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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Exit Party by Emily St John Mandel. As a political story, I’d say so so. Much richer as an exploration of our multiplicity. The accidental nature of identity. The thin threads that hold a self together.

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I expected to love The Director but … didn’t. So this one may or may not work for you. Books! They work in mysterious ways.

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Haven't seen that cover in many years ... takes me back!

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I'm also a big fan of Cole's Open City, but I've sometimes struggled to connect with his other work. Could be a shortcoming on my end!

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The second is what he calls "verifiable essays," which are drawn from somewhat esoteric texts to create something new and evocative. Lots of good books in this vein -- An Elemental Thing, The Ghosts of Birds, Karmic Traces. All with New Directions.

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

He has two main forms. One is kind of political commentary, that is captured in this LRB piece: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4.... Or his book What Happened Here, which is one of the great documents of the Bush years.

lrb.co.uk

Eliot Weinberger · Incoming! They Came from Fox News

They vow to cut two trillion dollars from the federal budget – five times the combined annual salaries of all federal...

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

So many great books, but I'd say no contemporary essay pile is complete without some Eliot Weinberger, who has stretched the form like few others. My two cents.

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

My favorite too. Good to read side by size with di Benedetto's Zama and Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe.

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Recently re-read Disgrace and the Master of Petersburg -- I had forgotten how powerful they are, how willing to do be difficult. Then got bogged down in The Heart of the Country and thought I should take a break.

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

My favorite of Tokarczuk's books (with a lot of Bruno Schulz mixed in). So glad to see it back in print. Though I still like this edition from Twisted Spoon.

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

All of his books sound interesting, but I confess I've yet to finish one ...

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Excellent, important book. But … media ignores all books. Not just you.

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Apparently neither of them really had any sense of who the other was -- just some Brazilian lady and an Italian painter looking for working during WWII.

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

The key to all fundraising is the mental shift from asking/giving to finding purpose together.

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

In the strange ways of the world, his grandson studied agriculture at, of all places, Penn College in Oskaloosa, Iowa, where my great uncle was his English tutor. He (uncle) later visiting the remaining Tolstoys in 1920s Moscow, after working for Quaker relief in postWW1 Poland.

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Dalven remains my favorite Cavafy translator, though it's hard to know whether her versions are better or just ingrained in me.

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

What's the most joyful Polish book you've read?

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Think how difficult it must be to generate that large a smile with that much plastic surgery. Kushner must be really, really happy about something. (I'm guessing it involves lots of $$$$.)

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I think it means they already did.

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

"I've always considering living a metaphysical mistake on the part of matter."

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Agreed. I can't remember reading a review that gushing (Nobel Prize, here he comes), and appreciated the bold embrace, which is always a risk. Definitely piqued my interest, though I confess I didn't finish Seven Killings ...

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Fascinating piece on the evolution of publishing. "For certain authors and publishers..[finding readers] was accomplished through subscription publishing, with door-to-door canvassers taking orders for books before they were printed...three quarters of books in the U.S. were sold this way."

roughlydaily.com

Mark Twain, America’s First Celebrity Author and Publisher

The rise and fall of subscription book publishing and the birth of mass media: "Mark Twain, America’s First Celebrity Author and Publisher" @jeffjarvis.bsky.social via @literaryhub.bsky.social (Plus- ...

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

We think we're training AI, but in reality, AI is training us. Today AI-generated books are laughable, but it is likely that in the not-very-distant future lots of people will like them, even if they only get marginally better, because AI will have led us down that path. Like processed foods.

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

#booksinconversation #coetzee #pessoa Voices of the lonely and left behind. The unseen. Of the observers.

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

In my experience, many "deniers" know that climate change is real -- they just don't actually care, because they assume it will impact other people (i.e., Black/brown), poor people, and the future.

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Having lost a considerable sum gambling on horses, Malcolm Lowry consoled himself with a bottle of gin he bought by selling the clothes off his back. He wife had to retrieve him from a whorehouse where he’d hidden out in his underwear.

Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Those madeleines can stir so many memories.

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

O’Connor was asked if, with all those freaks, hogs, preachers, chickens, and southernisms, she was a regional writer. Her answered: The distinction that matters isn’t knowledge of the world but knowledge of the self. The price of self-knowledge is being an exile everywhere, even if frozen in place.

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Reading Andre Alexis' Fifteen Dogs. A rough read at times, but ... incredible too. What happens when culture changes, when new ideas disrupt a pack. An impressive feat, and another tribute to small presses (Coach House Books). #booksky

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Colin Hamilton @colinhamilton.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

I loved Tyll, and have read it several times, but found The Director underwhelming. Perhaps just a timing issue, as happens with books.