Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026It's the end of a long summer, and work is about to get real, but we've had some really good news today and we're going to celebrate by drinking wine and watching this banger: films (and things) don't get any better than this. 4111
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonGareth @chibiabos83.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Picture of Thurston Dart holding a serpent 141
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026There are building works on my staircase, and this ghostly list of previous inhabitants emerges. Trevor Jones was a German lexicographer and Bletchley code-breaker; Thurston Dart a musicologist; Harry Creswick was university librarian; Cameron Wilson taught French; Freddy Britain was a classicist. 4525
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026I wrongly thought we were at the equinox (not quite…), but very definitely an early autumn swim: chilly, clear, beautiful and still. 1110
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonSarah Pyke @sarahpyke.bsky.social · 16/09/2026I love this card catalogue so much. Here's a short piece I wrote for @litreview.bsky.social about it (and my great-grandmother's wartime reading diary) earlier this year literaryreview.co.uk/list-of-a-li... 0124
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonRebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 16/09/2026It's happening! 'Killjoy Comedy: Willful Women and 1750s Fiction' is coming out with @uvapress.bsky.social in February 2027. @sinsleyh.bsky.social says it is 'a ROMP'. I am *floored* @bsecs.bsky.social @asecsoffice.bsky.social #18thcentury #c18th www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10256/ 186414
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 27/08/2026Mircea Cǎrtǎrescu, Nostalgia: this is more self-contained than Solenoid and Blinding, but there’s some weird, astonishing stuff in here; the final story, about an architect who gets obsessed with his car horn and starts to re-create the entire history and future of music, is hilarious & apocalyptic. 2134
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 24/08/2026Just read: Roberto Bolaño, Distant Star, trans. Chris Andrews. I struggled so hard with The Savage Detectives, but this (and By Night in Chile) has shown me the way. Finished it in 24 hours: stone cold, shocking, unsparing, but such a copious, funny imagination. 3202
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 22/08/2026A morning seeing Frank Bowling at the Fitzwilliam Museum. ❤️ 0130
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 18/08/2026It rained overnight and it’s still grey and everything smells damp and the bunting is ragged and limp and for the first time in months I’m going to swim in the drizzle … Is this heaven? I could almost cry. 2130
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 17/08/2026“For a lyric to materialise, it’s more helpful to let yourself wait in a condition of listening ignorance. In a helpless yet alert not-knowing.” (Denise Riley, A Chorus of Ears) 150
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonJohn Hughes @johnmelhughes.bsky.social · 30/07/2026Marvellous "reverse" sonnet by John Ashbery. I love this poem so much. 0293
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonDirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 09/08/2026"I only want to live in peace, plant potatoes and dream!" Tove Jansson was born #otd 1914 328060
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 29/07/2026“God’s pity! How long will it feel like burning, said the child trying to be kind.” (Anne Carson, Lines) 2131
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonEMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 27/07/2026I wrote about the Nolan Odyssey for the LRB. I'll summarize some of my main points below, in case you don't feel like reading all that. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...lrb.co.ukEmily Wilson · An Uncomplicated ManAs they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Christopher Nolan has read at least the first line of my... 19761601559
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile, trans. Chris Andrew’s. Taken from @staggerlee42.bsky.social ‘s top 100, and this time I really clicked with RB: this was really funny, bonkers, furious. 2121
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 20/07/2026And now this: such a gentle film, so unforced, always in control of its complications and fictions. Just like a fable but never sinks into cliché. 5132
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 17/07/2026“Who speaks of death speaks also of that mysterious world to which, perhaps, we gain access by death. After such long reflection […] I still know nothing of what goes on behind death’s dark curtain. But the Syrian night remains as my conscious experience of immortality.” 1121
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 17/07/2026About twelve months late for everything, but we’re catching up on this tonight, v excited. 2150
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 11/07/2026Now reading: Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian, trans. Grace Frick 1110
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 06/07/2026Now reading: Silence, by Shusaku Endo. 090
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonAlice Wickenden @awickenden.bsky.social · 03/07/2026I agree with all the takes about an attack on the humanities being an attack on critical thinking, &c. It’s also about joy, though. ‘Why bother studying that’ is always also a sneer at — why do you think you should get to do something you enjoy? Grow up and be miserable all the time! 7553169
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 27/06/2026Putting the heat into a bit of perspective. 2101
