The young David, per Vignon, looking uncannily like Helena Bonham-Carter

Lovely to see this in a sort of hard copy

Spot-on review by @rhodrilewis.bsky.social of Chernow's frustrating Twain, chocked with facts, lacking analysis\. My upcoming cultural history of the Linotype, Hot Type, has more literary examination of Twain's work than this. "Chernow loses the signal while amplifying the noise."

Four stages of an archive trip. 1. Excitement/fear at all the new stuff you might find. 2. Relief that all is actually quite manageable. 3. Surely there’ll be something to show for my two days sifting these uncatalogued boxes? 4. It is what it is.

So, if any of you have spotted typos in Shax's Tragic Art, I'd love to hear of them. (Am doing corrections for the paperback, and only have eight so far; there must be many more.)

"When Adam won Eve's hand, / He wouldn't stand for teasin'. / He didn't care about / Those apples out of season." Ambushed by Cole Porter on the train. Pleasingly.

“‘Al’ is a marketing term. It doesn't refer to a coherent set of technologies. Instead, the phrase …is deployed when the people building or selling a particular set of technologies will profit from getting others to believe that their tech is similar to humans” Excellent & uncompromising. Read it!

The sheer energy that the Leavisites wasted in hating.

I've been lucky enough to have had some excellent discussions (podcast and otherwise) about Shakespeare's Tragic Art, but I think this set of questions may have been the best. www.christianhumanist.org/2025/06/chri...

Pleasing to learn that when Stephen Spender went to Paris to investigate the 1968 student revolt (staying with his friends the Rothschilds), he was repeatedly mistaken for Marcuse.

Good to have reason to be back in here for a day.

Trying to figure out who this character from Kermode's autobiography was. "Paul H-F", undergrad at Liverpool in late 1930s. Ends up directing a molecular biology lab at Yale (or similar, I suppose, as Kermode may have been shielding). Have drawn a thoroughgoing blank. Thoughts?

“Muriel Spark led an implausible life,” writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social. Does Frances Wilson’s new biography, ELECTRIC SPARK, manage to capture the author’s complexity? www.prospectmagazine...

I enjoyed the chance to revisit Muriel Spark while reviewing Frances Wilson's new life of her for @prospectmagazine.co.uk. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/7009...

Am amused by Kermode's response to being informed of E. H. Gombrich's opinion that a renaissance specialist he planned to hire at UCL was "not a scholar and never will be".

NYC looking good yesterday evening.

It’s publication day for Thomas More: A Life and Death in Tudor England with Michael Joseph @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social! Pop by your local bookshop or order now - uk.bookshop.org/a/12264/9781...

Another excellent new book delivery

Looking forward to these.

Lovely to see this in hard copy, too

Should have added that the Secret Life of Books podcast that my interviewer does with Jonty Claypole is fabulous, and has lots of Sydney Writers' Festival content. Well worth a download from wherever you do your downloading: @slobpodcast.bsky.social.

Had a really excellent time banging the Shakespearean tragic drum at the Sydney Writers’ Festival.

Hear PUP author @rhodrilewis.bsky.social‬ discuss his new book, Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, at the #SydneyWritersFestival on 21 May at 11 am AEST! He will be in conversation with Sophie Gee. For more details, visit: www.swf.org.au/program/seas...

tfw you're a good Protestant clerk but you can't get transubstantiation off your mind

Bit of a dreich morning, but a good view to wake up to after a day or so on the plane.

Munich, as ever, doing Munich very well.

Good to see this in hard copy

I very much like the term papabile, which I learned today.

In which I review, and for the most part admire, Michael Braddick's new life of Christopher Hill for @prospectmagazine.co.uk. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/6984...

I reviewed Zachary Leader's new book about Richard Ellmann (and Ellmann's Joyce biography) for The Literary Review (@litreview.bsky.social). literaryreview.co.uk/portrait-of-...

Site-wide 50% off sale from @princetonupress.bsky.social ! Including Shakespeare's Tragic Art and all but the newest of new releases... press.princeton.edu

Excellent to see, courtesy of the excellent people at the special collections library of @brynmawrcollege.bsky.social, the original announcement for the lectures that became The Sense of an Ending. (Am impressed both by the Larkin and the 8.30pm start time.)

Hugely looking forward to this tomorrow. Do come along to celebrate Shax's birthday if in the Philly area and at a loose end!

Sixteen PUP authors, translators, and volume editors—including five authors with books under contract with the Press—have been named 2025 Guggenheim Fellows. Congratulations to all those whose work has been recognized this year! bit.ly/3YDfdLx #GuggFellows2025 @guggfellows.bsky.social

Doesn't really feel like a time to celebrate, but it's a great honor (and an extremely agreeable surprise) to find myself in such distinguished company. Many thanks to @guggfellows.bsky.social. www.gf.org/stories/anno...

V excited to be doing this with Emily Wilson in 10 days' time. If you're in the Philly area, do come along to celebrate Shax's 461st at the Free Library (@freelibrary.bsky.social). freelibraryfoundation.org/events/rhodr...

Just went along to A Minecraft Movie with my offspring. Not the experience I had been expecting.

This is very sad news. She was, and will remain, a magnificently good critic. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ap...

Very much looking forward to holding forth about Shakespeare and tragedy at the Sydney Writers' Festival in May. If you'll be in that part of the world, it would be wonderful to see you... www.swf.org.au/program/seas...

The new White Lotus is guilty of serial shark jumping in plot and character, but the dialogue writing remains brilliantly good.

So, a sixtysomething someone I didn't know approached me in a coffee break to say that reader #2 had, in a recent report on an article submission, exhorted them at length to "escape the long shadow of Lewis's Hamlet". Made my conference.

In some unusual but excellent company at the RSA-SAA book fair…

The prettiest stretch of the train ride from NYC to Boston

Grateful to @curtisperry.bsky.social for this downright intelligent engagement with my Shakespearean tragic slab. Particularly gratifying to be aligned with Rosalie Colie, one of my critical heroes, at the end. academic.oup.com/res/advance-...

Muriel Spark had a decent apartment

Hugely looking forward to this.

So, it seems the teenage Joyce was so into Giordano Bruno that he performed under the stage name Gordon Brown. This is pleasing.

Hello Blueksy! I expect this first post will be my most exciting post 🤣 My article about a new manuscript copy of Sonnet 116 I have identified has been published online open access academic.oup.com/res/advance-... @oupacademic.bsky.social

A week in which I have read lots of correspondence to and from Donald Davie, Alastair Fowler, and John Bayley. All great critics in their different ways, of course. But it is very hard to say which of them is the more overbearingly egomaniacal nuisance.