Mamdani's speech is SO GOOD: respectful, generous, sparkling.

Your turn! Post 4 female characters you love.

#NYRBWomen25 I’m finishing up Babitz this morning so I don’t have to carry it to London with me. This last piece is dripping with the excess of the fashion industry as only Babitz can write it. “It was Fiorucci of Milan who finally came up with a way to sell America back to America” (p379)

Now watching.

New on the blog today, I've written about THE JUNIPER TREE by Barbara Comyns. A clever, dreamlike reimagining of the classic Grimms’ fairy tale, weaving together the innocence & savagery Comyns is well known for. Naturally, I loved it! #NYRBWomen25 #BookSky jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/10/21/t...

A belated #LetterboxdFriday — We saw so many excellent films last week at the Orcas Island Film Festival & we had such a fabulous time. Here’s my mercurial ranked list. 💫 boxd.it/P0q94/detail

We’re leaving for London on Wednesday & I’m filling in our itinerary. What off-the-beaten path places or current exhibitions should we check out?

“I’m forced to pause, whenever I’m going to have a nervous breakdown, and consider the single most obvious objection: I can’t afford one. […] Unless I can afford a Henry James one, I’d prefer to postpone my nervous breakdown till next summer.” #NYRBWomen25

It was a fabulous first day at the Orcas Island Film Festival!

#NYRBWomen25 “In 1961 or so, Weston opened what he called the Troubadour II on Santa Monica & Doheny. It was a kind of beatnik place, a folk club seating about 300 people, where Odetta or Peter, Paul and Mary would play acoustic sets.” (p105) It’s still there today! troubadour.com/history/

“Behold me now just as I am, Colette once said in a beautiful piece about how she was in her early 30s (my age) & alone, living in a one-room apartment on the first floor, a Parisian room near the Bois de Boulogne. Beholding herself in the mirror, just as she was.” (p91) #NYRBWomen25

#NYRBWomen25 From this weekend’s Eve Babitz pages... “Mozart wasn’t being too funny when he said the most important, *important*, part of music was ‘the rest,’ the silence. What they cut out. […] What is inessential must be cut away and what remains must convince us it’s essential” (p31,36)

#NYRBWomen25 Eve Babitz's guide to Los Angeles. la.curbed.com/maps/los-ang...

One week to go! @kaggsy59.bsky.social

This tender portrait of the artist Vanessa Bell was painted by Roger Fry around 1912. They had begun an affair in 1911 which lasted until the following year when Bell fell in love with Duncan Grant. This might have been painted at Fry's house, Durbins, Guildford in Surrey.

“I read through everything I wrote and I feel very disappointed. But what can I do. I wrote it. It’s there.” – Chantal Akerman

I finished THE WAX CHILD by @olgaravn.bsky.social earlier this week (tr. Martin Aitken, published by @ndbooks.bsky.social) Such a strange & beautifully crafted tale. Also a book that lends itself to going down many rabbit holes. A thread 🐇🧵 …

Portrait of the Late Ms Partridge https://www.wikiart.org/en/leonora-carrington/portrait-of-the-late-ms-partridge-1947

“Reading [Babitz] is like looking at Ed Ruscha’s gas station paintings. She makes you reconsider things you might have dismissed as ugly, strange, or even boring […] Everything Babitz writes is both pop & intellectual, shiny but deep” (intro by Molly Lambert) #NYRBWomen25

#NYRBWomen25 Eve Babitz starts tomorrow! Here's the page guide. 🎉🎉

This is a lovely piece by @dreamsofbeing.bsky.social. “A bookmark, however fragile, however durable, holds a paradox. It is both a pause and a continuation, both memory and forgetting.” draughtjournal.com/article/on-b...

Now reading.

#NYRBWomen25 Who's ready to read some more Eve Babitz?!! Starting Thursday! "gathers nearly 50 pieces written between 1975 and 1997, including the full text of Babitz’s wry book-length investigation into the pioneering lifestyle brand Fiorucci" I'll post the page guide tomorrow. :)

Hey, @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social, can you please republish this??!! 🙏

Excellent thread. Here's the Backlisted episode on Comyns as well: www.backlisted.fm/episodes/14-...

Now streaming.

#NYRBWomen25 I finished THE JUNIPER TREE this morning, Barbara Comyns’s final novel published when she was 77yo. It’s everything I love about her writing. Here are a few rabbit holes I went down while reading this enchanting retelling.

