"Comically unqualified, intensely partisan, & unflaggingly devoted to whatever ridiculous thing bubbled out of Trump’s mouth 5 minutes ago, as the next DHS secretary, Mullin will fit right in what will undoubtedly be regarded as the worst presidential cabinet in history." — @paulwaldman.bsky.social
Galen Strawson, in a letter to the LRB, reported that his dad heard the call of the wood pigeon as "You’ve rooined [ruined] it, you fool, you’ve rooined it, you fool". Spot on, I think.
Though many of Austrian Jewish novelist Leo Perutz's books are available in print in English translation, his work remains far less well known than that of his contemporaries Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig. Back in 2013, I looked at Little Apple, his novel of war and obsession.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
Image of the start of the latest blog post
Real war and culture war. New post on my Brexit & Brexitism Blog analyzing the Brexit imprint of domestic responses to the Iran crisis, the hypocrisy & sectarianism of Reform's response to the by-election and the questions it poses for Labour: chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2026/03/real...
Today, on @flakphoto.news: an essay by photographer Peter Hoffman on AI-generated images and the human touch. Enjoy! www.flakphoto.news/p/peter-hoff...
When a reading of text has proceeded by laborious stages within the test-rig of detailed study, pause to allow the overall effect to integrate back into a coherent human reading, and ponder whether your life may even have been changed, just a little, or your beliefs about large questions; whether your habits of feeling have been flattered or boastfully challenged, or whether your relation to the text builds up a kind of trust. This aspect is what you will take away with you when all the study is finished, and it should last you through a lifetime.
J. H. Prynne, on reading
Very sad news. RIP Antonio Lobo Antunes. A true magician of the word. One of the greats.
More Kurtág: link to my article in CMR
www.tandfonline.com/eprint/XAMQ6...
The NYT style guide
Many thanks
New post: Why Gorton and Denton is still a good result for Reform
mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2026/03/why-...
Some say that the Gorton and Denton result shows how to defeat Reform. It doesn't. The right wing vote was higher, and if repeated in a General Election the right would be very hard to beat.
85 years ago today, Gertrude Eileen Trevelyan, one of the most remarkable novelists of the generation that followed Virginia Woolf, died at her parents' home in Bath of injuries sustained when her flat was bombed during the Blitz. Died—and was utterly forgotten.
A thread.
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Starmer’s real leadership crisis. New post on my Brexit & Brexitism Blog. Fatuous media coverage aside, Starmer’s challenge is to make good on his claim that Britain isn’t the country of the Brexit years in the face of rising ethno-nationalism: chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2026/02/star...
100 years old today. Happy birthday to composer György Kurtág! 🥳
Read an interview with Kurtág's close friend and colleague, Pierre-Laurent Aimard: bachtrack.com/interview-pi...
Boldog születésnapot és gratulálok, happy birthday and congratulations to György Kurtág, who turns one hundred today. His new opera premieres tomorrow. Here he is playing some Bach with Márta Kurtag.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8lT...
On this date in 2022, I told the story of Kathleen Sully, the working-class self-taught novelist whose books are stunning in their violence, outsiderness, odd comedy, and originality. Sadly, her copyrights are now in the hands of the Church of Scientology.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
Following the success of DREAMING OF DEAD PEOPLE, we’re pleased to announce that we will be bringing you Rosalind Belben’s IS BEAUTY GOOD on July 14, with a new introduction by Esther Kinsky.
www.andotherstories.org/is-beauty-go...
My substack newsletter on Brexit, political folly and the yawning horror of a Reform government.
open.substack.com/pub/mattcarr...
My brother wanted a London pub crawl. The result? My new Substack post: "Britain Lost 14,000 Third Places. They were Called Pubs. Is Your Local Next?" How private equity reshaped the local, which pubs are most at risk and most importantly what to do about it.
open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...
read our interview with Moresco here:
minorliteratures.com/2026/01/07/i...
To think Osborne was Starmer’s pick for US ambassador. Impossible to reconcile this with his anti-austerity rage at PMQs yesterday
PM told Ed Davey to “take accountability and take responsibility for what he has inflicted on this country.”
Points once again to Starmer’s lack of politics
Day after Alex Pretti killing I complained to BBC about presentation of White House statements and evidence as equivalent. Duty of balance doesn’t extend to complicity with clear lies, I said. BBC could and should report WH making false statements as a *fact of the story*. Today I got response …
Over at @thebaffler.com, some thoughts on spiritual cinema, medieval mystics, Shaker chairs, dance music, and what it might mean for modern art to yearn for the divine. thebaffler.com/latest/wild-...
Essayistic Grace
I have read (and reread) eleven of Pascal Quignard's books on my shelves and have written about him for fourteen years on this blog, probably more often than I've written about any writer except Beckett and Woolf. Yet, once read, I never retain him: no favourite passages that keep…
The Largest Historical Dictionary of English Slang Now Free Online: Covers 500 Years of the “Vulgar Tongue”
I hope you'll read my short story "Dogelon Mars" in @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social: thelondonmagazine.org/article/fict...
Toni Morrison considers Blackness in the literary canon and what Flannery O’Connor’s fiction reveals about race in America.
There is a new book by Mark Bowles on the way. It's called How Do People Stay The Same. It is, as you might expect, a thing of beauty and wonder. Details here: www.galleybeggar.co.uk/campaigns/vi...
