A great way to kick off this year's French literature coverage in the @thetls.bsky.social: Marie Darrieussecq on the latest book by Emmanuel Carrère in the latest issue. www.the-tls.com/literature-b...

Today I had a reply to a letter I sent 26 years ago

Over the moon to have Deborah Levy making her début writing in @thetls.bsky.social with a rereading of Eugène Ionesco in the issue out now. A great way to end the year. See you in 2026 www.the-tls.com/literature-b...

Over the moon to have Deborah Levy making her début writing in @thetls.bsky.social with a rereading of Eugène Ionesco in the issue out now. A great way to end the year. See you in 2026 www.the-tls.com/literature-b...

For anyone interested in this 🎯 mention of French critic #RolandBarthes, I wrote this for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social about the Barthes-Garlic&Pearls connection, and the ‘stealth bomber of Frenchness’ that - dixit @suzanneraine.bsky.social - is the 4-colour BiC pen. @rwilliamsparis.bsky.social

A wonderful review appeared on our Garlic&Pearls website in time for Christmas - a lovely gift from a long-standing and ever-perceptive friend of our 🇫🇷🇬🇧 podcast.

Dec 12th 1959 - Marion Crane checked into the Bates Motel. 📽️📅 Psycho (1960)

Including @sebemina.bsky.social on Jacqueline Feldman, Peter Salmon on 100 years of Gilles Deleuze

A statement about David Bellos just issued by his department: www.princeton.edu/news/2025/11...

"I was talking about the Green Man, but he wasn’t having it."

And very delighted to be there! Subscribers can read the full piece, but as with practically all Wittkop's writing, don't say we didn't warn you ...

Boualem Sansal gracié : l’écrivain a quitté l’Algérie et est «en route» pour l’Allemagne Lire ⬇️

"Slightly deaf, she leans in and out, and pivots to her fellow interviewees with ferocious energy, enthusiasm and, at times, disdain" Delighted to have @louiserl.bsky.social on Gabrielle Wittkop in the new issue of @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/literature/l...

Looking forward to presenting virtually at the @hauntedfutures.bsky.social conference this week. Just recorded my presentation on Hellier and Broken Veil. Might make it available after, will see how I feel.

The US-China confrontation; beliefs vs facts; Tennyson, science and catastrophe; Iris Murdoch’s poetry; Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein; a history of shamanism – and much more. The new TLS is out now: www.the-tls.com/issues/curr...

Ah, the cold brutality with which colleagues decline beautifully-worded Outlook invitations to the bookish event you have organised

"In the world of Parisian publishing, rumours – even legends – emerge around certain books that help to shape their success. Adèle Yon has written one such book" Marie Darrieussecq on Mon vrai nom est Elisabeth in the new @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/literature/f...

@stuartmaconie.bsky.social alas, it seems that Madonna never actually was part of Patrick Hernandez’s dance troupe, but they did share a flat! www.parismatch.com/People/Patri...

It’s here: the newly refined and now fortnightly TLS. www.the-tls.com/

'Rich, readable... Jones is a compelling tour guide through time' Russell Williams in the TLS on Colin Jones's The Shortest History of France. Out now in hardback. @thetls.bsky.social @rwilliamsparis.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/regular-feat...

'More than one visitor will be caught off-guard by “Ballet des pauvres”, an assortment of clothes, tin trays and metal chains suspended from the ceiling, suddenly jerking into action.' Russell Williams on playing outside

I wrote about Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely and Pontus Hulten at the Grand Palais in this week's - the last before relaunch as a fortnightly - @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/arts/visual-...

💡 More than a French fry – Le Dictionnaire Roland Barthes dans The Times Literary Supplement ! merci à Neil Badmington pour cet article éclairant et d’avoir mis en avant ce projet colossal porté par Claude Coste aux éditions @honorechampion.bsky.social #rolandbarthes #frenchtheory

CFP: The Group of the Rue Saint-Benoît: Rethinking Intellectual Practice - Paris, 9 January 2026 atoposophie.wordpress.com/2025/03/19/t...

