I too have recently embarked on this. I started numerically, then splashed out on a copy of Dürr's book, and have moved to a more chronological approach. Somehow it took me decades to get around to them, despite Peter Porter, whom I very much looked up to, recommending them to me back in the 80s.

but by the same token who is Frédéric François Chopin?

I can connect nothing with nothing

fwiw, ‘back in the day’ there were the costs of paper, printing, stamped self-addressed envelope (or International Reply Coupons), envelope, and postage … so I don’t hugely mind if the submission costs are comparably low and if it really does help address submission-spam problems for editors

This is Miller in 1954. Nose & eyebrows seem perhaps different??

I think I’ve worked out the book. Only the copy I have must be pre-blurb…

I’m guessing this isn’t in response to Zbigniew’s poetry.

clear focused photos on phone + search photos by text … is a complete life changer; instead of wasted hours over weeks of looking, pretty much most of the time now I can walk straight to the shelf and pick out the book

but how did you get the CD box on my bookshelf? Either that or I want my Bollobás, Levi, Mathematical Masterpieces, Dr Euler, etc back.

Google AI answer stating: No, 2010 was 15 years ago in 2025, not 15 years ago today. Today's date is September 3, 2025. Calculating 15 years from 2025 would be September 3, 2010, but it is impossible for an event in 2010 to have happened 15 years ago from today. To determine how long ago a year was, you can subtract the earlier year from the current year.

they seem to be working on it, but with less than stellar results

and yet the seventh portrait shown here (not the last photo of course) comes full circle and strongly resembles the first

on a trip to Goroke?

I don’t think my eyes can tell the difference

LOFTED ‘IGH 🏏

Are you sure about this?

in the vacuum no one can hear you scream

Is it just me hearing this or does Symphony 3 open almost quoting The Rite of Spring from 16 years earlier?

wszystkiego najlepszego - and I hope they soon let you out of that cell

I feel like posting a picture of a book which you don’t already have on your shelves (or floor) is some sort of “achievement unlocked” moment 😂

Cover of The 7th Function of Language by Laurent Binet.

And of course is the opening scene of Binet’s The 7th Function of Language.

We are saddened to hear the news that Clive Wilmer, poet, editor, critic, and academic, died on Thursday 13th March in Cambridge, aged 80.
Wilmer's New and Collected Poems was published by Carcanet in 2012: www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?produc...

www.carcanet.co.uk/np66.shtml

Another enjoyable Solstad cut from his usual cloth. I remember I was reading that one something like 3 years back, alongside Grimmish. Both have stuck well in the mind (the latter being so unusual it is unforgettable).

A page from a Richard Scarry children's book showing cartoon animals dressed as humans as living productive lives in a variety of human occupations: dentist, doctor, eye doctor, dressmaker, beautician, real estate agent, pharmacist, window cleaner, barber, banker, street cleaner, chimney sweep (!), dance instructor.

Wow. Just wow. Collectively these books give a bizarre Richard Scarry vibe of some busy world of idyllic occupations: violinists, librarians, storytellers, gardeners and seamstresses. Truly grotesque.

For a brief moment I thought talk of a Jarvi set for fans of R-K was referring to some obscure area of mathematics

Thank you for this, and for sticking with it till the end. What a journey! I’ve listened to every Haydn symphony performance in my collection: 3,278 movements, 308 hours. What’s next? Bach Cantatas?

Clearer image of double portrait of Samuel Beckett

Verso of print with hand written remark as quoted.

Wonderful book. My copy, inscribed by the author (to David Somerset, Duke of Beaufort & his wife Miranda), includes an inserted print of Plate 34 on p.89 which shows more detail than in the book’s reproduction, with (I believe) the author’s annotation on the verso, “Not perfect either, but better.”

still here!! trying to listen to every single performance I own of every symphony, some days there are only 5 or so but bit of a stretch with so very many albums of the Paris and London symphonies but think I’ll make it … recent days have allowed me to catch up on the substantial London backlog

At first glance I thought the central word in the quote at the top left was “unpardonable” (which I quite liked). Glasses on now, all is clear.

A History of Western Music poems on a bar table.

Reading the just arrived August Kleinzahler collection at The Malthouse - waiting to see Patricia Cornelius’ Truth - the place where as it happens I had a beer with AK a few decades ago. Tranter was at the table for sure, but I can’t remember who else. Forbes maybe, before I knew him well.

Is this from the book of letters?