Bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Susan Coolidge and William Cooper through Martha Gellhorn and Jean Genet.

Bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Olive Schreiner and Will Self through Patrick White and Zoë Wicomb; on a boolcase perpendicular to that wall can be seen another bookshelf with volumes alphabetised by author surname from Suroopa Mukherjee through Vladimir Nabokov.

In the garden on the north side of Late Imperial Library, the swimming pool surrounded by trees under lights at night.

The street on the south side of the Late Imperial Library seen through a tree shedding its leaves.

Ensconced in the #LateImperialLibrary on a Good Friday night in autumnal #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📝🗝🚪🍁🌍🌖

Coffee in a ribbed, off-white cup on a polished pine table.

The swimming pool surrounded by trees in the morning light.

Aofa covered with orange cloth and pine table with coffee and bowls of fruit in a room lined with bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Jim Crace and Stephen Crane through Ernest Hemingway and Philip Hensher.

An aeroplane dwarfed by clouds and blue sky over the north of Johannesburg.

Good Friday morning coffee in the #LateImperialLibrary in sunny, autumnal #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖☕️🗝🚪🍂🌍🌤

Pool surrounded by trees in the morning light.

Blue sky in the morning.

Tree shedding leaves on the street south of the Late Imperial Library.

Blue sky with clouds to the south, directly over the ridge of the Witwatersrand north of the Johannesburg city centre.

Autumn morning views northwards, afternoon views southwards: one awaits the end of today's upstairs-downstairs farce in the #LateImperialLibrary.

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Main working desk in the nonfiction room, cluttered with paper, stationery, bibelots, dictionaries and thesauruses, and a printer. On the 1980s escritoire in front of it a laptop is open to its home page. Bookcases of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname can also be seen on both sides of the escritoire.

A row of shorter bookcases in gront of taller ones, the volumes of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Doris Lessing through Cormac McCarthy.

Calendario Romano open to April, showing a young man with a Mediterranean face dressed as a priest wearing a cappello Romano; to the left of the calendar is a table bearing bowls of fruit surrounded by bookcases on which the volumes of fiction are alphabetised by author surname from Janet Frame through Frank Herbert.

Calendario Romano open to April, showing a very young man dressed as an altar boy carrying an implement of worship in a procession in a church; to the right of the calendar is a table and a sofa covered with orange cloth surrounded by bookcases on which the volumes of fiction are alphabetised by author surname from Peter Carey through Teju Cole.

During the rainstorms of April
the oyster rises from the sea
and opens its shell –
rain enters it –
when it sinks the raindrops
become the pearl.
[…]
open your body,
and give birth to pearls.
▫️Anne Sexton, 1975

Rusticating in the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi.

📚🤓📖📝🗝🚪🌳🍂🌍🌤

Moka pots, coffee cups, and tins of coffee on a kitchen counter.

Coffee in an off-white cup on a saucer.

Sofa covered with orange cloths in front of bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from J. M. Coetzer through E. M. Forster.

The tops of the lift shafts of the building downslope to the north under a sky full of grey clouds.

Morning coffee in the #LateImperialLibrary in chilly #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📝☕️🗝🚪🍁🌍

Bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Mia Couto through William Gibson.

Bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Christopher Hope through Rosamond Lehmann.

Bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Isaac Bashevis Singer through John Williams and A. N. Wilson.

Bookcases of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from Theodore W. Allen and Louis Althusser through Marilyn French and Sigmund Freud.

[C]ould my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.
▫️Augustus Toplady, 1763

Safely ensconced in the #LateImperialLibrary once again.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📝📑🗝🚪🌍🌒

Green hills in KwaZulu-Natal.

Cloud cover over the east of southern Africa.

Green and brown fields in southern Gauteng.

Johannesburg on the horizon, seen from the east.

From the KwaZulu-Natal coast back to Gauteng, we return home to the #LateImperialLibrary at #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾🧳✈️🌍🌤

On the left, shelves of anthologies alphabetised by editor surname or title from Jill Foulston through copies of McSweeney. On the right, empty shelves.

Shelves with Shaksspeare collections and poetry anthologies alphabetised by the poet's or editor's surname from Okot p'Bitek through William Butler Yeats.

On the left, shelves of nonfiction including Herta Müller and Njabulo Ndebele, and on the right, shelves of poetry anthologies alphabetised by poet or editor surname from Seamus Heaney through Wilfred Owen.

