Recommendations and assessment as a potential reader tool are obviously v important parts of the critical space, but I do think it’s key to /also/ have bits of crit completely untethered to whether or not someone will/won’t/should/shouldn’t purchase something.
The shop did not have Volume 7, alas. Still on the hunt for that one.
Volumes 5, 6, and 8 of The Wicked and The Divine
Recent acquisitions
Coming soon to STP newsletter subscribers’ inboxes. I don’t know what you signed up for but this is what you’re getting.
Gonna spend all tomorrow reading Nausea so I can talk about it for half a sentence in a newsletter primarily about Amélie.
Screenshot of a comment by user dogboydogboydogboydogboy. Comment reads: I didn't have olive oil so I subbed it for ghee. Didn't have onions so I changed it to crispy fried shallots. Didn't have any sausages so I used haggis instead. Didn't have paprika and oregano so I added Garam Masala. Couldn't find any wine so just threw in some sake. There was no stock so just added a flavour packet from some microwave noodles. Didn't have any spinach so just chucked in a few dandelions from the garden. No gnocchi at the shops so just used couscous. Absolutely smashing xx
Really enjoying the BBC Good Food website.
The Devil Monologues from 'Folkish' by Kym Deyn If God comes hollering I was never here. I get these terrible, oh, what would you call them? Boils? Pustules? I come out in frogspawn and glitter when I think about them. My face breaks out in seashells. Maybe God's out there exhaling a desert's breath over Jerusalem. Watching the Lambton boy dickswinging his sword. Oh, he ran off. There was this peasant girl who grew round as the moon and John's wife, well put out would be the phrase – he was an absent father, absolutely. We have that in common, Johnny boy and I. At least I was only in Hell. You know, God's eyes are sea-dark? My baby girl killed half the village in the end, but her eyes are the same shade as her granddaddy's. You think on that one. Quick, John is on his way. With a sword on his hip and a knighthood fresh as blood.
Part of 'Folkish' is a series of poems about the Lambton Worm here's one of them:
The Devil Monologues
by Kym Deyn
"If God comes hollering I was never here. I get these terrible, oh, what would you call them? Boils? Pustules? I come out in frogspawn and glitter when I think about them."
The cover of "folkish" by kym deyn. Published by nine arches press.
Reading @kymdeyn.bsky.social's 'Folkish' and whispering "fuck offfff" after every poem because it's just so good.
This is especially important in online reading communities because one of the dangers of how the modern internet is structured is that it can easily trap us in a perpetual present that we should actively defy.
I'm making one last push to let people know about this online talk -- sponsored by the British Library in conjunction with their current exhibition on fairy tales. The live stream starts at 7:30 tonight, but if you buy a ticket *before* the event you can watch it any time over the next 7 days.
The first panel shows a crow with the title "How to live a good life". The second panel shows a crow cawing at itself in the mirror with the subheading "Make friends". The next panel says "Explore" and shows a crow looking into a commercial waste bin. The next says "Try new things" with a crow eating something vile. The next one says "Be curious" and shows the crow grabbing a hissing cat's tail". The final frame says "Get a hobby" and shows the crow looking closely at a book of matches.
How To Live A Good Life #oldknees
Art by • Jeff Easley
Always intense! New article from Issue #13, in which John Joseph Ryan looks at how people on the margins of society contest power in the American West of Alex Cox's 1984 punk cult classic film, Repo Man.
I recently started reading poetry again and it's genuinely rejuvinated my soul.
It's a medium that compels you to pay attention to every word, and in a world where our attention is a commodity, just sitting down and quietly giving your whole being to a piece of art feels so spiritually uplifting.
Godspeed, some of them get a bit rough.
I’ve been making my way through the Horus Heresy for the past few years and Abnett’s stuff is genuinely great eh. Think Abnett only wrote one of them, but the first 3-4 HH books are very enjoyable.
Thank you for your service 🫡
The point about how we view Tolkien’s work through the cultural lens that’s developed in the decades since made me stop and think. Would be crazy to read LOTR in 1955 and experience it without all that baggage.
When I first read The Hobbit as a kid I saw the elves in my head as Christmas elves 😆
Bayard, a Man-at-Arms in the Company of the Black Dog
Tibert, another Black Dog
🫡
Btw @casella.bsky.social the Meal of Thorns intro is so good, the music immediately puts me into this state of contentment and the poem always puts a smile on my face. This episode is a banger too, great convo about one of my own favourite books.
A Lord of the Rings mug full of tea, a box of paracetamol, and my phone playing the Meal of Thorns podcast.
Hungover, drinking tea and listening to the Meal of Thorns Silmarillion episode. Perfect Sunday.
Hell yeah, enjoy.
I actually read it around the same time I was starting Seize The Press Mag, and Joe sent me a nightmarish fever dream of short story called “Eating Bees From The Ass Of God” that ended up in our first issue and remains one of our most iconic stories.
I saw Joe’s writing recently described as ‘transcendental, baroque, lyrical alchemy’. Wingspan was my first encounter with it and it altered my brain chemistry. Love seeing this book still getting traction and now an audiobook years later.
Come and hear some weird and wonderful folkloric tales from the Oaths and Offerings contributors! Plus an evening's discussion with the profoundly magical @kymdeyn.bsky.social and I about folklore and writing, in Durham next month.
That one’s a gut punch. When she’s writing about the contents of the nuclear waste barrels 😭
Reading Colanzi like
Def bump it up the list. It’s also only like seven stories, you can read it in a couple hours.