John Self
@john-self.bsky.social
📤 9385
📥 365
📝 17453
Book jockey
pinned post!
A servile mother, a domineering father who claims he gave his wife’s friend cancer as “psychic revenge”, and the idea that a novel “by disregarding the real provides the truth”. Me on Andrea Bajani’s The Anniversary (tr. Geoffrey Brock). Just watch you don’t trip up on the heavy-handed metaphors.
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The Anniversary — the messy reality of family and how to escape it
Andrea Bajani’s award-winning novel, newly translated from Italian, is a fearless, intimate tale of unhappy parents — and the release of leaving them behind
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/1c6d8bbe-5a12-4552-aaec-7b919938d7d5
1 day ago
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An A-Z of Work, by David Arnold, inspired by his time working at Kingsnorth Power Statiok from 1983 to 1992. Typeset and printed by hand on an Adana 8x5 press by
@halfpintpress.bsky.social
in an edition of 125. Cover woodcut by Billy Childish.
about 4 hours ago
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A servile mother, a domineering father who claims he gave his wife’s friend cancer as “psychic revenge”, and the idea that a novel “by disregarding the real provides the truth”. Me on Andrea Bajani’s The Anniversary (tr. Geoffrey Brock). Just watch you don’t trip up on the heavy-handed metaphors.
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The Anniversary — the messy reality of family and how to escape it
Andrea Bajani’s award-winning novel, newly translated from Italian, is a fearless, intimate tale of unhappy parents — and the release of leaving them behind
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/1c6d8bbe-5a12-4552-aaec-7b919938d7d5
1 day ago
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Ketan Joshi
about 11 hours ago
This is so good. It's the norm for every other human-influenced catastrophe and should be the norm for climate! - Centres human choice to burn fossil fuels - Uses images that depict the reality of heat disasters rather than imagined fun - Doesn't bury either down in the 15th paragraph
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Rodger Sherman
about 21 hours ago
we are one day away from the funniest VAR offsides graphic ever
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Mark Harris
about 24 hours ago
45 years ago today. Buried on page 20 on a holiday Friday just like this one, news that changed the world.
www.nytimes.com/1981/07/03/u...
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RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS (Published 1981)
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/03/us/rare-cancer-seen-in-41-homosexuals.html?unlocked_article_code=1.u1A.viDf.UL_kM57GmL3n&smid=bs-share
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Leona
1 day ago
I read this and I actually just don’t know what is wrong with men. What the fuck?
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Andrew R
1 day ago
The email from my son's school, "Dear parents and carers, Just to confirm, Monday is a normal school day and children will be expected to attend at the usual time," manages to pack a lot of "Please stop fucking asking us!" subtext into a single line.
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“Lewis reflected that Andrew’s wife’s dim personality was entirely matched by her ineffective jewellery.” Reading Lewis Percy (1989) by Anita Brookner.
1 day ago
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Glennyrodge
1 day ago
Had a multiple choice question asking what a northern stereotype should do if he has bad breath. I went for e) buy gum.
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Rhodri Marsden
1 day ago
Had an email today that began with a sentence they should probably have deleted – "Here's a more natural and polished version of your email" – and it made me sad
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A servile mother, a domineering father who claims he gave his wife’s friend cancer as “psychic revenge”, and the idea that a novel “by disregarding the real provides the truth”. Me on Andrea Bajani’s The Anniversary (tr. Geoffrey Brock). Just watch you don’t trip up on the heavy-handed metaphors.
loading . . .
The Anniversary — the messy reality of family and how to escape it
Andrea Bajani’s award-winning novel, newly translated from Italian, is a fearless, intimate tale of unhappy parents — and the release of leaving them behind
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/1c6d8bbe-5a12-4552-aaec-7b919938d7d5
1 day ago
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Fascinated by the faded grandeur of the Jardins Extraordinaires at Villages Nature Paris, which have the air of a folly built to support a Summer Olympics bid in the 1990s, and have been allowed to gently decline ever since.
1 day ago
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laura
1 day ago
do you think the guy who came up with replacing he first 'no' button with 'maybe later' now sits in the bathtub during rainy days haunted by what hes done kinda like oppenheimer with his bomb
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Richard Vranch
3 days ago
Be careful out there.
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Matt Leys
2 days ago
2010: Let's do a movie where the hero is a villain! How cool would that be! 2026:
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Tom Murphy
3 days ago
Exactly what I was expecting adult life to be like
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HappyToast
3 days ago
Can’t help thinking this one has bindun
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End of an era
3 days ago
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Mutable Joe
3 days ago
if taylor swift is reading this, i can't come on saturday i've booked to rent a pressure washer
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Glennyrodge
3 days ago
people having a go at taylor swift's music probably haven't even heard any of his songs
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This “flavours of the world” menu reminds me of the restaurant in Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares that served dishes like Strawberry Chicken and couldn’t understand why it was failing.
3 days ago
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Rob Manuel
5 days ago
Weetatwix
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This will be the worst idea for a cereal until they introduce Twix Cereal.
