Review 31
@review31.bsky.social
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An online literary review. Est. 2011 www.review31.co.uk
reposted by
Review 31
"Those looking for poetic diction will be thinly sated... What there is instead is a relentless exercise in auto-therapy, working through, stumbling on the occasional breakthrough." Stuart Walton on Joe Carrick-Varty's BEFORE VIOLENCE (
@carcanet.bsky.social
)
review31.co.uk/article/view...
20 days ago
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Review 31
"Halfon’s descriptive, collative method allows her to remain slightly askance of Gombrowicz, sketching out his contradictions without ever flattening them." Simon Firth on Mercedes Halfon's OUTSIDER EVERYWHERE (
@fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social
)
review31.co.uk/article/view...
20 days ago
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"Those looking for poetic diction will be thinly sated... What there is instead is a relentless exercise in auto-therapy, working through, stumbling on the occasional breakthrough." Stuart Walton on Joe Carrick-Varty's BEFORE VIOLENCE (
@carcanet.bsky.social
)
review31.co.uk/article/view...
20 days ago
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"Halfon’s descriptive, collative method allows her to remain slightly askance of Gombrowicz, sketching out his contradictions without ever flattening them." Simon Firth on Mercedes Halfon's OUTSIDER EVERYWHERE (
@fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social
)
review31.co.uk/article/view...
20 days ago
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"An eloquent, humane work of criticism, which displays Vendler's typical sensitivity to what Wordsworth called the ‘turnings intricate of verse.’" Bret van den Brink on Helen Vendler's Inhabit the Poem
review31.co.uk/article/view...
about 2 months ago
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"At his best, Lerner combines fiction & criticism to postulate both a novel vision of the social possibilities of art & the artistic possibilities of socialising." Nick Bartlett on Ben Lerner's Transcription
review31.co.uk/article/view...
about 2 months ago
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"The Palm House is a funny book. Part of me wants to write blackly funny; darkly funny — but in truth, it’s the humour that operates the levers of complexity."
@marrrtha.bsky.social
on Gwendoline Riley's The Palm House
review31.co.uk/article/view...
about 2 months ago
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Review 31
christopher webb
4 months ago
Here’s my take on Cory Doctorow’s
#enshittification
published by
@versobooks.bsky.social
for
@review31.bsky.social
(give them a follow)— it’s funny, depressing but ultimately it’s a useful resource for working out why so many platforms increasingly offer up awful UX.
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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End-stage Rot
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/956/end-stage-rot
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Review 31
4 months ago
“Cooper’s novels remind us that an artistic life is all about practice, a way of living: observation, questions, uncertainty.” In
@review31.bsky.social
, Thomas Chadwick reviews Jeremy Cooper’s new novel, “Discord” -
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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A Longer, Deeper Look
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/955/a-longer-deeper-look
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Review 31
Charco Press
4 months ago
The Plains, by Federico Falco and translated by Jennifer Croft, is a "moving and beautifully made novel". Thank you
@review31.bsky.social
!
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
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Chard and Beans
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/134/chard-and-beans
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Review 31
W. J. Davies
4 months ago
I spent some time with last year's Nightjar Press chapbooks and ended up writing about creepy birds and the contemporary gothic. Review 31 kindly took it on. Free to read here:
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
@review31.bsky.social
@nightjarpress.bsky.social
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Contemporary Gothic
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/135/contemporary-gothic
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"The letters convey a picture of two writers in alternating states of vitality & decline, pushing against the threat of both illness & obscurity." Rachel Dastgir on LETTERS TO EUGENE
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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More Acute Agony
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/952/more-acute-agony
5 months ago
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"Dog Days is a work that contends with the difficulty of committing words to a page, & letting them stay there." Julia Merican on Emily LaBarge's DOG DAYS
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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The End of the Good Story
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/951/the-end-of-the-good-story
5 months ago
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Review 31
W. J. Davies
5 months ago
My pick for
@review31.bsky.social
's Books of the Year 2025 is Alex Pheby's Waterblack, the third volume in the Cities of the Weft trilogy. Superb, strange fantasy that has reinvigorated the genre.
