Due to a Death, by Mary Kelly
2026 reading 🧵
Don’t let the British Library Crime Classics imprint and cover fool you here, this is the very opposite of cosy. An astonishingly bleak psychological near-noir about a woman’s trapped life in a nowhere town with a husband she doesn’t love. Fans of Patrick Hamilton should love this.
It took me a while to adjust after I moved from near the end of the northern line with 45 mins sitting down each way every day to a 15 minute train. Only thing I missed about that commute.
I wanted to find a spot for Schizmatrix but it’s not really cyberpunk
It is brilliant though. One of the all-time greats.
I missed Shockwave Rider! Three is tough.
Ooh, though that’s original. Post it would be hard to avoid Altered Carbon.
Neuromancer; Islands in the Net; Hardwired
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/?...
If I recall correctly the Margaret Thatcher one landed well so it’s been copied many times since.
It went with her image though, and hadn’t been seen so often before.
That said, tanks, wouldn’t you want to get in one?
Cash only and abnormally cheap does sound quite people trafficking-y.
Brilliant piece here by the ever-insightful John Lanchester:
www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...
The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler
2026 reading 🧵
Bit behind on this thread but I’ve been ill (not serious). How many times have I read this absolute classic? Pristine plotting, despite common claims to the contrary, but the prose! Lines you could quote on near every page. Such a pleasure.
I have this lovely Black Lizard edition.
Big books in small packages are best books.
Thanks! Don’t know the last two but Petite Maman I agree is tremendous. But then, when is Celine Sciamma ever anything else?
Finally got round to watching Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga last night. I enjoyed Fury Road but this felt a bit of a retread with too much obvious and weightless cgi. Suspect the issue was partly just length. At 2.5 hours it felt bloated. Suspect there’s a better 2 hour film buried in there somewhere.
What’s the bottom row? I can tell Zama but not the others
These people do this for a living. They’re good at it and we only need to be distracted or misled once. I’m glad you only lost €71.
Sympathy I hope. I’m sorry.
I actually rather like that one, though I reread Kraken relatively recently and that doesn’t depict it at all.
Still possibly my favourite invasion novel. It’s not even clear the aliens started hostile - we fire first.
I think it’s supposed to be people asleep at the start of the book maybe, except his eyes are open and I think the birds were asleep too.
Fred Lyon, 1940s.
#photography #1940s #SanFrancisco #FredLyon
For some reason I struggle to get too excited by the existence of genres I don’t personally read (without really disagreeing with your point on genre more broadly).
They’re a lot slimmer for one thing, so have to cut to the chase quicker.
Not always a good thing, but sometimes it definitely can be.
It was a did not finish for me. I was quite surprised.
Yeah it’s great, it was just a massive surprise
I was really taken aback by that. I guess Le Carre hadn’t quite figured out direction yet for Smiley.
I think we can judge Rand by her readers.
Macbeth
Ah, well I trust you on that. They won’t replace him after just appointing him though.
Bragg was a master of the blunt “I don’t want to talk about her middle years yet, let’s stick to her first vision” (was listening to the Margery of Kempe episode the other day)
It’s early days. Mightn’t it improve?
Aiming is fine but biology is fickle…
Well, I know what my nightmares will be about tonight!
