tristan

It’s marvellous!

8. I don’t think I’d read this since I was a teenager, when I remember finding it emotionally devastating. This time it was funnier and I admired his stylistic verve - the overdetermined stylistic tics. I could see it much more clearly as a work of postmodernism too-economically as well as in style

7. Continuing my pretty intense, exciting read of the Shakespeare comedies. This one is weird and disturbing for all the obvious reasons, but the writing of the minor “low” characters is incredibly beautiful and democratic

6. More Shakespeare - not only very funny but strange and puzzling in its treatment of time, capital punishment and the atmosphere of the dream

5. I loved the glorious last chapter which discovers and articulates post-structuralism in 1962…negation as a power of affirmation which always differs creatively with itself

4. On the one hand, a convincing diagnosis of our circulation driven culture, and the critique of contemporary video aesthetics is excellent. On the other, this is parochial, conservative, humourless, and reproduces much of the immediacy it critiques in the literalism of some of its interpretations.

1. Hamnet (2025), dir. Chloé Zhao

All the films I’ve watched in 2026:

3. I have the luxury of reading a lot of Shakespeare just now - in many ways I find this one a little too mannered but it has its moments including a truly remarkable ending

2. Forgot to upload this one a week or so back…

I'm really thrilled to share my new article, 'Deleuze's Dickens: Life and Community', on Deleuze's late reading of Dickens's Our Mutual Friend and published in the new Dickens Quarterly. (I've got a PDF if anyone wants it!) doi.org/10.1353/dqt....

I'm really thrilled to share my new article, 'Deleuze's Dickens: Life and Community', on Deleuze's late reading of Dickens's Our Mutual Friend and published in the new Dickens Quarterly. (I've got a PDF if anyone wants it!) doi.org/10.1353/dqt....

1. A final volume of ghostly stories for Christmas. This one was great - I’m a total sucker for sea stories in general and this had some very strange and exciting moments

Everything I’ve read in 2026:

41. Squeezing one last book into 2025 - another ghost story anthology. This one has its moments, has a couple of of wonderful settings, and wears its excellent influences proudly on its sleeve, but most of the stories don’t manage to achieve what they hope to - unfortunately!

40. I really love reading ghost stories at Christmas. I really enjoyed some of these though it’s not the strongest Tales of the Weird anthology. There’s a good one about a house which is just black nothingness inside

39. Extremely radio 4 and quietly conservative but also pretty good especially in challenging the idea that folklore represents national traditions and problematising its putatively ancient origins

38. Is this the most underrated Shakespeare play?

97. Death in Venice (1971), dir. Luchino Visconti

96. In Search of Tadzio (1970), dir. Luchino Visconti

95. One Hour with You (1932), dir. Ernst Lubitsch

Hong Kong’s last major opposition party disbands amid Chinese pressure Senior DP members previously allege being told to disband or face severe consequences including possible arrest

I’d normally be opposed to the British government trying to interfere in former colonies but, given the UK believes the Sino-British Joint Declaration is still a legally binding treaty, its failure to attempt to enforce its basic provisions is grotesque www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

94. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), dir. Ernst Lubitsch

93. Where Is The Friend’s House? (1987), dir. Abbas Kiarostami

37. Fine and excellent on Goya but actually, apart from a few moments, I found it surprisingly anodyne and platitudinous….

36. Triumphantly good - imagine being able to write like the Brontë sisters!

92. Bugonia (2025), dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

Social Democrats in Denmark suffer sweeping election losses PM Mette Frederiksen’s centre-left party loses control of Copenhagen for first time in more than 100 years

Always good to see the UK Labour Party backing a winner 😂 www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

In fifty years time historians will be asking how the BBC and “mainstream” public discussion got completely sucked into an endless cycle of right wing talking points - if we’re not all living under fascism in a burning world ravaged by climate change…