One for the bibliophiles out there This painting was flagged up in a book I am reading atm (Portable Magic @oldfortunatus.bsky.social ) and whilst I'm pretty sure I have seen it before it hadn't really lodged in my memory I give you Giuseppe Arcimboldo's c 1566 painting, The Librarian

"Below, hills and wooded mountain slopes shut the region in with white walls, constantly narrower and narrower, nearer and nearer, always more contracting." – Jonas Lie, The Family at Gilje #botd #books #norwegianliterature

Dmitry Ivanovich Khvostov (1757-1835) might be the worst poet who ever lived. In this episode, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to author Ilya Vinitsky and translator James H. McGavran III about their book, The Graphomaniac, which explores the life of Khvostov. #books @nupress.bsky.social

“You’re always telling people to support indie bookstores over billionaires.” Yeah, it’s called having a consistent brand voice and a conscience.

"There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, Can circumvent or hinder or control The firm resolve of a determined soul." – Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "Will" #botd #poetry

Don't miss Austen expert and author @devoney.bsky.social on her UK book tour, starting on the 6th Nov in #Edinburgh, before heading on to #Durham, @waterstones.bsky.social, @britishlibrary.bsky.social and @theul.bsky.social. Discover what was wild about the life & writing of Jane Austen! #booksky

“Under feigned jest Are things conceal'd that else would breed unrest.” – Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy In Episode 689, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to author Brian Vickers about his book Thomas Kyd.: A Dramatist Restored. #books #literature #elizabethandramas @princetonupress.bsky.social

"When shrieked The bleak November winds, and smote the woods, And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades, That met above the merry rivulet, Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still; they seemed Like old companions in adversity." – William Cullen Bryant, "A Winter Piece" #botd #poetry

Episode 746 – Devoney Looser tells @jackewilson.bsky.social about her new book Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane, which suggests we also rethink the commonly held view of "spinster Jane." #books #literature #janeausten @stmartinspress.bsky.social

lol lucky seven

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run" – John Keats, "To Autumn" #poetry #botd #literature @uchicagopress.bsky.social

Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.

"The wind is rising! . . . We must try to live! The huge air opens and shuts my book: the wave Dares to explode out of the rocks in reeking Spray. Fly away, my sun-bewildered pages! Break, waves!" – Paul Valéry, "The Graveyard by the Sea" #botd #poetry #books #literature

“For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands.” – Christina Rossetti @jackewilson.bsky.social takes a look at Rossetti's "Goblin Market." #poetry

For more about Ian Smith's book Black Shakespeare, take a listen to @jackewilson.bsky.social's conversation with author Ian Smith in Episode 506. #shakespeare #books #literature #reading @universitypress.cambridge.org

"It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time." – James Boswell #botd #books #booksky #writing #biography

"Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light." – Dylan Thomas @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to John Goodby, co-author of the biography Dylan Thomas: A Critical Life. #books #poetry @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

NBCC Award winner Guo delivers a spectacular retelling of Moby-Dick, in which she recasts Ishmael as a 17-year-old girl and Ahab as a Black freedman named Seneca who’s battling the “white devil.” Newcomers to Moby-Dick and Melville devotees alike will find much to love. @groveatlantic.bsky.social

"I shall never get you put together entirely, Pieced, glued, and properly jointed." – Sylvia Plath, "The Colossus" Remembering Sylvia Plath #botd For more about Plath, take a listen to @jackewilson.bsky.social's conversation with author Emily Van Duyne. #books #literature #poetry

There are 37 donors funding the $300 million build of the new White House ballroom. Unsurprisingly, Amazon is on that list. But you know who isn’t? Independent bookstores. And this is why it will *always* be bookstores over billionaires. ✊

@jackewilson.bsky.social talks to author Caroline Lea about her novel Love, Sex, and Frankenstein, which tells the haunting, evocative story of the summer that should have broken Mary Shelley, but instead inspired her to write her Gothic masterpiece. #books #literature #novels #maryshelley #booksky

"Words belong to each other." Hear the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf's voice (not at all what I imagined!), reading her timeless love letter to language: www.themarginalian.org/2013/04/29/c...

‘Under the stuff I can’t throw out is the stuff my parents couldn’t throw out’: novelist Anne Enright on the agony of clearing her family home

Secret Maps opens today! 🤫 🗺️ From medieval manuscripts to Cold War espionage, our new exhibition explores how maps have hidden as much as they revealed for over 600 years. Book now: bit.ly/BLSecretMaps

Wrote a little something for Mann’s 150th birthday, which is today. Alles Gute, Tommy!

