Chris Power

Chris Power

@chrispower.bsky.social

I read books, write books (Mothers, A Lonely Man) and write about books (Observer, LRB, Guardian etc). Was a Booker judge in 2025.

2,077 Followers 480 Following 217 Posts Joined Nov 2023
1 week ago
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Paperback of the week: Monet by Jackie Wullschläger This biography paints a compelling portrait of the artist from poverty to riches in life – and neglect to reverence in death

Such a great biography. Why can’t they all be this good? observer.co.uk/culture/book...

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1 week ago

“What a coarse, immoral, mean and senseless work Hamlet is.” - Tolstoy

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1 week ago

No we’re aligned. Although I don’t find the print in mine too small. But jeez it’s hideous.

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1 week ago
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Karl Ove Knausgård, Glenn Kotche & Johan Renck: Historia | Barbican An joyous evening of words and sound that celebrates craft and friendship with writer Karl Ove Knausgård, musician Glenn Kotche and director Johan Renck, with a Q&A by literary critic Chris Power.

Do London people know about this on Thursday? Sounds amazing @chrispower.bsky.social

www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/202...

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1 week ago

Often distressingly in my sightline, that edition

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2 weeks ago
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Front Row - Review: Tracey Emin: A Second Life at Tate Modern - BBC Sounds Plus the rave-thriller film Sirât and George Eliot's origin story on stage in Bird Grove.

Feel free to review me reviewing Emin/Sirāt/Bird Grove

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

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2 weeks ago
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A couple of extracts from my @theobserveruk.bsky.social review of Eduardo Halfon’s excellent novel Tarantula. Modiano-heads take note. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

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2 weeks ago
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A couple of extracts from my @theobserveruk.bsky.social review of Eduardo Halfon’s excellent novel Tarantula. Modiano-heads take note. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

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3 weeks ago
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Chris Power · That’s a body: On Cristina Rivera Garza Despite her novel’s conventional set-up, Rivera Garza isn’t interested in fulfilling the murder mystery contract....

‘The novel denies us solution, catharsis and, for much of its length, comprehension. Yet this is what it must be like for Cristina Rivera Garza, to whom, I suspect, all crime novels are unjustifiably cosy.’

@chrispower.bsky.social reads ‘Death Takes Me’.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

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3 weeks ago
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‘He stirred himself to go later in August, but the painting sessions were held up initially by rain, then by a minor accident when Monet injured his leg protecting some children in the forest from a discus thrown by English tourists.’ I could do with a little more detail here.

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3 weeks ago

‘His shoes and clothes wore thin; he was so tired that, strolling down the street smoking, he did not notice that he had set his jacket on fire with his pipe.’

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3 weeks ago
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Chris Power · That’s a body: On Cristina Rivera Garza Despite her novel’s conventional set-up, Rivera Garza isn’t interested in fulfilling the murder mystery contract....

‘Despite the conventional set-up, Cristina Rivera Garza isn’t interested in fulfilling the murder mystery contract. Satisfaction is antithetical to her aims. 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘔𝘦 is a book designed to withhold the pleasures of the genre.’

@chrispower.bsky.social:

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

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3 weeks ago
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‘He stirred himself to go later in August, but the painting sessions were held up initially by rain, then by a minor accident when Monet injured his leg protecting some children in the forest from a discus thrown by English tourists.’ I could do with a little more detail here.

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3 weeks ago
Preview
Chris Power · That’s a body: On Cristina Rivera Garza Despite her novel’s conventional set-up, Rivera Garza isn’t interested in fulfilling the murder mystery contract....

‘The novel denies us solution, catharsis and, for much of its length, comprehension. Yet this is what it must be like for Cristina Rivera Garza, to whom, I suspect, all crime novels are unjustifiably cosy.’

@chrispower.bsky.social reads ‘Death Takes Me’.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

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3 weeks ago

Thanks Cory! I really enjoyed thinking and writing about the book. Reading it was another matter.

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3 weeks ago
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Chris Power · That’s a body: On Cristina Rivera Garza Despite her novel’s conventional set-up, Rivera Garza isn’t interested in fulfilling the murder mystery contract....

I’m in this week’s @lrb.co.uk writing about a novel I struggled through twice and am still in large part baffled by www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

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1 month ago
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Paperback of the week: Nada by Jean-Patrick Manchette In the 1970s, Manchette reinvigorated French thrillers with his chaotic energy and leftist politics, as deployed in this tale of ragtag revolutionaries

"Manchette wastes none of his readers’ time, one short chapter after another driving the book relentlessly to its end."

@chrispower.bsky.social on Jean-Patrick Machette's Nada. If you like Manchette we recommend you check out Jean Echenoz.

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1 month ago
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Not a million miles off, Mr Dickens.

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1 month ago
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Paperback of the week: Nada by Jean-Patrick Manchette In the 1970s, Manchette reinvigorated French thrillers with his chaotic energy and leftist politics, as deployed in this tale of ragtag revolutionaries

All anarcho-Marxist killer, no filler. A fantastic novel. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

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1 month ago
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Mathias Énard: ‘I write with a bastard tongue’ The Prix Goncourt-winning novelist on the myths of the Middle East, the horrors and wonders of history, and life at a Madrid museum

I spent a couple of hours walking around the Prado with Mathias Énard observer.co.uk/culture/book...

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1 month ago
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Paperback of the week – Israel: A Personal History by Gör... Rosenberg was raised to believe the state of Israel was a ‘blessing’, only for years of human rights abuses to convince him otherwise

Rosenberg, the son of Holocaust survivors, believed in the Zionist project until a visit to Israel in the late 1960s revealed “a land filled with violence, injustice, and hatred”. His book, & its account of how Israel’s apartheid system operates, is essential reading. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

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1 month ago

Haven’t got further than the font yet, but it looks/sounds great

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1 month ago
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Fonts in conversation. A new series (probably 1 of 1).

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1 month ago
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Brilliant work @ianleslie.bsky.social

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1 month ago

Not just book but ‘*the* book’!

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1 month ago
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Maybe the greatest ever example of nominative determinism

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1 month ago

You’ve reminded me that Harold Brodkey signed the contract for The Runaway Soul (1991) in 1961

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1 month ago

Ha ha a better question

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1 month ago
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From the Sunday Times, Nov 8th 1987. What became of Motion’s ten-novel sequence?

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