5 days ago
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Gina
5 days ago
❤️
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Rick Burin
5 days ago
It was so lovely to chat to Mathew about my favourite books. Featuring Vonnegut, the two Fitzgeralds, Edith Wharton, Enid Blyton and all sorts…
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HolyCrayons
5 days ago
She was class in Futurama though.
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Nick Pettigrew
6 days ago
Just seen a vox pop where somebody said "Well I voted leave because we were told it would be better." Yes, but you were also (accurately) told it would be worse and you chose to ignore that, so maybe ask yourself why that was.
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sheila armstrong
6 days ago
Lovely to chat to
@john-self.bsky.social
about bogs, dogs, Nazis and AI, coincidentally the same four things I talk to strangers in the pub about.
www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...
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‘I’ve become aware of how Irishness is considered abroad, how much it can be weaponised’
Author Sheila Armstrong talks about Seamus Heaney, Heinrich Himmler and why ‘more people should quit writing’
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2026/06/28/sheila-armstrong-ive-become-aware-of-how-irishness-is-considered-abroad-how-much-it-can-be-weaponised/
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Joshi Herrmann
6 days ago
TV historian Laurence Westgaph sued us to expose our sources and posted sinister threats about me and the 'cutthroats and sell outs'. We spent £75,000 fighting him in court - a crucial first test of the 'journalism exemption' in GDPR. And we won!! ✌️
www.livpost.co.uk/a-dish-best-...
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A dish best served cold: Laurence Westgaph sued us to reveal our sources - and lost
The former TV historian waged a legal campaign to find out who had spoken to The Post. A year later, we met him in court
https://www.livpost.co.uk/a-dish-best-served-cold-laurence-westgaph-sued-us-to-reveal-our-sources-and-lost/
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Went onto Threads by mistake. First tweet I saw was this. What am I missing?
6 days ago
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Viz Comic
7 days ago
subscriptions >>>
shop.viz.co.uk/viz355bs
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Andrew Blair
7 days ago
Me, in a bookshop: “Is that…is that Aled Jones?” “…what could he possibly want?”
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Nick Pettigrew
7 days ago
I think one of my favourite paintings is the one where Captain Oates has just been kicked in the balls by a penguin.
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Why yes I am feeling trembly at this temperature
7 days ago
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‘When Gilbert Adair complained about “that new breed of American wunderkinder who are positively bloated with talent but who are also just too fucking pleased with themselves”, a strong contender must have been Dave Eggers.’ Me on Eggers’ new novel - his 51st, or thereabouts - Contrapposto.
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Dave Eggers’s new novel is (almost) a heartbreaking work of staggering genius
In Contrapposto, the American writer proves he is talented — and rather pleased with himself
https://www.thetimes.com/article/4dc385a1-6e78-4479-923c-2ec358f828f6?shareToken=9b53b83d3b5e7c0bf5605f2b002d7b7a
9 days ago
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Simon Pegg
8 days ago
Doctor Trivago
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Nick Walker
7 days ago
Free publicity
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Just enjoying my culture at the airport
7 days ago
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Musa Okwonga
8 days ago
My heart! Every time I see this, my heart.
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Chairman Moët
8 days ago
At the weekend, after a few drinks, my brother told me, sincerely, that he'd once tried to cool down in a heatwave by reading ghost stories and that's all I can think of when I see headlines for these top tip pieces.
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Have just read a ‘feel cooler in the heatwave hacks’ piece in a newspaper which says that wringing your socks out in cold water is very effective, but does carry the risk of trench foot.
8 days ago
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“It was no secret to anyone his father considered Gold a schmuck. It would be unfair to say his father was disappointed in him, for he had always considered Gold a schmuck.” Rereading Joseph Heller’s 1979 novel Good as Gold.
8 days ago
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Stephen Bush
8 days ago
Sorry, I am no longer a trad when it comes to education policy. If not for trad education policy, I would not be where I am today: reading this screenshot and wanting to lie down on a railway line.
add a skeleton here at some point
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David Barnett
8 days ago
Aled Jones has just scored a three-book deal for a series of crime novels. Hope that gives all you querying writers out there some inspiration on this hot Friday!
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Pete Paphides
8 days ago
I hope you have someone in your life who loves you as much as supermarket playlist programmers love The King Of Wishful Thinking by Go West.
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Zamira Rahim
27 days ago
'For Elizabeth Bishop,' Robert Lowell.
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Josiah Mortimer
9 days ago
Britain is more than halfway towards reaching Net Zero. Most people don't realise this, not least as the fossil-fuel fanatics want us to think achieving it is impossible. Via YouGov
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Eddie Robson
9 days ago
The what now
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Nick Pettigrew
9 days ago
"Hey, remember when actions had consequences? Crazy times."
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Bert’s Books
9 days ago
So we have to pretend to be from New York in a badly stereotyped film. “Hey, i’m waaarrking here, I’m on my way to the hawkey!”?
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