Not exactly surprised by Merve Emre's response to the question: "Where and When Do You Read ?" but: respect/admiration/envy. An ideal I only sometimes manage to approach. (Via @sansip.bsky.social ) linkst.thecut.com/view/6356a9c...

Re-read David Seabrook's "All the Devil are Here". If someone had told me that I would enjoy a second @backlisted.bsky.social episode on a title they'd already covered I wouldn't have believed them. (I'd have been wrong). This was ever better (as well as stranger and more disturbing) than I 1/7

Aexander Baron! David Seabrook! Huge dangerous piles of books! This is an absolutely top draw recommendation from @backlisted.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7n7...

Re-read Thomas Pynchon's "Vineland". Following the procedure described in my earlier post, I still have to re-read Chapter 15 again on Thursday and listen to 3 or 4 podcasts, but I've reached the end of what began on August 28th... This is easily the longest I've spent reading a 385 page book! I 1/4

Read Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares' "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies". Has read some of the reviews that argue against the premises, but as someone previously convinced climate change will wipe us out before too long, this cogently reasoned book is so scary I expect AI to now do it first...

Read Hal Higdon's "Run Fast". This was quite nostalgic...! About 30 years ago I was into reading a lot of things like James F. Fixx's "The Complete Book of Running", so this brought back many memories. A lot of the names of the (American) runners and coaches, washed over me; and I was less 1/2

Finally got around to watching B. S. Johnson's "Fat Man on a Beach"... Was obviously on the same humour wavelength, as I laughed at 'where the Hell are we?' and instantly tried to memorise the almost limericks. Needs to finish reading/re-read his stuff! www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j70...

Read John Swartzwelder's "The Time Machine Did It". That was a lot of fun. Doesn't have anything big or clever to say about it, but it kept me amused and slipped down very quickly. Will definitely try to seek out some of his other books.

For the first time ever, I've been reading along with a Season of the Two Month Review in real time, going through the book in weekly chunks rather than waiting for it to be over and doing them daily. Has been reading the 60 or so pages of Pynchon's "Vineland", then the page by page annotations 1/3

Read Marc Behm's "The Eye of the Beholder". Had never heard of this book (or its author) before it was announced as a @backlisted.bsky.social episode. Frequently thought whilst reading it that it was bleeping amazing/ (Yes, I'm so square I even censor expletives in my own internal monologues!) 1/3

Has temporarily put down the bonkers (in a good way?) "Illuminatus Trilogy" in order to quickly read Le Guin's "A Wizard of Earthsea" (so that I can read the second one before I listen to the @backlisted.bsky.social episode.) Never read this as a child, and for some reason always thought it was 1/2

Read @janicehallett.bsky.social's "The Killer Question". Had been look forward to this one ever since it was announced, and it didn't disappoint. Is a (former) pub quiz afficionado, so (based on my response to books by other authors) I went in expecting to nitpick and be annoyed by unconvincing 1/3

Read Mick Herron's "Clown Town". Unputdownable! Greatly enjoyed re-encountering the characters. Whilst the Jackson Lambisms were as funny as ever custards/bastunts, piss poor hours/wee small hours etc, my biggest grins came at the moment the Dog realized he was insulting Shirley Dander, and 1/3

“For all his reputation as an elder statesman of solid literary fiction, Ian McEwan’s 50-year career has been characterised by eccentricities and surprising left-turns.” Me on McEwan’s strangest novel yet, What We Can Know, about poetry, murder and the long view of human development:

Read Richard Milward's "Man-Eating Typewriter". Fantabulosa! In a similar fashion to the non-standard spellings in "Riddley Walker", the unconventional polari reduced my reading speed by about half. But it didn't matter because I was completely gripped by the plot, the voice, the footnotes and 1/3

I reviewed the new Dan Brown. It is (I note admiringly), weapons-grade bollocks.

There can't be many people who received their eagerly awaited copy of "Schattenfroh" in the same book post that brought them a preordered copy of er... Dan Brown's "The Secret of Secrets", (and aren't sure which to start first.) Sometimes I suspect my reading interests are too broad for my own good!

