iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Great to see M John Harrison's End of Everything on the Booker shortlist, and also glad to see Rebecca Perry's May We Feed the King...

Photograph of the booker shortlist announcement, showing a wooden bench in a wood against trees.
The list reads.
2026
The shortlist

The End of Everything
M. John Harrison

The Disappearers
Marlon James

Black Bag
Luke Kennard

May We Feed the King
Rebecca Perry

The Things We Never Say
Elizabeth Strout

John of. John
Douglas Stuart

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Of, for heaven sake... First Dolly, now Tim Curry of all people. Has the reaper been replaced with a bloody intern...

Tim Curry as the devil stands on the edge of a cliff. He wears huge horns and his chest red, his legs covered with hair. He holds a spear. The light around his is of hell. Film still or publicity shot from Legend.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

And after much sawing, hammering and clanking (literal), and a mostly 1980s in-theatre soundtrack that ranged from Hot Chocolate* to Wham and Bowie, I have a new knee. Massive hat tip to NHS Scotland, and the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Glasgow. *might have hallucinated this one.

Legs hidden by grey hospital blanket in small waiting area. A glass wall is in the background. A copy of the TLS lies on the bed.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

'Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.' Thrilled to have an advance copy of this. The definitive collected edition of John Burnside's poems. He was, and remains, a force of nature @jonathancape.bsky.social

A duck egg blue copy of John Burnside's new collection of poetry lies on a kitchen work surface. A press release lies under it. Slightly out of focus editions of the TLS and LRB are at the top.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Damn. Hard to remember now how influential the Goodies were, and always felt Bill Oddie was the heart of them. (My memory is a telephone call from him to say he couldn't do something he'd said he would, because he was too depressed, which was both brutally honest and bloody sad.)

Old photograph of a heavy set and bearded man with shaggy hair acting the fool, in a yellow jersey and leather waistcoat.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

'The old gods come by, sullen or joyful according to instinct. A few, near silent shadows now...' Unable, until the end Jonathan Grimwood - Stone Circle Review stonecirclereview.com/unable-until/

Looking down onto Oslo fjord at dusk from a hell above the city. The water reflects the darkening sky. There are trees and hills in the distance. There are no people in this picture.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

It's true, Odysseus should've been played by an actual Greek

A black and white 1970s press photograph of Greek American actor Telly Savalas showing him staring fiercely at the camera. The actor is bald, thin faced, with high cheekbones and deep set eyes. He's wearing a black suit, white shirt and discretely dotted tie.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I wish this didn't read as if written by AI, with a recursive quote that could be AI... [Looks out of window at world burning...]

Quotation taken from the Times.

'There will also be a minister for artificial intelligence in Burnham's top team, with the position to be elevated to cabinet level for the first time. "I want Britain to be one of the great technology countries of the world," a Burnham spokesman told The Sunday Times. "Building the companies, the jobs and the industries that come with that. That's exactly why the minister for Al belongs in cabinet."'

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

11pm Oslo. Dusk as discrete and understated as ever...

View from upstairs flat showing Oslo rooftops and above them a dramatic flaming orange sky mixed with heavy clouds.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

You have to admit, Slartibartfast was good at his job... #Norway

View of twisting Norwegian fjords from the plane window when flying to Oslo,

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

This brilliant speech, with his contempt on full view? He knows damn well Dundee thinks nothing of the sort. (Can't comment on Bangor.)

Quote 'Burnham said the process would provide "new opportunities to extend devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by taking power deeper down"
He said: "The people of Dundee and Bangor feel just as distant from Holyrood and the Senedd as they do from Westminster."'

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Apparently I've been added to the, 'Wrong about VR AI GLP1 Crypto Smart-glasses NFTs or Bitcoin moderation list', which I should probably take as a compliment...

A ziggurat, topped by a huge computer screen, back lit sun, sky and clouds. At the base of the ziggurat are priests and worshipers. (Still of Deep thought from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.)

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

ever expanding number of triffids over leith

A rocky beach, and on the horizon eight tall yellow towers made from steel girders loom over a distant sea port.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Overworked cat requires competent butler. Must understand proportional representation, how to open a sardine cat without slicing their off fingers, and international relations. Previous applicants need not apply.

A white and grey cat sits in front of a black front door, staring at the camera. The famous 10 Downing St door is behind him. There are orange leaves on the pavement.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Was with a consultant in Glasgow yesterday who's going to have a robot rebuild my smashed up knee. And all I can think of is what if the robot is having a bad day (or indeed life)...

Depressed looking robot stands in from of two men. The robot is silvery, cheaply built, obviously fed up with the nature of everything. (The photograph is taken from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a well known travel book published by MegaDodo Publishing, which was one of the less successful RandomPenguin rebrands.)

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Massively, massively pleased. (and, if I'm honest, grateful still to be in the game...)! “Genre-defying, boundary-pushing, ideas-filled and hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck-raisingly-exciting, Thrones and Powers is, in my opinion, the novel of a writer at the peak of his powers.'

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

“We expected wonderful things when we threw out the net for the second Tadeusz Bradecki Prize... but we didn’t expect anything quite like We Survived the Night, a book which marvellously uses the fusion of non-fiction, memoir and folktale to perform an act of witness." Francis Spufford Bought!

A man stares out from a photograph. He looks serious but sad, as if he's seen far too much. He's wearing an earring. The headline to the article from The Bookseller reads 'Julian Brave NoiseCat wins second
Tadeusz Bradecki Prize with
'astonishing' We Survived the Night...'

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Well, no shock I guess. The sub category had me as civic nationalist (or some such) for wanting to rejoin the EU, and wanting independence for the devolved nations. quiz.jmoxley.co.uk

Screen grab of a political identity quiz showing the result eco-socialist.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

10 years to the day since Moskva was published, another of those forks in the road we sometimes make without really realising It came with my favourite Mike Marshall Smith quote: 'Fucking majestic' (For absence of doubt, pistol is deactivated & legal. 1970s Marx was swapped for bottle of brandy)

Copies of a hardback crime novel on a table with a 1950s Russian pistol, a bottle of Vodka, a vodka glass and a cheap Soviet bust of Marx beside then. In the background is a fireplace, Mexican metal ornaments, and a bone inlaid mirror.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Sharp, fractured, frenzied, fragile... Not so much a novel or collection of stories as an enraged prose-poem manifesto. Loved it. Suspect the market might not be that big.

A paperback copy of Antoine Wauters The Museum of Contradictions on a sun lit table. The cover is gold, and shows possibly a woman's face, or a man and a woman's face, in a barred mosaic of gaps. A sticker in the corner says it won the Prix Goncourt.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Your annual reminder that his father was Turkish, his mother Syrian and the Home Office would have hated him. #StGeorge Patron saint of Malta, Ethiopia, Georgia, Portugal, Aragon & England, among others. Less liked by dragons.

Mosaic of St George killing a dragon. Showing a dark skinned, black haired man in Roman armour with a thin lance stabbing a dragon that looks like a largish lizard.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Sorry to hear about Ian Watson's passing. I first met him in the 90s, when a publishing lunch turned into a long tale of his being sent to Japan to teach, arriving at the start of a strike, and spending the year being paid to do nothing A original, in an industry that didn't always appreciate it.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Back in the same cafe on Oslo waterfront, eating same things as last year 'Memory is like an old garment: no matter how pretty it is, it no longer suits you... