Guys I really need you to stop writing and publishing books for a bit so I can catch up 😭😭😭

Rabindranath Tagore

The front cover of the Penguin Classics edition of The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore.

Next month we'll be discussing The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore, translated from the Bengali in multiple editions. Our meeting will be on Monday 11th May at 7pm UK time. DM us if you would like to join!

My favourite writer died exactly 20 years ago today. With two new biographies and the first volume of her letters published within the last 12 months, I hope that her remarkable fiction will find new generations of readers over the next 20 years and beyond.

Long shot: Does anyone have a copy of this?

Emerging Perspectives on Tsitsi Dangarembga: Negotiating the Post-colonial - Ann Willey & Jeanette Treiber (Eds) [Africa World Press Inc, 2002]

I picked this up a few weeks ago, excited to squeeze it in soon!

Another excellent but very uncomfortable read: Strong Female Character by Fern Brady. Helped illuminate some of my own traits and behaviours! But I think I might need to read a few nice books now, if those are a thing that exist on my TBR...

I wrote a novel using AI. Writers must accept artificial intelligence -but we are as valuable as ever| Stephen Marche The Guardian The, GuardianOpinions

You wrote a novel using AI? Cool. It's like that time I ran a marathon using a Ford Focus.

Is it still forming part of the #AContinuation project? I didn’t see anything about it on your site.

Slowly! I keep putting it down, reading something else and picking it back up. I’m probably about 2/3 of the way through now, whilst it definitely has literary merit I can’t say I’m loving the experience of reading it.

A stack of books, with two more standing up with bookmarks sticking out of them. From top to bottom: Watership Down by Richard Adams, The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom, We Computers by Hamid Ismailov (translated by Shelley Fairweather-Vega), Things I Don't Want To Know by Deborah Levy, Strong Female Character by Fern Brady, Feel Free by Zadie Smith, Oromay by Baalu Girma (translated by David Degustation), The Fraud by Zadie Smith, Dead And Alive by Zadie Smith, then standing up, Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin) and Standing Heavy by GauZ' (translated by Frank Wynne)

I do love a good TBR shot. #nowreading #upcomingreads #booksky

All the indie authors who use AI for their covers because “what am I supposed to do, I can’t afford an artist” would probably have a melt down if artists did paintings and had AI write books to go with the paintings.

Anyway, shout out to indie authors who have really bad photoshop covers.

Absolutely loved I Want To Go Home But I'm Already There by @roisinlanigan.bsky.social but oh my what an uncomfortable read. The mouldy London flat is all too real!

Lingthusiasm | Patreon creating a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics!

Let's see if bluesky has the juice these days...

Back on the heyday of old twitter, if we were having a slow Patreon month, I could do a few tweets reminding people that we have bonus episodes! and a discord server! and keeping the show ad-free!

Will it work again here to bump up a low month?

Well, he sounds nice a nice man 😐

Do tell? I don’t know much about him as a person.

"Don't you think," he said at last, "that it is rather a boring game, trying to find out one's reasons for doing something?"

- Koestler asking the important questions.

"How long will you still go on punishing yourself?" she said. "You know, the hardest sentences are those which people inflict on themselves for imaginary sins."

- Arthur Koestler, Arrival and Departure.

OUCH.

I need to re-read it one of these days to see if it still stands up. Got a feeling it will, though.

For me, The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Really opened up my thinking about religion and sexuality.

What comes after this long winter? We have to continue to envision it, agitate for it, and plant the seeds for it so that one day we see its harvest.

Official Team GB Paralympic photo, with the the crests and everything, and a professional headshot, but it's for "Pickle, A Very Good Girl", who is a black labrador, with a hi-viz harness and a red collar.

Some of you like dogs, in which case you may appreciate that guide dogs of Team GB for the Paralympics get official photos

Please use alt text in images.

1> It increases accessibility for visually impaired users.
2> It improves search functionality.
3> It enables people to mute image-related content.
4> It reduces the frequency of scolding in replies.

A copy of Swann’s Way, volume 1 of In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin

Eep… it’s time! #nowreading #booksky #AContinuation

I think Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad might be an early but strong contender for my book of the year, y'know.

A caramel latte with a heart on top in milk art, a pear tart and a copy of Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, all sitting on a café table illuminated by a sunbeam.

Last days off work…

I miss it! I haven’t been there since moving North.

The Libreria Podcast Libreria, a bookshop by Second Home, is an independent bookshop in Shoreditch, London. We help you discover new books and ideas to encourage interdisciplinary thinking. In the shop, we curate our book...

One for the #AContinuation crowd - Kate Briggs and Holly Pester discussing Lili is Crying by Hélène Bessette @joiedevivre9.bsky.social @ofbooksandbikes.bsky.social libreria.transistor.fm

I’ve seen this a lot in books of a similar era, although ten pages is a lot. I think proficiency in French was once expected of an educated reader in a way that it can’t be now. I’ll be interested to see what the upcoming Bernovsky translation does with it.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
*Translator writes detailed marginal note about the range of colours these terms cover in different languages, because in English this isn't entirely true*

I'm having these exact same thoughts about what it is! I think I've landed on a hybrid novel/play, but I'm finding it really intriguing, whatever it is. #AContinuation