On the left, shelves of nonfiction including Franco Moretti and David Morley, and on the right, shelves of poetry anthologies alphabetised by poet or editor surname from Chaucer through Thomas Hardy and Seamus Heaney.

Friday morning reshelving in the #LateImperialLibrary as we approach the autumnal equinox in #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📝🚪🗝🍂🌍⛅️

Bookshelves perpendicular to one another with volumes of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname; on the left, from Cherryl Walker through Brian Whitaker, and on tbe right from André Maurois through Padmini Mongia, with the "Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature", Beowulf, and Betjeman on a separate bookcase.

Bookshelves perpendicular to one another with volumes of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname; on the left, from Edward W. Said through Shlomo Sand, Philippe Sands, and Lynne Segal, and on the right from Martin Amis and Ammianus Marcellinus through Margaret Atwood and Marcus Aurelius to Richard Bulliet, and Martin Bulmer & John Solomos.

Bookshelves perpendicular to one another with volumes of fiction alphabetised by author surname; on the left, from Zakes Mda and Patrícia Melo through China Miéville and Henry Miller, and on the right from Olive Schreiner and André Schwarz-Bart through Mario Vargas Llosa, M. G. Vassanji, and Yvonne Vera.

Bookshelves perpendicular to one another with volumes of fiction alphabetised by author surname; on the left, from Orhan Pamuk through Edgar Allan Poe, and on the right from John McGahern through Herman Melville and Charlotte Mendelson.

One really must work away this pique about having to leave the #LateImperialLibrary to perform the tasks required of one's imperious personage in the heart of the country. Aunt Lydia was correct: duty is indeed a hard taskmaster. Noblesse oblige in #NorthJozi; aussi, pour encourager les autres . . .

Cluttered main desk in the nonfiction room surrounded by shelves on which the volumes are alphabetised by author or editor surname from Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield through Arthur Koestler.

Upright 1980s student desk with shelves of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from Carlos Fuentes through Caroline Knowles.

Shelves of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editoe surname from Brian McHale through Alan Morris and from Daphne Watsob througb Francis eilson and Mamphela Ramphele, and poetry from Anna Akhmatova through Dante Alighieri.

Cluttered main desk surrounded by shelves of nonfiction alphabetised by authir or editor surname from Theodore W. Allen through Felipe Fernández-Armesto and from Philip Roth through Salman Rushdie and Bertrand Russell to Oliver Sacks and Edward W. Said and Shlomo Sand and Philippe Sands.

Sunday night shelving in the #LateImperialLibrary; time for the evening tea as we listen to cicadas and crickets and frogs in the garden.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗃🗝🚪🌍🌘

Reading desk (a 1950s handmade table covered with patterned black and red cloths) on which there arr two books, two portable typewriters, framed photographs, a zen garden, mugs, potted plants, a vase of orchid petals, a stack of Paris Reviews, and two books. Above tbe desk are windows through which tbe tops of trees at the bottom of the garden can be seen.

The nonfiction room showing the dictionaries and thesauruses as well as various bibelots on the main, flat desk, backed by shelves on which the volumes have been alphabetised by author or editor surname, from György Lukács to Shlomo Sand.

The swimming pool surrounded by wet trees. Stones from the ha-ha can be seen at the tip of the frame.

The trees at the bottom of the garden and beyond them, the building downslope to the north.

Sunday morning in and beyond the #LateImperialLibrary in an unseasonably cool #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑📝🗝🚪🌳🌍

Orange sunlight peering through clouds seen over rooftops with dishes and aerials to the west of Johannesburg.

Blue sky with some light clouds at the end of the day to the north-northeast of Johannesburg.

Banks of clouds (cumulus and cirrus) obscure the blue sky to the southwest of Johannesburg.

Dense cloud cover over the northwest of Johannesburg.

Sun setting in autumnal #NorthJozi: to see the variety of light discourses, pace Zoë Wicomb; or, that southern light, pace J. M. Coetzee.

Shutting in for the night in the #LateImperialLibrary.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗝🚪🍂🌍⛅️

A sealed book delivery box on a cloth-covered table in front of bookcases of fiction.

A book delivery box bottom on a table covered wiyh an orange cloth.

A book box opened, showing packing materials, on an orange table cloth on which a pair of black scissors can also be seen.