"The Dictionnaire Roland Barthes invites us to consider the relevance of the work it surveys. Its subject has been dead for nearly half a century, the high days of French theory a distant memory" @barthesstudies.bsky.social (who else?) in the new @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/philosophy/h...

[email protected] have a 50% off summer sale on until 20 July. Using code 27SUMMER means you can order my book Humour in Contemporary France for £12.49 plus P&P. www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10....

"What do Wedgwood tea sets, plumed tricorn hats and French revolutionary paper money have in common?" Biancamaria Fontana on The Revolutionary Self by Lynn Hunt in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/philosophy/h...

"Once, left-wing academics assumed that they were looking to the future, which they usually regarded with optimism. Now there is a melancholy tone" Richard Vinen on Didier Eribon and Nicolas Renahy in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/history/twen...

"A model of archival research and historical analysis of the things that can be known" Christopher L Miller on Miranda Spieler's Slaves in Paris in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/history/mode...

The Birthplace of Arthur Machen: Wales’s Master of the Macabre A quick pilgrimage to the Caerleon home of Wales’s greatest horror writer and high priest of the uncanny. Pretty in pink — I’m sure the fair folk approve… and are watching.

Black Sabbath are the originators. Many thanks to Mary Anne Hobbs for giving me a platform to talk about metal, art, race, disability & Birmingham…

For @thetls.bsky.social this week I wrote about the French romantic comedy Jane Austen Wrecked My Life and the long shadow of Richard Curtis.

Note to relevant people: I would happily receive more invitations to star-studded galas

I wrote about Erik Satie, Ian Penman and Les Dawson in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/arts/music/e...

I wrote about Erik Satie, Ian Penman and Les Dawson in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/arts/music/e...

I asked Windsor Davies for a pen

« Shane Haddad is a descendant of Flaubert and Duras and she recounts moments of intimacy with hesitancy, never preaching morality, but rather fluttering between nonchalant panic and sudden, joyous surprise » Marie Darrieussecq in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/f...

« To be human, she suggests, is to live always in the country of others » Delighted to read Adina Stroia on the final volume of Leila Slimani’s autobiographical trilogy in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/f...

I wrote about Alan Moore and Steve Moore’s jolly good fun and massively informative Bumper Book of magic in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social. Delighted to have mentioned Keith Harris and Orville in the paper. www.the-tls.co.uk/religion/rel...

Great review of Maya Angela Smith's recent book for our Singles series!

"For all its horror, The Tower of Love is an unflinching yet entertaining glimpse of the ugliness of depravity and the terrible isolation that nurtures it against – or perhaps with – nature" Lauren Booker on Rachilde in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature-b...

"An unbridled Jacques Brel can be un peu trop for anglophone audiences, especially if they’ve conflated the sound of Scott Walker with what they think he should sound like" Delighted to have @jeres.bsky.social on Ne me quitte pas in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/arts/music/n...

Edmund White, novelist and great chronicler of gay life, dies aged 85

This is a hell of a thing to read.

Great review of a great book - I found this such a compelling set of stories.

I wrote about The Deserters by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell, in this week's @thetls.bsky.social cc @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/f...

Very pleased that The American University of Paris is awarding writers Édouard Louis and Marina Warner as well as artist Julien Creuzet honorary degrees at graduation this week. www.aup.edu/news-events/...

"In France, writing that challenges the ubiquitous myth of “the family” as a loving and protective place has become something akin to a literary tradition" Nelly Kaprièlian-Self on books by Vanessa Springora and Blandine Rinkel in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/lives/autobi...

This week on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social we dive 🤿 INTO THE DEEP, into La France profonde and the 🇫🇷 fascination with the briny depths. Where and whom does this Gallic passion come from? (And I also help @suzanneraine.bsky.social tell Cousteau apart from Cocteau and Clouzeau.)