Read @stewarthome.bsky.social's "Fascist Yoga". Had read (and enjoyed) a couple of his novels many years ago, but didn't know what to expect from the non-fiction. This forensically researched exposure of the toxic origins of 'modern postural practice' confirmed many of my suspicions about yoga. 1/4

Read Leonora Carrington's "The Hearing Trumpet". As @unamccormack.bsky.social says on the excellent @backlisted.bsky.social episode at one point 'baffling'. But in a good way! Was quite happy with what was (possibly) happening until the emergence of Sephira about 20 pages from the end. From that 1/3

A couple of minutes of Nicol Williamson ‘giving his Prufrock’ i.e. performing T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock before a select audience, circa 1974.

Re-read @ianrankin1.bsky.social's "A Question of Blood". Vividly remembered both the description of Rebus' scalding at the end, and Allan Renshaw's memory of the day with the football. First time around I was mainly focussed on the mystery of Fairstone and Rebus' hands. This time it was all the 1/4

Read @stephenking.bsky.social's "Never Flinch". Although this had all the elements of the earlier books, something about it made it far easier to put down for long stretches than any of them. (However, as I frequently say, I did come back to finish it, and that is certainly not true for every 1/4

Read R. F. Kuang's "Katabasis". This has had 'mixed' reviews. It slipped down in about 4 hours, which seemed surprisingly fast given the page count/18 hour 30 minute audiobook run time. I was definitely able to slip into a page turning flow state. Wasn't overly invested in the 'magick' side of 1/4

Read @brettbbl.bsky.social's "Mason & Dixon Companion". When this was announced I wondered what it could add beyond the existing Pynchon wiki, the answer is 'a lot'! The introduction and conclusion are both amazingly illuminating in their own right, but the labour of love that is the annotations 1/3

Read Thomas Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon". Bought this hardback back in June 2009 and had tried to start it several times, never getting further than the first 50 pages or so, largely due to the language/style. This time, helped immensely by @mappingthezone.bsky.social I got into it, took it down 1/3

Read Sue Townsend's "The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole". Didn't quite enjoy this as much as the previous two novels (which if I'm being charitable may well be due to constraints of its original serial publication). It did noticeably improve towards the end, and obviously I liked it enough to finish.

Read Doris Lessing's "The Golden Notebook". Can't believe I took so long to get around to this one. It is incredible and really should be discussed (even) more than it is! Amazing on the relationships between men and women etc. Another one that needs to be immediately re-read.

#160 Read Geetanjali Shree's "Tomb of Sand" tr. @shreedaisy.bsky.social. First things first, the discussion with the translator on the final episode of the Two Month Review podcast season was amazing! If I hadn't been listening along with the podcast, I suspect I may have given up during the

Says everything that needs to be said about the Grauniad's list(icle).

Objective lesson in how it is possible to regularly read 500+ pages a day and seemingly rarely finish a book... Over various reading sessions today I apparently read 59 pages of Thomas Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon", 93 pages of Geetanjali Shree's "Tomb of Sand", 81 pages of Doris Lessing's "The 1/2

In Josephine Tey's 1929 "The Man in the Queue" a description is so vivid that 'Grant had, through his bulk, in a queer television a vivid picture of the man himself'. Delighted to encounter a pre-television use of the word television in the wild! Which more than makes up for the of its time 1/2

Being a Shakespeare junky, 'Scylla and Charybdis' is one of my favourite sections. Before this episode I'd never considered how Stephen's theory of unfaithful Anne Hathaway etc. applies just as much (if not more) to Bloom, Molly and Rudy... Plenty of food for thought!

Re-read David Lodge's "Out of the Shelter". Read this about 25 years ago, and all I remembered of 16 year of Timothy's trip to Germany was the 3 page section at the end of the second chapter of the third section where the older woman quotes poetry whilst opening in her legs... In my mind this 1/2

Read Jason Ayres' "1983: A Year in the Life of Jenna Rae". Just like its three predecessors, this slipped down quickly and easily. Particularly enjoyed re-encountering a character from the first book. Had completely forgotten about deely boppers (and many other cultural touchstones). Presumes 1/3

Never thought I'd finish listening to a Martin Amis podcast and end up thinking I need to read "Lonesome Dove"...!

