@dustystacks.bsky.social
Archivist. Book reader. Persistent. I write down my thoughts about books here https://thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/
Frankie Miren's The Service is book 7 of my selected 10 books for #20BooksOfSummer25. I wasn't completely convinced by it. The premise is interesting, I could tell the author cares, but it was too cluttered with characters and clichΓ©s for me.
thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2025/08/03/t...
#BookSky
Catbus
02.08.2025 17:22 β π 100 π 21 π¬ 4 π 0London and London adjacent folk, go to this. I wish I could get down there from the north because Alison's work is superb.
02.08.2025 12:46 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Here's a writer impacted by Unbound's collapse who now won't see his owed royalties because of the Boundless collapse. Rights reversion and bloody-mindedness mean he has a new publisher.
Ex-Unbound/Neem Tree Press/Boundless authors, don't give up!
#BookSky #Unbound #Boundless #NeemTreePress
Well. No real surprise here. Somebody, somewhere has made a shed load of money out of this debacle, and it isn't the authors.
I hope every writer affected finds a new home for their work and can put this awful situation behind them.
www.thebookseller.com/news/unbound...
#BookSky #Unbound #Boundless
Six of ten finished from my scaled back selection for #20BooksOfSummer25
Paolo Scott's Phenotypes, masterfully translated by Daniel Hahn for @andotherstories.bsky.social was gripping, insightful and entertaining.
thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2025/07/27/p...
Shelf barcode next to a Bruynzeel product label on the new roller racking at Oldham Archives.
Rack label on the end of a static rack at Oldham Archives, with roller racking for plan storage on the left.
An array of shelves with barcode labels ready to be affixed.
A well earned mug of tea and a book in the staff garden at Oldham Library.
It's been a week. We started putting the shelf barcodes in place in the new store at work. Halfway through, I discovered that the elevation plan I'd worked to was 22 shelves out. Then I discovered that the barcodes don't scan. Sitting in the staff garden yesterday was a blessing.
#archives
This is among my favourite collections of writing about place and human interaction with nature. It's about the quirks of curiosity and friendliness that are the best of us as a species. It captures a way of being, away from screens, that we'd all benefit from more of. Send Tom & Jim an email today.
26.07.2025 11:18 β π 14 π 4 π¬ 1 π 0
Halfway through #20BooksOfSummer25 with the 5th off my list of 10: Tice Cin's Keeping the House published in 2021 by @andotherstories.bsky.social
The things you can do with cabbages!
thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2025/07/19/k...
#bookreview #booksky
This was the 2,972nd volume in our mould cleaning project - the last one to be cleaned. It has taken a year. When I'd cleaned the 2,000th volume I made this video. We're moving into a new store over the summer and I didn't want to take any mould with us!
#archives #collectionscare
The back of a leather and book cloth bound volume on a document trolley. The book cloth has disappeared from the back board at some point, revealing an advert for table jellies. The volume is held together with archival tape.
![Close up of the back of a leather and book cloth bound volume. The book cloth has disappeared from the back board at some point, revealing an advert for table jellies. The volume is held together with archival tape. The wording reads "Table Jellies are Pure, Wholesome and Transpa[rent]."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:oexpshsfrnogmht53424mm7o/bafkreig6yi4x4vsozzsklgflkf2ndleoru5ffx7aaefwaulmfs2w2cxxwy@jpeg)
Close up of the back of a leather and book cloth bound volume. The book cloth has disappeared from the back board at some point, revealing an advert for table jellies. The volume is held together with archival tape. The wording reads "Table Jellies are Pure, Wholesome and Transpa[rent]."
Another curiosity from my day's work, this time a book that has bared all to show what might lurk beneath the book cloth on a bound volume's back board.
Presumably the printer who made the book also printed the advert for table jellies and used a discard.
#archives #bookbinding
Archive volume lying on its side on a document trolley. The canvas book jacket has a cutaway that allows the gold tooled wording "WAGES BOOK" to be seen.
Tacked lacing stitch inside an archive volume that has been covered with a canvas book jacket. The stitches run top to bottom. Marbled paper can be seen behind the stitches.
Tacked lacing stitch inside an archive volume that has been covered with a canvas book jacket. The stitches have been photographed diagonally . Marbled paper can be seen behind the stitches.
Today at work I discovered this curious book jacket - it's made out of canvas, has a cut out on the spine so the gold tooled volume label can still be read and has tacked lacing stitches to hold it together.
I've resisted the temptation to take it off to see what's underneath.
#archives #bookbinding
I'm a subscriber to @manchestermill.bsky.social which started on Substack and migrated to Ghost. As a subscriber, I didn't notice a thing - my subscription payment goes out as normal, I get the emails as normal, the only difference is reading on a website rather than in an app if I click the link.
11.07.2025 18:30 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
Alfie Hewitt and Ji Zhenxu shake hands at the end their Wimbledon Men's Wheelchair Singles Quarter Final.
Hijikata and Pel vs Arevalo and Pavic in one of the Men's Doubles Semi-Finals on No.1 Court at Wimbledon.
Cash and Glasspool playing Granollers and Zeballos in one of the Men's Doubles Semi-Finals on No.1 Court at Wimbledon.
Hewitt and Reid playing Caverzaschi and Oda in the Men's Wheelchair Doubles Semi-Finals on No.1 Court at Wimbledon.
Yesterday's news - a brilliant day at Wimbledon. 4 matches seen. High levels of Jan Happiness.
Alfie Hewitt vs Ji Zhenxu
Arevalo/Pavic vs Hijikata/Pel
Granollers/Zeballos vs Cash/Glasspool
Hewitt/Reid vs Caverzaschi/Oda
#wimbledon2025 #tennis
How to wind down an independent publisher.
I'm sorry to see them go, but all their reasons are understandable and they're looking out for their authors, like the class act they are.
#independentpublishing #booksky
View from a train in Nuneaton Station. A metal tower similar to a pylon is on the left of the image. A gantry is to the right. A sign on the corrugated steel wall in the background reads "Classic flooring and fireplaces".
We took a train.
It paused at a station.
A voice said,
"This is Nuneaton."
He failed to mention the classic flooring and fireplaces.
#viewfromthetrainwindow #thisisnuneaton
I'm doing the #20BooksofSummer2025 reading challenge, but scaled back to 10 titles. Book 4 on the list has been Manya Wilkinson's Lublin, published by @andotherstories.bsky.social
A worthy RSL Encore Award winner.
thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2025/07/08/l...
If you want to understand why, I wrote an essay about the thoughts it provoked in me
thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2022/05/12/v...
Fair warning: if you don't like it, you are dead to me.
07.07.2025 11:57 β π 6 π 1 π¬ 1 π 120 years ago, a tragedy happened in London
which informed the writing of this song about
how people had started to
lose sense of unity & companionship
20 years on, do you feel closer or more separated from those around you?
#77 weβve got to learn to love our neighbour
How do they get AWAY with this? I mean, however American your accent might be, PRUSSIAN?!
06.07.2025 22:16 β π 450 π 35 π¬ 52 π 7
Silver Torch Cactus in the glasshouse at RHS Garden Bridgewater looking like a bird in a bobble hat with a walking stick.
Went to a fancy garden today. Saw a cactus disguised as a bird in a bobble hat.
06.07.2025 18:01 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