A copy of Mahmood Mamdani's SLOW POISON: IDI AMIN, YOWERI MUSEVENI, AND THE MAKING OF THE UGANDAN STATE (Wits University Press, 2025).

One came home from a day – and what a day, indeed – to this delightful addition to the #LateImperialLibrary.

In many senses 2026 is a year of "ill favoured and leanfleshed kine" in #NorthJozi and the world, but in terms of reading, it is a time of "well favoured kine and fatfleshed".

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📦🗝🚪🍂🌍☀️

1950s handmade table serving as a desk on the north-facing balcony; a portable typewriter, framed photographs, potted plants, a small zen garden, mugs, a soapstone chess board, and through the windows, the lift shafts of the building downslope.

Upright 1980s student desk with shelves next to a bookcase. Laptop, desk lamp, framed photographs, and bibelots can be seen on the desk.

Main work desk cluttered with papers, a printer, framed photographs, dictionaries and thesauruses, tchotchkes, surrounded by bookcases of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname.

Table covered with an orange cloth in front of bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Gerald Durrell through Elizabeth Gaskell.

Reluctantly going forth from the #LateImperialLibrary into the demimonde of #NorthJozi; one understands Cousins Beatrix and Akihito and Margrethe and Juan Carlos . . .

Shall one be tempted into abdication, thus?

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗝🚪🍂🌍☀️

Boiks stacked on a small table surrounded by bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Toni Morrison through Rose Zwi.

Upright student desk with shelves and bookcases of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from Gail Gerhart through Michael King; a laptop, a laml, and various framed photographs and bibelots can be seen on the desk.

Bookcases of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from J. M. Coetzee through Umberto Eco.

Bookcases of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from John Locke through Ilan Pappé.

Late night shelving in the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi: embarking on a task long overdue to avoid doing work imminently due and ignoring major life's work years overdue and all but abandoned . . .

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗝🚪🌳🍂🌍🌖

North-facing desk with books, stationery, a tablet, a portable typewriter, framed photographs, a large cup of coffee, potted plants, a mini zen garden, below windows overlooking the trees beyond the ha-ha at the bottom of the garden.

View of the swimming pool surrounded by trees on a windy morning.

The northern horizon beyond the lift shafts of the building downslope and the trees at the bottom of the garden.

Pigeons in flight seen against a mostly blue sky with some clouds blowing across from the east.

Sunday morning reading in the #LateImperialLibrary in a very breezy #NorthJozi suddenly chillier after the heatwaves of January and February. Another failed fasting day to be paid off later.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑☕️🗝🌬🍂🌍🌤

1950s table covered with cloths on which there are a portable typewriter, stationery, various books, a tablet, and framed photographs.

The main work desk cluttered with stationery, dictionaries and thesauruses, a printer, an old 1990s laptop, a mobile telephone, notebooks, and tchotchkes (including a mid-century bakelite rotary telephone).

Upright 1980s student desk with shelves, on which a laptop, stationery, a desklamp, and various bibelots can be seen. Next to the desk is a bookcase. All shelves are packed with nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname, from Todd Gitlin through Gloria T. Hull.

A laptop next to Masha Gessen's SURVIVING AUTOCRACY on a table covered with an orange cloth. Behind the table are shelves of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Richard Ford through Frank Herbert.

Saturday afternoon in the #LateImperialLibrary with the new inductee (Masha Gessen on surviving autocracy), unable to decide at which desk to work in sunny, autumnal #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗝🚪🌳🍂🌍☀️

A work desk on which dictionaries and thesauruses are propped between and under bibelots in the middle of a room in which the walls are lined with bookcases; the volumes of non-fiction on the shelves are alphabetised by author and editor surname.

A table covered with an orange cloth in front of two perpendicular walls of bookcases on which volumes of fiction are alphabetised by author surname from Ceridwen Dovey and Unity Dow through Bessie Head and Robert A. Heinlein.

View through the balcony windows of the trees beyond the ha-ha at the bottom of the garden and the art deco building downslope; remaining rain clouds can be seen on the northern horizon under a mostly blue sky with some cirrus clouds.

A blue sky with some cirrus clouds.

Saturday morning in the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi after days of uncharacteristic "motregen".

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗝🚪🌳🍃🍂🌍

Main work desk in front of a 1980s student desk surrounded by bookcases packed with nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname.

