed
1 day ago
Behold the monstrosity I have grown from the single sprouted tomato seed that was in my burger king whopper
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Sam Leith
about 19 hours ago
I wrote on AI trashing literary life, and spoke to Alex Preston about the NYT book review scandal
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Why LLMs Ruin Everything
Reading, Writing: feat. Matt Goodwin, Alex Preston and the Bookpocalypse
https://open.substack.com/pub/samleith/p/why-llms-ruin-everything?r=7xzwu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
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Albert Dros
3 days ago
I spent 3 days photographing bees at the cherry blossom trees. This one is my favourite.
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Patrick Smith
about 23 hours ago
"I would hope our presidents will be remembered for their labors in building better government rather than for their efforts in constructing public works projects to themselves."
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Daniel Benneworth-Gray
1 day ago
scrolling the news and matched the wrong pic to the wrong headline and OH LORD JUST IMAGINE
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Sam Leith
2 days ago
On MattGPT and the future of bookishness
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The illusion and delusion of Matt Goodwin
“MattGPT” is a nickname that will follow failed Reform candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election Matt Goodwin to his grave
https://spectator.com/article/the-illusion-and-delusion-of-matt-goodwin/
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Mutable Joe
1 day ago
what did darth vader say about your george michael playlist? I find your lack of faith disturbing
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A pretty straightforward one, tbf Parseword #61 ⚡️ 53s 💎 Perfect
1 day ago
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1 day ago
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Rónán Hession
1 day ago
The book content on Bluesky is worth the admission price alone.
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Peter Kravitz
1 day ago
Alas, Agnes Owens never had a Paris Review interview. However, this one comes pretty close.
journals.openedition.org/etudesecossa...
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These reissues of Agnes Owens's novels, coming in May from Polgyon, are lovely in the flesh. They're being published for Owens's centenary. Cover art is by Joan Eardley.
1 day ago
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Ian Curtin
2 days ago
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Ed Morrish
2 days ago
that’s quite a short flight, even for twenty five quid
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Sb
2 days ago
What if Scott Mills nicked all them KitKats
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Gina
2 days ago
Actually maybe we shouldn’t?
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George Morley
2 days ago
Romantasy...
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Duncan Robinson
2 days ago
But look how happy he is
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Penguin's sales overall were up 4% in 2025, but SFF was up ... er, 81%?!
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Tom Weldon ‘optimistic’ as PRH UK reports sales up 4% year-on-year, with 81% rise in SFF
Penguin Random House (PRH) UK sales were up 4% in 2025, with UK physical sales up 5%, and international sales 7%, The Bookseller can exclusively reveal, with e-book sales growing by 4% and audio by 3%...
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/tom-weldon-optimistic-as-prh-uk-sales-up-4-and-81-in-sff
2 days ago
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Tony
2 days ago
Glen Baxter has died. His drawings of cowboy art critics and wimples were an absurdist joy. RIP
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Movies Silently
2 days ago
I must once again trot out the revealing anecdote: Disney execs were shown beautiful scenery from a superhero movie. They wanted to know what technology was used. They had to be told that the cinematographer pointed a camera at scenery that existed and photographed it. 🤯 These are not smart people
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Michael
6 days ago
a perfect bluesky exchange
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Mike.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
3 days ago
Gosford Park (2001) Gosford World (2015) Gosford World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
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Rónán Hession
2 days ago
At The Divine Comedy in the Concert Hall. Haven't seen so many people my own age since I got my COVID vaccine.
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Chise
3 days ago
GOOD NEWS! Researchers have developed a new mRNA vaccine that has been shown to suppress abnormal blood vessel growth in the retina, offering hope to MILLIONS of patients with age-related vision loss. The vaccine triggered strong antibody responses that REDUCED retinal damage by UP TO 85%.
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Richard Smyth
3 days ago
That book you liked is actually bad.
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Jason Sinclair
3 days ago
Stop the hunt for "which broadcaster influenced Alan Partridge the most?" The question is settled.
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BILL RYAN
3 days ago
Articles like this always bother me because they chalk up the success of THE SIMPSONS in its heyday to the audience appreciating the show's heart. I never did, I didn't like those episodes. I loved it because it had the best written and delivered jokes.
thecritic.co.uk/how-the-inte...
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How the internet killed The Simpsons | Nicholas Clairmont | The Critic Magazine
Virtually any die-hard simpsons fan will tell you he or she does not watch The Simpsons and hasn’t for years. For my sins, I am not amongst them
https://thecritic.co.uk/how-the-internet-killed-the-simpsons/
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Simon Spanton
3 days ago
"A few horse-drawn cabs loomed black in the street, half broken and loose jointed like crippled, dozing crabs or cockroaches. A driver leaned down towards me from his high box. He had a small red, kindly face. 'Shall we go, master? he asked." Just 300 pages of singular, surreal fantasy. A genius.
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Gabby HC
4 days ago
'Police gave chase hoping to retrieve the haul, but the thieves just gave them two fingers'
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Kevin Elliott
3 days ago
WAR DON'T SEX CRIMES HIDE CRIMES
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Rhodri Marsden
3 days ago
I spent yesterday evening in A&E. (I’m fine, apparently.) Some guy next to me in the waiting room said “excuse me are you Rhodri Marsden” and I was about to say “yes! would you like an autograph, I am exceedingly famous” when he said “that nurse over there has been calling you for ages”
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Alasdair Beckett-King
4 days ago
When are they gonna do something that IS for the faint hearted? I've been waiting so long.
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Donald Clarke
4 days ago
Currently reading the Scott-Montcrieff Proust (and, yes, performatively letting you know). Interesting that, in 1927, he didn’t feel able to leave “croissant” untranslated. Was such a thing then still so exotic?
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iucounu
over 2 years ago
They got long prism sentences
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Interesting piece by
@jburnmurdoch.ft.com
arguing that chatbots, in contrast to social media, push people away from extreme positions and toward the centre.
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
4 days ago
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"They actually agreed to take one song off the album [Yes] so that the tick would work better graphically." Great interview with Mark Farrow about Pet Shop Boys' visuals over the last 40 years.
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Designing the Pet Shop Boys: Mark Farrow on 40 years of creative collaboration
As they mark 40 years together with a new book, we meet the Pet Shop Boys’ lead designer to explore how their distinctive visual universe was created.
https://www.wallpaper.com/art/music/pet-shop-boys-mark-farrow-interview
4 days ago
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David Benedict
4 days ago
Dirk Bogarde was dishy, dashing and somewhere between a conundrum and a contradiction. On his birthday, let’s consider the tricky business of life at the door of the closet.
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
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Dirk Bogarde: Denial and daring...a star with a secret never told
David Benedict on an actor, soon to be celebrated at the BFI, who let his choice of roles do the talking
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/dirk-bogarde-denial-and-daring-a-star-with-a-secret-never-told-2314849.html
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Red Sky At Night / Joanne Sheppard
4 days ago
If I owned a grocer’s called Tuck Shop, I would have not have chosen this font
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Featuring authors who: - feared dying in the middle of a novel "in case some bastard comes along and finishes it"; - lost "a large and expensive pork pie" (it never turned up); - hated being second fiddle to Amis and McEwan ("I'm way better"); & more I wrote about mid-life crisis Booker novels:
loading . . .
10 Booker Prize-nominated books that explore mid-life crises | The Booker Prizes
From Bernice Rubens in 1970 to Ben Markovits in 2025, the mid-life crisis has long been a rich source of material for Booker-nominated novelists
https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/10-booker-prize-nominated-books-that-explore-mid-life-crises
6 days ago
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Sean Coleman
4 days ago
No, it’s not a publication called Emergency. Why would you position the new
#RadioTimes
masthead like this and dilute the magazine’s branding? It looks like a social media post produced by mid-level management. Someone have a word.
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John Self
Neglected Books
5 days ago
"It has an intensity and force which puts it in the front rank of Holocaust fiction"—
@john-self.bsky.social
in The Critic on Friedrich Torberg's Vengeance is Mine, out on March 31 in the Recovered Books series from
@bhousepress.bsky.social
.
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Spirits, a seven-year-old and a death camp | John Self | The Critic Magazine
A unique form developed: voice-driven, absurdist, but always compassionate for put-upon characters
https://thecritic.co.uk/spirits-a-seven-year-old-and-a-death-camp/
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Helen Barrett
5 days ago
When he recorded 'Something's Gotten Hold of my Heart' with Marc Almond, I thought Gene Pitney was a very elderly man enjoying one last turn before Almond wheeled him back to the care home. Pitney was 48.
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Sean Coleman
5 days ago
Mackenzie Crook’s magical suburban folk tale,
#SmallProphets
published by
#PenguinBooks
and
#PuffinBooks
down the years. A 🧵 1/
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Simon Spanton
5 days ago
A novel should be a question about something not an answer to it.
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