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Chris Power

@chrispower.bsky.social
2.2K followers 499 following 309 posts

I read books, write books (Mothers, A Lonely Man) and write about books (Observer, LRB, Guardian etc)

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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 6h
Anne Carson yesterday, Navi Pillay’s peace prize today. The Nobels are on point right now
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Anne Carson, newly minted Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, once published the greatest ever author bio
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New York Review Books @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"The book is conversational and inclusive but, crucially, the material isn’t diluted; this is hard stuff, it admits, but let’s have a crack at it together."
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Discover your opinion of Mary Ruefle in just 53 words observer.co.uk/culture/book...
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Discover your opinion of Mary Ruefle in just 53 words observer.co.uk/culture/book...
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
You’ll not regret it
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
My paperback of the week in @theobserveruk.bsky.social is Simon Critchley’s brilliant deep dive into Heidegger’s Being and Time, “the most important philosophical book of the last 100 years”. Excerpts below, whole thing here: observer.co.uk/culture/book...
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
My latest paperback of the week column for @theobserveruk.bsky.social looks at Omar El Akkad's One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
observer.co.uk
Omar el Akkad lays bare the west’s betrayal of Gaza
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This argues that the war’s catastrophic loss of life has been met with a cowardly and self-serving response
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
or saying people who aren't from the region can't understand and shouldn't comment. All those people should read this book. They probably won't, but they should have the courage to see if their convictions stand up to El Akkad's arguments (spoiler: not a chance).
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Innocent Palestinians are still being murdered (not just children, but innocent women and men too), and people are still looking away, or saying it's complicated, or qualifying the term genocide, or keeping their head down for the sake of their job,
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Publishing lag time being what it is, it's a book the author thought - hoped - might go out of date in the year between its writing and its hardback publication. But even in the year between that and this, its paperback edition, it remains entirely, sickeningly relevant.
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
My latest paperback of the week column for @theobserveruk.bsky.social looks at Omar El Akkad's One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
observer.co.uk
Omar el Akkad lays bare the west’s betrayal of Gaza
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This argues that the war’s catastrophic loss of life has been met with a cowardly and self-serving response
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Speaking Parts by Tara Menon. Just out!
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
When I’ve read the rest of the book I’ll let you know
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I’ve never read it. And on this evidence I won’t!
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Ha ha yes!
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Ahead of the publication of his new novel why not read Donald Antrim’s fantastic story collection, The Emerald Light in the Air - the UK sales figures for which are a stain on our literary culture www.theguardian.com/books/2014/n...
theguardian.com
The Emerald Light in the Air by Donald Antrim – ‘Takes those who appear monstrous and reveals their humanity’
Chris Power: A complex and powerfully emotive collection that tackles psychological derangement with elegance and grace
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
‘the stamina’ is very good
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I’m so sorry
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
He found everything hardy
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
total number of named & unnamed speaking characters in 20 19th-century British novels
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Late in life, Martin Heidegger became obsessed with Franz Beckenbauer
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I hope Ed Sheeran, and indeed many, many more people, read Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
This incredibly clear-eyed take was published in the New Yorker on 16 September 2001
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
This incredibly clear-eyed take was published in the New Yorker on 16 September 2001
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The Observer @theobserveruk.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Why poetry should be difficult In On Difficulty (and Poetry), Lavinia Greenlaw examines her art in pithy and profound ways, drawing on some of its greatest – as well as unsung – practitioners ✍️ @chrispower.bsky.social bit.ly/46ifyXE
bit.ly
Why poetry should be difficult | The Observer
In On Difficulty (and Poetry), Lavinia Greenlaw examines her art in pithy and profound ways, drawing on some of its greatest – as well as unsung – practitioners
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
My DMs are open…