I have a pile of new Aug/Sep publications to read (birthday month acquisitions). 🎂🎉 I’ve only finished three so far (Zambreno, Romano & Mendelson—all recommended), so I have a long way to go. Ravn & Lin are next!

Films that shaped my understanding of the medium: Jeanne Dielman (Akerman) Late Spring (Ozu) Persona (Bergman) In the Mood for Love (Wong) Koker Trilogy (Kiarostami) La Pointe Courte (Varda) Mirror (Tarkovsky) Beau Travail (Denis) Bicycle Thieves (De Sica) The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Puiu)

I loved this plucky, exploratory, enlightening conversation, & Frances provides an excellent intro! I adore Carrington & savored the experience of reading this book, but it’s not for everyone. This discussion is for everyone, however, & you’ll be entertained. Thanks for the #NYRBWomen25 shoutout! 💛

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 #NYRBWomen25

The 2025 Cercador Prize finalists have been announced! Congrats to the authors, translators & publishers!

“Near the cherry tree in a wild corner there was something Gertrude called the juniper tree […]There was a bench where Gertrude used to sit under her tree, watching the birds, and she said that if she were worried about anything, the worries went away.” (p31) #NYRBWomen25

This conversation will be great! It’s free — just register.

A new piece from @ofbooksandbikes.bsky.social! “How does one write a novel about things that are not there? About the missing, the lost, the absent? Or is this the only kind of writing there is? … Issa Quincy’s debut novel, Absence, takes up these questions.” www.full-stop.net/2025/09/17/r...

Last day of the sale!

Enjoying a belated birthday get-away with my mum.

#NYRBWomen25 I love the cover art by Kiki Smith, Spinners (2014). Here’s an interesting profile on Smith. www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/t...

“In writing about snails, I wanted to write about slowness and strangeness, solitude and death, hibernation and estivation.” — Lauren Bastide (tr. @laurenelkin.bsky.social) www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

I’m looking forward to Olivia Laing’s new book. Here’s an interesting new piece she wrote about her interest in Danilo Donati, “the secret magician of Italian cinema, responsible for turning the wildest visions of Fellini & Pasolini into tangible reality.” www.ft.com/content/4b2e...

Book 18 of #NYRBWomen25 begins tomorrow! 🥂 Barbara Comyns! From the intro: Uncanny yet matter-of-fact, spooky yet gentle, naive & knowing, meticulous & strangely careless, it is considered by some to be among her most endearing works…

This! 👇💙👇💙

I’m back from the mountains! I need to catch up on posts, but in the meantime, I thought I’d share this photo that Drew just sent me. He went hiking today. #NYRBWomen25 💙

It’s time for my annual September retreat. I’ve arrived in the mountains for a long, solo weekend at a friend’s cabin. I’ll be offline for a few days relishing the peace & solitude, long walks & mindful rest. Have a wonderful weekend! 🍂🍁🍃🍂🍁

“How satisfactory, she thought, to be made thus, clear & unambiguous, and not as most people were, in a muddle of conflicting features & indeterminant results: with the eyes of a poet & the hands of a butcher, the frame of a prize-fighter & the lined brow, the spectacled eyes of a scholar.” (p127)

“The lake was girdled with trees and bushes, and wild song welled out as if from the throats of hundreds and hundreds of choral branches. The unfolding leaves covered the boughs […] some were tinged with a russet flame, haunting the eye with an autumnal prophecy.”🍁🍂 #ANote_2025

Now watching.

#NYRBWomen25 El Greco’s portraiture & Bruegel’s snowy landscapes make an appearance in one of Kavan’s stories today, AIRING A GRIEVANCE. “the curious balance of latent sensuality & dominant intellectualism seen to the best advantage in some of the work of El Greco.” (p12)

A very happy birthday to my kindred Virgo friends, @nichollsm86.bsky.social & @pear-jelly.bsky.social! 🍂🎂🥳 May the year ahead unfold in beautiful, joyous ways. xo

#NYRBWomen25 I got interrupted yesterday so I just finished listening to this episode & guess what @onebrightbook.bsky.social’s next book selection is!!!! 🎉 (Well done, @nonsuchbook.bsky.social!) I can’t wait to hear this discussion!