The guy from that band you like made a solo album. It was described as 'autumnal' and all the reviews were four stars out of five.

Tears flowing in Storm Claudia-tossed Manchester, not for @iancritchley.bsky.social’s choosing Colette de Curzon’s @nightjarpress.bsky.social story in his Personal Anthology hosted by @jonathangibbs.bsky.social, nor for his kind words about me & The Cast, but for *his* story about his twin brother.

My dad always used to say, when one door closes another one opens. He really was a terrible carpenter.

Congratulations to @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social for her novel The Benefactors being named Waterstones Irish Book of the Year! Here's what I wrote about it when I read it. (Part of a long reading thread, so it might be a bit clunky to follow!) bsky.app/profile/jona...

The Benefactors is Waterstones Irish Book of the Year. I could not be more pleased.

I can never remember, is it 'disorient' or 'disorientate' or 'disorientatate' or 'disorientatatate' or 'disorientatatatate' or 'disorientatatatatate' or

My favourite snooze ‘artefact’ is when you hear yourself give a little snore, and think: oh, that’s me, snoring. I must be asleep.

SATAN: So what makes you want to work here? Isn’t it a bit of a sideways move for you? ME: Well, sideways and down, haha SATAN: Haha ME: But I’ve been working in the sector for a while, and I feel this is where the action is SATAN: Your most recent role was… ME: Cinema website designer SATAN: Sweet

Wall & roof

Went to the Natsume Sōseki Memorial museum last week where they’ve recreated his writing room.

Bloody hell the line-up for issue 2 of The Little Review is quite something. www.thelittlereview.co.uk/shop/p/pre-o...

Oh, this is LOVELY.

Finished rewatch of S2 of Blue Lights, and it does lay it on a bit thick, but it lays it on thick *very well*, and had me sobbing by the end, again. I’m not quite sure I’m ready for S3 being actually better than that, which definitely was the word on the street.

It's Wednesday evening and so nearly the weekend you can smell it... and thus A Personal Anthology! This week's guest editor, picking and introducing a dozen short stories, is @iancritchley.bsky.social. Hitting inboxes 2pm on Friday. Sign up here: apersonalanthology.substack.com/about

New addition to my library today.

Anyway, here's a whale.

I've updated the apersonalanthology.com website with @pippagoldschmidt.bsky.social's selection of a dozen favourite short stories. Check them out here!

I don’t like having his voice in my airspace at any time, but “I guess I have to, why not?” is particularly egregious.

Starring Jack Lowden! Presumably with rather less running around that in Slow Horses.

…and James Bond, who did not die!’

I've got a soft spot for adjectives with slinky endings that, when you turn them into adverbs, miss their rhythm completely, trip over their own feet and basically total the whole sentence sultry: oh yeah, sexy as hell, c'mere baby sultrily: nope. averts eyes. you're just embarrassing yourself now

people are worried about the continuity in bond movies when every bond movie opens with you, the viewer, getting shot by james bond

A great band is a collective of talented musicians. A great group is everything else.

If you see this, post an album cover with a motor vehicle on it.

I've updated the apersonalanthology.com website with @junec.bsky.social June Caldwell's selection of a dozen favourite short stories. Check them out!

‪There's still time to sign up for @pippagoldschmidt.bsky.social's A Personal Anthology, her pick of and introduction to a dozen favourite short stories. Hitting inboxes at 2pm. Sign up here: apersonalanthology.substack.com/about

The utter pleasure at rereading a Tessa Hadley short story, in anticipation of teaching it to MA students, and seeing some of the mechanics surface, and sensing too how much remains submerged. She’s just so good. And she works in layers.

Two brilliant uses of comma splice in Tessa Hadley’s short story Funny Little Snake, showing in its slapdash punctuation narrator Valerie’s instructive dismissal of her awful professor husband Gil’s self-serving tales.

Taking a moment to think fondly of my many male colleagues who have definitely contributed to ruining the workplace. Gentlemen, I did not appreciate the depths of your solidarity.

Congratulations to @cdrose.bsky.social for his @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social win with We Live Here Now! You can read his Personal Anthology picks, here - couple of seasonal specials and then a typically idiosyncratic Anthology of his own! apersonalanthology.com/category/cd-...

automatomnal. how a robot feels when the leaves start to fall from the trees.

Congratulations to @cdrose.bsky.social, winer of this year's Goldsmith Prize for 'We Live Here Now' publsighed by Melville House Press. Good work Chris!

It's Wednesday afternoon, and so officially nearly the weekend – and A Personal Anthology! This week's guest editor, picking and introducing a dozen favourite short stories, is @pippagoldschmidt.bsky.social, author of the collection Schrödinger’s Wife (and other possibilities). Sign up here:

Remember remember, the 5th of November. Teabag. Kettle. And pot. #FramleyExamimer

My first response to this image was the brief thought that Reeves was standing in front of a huge wooden Robocop-style automaton with the royal crest worn as a badge on its chest, the automaton itself standing in front of Union Jack wallpaper.

My favourite movie with my name in? Dave The Jackal.

I've updated the apersonalanthology.com website with @elfodongo.bsky.social's pick of a dozen favourite short stories. Check them out here!

Long month. Long week. Went for a walk on the beach. Had a late afternoon snooze. Now gearing up to go see The Bug Club live, which I fear will involve a fair bit of jumping up and down. Though the option is also there to just pull on my Lonsdale slip-ons and sway.

Laurence Fox wrote a song about Charlie Kirk, and this is the only comment on it.

The way the final small rippling fringe of a wave moves over the flat sand, tumbling over itself, like the fingers of a hand playing a creeping, tickling game with a baby.

I've now read two books by Haldór Laxness (SALKA VALKA and INDEPENDENT PEOPLE) and both were brilliant, immersive reading experiences. What do you recommend I read next by him?

The invention of cuneiform

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve cracked open Adrian Duncan’s story collection Midfield Dynamo, and the footballing story ‘Prosinečki’ is as heart-stoppingly, heart-startlingly good as two Personal Anthologists have suggested: apersonalanthology.com/tag/adrian-d...

Realisation that it’s the size of the windows that makes train travel so special. Some train carriages seem to be squeezing window space to more like airplane size. It’s the expanse of the view as you speed through the countryside, and the constant shifting of perspective lines, that I love.

94. BOOKS DO FURNISH A ROOM by Anthony Powell The narrator gets a job as literary editor for a post-war left-wing mag; hijinks ensue. The central story of broke novelist X Trapnel’s affair with Widmerpool’s demonic wife is one of the sequence’s best

Warning: don’t look at this cursed painting! If you look at the little patch of yellow wall, you DIE!

And off it goes, June Caldwell’s Personal Anthology, with half a packet of sweeties, fighting back the titters, taking its sewing machine with it, wanting to make a good impression, feeling like biting Stepmother on her Gown, watching itself as it was then, and knowing what is going to come…

There's still time to sign up for June Caldwell/@junec.bsky.social's Personal Anthology - hitting inboxes at 2pm! apersonalanthology.substack.com/about

First day as a vampire hunter: This is easy lol First night as a vampire hunter: oh no