Trevor Berrett

Photo of the spines of my newest additions to my Brookner paperback collection with matching Penguin design. The books are Brief Lives, A Closed Eye, Fraud, A Family Romance, A Private View, Incidents in the Rue Laugier, Altered States, and Visitors.

Photo of the covers of my newest additions to my Brookner paperback collection with matching Penguin design. The books are Brief Lives, A Closed Eye, Fraud, A Family Romance, A Private View, Incidents in the Rue Laugier, Altered States, and Visitors.

Photos of my original haul of Penguin UK Anita Brookner reprints from 2016. The first shows the covers of A Start in Life, Providence, Look at Me, Family and Friends, Latecomers, Lewis Percy, Falling Slowly, Undue Influence, The Bay of Angels, The Next Big Thing, and Strangers. The second shows the same with their nice white spines out.

Back in 2016, I picked up the first batch of Anita Brookner reprints that Penguin UK released—a stack I’ve loved seeing on my shelf ever since.

This weekend, while book shopping around London, I finally found the second batch — the ones I’d missed, covering most of her 1990s novels.

I loved this discussion between
Trevor and Paul on the work of KAZUO ISHIGURO, which delves into his key themes, including memory, repressed thoughts/emotions and bearing witness to disturbing events.

My biggest takeaways: I need to read THE UNCONSOLED & AN ARTIST OF THE FLOATING WORLD. #BookSky 💙📚

In our latest episode, @mookse.bsky.social and I talk about losing the plot. Or more precisely, reading slumps
—what they look like, what brings them on, and how to find the spark again. From work stress to life interruptions to simple fatigue, we explore how to rediscover the joy of the page.

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...

Small lives and violent deaths | John Self | The Critic Magazine If it’s October, it must be Nobel Prize season, so how better to mark the occasion than with the new book by a Nobel literature laureate?

“She was moved by her own words (a trap she constantly falls into throughout her life).” And so was I, by these touching, funny, toe-curling and surprising books:

Me on novels by Jon Fosse, Pirkko Saisio and Elmore Leonard:

Episode 117: Losing the Plot: On Reading Slumps and How We Find Our Way Back We’ve all been there: the books are piled high, but nothing calls out.

We have a new episode today on reading slumps! What triggers them? How do we cope? @bibliopaul.bsky.social and I have some ideas: open.substack.com/pub/mookse/p...

The new US edition of Dorothy Richardson's modernist epic, Pilgrimage, has been on sale for a little less than three months and we've averaged a sale a day. If folks will keep supporting this project, we'll break even by Christmas.

asterismbooks.com/product/pilg...

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark

We start our readalong of Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on Sunday. Come join in! discord.gg/5KZRYqVf2U

Ha! Thank you! It’s sometimes so unrelenting, and I’m looking forward g the last two volumes.

Rude gestures????

Photo of my Modern Library edition of The Captive and The Fugitive

I finished The Captive this morning! Now on to The Fugitive…

In this episode @mookse.bsky.social and l are joined by @lorifeathers.bsky.social, using The Portrait of a Lady as our foundation to explore what makes a work abundant. We move through other examples, asking what defines abundance, how it differs from size or ambition, and why these books matter.

Episode 116: A World Brimming Over: Abundant Literature and The Portrait of a Lady with Lori Feathers

New episode! @bibliopaul.bsky.social and I are joined by @lorifeathers.bsky.social to talk about abundant book! What a lovely topic! mookse.substack.com/p/episode-11...

Based on your write up, I think so too

I have not read S/Z (and clearly there is no alternative option, so I must), Fun Home, or the Hitchens. I am toward the start of The Magic Mountain (and loving it)

This is an amazing post, Dorian! Like all the best it just makes me want to go reread the ones I’ve read and seek out the ones I haven’t and then discuss them with you!

A Shelf of Promises: My Starter Library A recent episode of The Mookse and the Gripes podcast got me thinking. Hosts Trevor and Paul were joined by John Williams of the Washington Post (mensches one and all). John had proposed a fascinat…

A while back @mookse.bsky.social and @bibliopaul.bsky.social @johnwilliams.bsky.social discussed starter libraries—which inspired me to imagine my own

eigermonchjungfrau.blog/2025/10/01/a...

Thanks, Emily :-)

Episode 115: Kazuo Ishiguro In this episode, Trevor and Paul turn their attention to Nobel Prize–winner Kazuo Ishiguro, whose eight novels over the past forty years have earned both admiration and debate.

This week @bibliopaul.bsky.social and I focus in on the work of Kazuo Ishiguro! These author focus episodes are always a lot of fun to record, and we hope you enjoy it! Please let us know your thoughts on Ishiguro’s work! mookse.substack.com/p/episode-11...

I read this last year and thought it was excellent!

"When I was 14, my best friend convinced me he could move things with his mind. Also, that he was possessed by the devil." From "Astonishment, A Requiem," an essay by Eric Puchner at the Sewanee Review. thesewaneereview.com/articles/ast...

I’m not qualified to speak on the subject!

I started this but, through no fault of the book, didn’t persist (too many other projects!). I’m excited to listen and finish the book!

Episode 38: Miaow Welcome to One Bright Book! Join our hosts Dorian, Rebecca, and Frances as they discuss MIAOW by Benito Pérez Galdós, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa, and chat about th…

Over the summer, @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social released a fabulous translation of a fabulous novel by the fabulous Benito Pérez Galdós, MIAOW is the subject of out latest episode. Check it out!
onebrightbook.com/2025/09/07/e...

This week @mookse.bsky.social and I are joined by translator @maxlawton.bsky.social to celebrate the release of Michael Lenz’s Schattenfroh from @deepvellum.bsky.social. But rather than focus only on this one book, we open the conversation to a wider theme: the joy of reading books that resist.

Listening now. For at least a few more minutes. Class beckons. But can’t resist. I am fascinated by Schattenfroh. Read it once, for fun as they say here. But I need to move back in and live for a while.

Episode 114: Through a Glass, Darkly: Entering Schattenfroh and Other Books that Refuse to Yield at Once This week we are joined by translator Max Lawton to celebrate the release of Michael Lenz’s Schattenfroh from Deep Vellum.

This week @bibliopaul.bsky.social and I are joined by translator Max Lawton to celebrate the release of Michael Lenz’s Schattenfroh from @deepvellum.bsky.social. We also open the conversation to a wider theme: the joy of reading books that resist. mookse.substack.com/p/episode-11...

Yay! The big three is not a bad way to look at his oeuvre, but he did publish his debut, Nothing But the Night, in 1948. He repudiated it, but it’s not bad. He was also working on a novel when he died called The Sleep of Reason. You can read an excerpt in an old Ploughshares (I didn’t care for it!).

August is Women in Translation Month! I loved reading the 3 titles pictured here over the last year; each is a 5 star read.

Eastbound - Maylis de Kerangal- from French
The Postcard- Anne Berest- From French
Mina’s Matchbox- Yoko Ogawa- from Japanese

@mookse.bsky.social
@vmspod.bsky.social

This is such an enjoyable discussion, full of great recommendations of literary gems!

Very much endorsing John’s choice of William Trevor’s short stories as an essential component of any library, maybe with Elizabeth Taylor’s Complete Short Stories, too. #BookSky 💙📚