Blinding: The Left Wing by Mircea Cărtărescu. An incredible Proustian, Schulzian book! Also very happy to bring the existence of Magnus Puke to a wider audience observer.co.uk/culture/book...

I’ve always been suspicious of the neatness of some essayists’ lives, almost as if… they’re making it up. Emily LaBarge’s Dog Days refuses to plane off the rough edges of her experiences, even if that makes them ungainly and difficult to present in a book. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

Every Sunday I’ll be contributing a paperback column to the Observer’s New Review. Kicking things off is Driver by Mattia Filice (@nyrb-imprints.bsky.social), who’s poured his experience of 2 decades working on the French rail network into an extraordinary verse novel. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

My 2025

‘but it’s not what you’re supposed to do with a corpse’. Fantastic Stellan Skarsgård: www.vulture.com/article/stel...

Loved my conversation with Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk last night. Death and the Gardener is a beautiful novel

Letter signed, ‘Please accept. Sincerely, Samuel Beckett.’

Perfect!

Unsurprisingly, Keir Starmer doesn’t know the word ‘spine’

A morning in Deptford with Karl Ove Knausgaard, an evening in Bristol with Mariana Enríquez

Never been in a book club before; could never imagine being part of a better one than this. It’s been an amazing journey with these incredible people. This was us last night just before going on stage the RFH to announce this year’s @thebookerprizes.com shortlist. Congratulations to the authors:

Me in the @theguardian.com on @thebookerprizes.com shortlist www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

‘M and I both secretly felt that it was the ways in which we had been damaged that had given us our power.’ Loved this. But Parade haters should move along. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

From finding five minutes every day to always taking notes, Chris Power shares eight ways to make more time for reading and enjoy great conversations about books ⤵️ https://thebookerprizes.pulse.ly/bfnol1lf1s

Full house, unsurprisingly, for Laurent Binet interviewed by Chris Power at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which is a bit of an ultimate buy one get two... @chrispower.bsky.social @atahualpavasari.bsky.social #eibf

I’m very happy the Booker longlist is now public and I can once again actually talk to people about great books I’ve read recently thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...

Happy 80th birthday to the great man/writer/climber/lunch companion @mjohnharrison.bsky.social. It’s an honour to know you.

Delighted that Booker judge @chrispower.bsky.social’s choice👇of favourite Booker book (for today) is Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room, which is one of my top picks too, and which was a shoo-in for my list☝️of genre-bending Booker books.

Me on reading a load of books. And Tolkien! And Galgut! thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...

Henri Troyat on the death of Chekhov, 15 July 1904 (When James Salter read ‘Errand’ he couldn’t believe how much of the death scene Carver had lifted from Troyat)

Reviewed a great book www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Is it possible to have too many copies of The Book of Disquiet? The Richard Zenith translation (left and right) has just been reissued in a revised version. The text has also been reset, removing any and all unintended disquiet. An incredible book; one of the true greats.

Raynor Winn has really fucked off my mum observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

A very enjoyable surprise to find Robert and Karijn in the @thetimes.com’s rundown of great literary marriages

‘Georgi Gospodinov​ was 22 when Bulgarian communism collapsed in early 1990. “The end of our training,” he has written, “coincided with the end of that for which we had been trained.’’’ @chrispower.bsky.social on one of Bulgaria’s most prominent novelists: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Georgi Gospodinov gives us tasting menu portions of several high concept novels without ever going all in. His books stand somewhere between metafiction, autofiction, essay and thought experiment.’ @chrispower.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Light the Vaim flame. New Fosse (extracted in the New Yorker last week, see earlier post), out in October from @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social

‘Georgi Gospodinov gives us tasting menu portions of several high concept novels without ever going all in. His books stand somewhere between metafiction, autofiction, essay and thought experiment.’ @chrispower.bsky.social on the Bulgarian novelist: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Kafka died 101 yrs ago today. I wrote about his Diaries last year. I researched & wrote the piece during an extended hospital stay & was scolded by a gastro for reading such a gloomy writer. If only he knew how funny and beautiful Kafka can be! www.theguardian.com/books/2024/a...

Cat Power at the Barbican singing the Bob Dylan 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert that wasn’t ever at the RAH, but which she sang at the RAH in 2022, and will tonight sing at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, 5 mins from the Free Trade Hall, where the original RHA concert actually took place

‘In each of his books, Georgi Gospodinov finds some good reason – divorce, mental illness, the rise (again) of a form of totalitarianism – to want to escape or reframe reality.’ @chrispower.bsky.social on the Bulgarian novelist: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Georgi Gospodinov gives us tasting menu portions of several of high concept novels without ever going all in. His books stand somewhere between metafiction, autofiction, essay and thought experiment.’ @chrispower.bsky.social on the Bulgarian novelist: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

An extract from Jon Fosse’s forthcoming novel, Vaim, translated by Damion Searls Elias www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

‘In his first two novels, he describes the disappointments of his generation, suddenly confronted with the fallout from free-market capitalism.’ @chrispower.bsky.social on the Bulgarian novelist Georgi Gospodinov: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Day one at Hay: Welsh is a piece of piss; I’ll be fluent by Wednesday.

🎧PODCAST🎧 On this week's podcast, Solvej Balle talks to @chrispower.bsky.social about her septology ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME, the first two volumes of which are out now from @faberbooks.bsky.social Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts: lrb.me/dj3

Thank you to all the incredible readers & everyone who came to the powerful solidarity readings for Alaa Abd el-Fattah. We were glad to hear that Prime Minister Starmer yesterday had a call with President Sisi to call for Alaa's release. This is critical, for Alaa's family and for us all. #FreeAlaa

Alaa Abd el-Fattah completed his unjust five-year prison sentence last September. Yet seven months later, he remains in prison. Join us for a vigil in support of Alaa and his mother Laila Soueif, both currently on hunger strike. #FreeAlaa www.englishpen.org/posts/campai...

Someone has finally been held accountable for the war in Gaza, and it's Gary Lineker www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

and then why not come and hear Tessa Hadley and @chrispower.bsky.social discuss Mavis Gallant, both her stories and her novella, GREEN WATER, GREEN SKY, at the Owl Bookshop, Thursday 26 June? A DREAM combo!! owlbookshop.co.uk/product/tess...

November’s come early

I wrote about the first two volumes of Solvej Balle’s extraordinary time loop septology for @newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

With the arrival of the next boxes of Booker books I’ve sadly had to put my children into storage

What a blurb from Susan Hill

I’m building a post-Booker reading list. This joined it today, thanks to Oxfam Dalston

I wrote about Brian Friel’s short stories, and why he stopped writing them, for @newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

Keith Ridgway is one of my favourite contemporary writers, so excited to see a new novel, 'Dooneen', is being published 2026/2027 by @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social in the UK and @ndbooks.bsky.social in the US.

Claire-Louise