I'm finally reading Under the Volcano, and (sort of inspired by a classic @backlisted.bsky.social episode that re-ran this year), I'm going to pair it with a bottle of $60 mezcal. Bad idea? Probably, but I'm on summer break, so. Watch this space to see which I finish first ... or vice versa #booksky

June reading post: books read (l.) and bought (r.) Am I about to go on a Pessoa kick? Only time will tell YTD: 24 read, 16 bought #booksky #litfic

Finally got deep enough into my TBR pile to read the subject of one of the most poignant @backlisted.bsky.social episodes ever, released less than two weeks before the author died at 96. It's great, and not enough people know about it — echt Backlisted. www.backlisted.fm/episodes/222... #booksky

Books read (l.) and bought (r.) in May. The McNally Jackson reprint of "The Planets" is a gorgeous resurrection of a seventies artifact — a decorated hardcover with no dust jacket (although, weirdly, whoever designed it gets no credit inside) YTD: 19 read, 13 bought #booksky #litfic #poetrysky

@poetrydaily.bsky.social is cooking today poems.com/poem/civiliz...

Books read (l.) and bought (r.) in April. (The Lerner and Riley are rare examples of me reading books as soon as I got them, so they count toward both totals.) YTD: 15 read, 11 bought #booksky #litfic #poetrysky

It's been quite a couple of weeks for authors born in the auspicious year of 1979. These two books came out on consecutive Tuesdays this month, and they’re as different as can be, but they’re my two favorites of 2026 so far #booksky #litfic

Books I finish (left) and bought (right) in March. “Portrait” was my first reread since college. It holds up extremely well, but still the 11th grade AP kids I was teaching it to mostly weren’t fans YTD: 10 read,5 bought #booksky #litfic

Books finished in February, a month in which I also managed to buy no books. It was my third time through Wuthering Heights, which I just happened to be teaching to 11th grade AP students this month of all months. YTD: 7 read, 2 bought #booksky #litfic

Belated January book stacks: books I finished on the left, books I bought on the right. Decent start if I hope to read at least 50 books this year #booksky #litfic

[Gift link] “Come back from the brink, Mr. Saunders. Please don’t disappear up your own kazoo.” Dwight Garner is NOT a fan of George Saunders’s new book! I’ve got tickets to see him tonight in Brooklyn and will be reading the fuck out of it anyway #bookskyn #litfic

@biancatherosestone.bsky.social ’s new book arrived in the mail today, and before I even get to the poems I’m marveling at what a beautifully designed volume it is (Design credit to Beth Steidle at @tinhouse.bsky.social ) #booksky #poetry #poetrysky

New favorite hat just arrived from @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social — it’ll serve as an expression of my opinion of the state of things, as well as a way to identify my Labatut homies in the wild #booksky #litfic

My favorite books that I finished in 2025, not counting rereads, in the order in which I read them #booksky #litfic #poetry

October–November in books: bought (l.) and read (r.) YTD: 38 read, 24 bought (i’m cheesing it a little with Lincoln in the Bardo: it’s my third reading and second time teaching it, but i *did* read and annotate every page) #booksky #litfic

Now seated at The 92nd St. Y and fanboying tf out (moderately!). Yakkin’ about William Maxwell, let’s go @backlisted.bsky.social

August and September combined: bought (left) and finished (right). YTD totals: 33 read, 20 bought I'm also still plugging away at Proust and the thousand-page Plath biography, so hundreds of pages that I've read aren't represented here (yet) #booksky #litfic

I usually wait till the weekend to listen, so I didn't know till yesterday that Backlisted is doing a live show at 92NY in October (!!!) I metaphorically jumped on those tickets, & it's a good thing this is the internet because I might have physically shoved people out of the way for them

July in reading: eight books read (l.) and two bought (r.) YTD totals: 30 read, 16 bought — finally starting to make a noticeable dent in my TBR situation #booksky #litfic

RIP Michael Madsen, author of much more interesting poems than James Franco [CW for pretty much everything in the poem; I opened the book at random] #booksky #litfic

Books read (l.) and boughr (r.) in June YTD: 22 read, 14 bought #booksky #litfic

Books bought/given* (left) and finished (right) in May YTD: 18 read, 11 acquired #booksky #litfic 🖋📚💙 (*thanks @poetrydaily.bsky.social for sending me Octavio Quintanilla's book)

Books bought (left) and read (right) in March and April YTD: 11 read, 8 bought #booksky #litfic 🖋📚💙

Very cool to be included in this feature by @poetrydaily.bsky.social, my favorite poetry newsletter, for writing 100 about Bert Meyers!

First, heaven be the record to my speech

Elizabeth Bishop — even flipping through her collected poems at random to one of the less familiar ones, chances are you’ll find something astonishing and new. How great is this stanza (from “Song for the Rainy Season”) #booksky 💙📚

Shakespeare news makes the Times #booksky 💙📚

Books bought (left) and finished (right) in the first two months of 2025. OLIO and ANGELS in particular are absolute masterpiece bangers that not enough people have read, and which you’d thank yourself for picking up #booksky 📚💙

Gift link to this very long (almost 5,500-word) NYT piece with way more detail and context than most of us probably want on how and why Elon Musk is putting thousands of civil servants out of work and killing people.

Ladies and gentlemen, we can make this happen

Obsessed with this 1st ed. of Richard Wilbur’s second book (pub. 1950) that I got for $15 in Boston last summer. It seems to have been once owned by Barbara Swan, who did Wilbur’s portrait sketch and also collaborated with Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin. I want to know who “Bill” was, though #booksky

This delightful relic from the 70s came in the mail today . #booksky

Dude this is so fucking bleak; I know I’m naive but I still genuinely cannot believe we have people in the humanities normalizing this stuff

We are living in the dumbest possible timeline.

A somewhat @backlisted.bsky.social - inflected selection of my favorite books of 2024. I finished only 41 this year, but at least Middlemarch was one of them

It is with a very heavy heart that I share the passing of the beautiful, talented, kind and loving Olivia Hussey on December 27. One of the loveliest people I’ve ever known, let alone had the honor and pleasure to work with. Special condolences to daughter India Eisley and her partner David Eisley.

nothin’ but faith in nothin’ 🫡

my one quibble with this post is those guys are the NYPD (and mayor Adams), not the feds

Let’s normalize this

okay this pic of William James (on p. 65 of Simon Critchley's MYSTICISM) goes hard af

Putting the Barry Lyndon/21 Savage edit here because it needs to be here please tell me who to originally credit

post somebody you’ve been told you look like whom you definitely don’t look like

Please do something about this @nytimes.com

Though I consider myself a staunch supporter of The New York Times and other legacy print media outlets, I’m still deeply troubled by their repeated references to 6th Avenue as “Ave. of the Americas.” What the hell, guys, nobody calls it that

Yes, I’m religious, I believe in the holy trinity.

Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.

This place is seeming a lot more like Twitter lately; most of my followers are now engagement-farming bot accounts 🤑