@alexpheby.bsky.social
@galleybeggars.bsky.social
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
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Review 31's Books of the Year 2025
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/133/review-31
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Review 31
Rónán Hession
5 months ago
A pleasure to contribute to this connoisseurs' list of books of the year for
@review31.bsky.social
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
I chose Old Kiln by Jia Pingwa, translated by James Trapp, Olivia Milburn and Christopher Payne, published by
@sinoistbooks.bsky.social
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Review 31's Books of the Year 2025
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/133/review-31's-books-of-the-year
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Review 31
David Collard
5 months ago
That time of year again, and here's my off-trail Book of the Year choice.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Review 31's Books of the Year 2025
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
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Review 31's Books of the Year 2025
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/133/review-31's-books-of-the-year
5 months ago
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"Pester has a precise ear for the frictionless formulations of contemporary organisational life that promise progress while pointing at nothing. These empty signifiers become a source of dread rather than comedy." Robert Kiely on THE EXPANSION PROJECT
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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Scope Creep
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/949/scope-creep
7 months ago
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"The internet is cooked. What began as a genuinely participatory medium ... has since become an extractive device, mining human creativity for corporate profit." Christopher Webb on Joanna Walsh's AMATEURS!
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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‘Some of what we did became a thing'
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/942/some-of-what-we-did-became-a-thing
7 months ago
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Review 31
Katie da Cunha Lewin
8 months ago
Thrilled to share this lovely review of my book
@review31.bsky.social
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At the Desk
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/945/at-the-desk
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"It’s in the precarious middle zone between personal rage & systemic failure that disaster nationalism mutates." Tymek Woodham on Richard Seymour's Disaster Nationalism
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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The Ground Beneath Our Feet
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/944/the-ground-beneath-our-feet
8 months ago
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"The result is a book that emerges as of a spell: of preservation, but also a conjuring of memories that have been lost or deliberately forgotten." Jemima Skala on Olga Tokarczuk's House of Day, House of Night
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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Myth and Supposition
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/941/myth-and-supposition
8 months ago
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Review 31
jon repetti
9 months ago
hello Bluesky I wrote an article about the French author, photographer, and conceptual artist Édouard Levé, who wrote a book called “Suicide” and then immediately killed himself
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
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The Foundational Act
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/132/the-foundational-act
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Review 31
9 months ago
“The result is a book that emerges as of a spell: of preservation, but also a conjuring of memories that have been lost or deliberately forgotten.” In
@review31.bsky.social
, Jemima Skala reviews Olga Tokarczuk’s newly translated novel, “House of Day, House of Night”
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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Myth and Supposition
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/941/myth-and-supposition
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Review 31
Gabriel Flynn
9 months ago
Very grateful to Hugh Foley and
@review31.bsky.social
for this thoughtful and perceptive review of Poor Ghost!
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So much to answer for
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/940/so-much-to-answer-for
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"Little Pink Book doesn’t just perform dandyism; it participates in what Fredric Jameson famously called pastiche: a ‘blank parody’ that imitates style without satirical intent or critical edge." Elena Basada on Olivia Kan-Sperling's LITTLE PINK BOOK
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
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Moodboard Maoism
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/131/moodboard-maoism
9 months ago
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Review 31
11 months ago
“‘Cautery’ follows two women, one real and one imagined, one left unnamed and one semi-forgotten to history.” In
@review31.bsky.social
, Bronwyn Scott-McCharen reviews Lucía Lijtmaer’s newly translated novel, “Cautery” -
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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Women's Fiction
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/935/women's-fiction
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Review 31
10 months ago
“The object of fixation becomes an instrument for self-flagellation, rather than a breathing person to know and to love.” In
@review31.bsky.social
, Brynn Valentine reviews Harriet Armstrong’s debut novel, “To Rest Our Minds and Bodies” -
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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To Be a Machine?
