James Merrill. “No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today’s / Dusk room aglow / For the last time / With candlelight. / Faces love lit, / Gifts underfoot. / Still to be so poised, so / Receptive. Still to recall, to praise.”

Lovely year-end notice from @tonydomestico.bsky.social in @commonweal.bsky.social of CLOSE READING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. "Sinykin and Winant convincingly argue that close reading isn’t just an intellectual but also a social and ethical practice" www.commonwealmagazine.org/books-domest...

Some of my favorite books of 2025, including criticism by A. S. Hamrah and the diaries of Helen Garner, for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/books-domest...

this is a good day to reread Renata Adler's "Irreparable Harm," about the Bush v. Gore verdict. she wasn't kidding with that title www.angelfire.com/rant/pearly/...

“Conversion narratives seem truest to me when they recognize that our lives are rarely defined by a single and decisive turn.” —an interview with @tonydomestico.bsky.social

Out running errands? Hiding away from it all? Our Most Anticipated Reads of 2026 episode makes for good company no matter what you're up to this season. We're joined by @ssacks.bsky.social to chat about the books we most look forward to next year. onebrightbook.com/2025/12/11/e...

Newly published is a second posthumous collection of stories by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, like Mavis Gallant a sensitive and witty chronicler of displacement. Or as she put it, "a cuckoo forever insinuating myself into others’ nests." My review for this weekend's WSJ. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

“That’s one of the reasons we go to poetry in the first place: to indulge in language, ideas, and music, all to the point of excess.” —an interview with @tonydomestico.bsky.social

"Creative Writing has never been my trip although I understand the fun of teaching someone something fun to do although most people simply have not got the gift and where's the point?" - James Schuyler, "Dining Out with Doug and Frank"

I talked with Lauren Kane @nybooks.com about Amy Clampitt, conversion narratives, and what writers I like to teach. www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

“For those people who feel that they haven’t accomplished enough yet—which is to say almost all of us!—Amy Clampitt’s life provides an allegory of persistence rewarded.” —an interview with @tonydomestico.bsky.social

I wrote about Thomas Pynchon's undead for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/more-more-more

John Banville on Henry James in America

I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

I wrote about Thomas Pynchon's undead for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/more-more-more

My piece on the life and work of Amy Clampitt.

"I am sorry to say that I am very far from well; and Jemima has just told me that the butcher says there is a bad sore-throat very much about. I dare say I shall catch it; and my sore-throats, you know, are always worse than anybody's." - "Persuasion"

"Cheever may well owe his daughter a belated apology. But admitting that doesn’t do much for those of us coming to this book hoping for new insights." Anthony Giardina on Susan Cheever's latest book for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/susan-john-c...

"It was now dusk, that time when all the possibilities seemed to shift a little." - Joy Williams, "Nettle"

Anthony Domestico @tonydomestico.bsky.social on Amy Clampitt’s pleasure-giving poetry

"He laughed, but, as usual, seemed quite candid, and really to mean what he said." - "Bleak House"

My piece on the late flowering of Amy Clampitt’s poetry for @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

My piece on the late flowering of Amy Clampitt’s poetry for @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

"Daily the restless men who have no occupation in life, present the appearance of being rather busy." - "Bleak House"

For the haters who say Big Fiction over-relies on allegory, my most explicit, spirited defense of allegorical interpretation. "Sociology and Allegory," published as part of a series on the sociology of literature in IASL. Lemme know if you want a PDF www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Bluesky has reached Prospect-Assigned-to-G-League levels of resonance. That's when you know you've hit with the NBA hardcores. #NBASky

Utterly delightful piece by Dan Barry about catching up with a sharply dressed William Kennedy, now a spry 97 years old, at a fundraising event in Albany! He remembers his mother's excitement when FDR won the presidential election in '36. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/a...

I wrote on Amy Clampitt’s life and work for the new issue of @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

I wrote on Amy Clampitt’s life and work for the new issue of @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

"'Sir,' returns Vholes, always looking at the client as if he were making a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his professional appetite." - "Bleak House"

@paulbmoses.bsky.social on Paul Elie's latest for @commonweal.bsky.social

"Guv'ner," says Phil with exceeding gravity, "he's a leech in his dispositions, he's a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his twistings, and a lobster in his claws." - "Bleak House"

What better way to start a Friday than by listening to Joel and I talk about Mason & Dixon? on.soundcloud.com/dhLTLsFPABxW...

It's been a James Schuyler day. The Manhattan sublime, from his Payne Whitney poems.

"I was seeing men styling, wallowing, and self-pitying, but I wasn’t seeing them reading or writing or thinking." Steve Donoghue on the vacuous, anti-intellectual world that men's magazines present to the young men who read them. open.substack.com/pub/stevedon...

My conversation with Brandon Taylor for @commonweal.bsky.social

In case you missed it ...

My October column for @commonweal.bsky.social on Hester Kaplan's "Twice Born" and a new genre: the critic's daughter's memoir. www.commonwealmagazine.org/domestico-cr...

A conversation with Brandon Taylor about his new novel, "Minor Black Figures," and lots of Catholic stuff for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/learning-zola

"In the matter of gravy he is adamant." - "Bleak House"

"For," says he, "it's being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains." - "Bleak House"

Wonderful to spend time rereading Spark this summer/fall.

I wrote on Muriel Spark, perfection, and Frances Wilson's excellent new biography for @bookpostusa.bsky.social books.substack.com/p/review-ant...

"To the very last, and even afterwards, her frown remained unsoftened." - "Bleak House"

look at this incredible list of contributors and interlocutors for CLOSE READING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY so many thanks to @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and Emory for hosting our launch symposium -- which is free and open to the public. maybe you want to join us?

"As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill." - "Bleak House"

Tom LeClair reviews the 2nd novel in James Elkins' 5-volume 'Strange Languages' cycle, a digressive, verbally complex heir to Nabokov, Gaddis, Pynchon and Lucy Ellmann openlettersreview.com/posts/a-shor...

I wrote on marking time in new books by Yiyun Li and John Koethe for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/li-yiyun-Koe...

For my September @commonweal.bsky.social column, I wrote on Yiyun Li's "Things in Nature Merely Grow" and John Koethe's "Cemeteries and Galaxies" www.commonwealmagazine.org/li-yiyun-Koe...