Short bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Peter Carey through J. M. Coetzee.

Swimming pool surrounded by trees seen through a rain-spattered window.

Trees beyond the ha-ha at the bottom of the garden and the lift shafts of the art deco building downslope to the north on a rainy morning.

Rainy Friday morning in #NorthJozi; one is locked down in the #LateImperialLibrary, engaged in a #CerebralRinse.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🧠🚿🗝🚪🌍🌧

A room lined with books, with a table and sofa in the centre, and in the foreground the Calendario Romano open to March, showing an altar boy about to receive communion.

A room lined with books, with a table in the middle, and in the foreground the Calendario Romano open to March, showing an altar boy about to receive communion.

A room lined with books alphabetised by author surname.

A small shelf with books alphabetised by playwright surname from Ama Ata Aidoo, Edward Albee, and Aristophanes through Harold Pinter, Dennis Potter, and William Shakespeare, clocks, boxes, keys, and a framed photograph of a group of writers on a beach at the southern end of Africa.

Earthquakes mean March
[…]
The sun of this month cures all.
Therefore, old women say:
Let the sun of March shine on my daughter,
but let the sun of February shine on my daughter-in-law.
▫️Anne Sexton, 1975

A new, apocalyptic month in the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗝🚪🌍

Laura Jean McKay's THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY, and Karl Ove Knausgaard's THE THIRD REALM.

Friday inductees into the #LateImperialLibrary: time to shut one's imperious personage in for the week's end.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗝🚪🌳🌍🌔

Copies of Roberto Bolaño's A LITTLE LUMPEN NOVELITA, Ursula K. Le Guin's LAVINIA, Alan Hollinghurst's THE SPARSHOLT AFFAIR, and Miguel de Cervantes's DON QUIXOTE. The Hollinghurst is a masochistic moment given how appalled one is by elements in his work (the same exasperation one has with Edmund White's oeuvre), but, pace Katherine Mansfield, one must go everywhere, see everything.

Thursday inductees into the #LateImperialLibrary; one went forth to get poppadoms and ended up ensnared in a table-top book trader's trap. Still, one can never have too many copies of Cervantes or Le Guin, and the Bolaño was a good find.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗝🚪🌳🌍🌔

A shelf of fiction with the volumes alphabetised by author surname from Harry Mulisch and Herta Müller through Charles Mungoshi and Alice Munro.

A shelf of fiction with the volumes alphabetised by author surname from R. K. Narayan and Ibrahim Nasrallah and Taslima Nasrin through Gloria Naylor and Njabulo Ndebele and Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu and Irène Némirovsky.

A shelf of fiction with the volumes alphabetised by author surname from Maggie Resha and Yasmina Reza through Jean Rhys and João Ubaldo Riberio and Samuel Richardson.

A shelf of fiction with volumes by Salman Rushdie from GRIMUS and MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREn through EAST, WEST and FURY.

Must one go forth from the #LateImperialLibrary to snip ribbons and smile at the naive watercolours of miseducated bureaucrats? Alas, noblesse oblige in #NorthJozi in 18 ⁰C . . .

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🫣🌳🌍🌧

Cream-coloured sofa in front of bookcases of fiction on which volumes are alphabetised by author surname from Michael Cunningham and Rachel Cusk through Joseph Heller and Lillian Hellman. A table covered with an orange cloth bears a laptop, tablets, DVDs, books, a wooden bowl of Namibian soapstone hearts, two small maroon biscuit tins, and some plastic building blocks. Extract in main post from THE UTOPIA OF RULES: ON TECHNOLOGY, STUPIDITY, AND THE SECRET JOYS OF BUREAUCRACY by David Graeber (2015).

Swimming pool surrounded by trees in a garden lit by the sun of late summer, early autumn.

Leaves turning colour in late summer, early autumn, in Johannesburg.

Bright sunshine in a blue sky dotted with wispy clouds over Johannesburg.

As whole societies have come to represent themselves as giant credentialized meritocracies, rather than systems of arbitrary extraction, everyone duly scurries about trying to curry favor by pretending they actually believe this is to be true.
▫️David Graeber, 2015

📚💙 #LateImperialLibrary #NorthJozi

Main working desk in the nonfiction room of Late Imperial Library, with a laptop, printer, dictionaries and thesauruses, and tchotchkes, in front of a 1980s student desk, and shelves of nonfiction volumes alphabetised by author or editor surname. Post quotation from Toni Morrison's "The War on Error", Amnesty International Lecture, Edinburgh, 29 August 2004. Republished in THE SOURCE OF SELF-REGARD: SELECTED ESSAYS, SPEECHES, AND MEDITATIONS (Knopf, 2019).