Read @paraicodonnell.bsky.social "The House on Vesper Sands". This was surprisingly gripping, even when it took a turn from Dickensian London police procedural into something resembling Stephen King's "Doctor Sleep"! Has always loved the word gonoph. Remembers smiling at the name Braxton Hicks 1/3

A fascinating interview, I definitely need to read this! A passage read on the show says 'I was his Pygmalion, his plasticine model' when presumably Vincent means he was Galatea to Randall's Pygmalion. Suspects this'll be a deliberate authorial choice indicating Vincent's ignorance of the art world.

Read Elizabeth Taylor's "The Soul of Kindness" and then listened to the excellent @backlisted.bsky.social episode. Had read "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont" back in 2015 when Robert McCrum picked it as one of the Guardian's 100 best novels and although I remember it as surprisingly readable, I can 1/5

Read Sue Townsend's "Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction". As other commentators have noted, this was noticeably darker than the earlier books - both in its depiction of New Labour/Blair Babes/the Iraq war and in Nigel's blindness (which mirrored the author's own health issues). For 1/5

Read @stevecavanagh.bsky.social's "Two Kinds of Stranger". The ninth Eddie Flynn novel shows he is still the master of the chapter ending jaw-dropping twist that reverses what you think you know. Enjoyed the Logan narrated sections much more than the Ruby ones in "Witness 8". Although this time 1/3

Books read or re-read in July. Despite a good start to the month (powering through 14 in the first 9 days) as usual real life got in the way and I slowed down dramatically in the second half. Will try harder to find more time in August, and hopefully take on some real chunksters.

Read Ed Park's "An Oral History of Atlantis". Really enjoyed "Same Bed, Different Dreams" when I read it last year. This (semi)linked collection of short stories was very different, but equally delightful. Cassingles, locavore, the American spelling chantey, lucubrations [a word I need to start 1/3

Read Theodore Roszak's "Flicker". First heard of this when there was a spate of 'cursed film' novels a few years ago (2023?) but forgot about it until it was mentioned in passing in @john-self.bsky.social's review of Toby Vieira's "The Undrowned". It was absolutely terrific! Enjoyed the mix of 1/6

#151 Read Reginald Hill's "Matlock's System". Continuing my chronological read through his non Dalziel and Pascoe novels. Just like "Red Christmas", this was (for me) a novel of two halves. I was very invested in the first half and its "Brave New World"-esque futuristic setting. Lots of 1/3

Read @paulbradleycarr.com's "The Confessions". Has often pondered the consequences of an AI becoming self aware and then leaking everybody's search history... The premise of this brilliant book was not dissimilar. Raising a number of fascinating questions about unintended consequences whilst at 1/3

After listening to @lorifeathers.bsky.social on @beyondthezero.bsky.social, I really want to stop reading the recent thrillers (that I enjoy) and get back to things I've been meaning to read like "Invidicum", "The Recognitions", "Miss MacIntoch, My Darling" etc that I know i will enjoy equally...

Read Alan Parks' "Gunner". When this was announced I was disappointed that it wasn't a new Harry McCoy, now that I've read it I can't wait for the next Gunner! It had all the things that made the previous series so good, but set in World War 2 Glasgow rather than the 1970s version. A shot quick 1/2

Read @robwhart.bsky.social's "The Medusa Protocol". Thought "The Warehouse" was the best book of its type that I'd read & really enjoyed "The Paradox Hotel". Struggled a little more with "Dark Space", but found "Assassins Anonymous" to be great. Enjoyed this sequel even more. The premise, plot + 1/2

Read @ianleslie.bsky.social's "John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs". That was a wonderful book, easily the best work of non-fiction I have read so far this year. It not only synthesised the existing biographies, memoirs and interviews - but also went much further elucidating the meanings behind 1/6

Read @benaaronovitch.bsky.social's "Stone & Sky". Steadfastly repeats my claim that The Rivers of London series revolutionised Urban Fantasy (IMHO). After 2 (delightful) novellas it was wonderful to have a full length novel to sink my teeth into! For a long time now the background has been fully 1/3