I didn't miss it at all, so why stop now?

It's here! The long-awaited (lol) best books I read in 2025. Plus - because you've been good this year - runners-up and a cheeky peek at what I DNFd. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/12/19/b... #reading #books #bookreview #bestbooksof2025

Such a terrific, informative talk - I'd had no idea about the numbers of Black men we know voted in the 18th & 19th centuries, let alone that two of them were MPs! Particularly interested by William Cuffay/-ey: not an MP, but tailor, Chartist organiser, and short king (4'11").

November was a less slumpy reading month, although I also appear to be running out of things to read. Good thing Christmas is coming. You can see what I thought of this month's non-library reading here: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/11/30/n... #reading #books #bookreview #booksky

Most of October's non-library reading. I've spent the month in varying degrees of physical pain and my reading has been slow but more or less successful. Here's what I thought: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/10/31/o... #bookstagram #reading #books #bookreview

There is precisely one defensible use case for ChatGPT in the humanities, and that is "clear, succinct explanations of literary theory concepts, with examples". Émile Benveniste's I-you polarity in 100 non-jargon words, please. Literally nothing else. #academia

You will absolutely never guess what the context is for this rather ominous passage www.thenational.scot/news/2553640...

MAGA and its agenda are *wildly* unpopular, and media are hugely out of touch for not saying so. Politicians who tap into this reality will thrive, and media outlets that reflect this truth will earn enormous audiences.

Chuffed to be in vol.2 of @plantperspectives.bsky.social. Thanks to all at the journal & @rbgkew.bsky.social for including my weird little piece about working-class C19th poet Eliza Cook, trees, illness& intertemporal weirdness. Read it here: www.whp-journals.co.uk/PP/issue/vie...

I LOVE @overleaf.bsky.social's writing, both critical and creative. Now you can read it too! Her article is now out OA, exploring C19 poet Eliza Cook, the Slaugham Yew, and their C21 traces/resonances. doi.org/10.3197/WHPP... #19thcentury #poetry #ecopoetry #arborealhumanities #academia

Attending online! Full of interesting tidbits, from what a C18 valet did immediately after unpacking his master's belongings (find a fellow English servant and go drinking) to what these journals don't include (surprisingly, servants rarely wrote about their actual work). #18thcentury #academia

How cool does this lineup look! Thrilled to be part of Romanticism Across Borders's 25-26 series - thanks for asking me @paulinehortolland.bsky.social et al.!

I knew they’d come for the archivists and librarians but honestly I assumed it would be for a reason better than “Our Special Boy wants to give his friend a sword! Give him a sword!”

Can't make it this week, but this promises to be fascinating - d'Eon is a figure of enduring intrigue. I've signed up to attend the other seminars for the term online now! #c18 #long18thcentury #history #genderstudies #academia

The new LP issue has arrived: 'Romantic Shock and Surprise,' edited by David Duff (Queen Mary University of London) and Laurent Folliot @sorbonne-universite.fr. Université Cover design by Karolína Bendová. Read in open access: litterariapragensia.ff.cuni.cz/magazin/2025...

Sorry for never being on Bluesky anymore, BUT I had my first article published @litterariaprag.bsky.social! Here it is, free to read: Radical Reform and the Shock of the Past in Mary Robinson's Vancenza #gothic #C18 #romanticism #academia #womenwriters litterariapragensia.ff.cuni.cz/wp-content/u...

#20booksofsummer 7 (forgot to link to reviews of 4-6 but they're on the blog too!): Passing, by Nella Larsen, a novel whose extreme self-awareness stops it from being too schematic, offering instead an exploration of safety and freedom ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/06/25/2... #books #reading

Remembering former weaver Finton Burgin, who died on this day in 1860 at the age of 18. He was the son of the widowed Catherine Burgin, died 23rd March 1866, aged 50.

So excited about this year's 20 Books of Summer project, I'm out of the blocks fast! Here's what I thought of the first three: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/06/05/2... #bookstagram #books #reading #bookreview #20booksofsummer

I clung on to May by my fingernails—this is everything I read that WASN'T from the library, including three re-reads, two gripping new/forthcoming releases, and one 99p Kindle punt: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/05/31/m... #reading #books #bookreview

🪨🪨🪨

The pleasure was all mine! What a fantastic weekend at the London-Paris Romanticism Seminar's annual symposium, this year at the Sorbonne on Romantic Shock and Surprise. A convivial group of brilliant and, above all, generous scholars—much to ponder and follow up on.

