iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 9h

Books on the tube Ever After by Graham Swift The Beach by Alex Garland Heroes and Villains by Angela Carter Unidentified Karl Marx Penguins Classic (old style)

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 12h

First glance at this still and I thought the brolly was a rifle. What a different film *that* would have been. Falling Down meets Severance meets Mr Bean.

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Lissa Evans @lissakevans.bsky.social · 16h

Happy 90th Birthday to the one and only Brian Blessed! I wrote a book for children called 'Wed Wabbit', and based the Green Wimbley Woos (you'll just have to read it) on Mr Blessed. They're freedom-fighting commandos who inadvertently give away all their plans because they CANNOT WHISPER.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 16h

There’s still time to sign up for this week’s Personal Anthology. Today’s guest editor, picking and introducing a dozen favourite short stories, is Sarah Turner (@scturnerfiction.bsky.social). Get your weekend reading sorted. Sign up here: apersonalanthology.substack.com/about Hitting inboxes 2pm.

apersonalanthology.substack.com

About - A Personal Anthology

A weekly guest-editor picks and introduces a personal anthology of twelve favourite short stories. Click to read A Personal Anthology, by Jonathan Gibbs, a Substack publication with thousands of subsc...

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Why do you think I’m obsessively peering at people’s reading matter on my morning commute? We all live in hope.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Cont… The Yellow Dog by George Simenon James by Percival Everett Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck I Will Crash by Rebecca Watson Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami Unidentified green-spined Penguin Modern Classic

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Books on the tube Unidentified John Gwyne Bloodsworn novel Troy by Stephen Fry They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Cathy Birkenstein, Gerald Graff, and Russel Durst Lost Connections by Johann Hari The Wedding People by Alison Espach Switzy by Emma Cline

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Congrats to Anne Carson! She's been picked for an entry in a number of Personal Anthologies, by @pippagoldschmidt.bsky.social, @heidijames.bsky.social, Rachael de @moravia.bsky.social, Joe Dunthorne, and others. Read what they picked and why here: apersonalanthology.com/tag/anne-car...

apersonalanthology.com

Anne Carson – A Personal Anthology

Posts about Anne Carson written by Jonathan Gibbs

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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

In 2012, I stood on a stage with Anne Carson as a volunteer grad student to help her perform BRACKO, an adaptation of Sappho, where my job was to say the word "bracket" every time there was a bracket, which was more than two hundred times

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It's Wednesday evening, and officially nearly the weekend... and A Personal Anthology! This week's guest editor, picking and introducing a dozen favourite short stories, is Sarah Turner (@scturnerfiction.bsky.social). Sign up here: apersonalanthology.substack.com/about Hitting inboxes 2pm Friday.

apersonalanthology.substack.com

About - A Personal Anthology

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

apersonalanthology.substack.com

About - A Personal Anthology

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Dirty chai and matcha traycake, anyone?

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Thanks, Damian. I’ll yell when I’ve got my idea more fully fleshed out, in case you’re interested.

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Chris Farnell @thebrainofchris.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

So anyway, I refused to watch the new Thomas the Tank Engine episodes, instead sticking to the safe old favourites, like the one where Henry reenacts The Cask of Amontillado.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

(In fact there are TWO Annes, as you’ll discover, but, well, I’ll let Brophy explain the rest.)

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Wonderful! I do hope you like it. Let me know how you get on. (There’s an Anna AND an Anne in it, so you’re well represented.)

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

2026 Reading 53: The Snow Ball by Brigid Brophy. Re-read (in Faber’s lovely reissue with Eley Williams’s introduction) because I was going to see Don Giovanni for the first time, an opera which informs (rather than inspires) this novel, that I hold closer to my heart than maybe any other.

Paperback book with a creamy white cover giving the title and author name in art nouveau script, embossed, the title in gold, with a baroque curlicue decoration. “Superb… Sheer artistic insolence” – Iris Murdoch

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The Alpine Club @alpineclub.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

We have up to £3,000 in funding available for academics, writers and other creatives carrying out research into alpinism, mountaineering and the mountain environment in 2027. Applications close on 1 December, so you have just 8 weeks to submit your application. Details here ➡️ tinyurl.com/5cxa9hyc

