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Calum Barnes

@balumcarnes.bsky.social
683 followers 1.9K following 459 posts

melancholic resister | words Tribune, The Quietus and 3:AM | beats Shinlifter | keep cool but care sigmaportfolio.substack.com

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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Camilla Grudova started a substack dedicated to reviewing novellas ivornovella.substack.com
ivornovella.substack.com
Ivor Novella | Camilla Grudova | Substack
reviews of novellas. Click to read Ivor Novella, by Camilla Grudova, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
the inability to return home or to some prelasparian innocence is a perennial theme of Pynchon
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
this is TOMORROW!
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
that’s the next review card, will keep you posted
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
in the bookshop today i chose violence
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
50. Weak in Comparison to Dreams by James Elkins. An invigorating profusion of metaphors and forms that revitalises literature as a strange language that can still renew our world.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
really pleased to see M John Harrison on the Booker shortlist as a longtime fan. wrote about his last novel and his selected short stories back in 2020: thequietus.com/culture/book...
thequietus.com
The Metaphysics Of Narrative: M. John Harrison’s Uncanny Canon | The Quietus
M. John Harrison has long laboured under the unfortunate moniker of being a ‘writer’s writer’. This has always been reviewer code for ‘writer not many people read’. Active since the sixties, first pub...
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
also looking forward to chairing the brilliant Juan Pablo Villalobos on 5th October! tickets available through the below link
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
looking forward to talking to Jordan Prosser about his zeitgeisty new novel, Blue Giant, published by the mighty @deadinkbooks.bsky.social, next Thursday at @blackwells.bsky.social South Bridge. get your tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jordan-pro...
eventbrite.co.uk
Jordan Prosser: Blue Giant
Join Jordan Prosser as he talks about his latest book, Blue Giant
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
funnily enough i’ve already read the other two, i’d left this one for so long because i’d seen the film (which i love) and had to put some distance between them
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
49. Zama by Antonio di Benedetto (tr. Esther Allen). This victim of expectation, haughty but obsequious, stares into the existential abyss on the colonial frontier. Kindred with the best of Conrad and Coetzee.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
48. Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. A torrid tale of corporate negligence and toxic workplace culture from the inside but ultimately a chronicle of post-2008 liberal myopia and delusion.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
it’s got a release date of the 6th!
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
47. The Death Ship by B. Traven. A pulpy adventure story intruded upon by the capitalist nightmare of borders and bureaucracy that is as true today as when it was published 100 years ago.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
lol only noticing now i misspelt the bloody title
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
probably the best compliment i’ve ever received
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
this is the best compliment i’ve ever received
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Reposted by Calum Barnes
Johnny McBob (Maigret arc) @wolfmanramirez.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
"Ann Quin looking chic as fuck, as always."
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
that n+1 editorial was so full of strawmen i had to rant about it on substack sigmaportfolio.substack.com/p/safe-habours
sigmaportfolio.substack.com
Safe Habours
On the tyranny of overlooked mid-century novels
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Edinburgh shops so sick of the Fringe now they’re putting out their Christmas stuff to wish it away
a stand of sweets labelled ‘stocking fillers’
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
just overhead some twenty something year old coming out the Geese gig saying ‘that was like being in ‘nam’
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
46. On the Calculation of Volume Book 5 by Solvej Balle (tr. Sophie Hersi Smith & Jennifer Russell). Inhaled this in a day like always, this latest entry feels more capacious and elusive as it grapples with the foundations of knowledge in an irrevocably altered reality.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
going to Geese tonight in the mandated dress code ‘embarrassing trying-to-be-cool Dad who is only allowed there to give his teenage son a lift home’ like every other 35+ year old ie loads of the crowd but none of us have teenage sons because we did humanities degrees around 2008
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
yep, but all the coverage has been negative about the art organisations not getting enough when the story should be what citizens are going to gain
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
not to suggest arts organisations aren’t in need of funding and don’t deserve a share or local people don’t enjoy the festival but surely the story is what the council can now fund thanks to the cash injection
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