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/937/to-be-a-machine
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"Tham's simple call is radical: sex is more than 'just sex', for it is social and socially 'spoken'." Gabrielle Sicam on Revolutionary Desires
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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The Future is Erotic
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/931/the-future-is-erotic
12 months ago
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"The old guard of self-consciously male writers would have found only the comic, the satirical even, in such a colossus of inarticulacy as Istvan; what Szalay finds, however, is something universal."
@cosmoadair.bsky.social
on David Szalay's FLESH
tinyurl.com/mpfcu74r
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‘They’re interesting to look at in some way’
Review 31 is an online literary review.
https://tinyurl.com/mpfcu74r
about 1 year ago
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Review 31
"What does it mean to write for the future when the possibility of any future at all is thrown radically into doubt?" Jon Repetti on two Attilas
bit.ly/4i0hYNP
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Laocoön’s Gaze: On Aliocha Coll, the Two <I>Attila</i>s, and the Literature of No Future
Review 31 is an online literary review.
https://bit.ly/4i0hYNP
about 1 year ago
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"What does it mean to write for the future when the possibility of any future at all is thrown radically into doubt?" Jon Repetti on two Attilas
bit.ly/4i0hYNP
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Laocoön’s Gaze: On Aliocha Coll, the Two <I>Attila</i>s, and the Literature of No Future
Review 31 is an online literary review.
https://bit.ly/4i0hYNP
about 1 year ago
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Review 31
Liam Bishop
over 1 year ago
Great to see the institution that is Review 31 on Bluesky!
add a skeleton here at some point
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"Self-knowledge alone simply isn’t going to cut it; to really understand the way ‘anger drives the world’, one must look beyond the heuristic of the individual." Tymek Woodham on Josh Cohen's All the Rage: Why Anger Drives the World (
@grantamag.bsky.social
)
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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Anger Is an Energy
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/927/anger-is-an-energy
over 1 year ago
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"Sophistry & syllogisms paint all anti-war protesters as antisemitic terrorist sympathisers. These are hackneyed but maddeningly effective strategies..."
@tadhghoey.bsky.social
on Omar El Akkad's One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
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There’s No Such Thing as Other People’s Children
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/129/there’s-no-such-thing-as-other-people’s-children
over 1 year ago
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And lo: here we are, on Bluesky. Pls repost to spread the word!
over 1 year ago
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"Childishness & adult language-use are persistently, & with vicious irony, switching scales: ‘pointing it up while scaling it down.’ This can induce wild laughter, but also unbearable gravity."
@jackbarron93.bsky.social
on the poetry of J.H. Prynne
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
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All Jokes Aside
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/128/all-jokes-aside
over 1 year ago
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"Few Anglophone film critics of the last 50 years have been as humble, curious or open-minded as Jonathan Rosenbaum." Sam Warren Miell reviews In Dreams Begin Responsibilities: A Jonathan Rosenbaum Reader
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
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Clean-shaved, Well-behaved
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/127/clean-shaved-well-behaved
over 1 year ago
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"A gap is emerging between poet & audience, one wrought by increasing professionalisation & the competition for tax-funded prize money which incentivises stylistic experimentation." Joshua Abbey on Ryan Ruby's Context Collapse
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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Informative, All Too Informative
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/925/informative-all-too-informative
over 1 year ago
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“The English soul is characterised, for Ackroyd, by a particular combination of intense spiritual mysticism & pragmatic flexibility in the realm of doctrine.” Archie Cornish on Peter Ackroyd’’s The English Soul
review31.co.uk/article/view...
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Unchanged since Bede
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/article/view/926/unchanged-since-bede
over 1 year ago
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Review 31
Jack Barron
over 1 year ago
review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
my review of J. H. Prynne's latest
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All Jokes Aside
Review 31 is an online literary review.
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/128/all-jokes-aside
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