Everything else I read in April, from fifth-century Northumbria to rural Massachusetts: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/05/01/a...

April's library reading: brief, but magical. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/04/28/l... #loveyourlibrary #reading #books #bookreview

The demonisation of trans people isn't normal. People pretend that it is, but it's a culture war that's been manufactured in the past decade. Trans people are here and real and who they say they are. Get with it.

James Clifford, writing on C18 biography in 1968: "The purpose of this essay is to attempt some hasty generalisations." I'll know I've made it when I can write *that* in an academic essay with confidence.

March's library reading: from Dostoevsky to carnivorous aliens. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/03/31/l... #loveyourlibrary #books #bookreview

Here are my thoughts on everything that I read in February that wasn't from libraries. It was a good month. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/02/28/f... #loveyourlibrary #reading #bookreview

I read five books from libraries in February, ranging from one of the thicker—and more brilliant—19th century classics to theory of education as revolutionary praxis to a 21st-century classic of how what we remember makes us ourselves. Here's what I thought: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/02/24/l...

This year I got some book tokens for Christmas as well as some actual, physical books! Here's how I ended up spending them. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/02/20/p...

2 brand-new paperbacks for free! (Well—on @waterstones.bsky.social loyalty points.) The Deep Sky as recommended by @lauratisdall.bsky.social; Bridge just because.

More short stories! One I loved, one I really didn't love, three (coincidentally the ones I didn't listen to but read with my eyes) that were just fine. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/02/11/s...

I finished fourteen books in January; here's what I thought of most of them. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/01/31/j...

I fear to report that I have just laughed aloud while reading The Pickwick Papers, and can therefore no longer be considered young.

Most of what I've been reading in January has been Christmas presents or secondhand purchases, but here's the scant handful of this month's library books, and what I thought: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/01/22/l... #LoveYourLibrary

Important #DigitalFriday update, it's not just costa that has free access to the BNA! (100% not a Weatherspoons endorsement, many other venues are available)

Two fantastic Appalachian family novels, considered together: Lee Smith's Oral History and Kaye Gibbons's A Cure for Dreams ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/01/15/t...

More New Yorker stories! Three I really liked, two that may not stay with me, one I'll remember but didn't love (yes, you counted right, they let Rachel Cusk talk about TWO Duras stories at once) ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/01/10/s...

More places should do this. I am 100% confident it would generate more sales/borrows than staff recommendation shelves.

It's here! The long-awaited (lol) Best Books of 2024 according to me (by which I mean the best books I read this year, not the best books published this year). ellethinks.wordpress.com/2024/12/20/b...

A most unprecedented development!

Round two of considering the New Yorker Fiction Podcast short stories (plus two from the most recent editions of the magazine): ellethinks.wordpress.com/2024/12/11/s...

Interesting thread, with lots of good points…

One caveat: that for a variety of logistical/legal reasons PG used a lot of 19th century editions of older texts, which were often heavily bowdlerized or just aren’t reliable. In some cases this doesn’t impact much. In others it can mean something as major as “the ending of the novel is different”

Many bodes are fored by such a notice...

The rest of November's reading, from sci fi about bodily autonomy to neo-Victoriana to a Murakami that I actually really liked! ellethinks.wordpress.com/2024/11/30/n... #books #reading #bookreview

OBSESSED with this. Like a Georgian version of underwear that says "Spank me" on the butt. (Or, like, "Harris Walz 2024", I guess)

I like to claim a strong antipathy towards a) short stories, and b) absorbing fiction via audio. Still, I've been listening to the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, and... really enjoying it? Herewith, some consideration of the stories I’ve listened to so far. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2024/11/28/s...

What's your favourite track/song with bouncy brass and/or keys? For a playsuit provisionally entitled "happy striding". Currently contains things like House of My Soul by Langhorne Slim, Shame Shame Shame by Shirley and Company, and Midnight Rider by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.