Max Cairnduff

None of us has self control.

They’re great at covers. Some of the other production aspects not so much. I still buy a fair few though.

Those are great. I’ve all of his currently in print though…

Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz (tr. Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff) First published in Spanish in 2012 and then in English in 2017, Die, My Love was one of the first books issued by the innovative, independent publisher Charco Press, which remains committed to brin…

"How could a weak, perverse woman like me, someone who dreams of a knife in her hand, be the mother and wife of those two individuals? What was I going to do? I burrowed deeper into the ground, hiding my body." #BookSky 💙📚 #DieMyLove #TranslationThurs

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/10/16/d...

3 shelves of titles from our Women Writers series

Here’s the Women Writers series looking glorious at Frankfurt Book Fair! @stuckinabook.bsky.social

I’m thrilled to be able to share this with you! My fourth collection, Devotions, will be published next April 23rd. If you would like a proof copy please contact @faberbooks.bsky.social ✨

I won’t say the character to avoid spoilers, but my favourite thing in it is the utterly cowardly guy who forms a massive crush on the nurse that she’s completely oblivious to. It’s so sweet and funny among all that’s happening.

So it goes sometimes, how much worse if we didn’t try anything!

Two replies only and still someone beat me to this!

This. It’s insanely good.

Black Summer though it’s insanely bleak.

Kingdom. Come for the zombies, stay for the period Korean hats.

The Art of Killjng Well, by Marco Malvadi and translated by Howard Curtis (an excellent translator)

2025 reading 🧵
This should have been very me and not quite sure why it wasn’t. A comic crime novel set in 19th century Italy in a baronial castle with a real-life historical food writer as the detective. @jacquiwine.bsky.social liked it. Sadly I didn’t connect with it and it’s a did not finish.

I do occasionally wish Penguin wouldn’t change cover design every five minutes.

It’s quite annoying if you’re trying to buy a book series from them.

Spot on I’d say.

Companion Piece, by Ali Smith

2025 reading 🧵
Fifth in Ali Smith’s wonderful seasonal tetralogy (I know, so does she). Funny and playful and clever and wise. One of my favourite writers now. I’m looking forward to her How to be Both though it’ll probably be next year at this point.

I mean that is factually correct.

The Lowlife Alexander Baron’s 1963 novel, The Lowlife, already had a history of being rediscovered before its inclusion in Faber Editions, an imprint which specialises in neglected classics, and John Williams …

Alexander Baron's repeatedly rediscovered novel The Lowlife:
1streading.wordpress.com/2025/10/13/t...

I was thinking Querelle because I didn’t like it the first time then somehow ended up seeing it twice more. I’m happy not to go for a fourth!

It was a wonderful thread on something wholly new to me. Thank you for it.

Does anyone know when Austen’s “any body” becomes our “anybody”? Later 19th Century? Did it progress regionally?

All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque and translated by Brian Murdoch

2025 reading 🧵
One of those books so famous it feels like you’ve read it even when you haven’t, and of course when you do you realise quite why it’s so famous. An extraordinary book, originally serialised which you can tell I think, full of life and pointless death. Sobering.

Don Quixote is possibly my favourite novel. I think it’s very readable, particularly the second book that nobody seems to read.

I will suffer minor injury on this hill!

I guess it’s good they have a hobby?

I feel the need to invoke Rebecca again:

Shocked face emoji!

Thank you for the shout out!

I avoided the film as there’s a scene where a horse is mistreated and apparently the horse did actually suffer.

Missing Person: Alice, by Simon Mason

2025 reading 🧵
Loved this coolly professional crime novel about a police consultant who helps find missing people. Focus is firmly on the the investigation process and more widely on the impact of a disappearance on family, witnesses, community. Very tightly controlled novel. First in a new series.

Detail from Stilleven (Still Life), 1917, by Marthe Donas. Photograph: Hugo Maertens/Marthe Donas Foundation, Gent, 2025

Overlooked female modernist artist Marthe Donas dazzles in Belgium - thanks @jenniferrankin.bsky.social for drawing the attention of a UK audience to her work
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

When I say clearly Iliad-influenced by the way I expect that’s utter nonsense as I doubt the author would know the Illiad, but it certainly reads that way.

The Death of King Arthur, by an anonymous author and translated by Simon Armitage

2025 reading 🧵
Simon Armitage’s tremendous translation of this astonishing and alliterative anonymously authored medieval masterpiece. Clearly Iliad- influenced (to my mind) it becomes a tragic tale of heroism and hubris.

Armitage happily is better at alliteration than me…