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 21/06/2026Starting the summer with this beautiful thing. 2101
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonKatie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 17/06/2026Two-year early modern English job, at Oriel College and the Oxford English Faculty, starting October. Happy to field any questions! my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...my.corehr.comJob Details 02531
Reposted by Christopher Burlinsongrantrintoul.bsky.social @grantrintoul.bsky.social · 08/06/2026"I have so little sense of living what I’m living while I live it that I have to relive it to finally live it." 0178
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 02/06/2026A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe this afternoon. The heavens opened in Act 2 and the cast really fought their way through it; palpable joy at the end. The production leans into audience participation and ad lib, but the comedy is done really, really well. 1200
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 14/05/2026Blustery Ascension Day at Jesus College Cambridge. 070
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonCeri Houlbrook @cerihoulbrook.bsky.social · 06/05/2026Why would we want to learn from our pasts, or ponder the power of the written and spoken word, or explore the deep questions of humanity? According to the University of Hertfordshire, we wouldn't. They've just cut all of our undergrad Humanities programmes 45631298
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 02/05/2026This is such a beautiful film: such delicacy, such magic. 4264
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonDavid Klemperer @dmk1793.bsky.social · 01/05/2026Happy May Day 210553
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonRob Palk @robpalk.bsky.social · 24/04/2026Ian Penman on the Beach Boys, LRB you are spoiling me: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...lrb.co.ukIan Penman · I’m just a sound: Back to the Beach BoysIn 1983, Brian Wilson told a reporter: ‘I think ultimately I’m just a sound. I don’t know if I’m a human being... 1124
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonJeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 26/04/2026I wrote about what it's like to read the poetry of J.H. Prynnesomeflowerssoon.substack.comIn Darkness by DayReading J.H. Prynne (1936-2026) 34419
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonStephen Guy-Bray @stephengb.bsky.social · 25/04/2026When I was a little boy some adult asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up and I said "read poetry all day" and they said "that's not a job" and I said "I know, I'll think of something" but then I thought that maybe it could be a job and now that is my job and I couldn't be happier. 631422
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonMr. Symphonist @deeplyclassical.bsky.social · 20/04/2026#TheCompleteBritten #78 Our Hunting Fathers, Op. 8 (1936) - symphonic cycle for high voice and orchestra Prologue (W.H. Auden) 1 Rats away! (anon) 2 Messalina (anon) 3 Dance of death (Thomas Ravenscroft) Epilogue and funeral march (W.H. Auden) Britten's "real Op. 1" had a difficult birth. 🧵 /1youtu.beBenjamin Britten - Our Hunting Fathers, Op. 8YouTube video by Classical Music 2359
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonSarah Pyke @sarahpyke.bsky.social · 23/04/2026'Beside corn felt crake persistently at night locally for wide awake was ever their delight This is not “all crepuscular and iambic”, but I find it moving in its cubist feeling for the candle-lit history of English.' (read this reading!!) 291
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 23/04/2026Discovered in a second-hand copy of What Maisie Knew: “my knees!” #usedbooks 081
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonKristin Grogan @kristingrogan.bsky.social · 22/04/2026rest well jh prynne, the / mere & lovely centre, of the earth 07422
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 15/04/2026I hit a wall with Musil (one for another day?), but Katalin Street floored me, a history of c20 Hungary that is also the history of a house & its ghosts. Its anger and grief and sorrow are just too much: like a story that doesn’t know how to tell itself, can only watch itself playing out. Loved it. 2161
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 11/04/2026This has lifted me out of a reading slump: Enard, Tell them of Battles, trans. @avecsesdoigts.bsky.social, a beautiful short novel imagining Michelangelo in Constantinople in 1506. A fragmentary book about fragments, drafts, desires, acts of creative imagination, the thrill of translation. 1266
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonLondon Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 09/04/2026There I stayed, and there forgot, my cheek laid on my Beloved fair. And all things ceased, and I was lost and all my worldly doubt and care were sunk among the lilies there. ‘Dark Night’, a poem by John of the Cross, translated by Martha Sprackland. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...lrb.co.ukMartha Sprackland · Poem: ‘Dark Night’ 0123
Reposted by Christopher BurlinsonLondon Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 09/03/2026‘Davis’s skill is to notice the way feeling snags on the various contingencies which by their indifference to its clamour make it visible to itself: a cane, a rug, a furnace, a caterpillar, an old shirt, a plate of chilli.’ David Trotter on why Lydia Davis writes. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...lrb.co.ukDavid Trotter · Little and Large: Lydia Davis’s MethodThe first few pages of Into the Weeds give the impression of someone starting to regret that she ever agreed to conduct... 0101
Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 01/03/2026This film is a banger and well worth seeing on a big screen if you get the chance. 2233