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Stuart! It’s been way too long. As I hope you’ll acknowledge, the airport thing is far from being my central criticism
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I reviewed Switzy for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...
theguardian.com
Switzy by Emma Cline review – this Booker-listed account of a man’s last days is profoundly moving
Struggling with Alzheimer’s, the central character sets out on his final journey to a euthanasia clinic
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Elizabeth McCracken’s 10/10 punctuation rankings
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Pro reviewing tip: don’t do the thing you’re criticising a writer for doing
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Pro reviewing tip: don’t do the thing you’re criticising a writer for doing
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The Observer @theobserveruk.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
John Healy, the writer the literary establishment tried to erase His 1988 memoir of homelessness and alcoholism, The Grass Arena, was lauded one minute and pulped the next. Nearly 40 years on, Healy, now 83, is setting the record straight bit.ly/4zJUpTC
bit.ly
John Healy, the writer the literary establishment tried t...
His 1988 memoir of homelessness and alcoholism, The Grass Arena, was lauded one minute and pulped the next. Nearly 40 years on, Healy, now 83, is setting the record straight
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I’m not saying it’s not rare, only plausible. But I’ll bet any amount of money that you know a lot more about poetry than I do so I’ll happily defer
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
But if you manage it and it floats, what a ship!
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Elizabeth McCracken’s 10/10 punctuation rankings
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The Observer @theobserveruk.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Paperback of the week: The Red Book of Farewells by Pirkko Saisio This dreamlike work of autofiction completes the Finnish author’s trilogy and explores her sexual coming of age in repressive 1970s Helsinki ✍️ @chrispower.bsky.social bit.ly/3U9SGGX
bit.ly
Paperback of the week: The Red Book of Farewells by Pirkko Saisio
This dreamlike work of autofiction completes the Finnish author’s trilogy and explores her sexual coming of age in repressive 1970s Helsinki
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
A really interesting lost 80s novel observer.co.uk/culture/book...
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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 11/08/2026
‘It’s unexpected that the price of Westinghouse, Paramount Pictures and Svenska Handelsbanken stocks should be one of the most interesting parts of a novel that includes angels, invisible bridges and rooftop battles.’ @chrispower.bsky.social reads Francis Spufford. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Chris Power · Egg in an Eggcup: Francis Spufford’s ‘Nonesuch’
In Francis Spufford’s Nonesuch it isn’t only the author but his characters who can change history. Iris and Geoff...
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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 08/08/2026
‘𝘕𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 is an enjoyable adventure story, but for all its peril and conflict, and the trauma in Iris’s past that is withheld until the end of the book, the stakes are never high.’ @chrispower.bsky.social reads 𝘕𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 by Francis Spufford. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Chris Power · Egg in an Eggcup: Francis Spufford’s ‘Nonesuch’
In Francis Spufford’s Nonesuch it isn’t only the author but his characters who can change history. Iris and Geoff...
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Are you of the faked-his-death persuasion?
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Interesting!
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Reading this taught me 1) about the extraordinary physics prodigy Ettore Majorana, whose story reads like something straight out of When We Cease to Understand the World, and 2) what a nutcase Edward Teller was (a good namer of bombs though: Sundial and Gnomon!) observer.co.uk/culture/book...
observer.co.uk
Paperback of the week: Destroyer of Worlds by Frank Close
A fascinating, generations-spanning history of the race to harness nuclear power into a weapon, from theoretical physics to the Trinity Test and first ‘Super Bomb’
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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 07/08/2026
‘Put your characters up a tree and throw rocks at them, the old piece of writing advice goes. Spufford reaches immediately for a ladder.’ @chrispower.bsky.social reads Francis Spufford’s 𝘕𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Chris Power · Egg in an Eggcup: Francis Spufford’s ‘Nonesuch’
In Francis Spufford’s Nonesuch it isn’t only the author but his characters who can change history. Iris and Geoff...
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
holiday reading
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Incredible to witness all the love in the room for M John Harrison @foylesforbooks.bsky.social last week. The End of Everything is the work of a master who continues to press against the borders of narrative.
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
slimmest Knausgaard since Spring?
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Mary Ruefle
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Chris Power @chrispower.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Thanks!
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