2026 reading 22: Nonesuch, Francis Spufford. How does he do it? A novel of the Blitz, with extra occultists, hidden dimensions, sarky angels, and Watchmen Easter eggs. Pure delight.
Of course it’s a horror movie. My issue is it’s not horror movie *enough*
I, a grown man, am angry at Hoppers.
Filial?
I may never stop laughing at “actually it’s Tolkien”
Have to admit to myself I'm finding Small Prophets quite hard going. Some of the peripheral characters are just... unwatchable.
2026 reading 21: A Grief Observed, CS Lewis. Beautiful. And with its talk of the Cosmic Sadist and the Eternal Vivisector, unexpectedly Ligottian.
2026 reading 20: Master Georgie, Beryl Bainbridge. Apparently this needs to be read four times before you understand why it's good. One down then.
I wanted them both to lose, and I say that as a Chelsea fan
I think the hallucinating is becoming a thing of the past, and that's frankly more worrying.
2026 reading 19: The Grotesque by Patrick McGrath. More delicious slightly sickly goth lit with a not-so-much unreliable narrator as an ontologically uncertain one.
That's exactly my point? Feeling anything: mild pleasure, 'i look forward to hearing that again', 'hey you should hear this', 'I relate to these lyrics', 'I'd like to make something in this vein' etc. I struggle to believe AI music can reach any of those medium thresholds
Turn down the dial then: replaced 'cried' with 'felt anything at all'.
2026 reading 18: What We Can Know, Ian McEwan. The century-spanning quest of The Stranger’s Child set in the flooded world of The Kraken Wakes. Gotta love a lit mystery. Honestly didn’t think he still had it in him
Can’t tell you how much I want to pick this guy up and if it ends with my face being mauled off so be it.
Deepest condolences xx
Just saw an interview with Conan O'Brien where he says he and his team of writers have been at work on the Oscars for months, discarding 95% of the jokes they come up with. Not saying that's a lesson for the BAFTAs, but... no, sorry, I am saying that.
The kind of novel that’s useful to demarcate the limits of your own taste: “This is too much for me, I need something, anything to happen”
2026 reading 17: Murmur, Will Eaves. I’m very open to a novel about Alan Turing, and there’s interesting stuff glanced at about machine thinking. But I was defeated: it’s a book of dreams and visions, as I suppose befits a poet novelist.
What was odd to me about this (which I loved, Rose B and Conan excellent) was that the reviews all seemed to think it was a heavy watch. It was funny! (I'd say hysterical, but would be misunderstood)
I suppose the issue is, the implied function of the word 'just' in that first sentence.
Did you read this, John? Not saying it's all correct, but it's an interesting counter to some of the points you make.
www.transformernews.ai/p/the-left-i...
2026 reading 16: The Children’s Bach, Helen Garner. A miracle of compression. You it once through, knowing you’ll have to read it again to see how it was done.
2026 reading 15: Matrix, Lauren Groff. The second novel of nuns I’ve read in a year, this the more visionary (literally). Also, clear now I’ll have to read everything Groff’s written
Even corrected, I just get variations now on ‘drive, duh’.
Running it repeatedly incognito, sonnet 4.6, not getting anything close. Patched perhaps
Huh:
Something slightly weird about that thread. Here's my response for the identical question
Odd thing is, this one keeps doing the rounds year after year, pushed principally, afaict, by American religious groups.
Even to the extent that there *are*, that says nothing, to your point, about *should*