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I wrote a novel (The Large Door) in part responding to this book, but it has influenced me in myriad and various other ways. I was amused, for instance, to see that the word ‘declivity’ appears two, maybe three times in it. It’s such a sexy word, and I used it myself in a sex scene in a short story.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This book is emblematic to me of a kind of literary perfection. There is no clutter, no blurred edges; no sense that the characters exist beyond the page, though on the page they are exempla of human psychology. The author is not insistent. They stand alongside you, calmly regarding their creation.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It’s set at a New Year’s Party from just before midnight until dawn. It proceeds at an almost stately pace, never changing its cadence, modality or volume. It’s a novel played on a harpsichord, serenely competent, abounding with frills and trills, noticing and evoking and moving on.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It’s also tragic in the way that the opera isn’t: the Don’s descent into hell is triumphant, Faustian, existential; unconnected, in fact, to sex, which is just another part of his life force. For Brophy, sex comes with death in its train. Every orgasm not just a little death, but a little damnation.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It didn’t disappoint. It’s a gem of a novel(la?), sexy and witty and arch and powerfully intelligent. I loved how it plays with Mozart and Da Ponte’s story, showing how seduction can be something that you submit to, but without giving yourself away. To be seduced, here, is not to be conquered.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Thanks Jacqui! That would be brilliant.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I’m continuing A Personal Anthology but also thinking about a similar but different project around the novella. So if novellas (novellae?) are your thing, or if you even have strong thoughts about them, and if you have a favourite novella, then do let me know!

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

A couple of singles collections in there, perhaps more justified in terms of New Order. I do have favourite Saint Etienne albums, but they didn’t ‘make me’ like Too Young to Die did. www.my9albums.com/s/4U97H8yT5b

A grid of nine album covers:
Abbey Road by The Beatles
Hounds of Love by Kate Bush
Substance by New Order
Pigeonhole by New Fast Automatic Daffodils
On Fire by Galaxie 500
Blue Lines by Massive Attack
Too Young to Die by Saint Etienne
Second Toughest in the Infants by Underworld
When the Haar Rolls In by James Yorkston

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René Magritte @renemagritte.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Le poison / Poison - 1938 or 1939 #artbots #magritte

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John Gilbey @johngilbey.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

A day spent with the Afon Mawddach is never wasted... Here was the view towards Cadair Idris late this afternoon...

View of the Afon Mawddach looking south east towards Cadair Idris from near Abermaw.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

“Hey kid, I hope you have a good weekend, I hope your get things done the way that you intend.” Love it when my park run playlist gives me a bit of Jazz Butcher on a Saturday morning. youtu.be/DVgd7oIHuEI?...

youtu.be

The Jazz Butcher - Big Saturday

YouTube video by beko icons

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

No Personal Anthology today. I’m trying to keep it going fortnightly. So look out for the next mailout next Friday 9th October.

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Luke Turner @luketurner.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

"The hedonism of Elastica feels especially relevant in a pop world whose biggest star is Charli xcx. Like brat, Elastica exudes a sleazy smokers’ area glamour" lovely writing by @msclairebiddles.bsky.social on one of the best albums of the mid-90s thequietus.com/quietus-revi...

thequietus.com

Reissue of the Week: Elastica's Debut Album is "Untouchable Louche Perfection" | The Quietus

Claire Biddles returns to Elastica's debut album and finds it short and perfectly formed; even with some extra tracks thrown in.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This looks lovely. Do I need it? I don’t need it. It looks lovely.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Books on the tube House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J Maas The Strength of the Few by James Islington The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe Hold by Michael Donkor The Great Concert of the Night by Jonathan Buckley How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend by Rachel Barr

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This does make me roll my eyes a bit. There are two elements of the story (the floods being one of them) that are so far as I can tell impossible to adequately stage. A film, by contrast, might have been viable.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Wait, I thought this was still a really long January!

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Love this thought of Anita Brookner’s, quoted from Hermione Lee’s biography by Andrew O’Hagan in his LRB review: “Reviewing an anthology of dreams in 1986, she says that writers don't dream about their fictional characters, but may ‘dream their dreams for them’.”

Reviewing an anthology of dreams in 1986, she says that writers don't dream about their fictional characters, but may "dream their dreams for them".

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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

This will be a thread of essays I recommend to students in my creative nonfiction workshop:

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Reader, I asked them, are you a guy or a girl?

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Trying to make a) the character b) the narrator c) the reader d) all of the above look like a fool.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If it helps, this brings back a particular niche sixth form running gag of replacing definite articles: - Some Beatles - A Sensational Alex Harvey Band - “Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis Presley has left a building.” Similar senses of humour, I think!

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