slightly confused by all the coverage of this; my understanding of the tourist tax was it was to mostly redistribute money from those who profit from tourism to improving services for citizens who live here all year round?
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
true, reads like a novel. have you read Escape From Earth which navigates the same terrain? profilebooks.com/work/escape-...
profilebooks.com
Escape from Earth - Profile Books
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
i mean the GOAT is Techgnosis by Erik Davis!
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
45. Strange Frequencies by Peter Bebergal. A gonzo investigation into how every new technology is first and foremost a device to pierce between the veils.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
for @TheTLS i wrote about some recent Scottish literature www.the-tls.com/literature/f...
the-tls.com
Borderlands – TLS
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
44. Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee. Even on the margins, the choking grip of empire is felt, depicted here by Coetzee with visceral intensity.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
43. The Green Man by Dan Jones. An immersive historical novel with a cosmic horror edge that follows a curious inquisitor to investigate mysterious goings on in the borderlands of 1367 Northumbria and our very reality.
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
not familiar but i’d be pretty surprised if it was either Gray or Kelman
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
HIP HIP HOORAY IT’S THE BURRYMAN’S DAY
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
the algorithm knows me well
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
sigmaportfolio.substack.com/p/a-small-bo...
sigmaportfolio.substack.com
A Small Boat Upon the Wide Sea
On Harris
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
wrote about Lord Jim and a recent trip to Harris
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
hmmm, it’s a little dense when it drills into the historical detail but it’s often just a poetic essay that plays with the ideas. it’s in stock at your local neighbourhood bookshop should you wanna have a gander
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
42. The Gnostics by Jacques Lacarriere (tr. Nina Rootes). A swift journey through gnosticism that becomes a witty Cioran-esque meditation on the abyss at the heart of earthly existence.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
41. Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer (tr. Ursula Le Guin). The follow up to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities but trading in the architectural fancy for an opulent cornucopia of invisible empires rising and falling over and over again.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
#selfcare on Edinburgh Hinge 🥰
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
40. Vaim Hotel by Jon Fosse (tr. Damion Searls). Always love Fosse’s anguished interior monologues, a pleasure like no other, but wondering if these novellas will feel more complete read all together as one.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
my hot take on the Emily Wilson review: Christopher Nolan is doing his best to get the general public reading the LRB, and I am grateful.
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
i shall investigate this emerging theory
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
39. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. Parking all its obvious *problems*, holy fuck the prose here, utterly spellbinding and immersive. Can see how much influence this has had on subsequent fiction, particularly Ballard.
book described
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Reposted by Calum Barnes
Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 30/07/2026
“Trocchi would barely have encountered Beckett’s work while he was finishing his first novel 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘈𝘥𝘢𝘮 but the marks of the Irish writer’s influence on 𝘊𝘢𝘪𝘯’𝘴 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 are undeniable and even explicit.” —“Situating 𝘊𝘢𝘪𝘯’𝘴 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬”, by @balumcarnes.bsky.social 4/9 bellacaledonia.org.uk/2025/06/19/s...
bellacaledonia.org.uk
Situating Cain’s Book
This is adapted from a talk at the Trocchi at 100 event in the Kelvinhall Glasgow organised by the Department of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University and the Andrew Hook Centre for American St…
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
quite the double blow for the Scottish government to increase business rates by huge percentages then the council leave Leith businesses without trams running during their busiest trading period
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
38. Imperium by Christian Kracht (tr. Daniel Bowles). A sly South Seas fable in which one man’s utopian enthusiasm becomes shipwrecked on the island of reality, anticipating the darkness of the twentieth century.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
37. The Eye of Goliath by Diego Muzzio (tr. Rahul Bery). A brilliant and enthralling pastiche of Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde that takes us from Edinburgh to a descent into war-induced madness in a lighthouse in Argentina.
book described
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Calum Barnes @balumcarnes.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
36. Yesterday by Ágota Kristóf (tr. David Watson). There is always a stark beauty to Kristóf’s pared prose even if its perennial theme of dislocation is always hard to bear.
book described
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