I am co-leading a year-long Man Without Qualities Reading Group with @samantharhill.bsky.social , starting on Monday, October 13th. Join us! Details can be found here: genesegrill.substack.com/p/man-withou...

Past HOL guest Samantha Rose Hill, on Hannah Arendt. #books #biography @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

a book made for @literaturesc.bsky.social (with an endorsement from past HOL guest Samantha Rose Hill)

"We are faithful only to the imagination. What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth. What holds you to what you see of me is that grasp alone." – Denise Levertov, "Everything that Acts is Actual" #botd #poetry #literature #books

I'll be talking to the Caxton Club next month on The Medieval Scriptorium - going through all the stages of making manuscripts, including demonstration videos. There may be cats in the background. Fri 14 Nov 12:00PM CT (5.00PM GMT) #medievalsky #bookhistory www.caxtonclub.org/event-6296386

In Episode 743, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to the fairy tale expert Jack Zipes about his book Buried Treasures: The Power of Political Fairy Tales, which profiles modern writers and artists who tapped the political potential of fairy tales. #books #fairytales @princetonupress.bsky.social

In today's Episode 743, @jackewilson.bsky.social discusses Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, which lands at #11 on his list of the Greatest Books of All Time. #books #greatbooks #dostoeyvsky

Nobel laureate Doris Lessing on how to read a book and how to read the world www.themarginalian.org/2025/07/17/d...

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” – Ursula K. Le Guin #botd #books #booksofearthsea #novels

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea." – Coleridge #botd @jackewilson.bsky.social #poetry #literature

"Long ago, if my memory serves me, my life was a banquet where everyone's heart was generous, and where all wines flowed." – Rimbaud From the archives, #Rimbaud #botd @jackewilson.bsky.social #poetry

It's October, the perfect month to celebrate the master of #mystery and the #macabre! In Episode 742 @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to author Richard Kopley about his book Edgar Allan Poe: A Life. #books @uvapress.bsky.social #edgarallanpoe

"Parking is such sweet sorrow"

"Beyond time or place I keep the faith. Follow a path or follow no path, never fearing the night, the wind, call to me, come to me, now at the end, walk with me, life of my life, my friend." – Gabriela Mistral @jackewilson.bsky.social #books #booksky #poetry #literature

Such a powerful line. That need to break free and find your real path hits hard. Writing has a way of pulling that truth out.

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest #botd #books #literature #plays #oscarwilde

“The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies.” – Virgil #botd For more about Virgil, listen to Jacke's talk with Virgil biographer Sarah Ruden. #books @yalepress.bsky.social

The gorgeous signed illustrated edition of THE BRIGHT SWORD goes on sale tomorrow grimoakpress.com/products/the...

"Rosemary Fell was not exactly beautiful. No, you couldn’t have called her beautiful. Pretty? Well, if you took her to pieces.... But why be so cruel as to take anyone to pieces?" – Katherine Mansfield, "A Cup of Tea" #botd #books #booksky #literature

HOL celebrates its 10th anniversary! From the archives – In Episode 1 of the History of Literature Podcast, @jackewilson.bsky.social muses about the Epic of Gilgamesh. (This episode was first broadcast on October 12, 2015.) #books #literature #epics #booksky

@jackewilson.bsky.social talks to author David Denby about his new book, Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer – (loosely inspired by Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians) and how these four larger-than-life figures impacted American culture. #books @henryholtbooks.bsky.social

Homegrown madder pigment. It's wonderful to create medieval pigment from something grown in your garden #bookhistory #medievalpigments #medievalsky

10/11/44: To Have and Have Not D: Howard Hawks W: Jules Furthman & William Faulkner w/Bogie & Bacall ++ Robin Wood: "one of the most basic anti-fascist statements the cinema has given us" More: @jakehinkson.bsky.social: www.criminalelement.com/bogie-and-ba... James Agee: time.com/archive/6865...

Congratulations to Kate Loveman! For more about her wonderful book, The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary, listen to Kate Loveman's conversation wtih @jackewilson.bsky.social. #booksky #books @universitypress.cambridge.org

@jackewilson.bsky.social talks to scholar Eric Marshall White about his new book, Johannes Gutenberg: A Biography in Books, which explores Gutenberg's life and works. #books #biography @uchicagopress.bsky.social @reaktionbooks.bsky.social #gutenberg