Shelves of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from S. S. Abdool Karrim through David Crystal.

Shelves of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from Frederic Jameson through David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen.

Shelves of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from Antonio Negri through Philippe Sands.

I think it is time for a modern War Against Error. A deliberately heightened battle against cultivated ignorance, enforced silence, and metastasizing lies.
▪️Toni Morrison, 2004

Saturday morning in the #NonFictionRoom of the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗝🚪🌳🌍🌥

#BookSky 📚💙 📚🖋

Rectangular biscuit tins, tablet, and a wooden bowl of Namibian soapstone hearts on a cloth-covered table in front of bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from J. M. Coetzee through Vasily Grossman.

Rectangular biscuit tins, tablet, and a wooden bowl of Namibian soapstone hearts on a cloth-covered table in front of and flanked by bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname; on the left from Roberto Bolaño through Italo Calvino; directly behind the table beneqth the window sill from Peter Carey through J. M. Coetzee; and on the right from J. M. Coetzee through Ralph Ellison.

Bookcases of fiction along a wall on the right side of the frame, from Soazig Aaron through Margaret Atwood before a break in the wall foe a passage to the right, then from Margaret Atwood through Samuel Butler.

Photograph of the swimming pool surrounded by trees in the morning sunlight with orange fruit in the palm tree and a yellow weaver bird's neat dangling from one of the palm branches.

Friday morning in the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi, high summer, 27 ⁰C forecast.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑🗝🚪🌳🌍☀️

View of the football stadium at Soccer City backed by a mine dump south of Johannesburg's city centre.

Johannesburg skyline seen from ghe motorway approaching the western edge of the city from the south.

Johannesburg skyline seen from the motorway exit due south of the city centre.

Former railway station at the southwestern end of the Johannesburg city, with the station for the rapid transit bus service beyond it.

Red Bus tour of Johannesburg on the first day of the fast was, perhaps, as one knew, not the wisest choice: 29 ⁰C . . .

🚌🥵🤠🫣🫠🤭🌳🌍☀️

Safely back in the #LateImperialLibrary, awaiting sunset.

Two book boxes, each containing a recently published "book", on a polished pine table in front of bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Jostein Gaarder and William Gaddis through Abdulrazak Gurnah and Rosa Guy.

Last night one came home to the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi to these mysteries, got all excited, and was then imperially underwhelmed by the 'prose' inside.

🫅🏾📚📦📦🤓📖📑🫣🫤☕️

From left to right and top to bottom, copies of Pedro Almodóvar's THE LAST DREAM (2023), Haruki Murakami's NOVELIST AS A VOCATION (2022), Octavia E. Butler's DAWN (1987), and Denis Hirson's MY THIRTY MINUTE BAR MITZVAH: A MEMOIR (2022).

Sunday morning post-breakfast acquisitions for the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi found in #KalkBay just before heading to the airport.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑☕️🍳⛱️🌊🌍☀️

A stack on books on a green chaid whicb has two jackets draped over its back; from top to bottom, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's HOMECOMING (1972), C. J. Driver's DAYSPRING (2024), Mphuthumi Ntabeni's THE BROKEN RIVER TENT (2018), Maryse Condé's LAND OF MANY COLORS & NANNA-YA (1997), Gayl Jones's THE UNICORN WOMAN (2024), Alex la Guma's A WALK IN THE NIGHT (1962), George Saunders's LIBERATION DAY (2022), Andrey Kurkov's DIARY OF AN INVASION (2022), Yevgeny Zamyatin's X AND OTHER STORIES (2024), Cyprian Ekwensi'a BURNING GRASS (1962), J. M. Coetzee's THE POLE AND OTHER STORIES (2023), Nadia Davids'a CAPE FEVER (2025), and Ivan Vladislavić's THE NEAR NORTH (2024).

Five days at the southern tip of Africa, and we must haul these back over the escarpment to the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi later today. First, coffee, then a stroll.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📑☕️🌬🛫🌍☀️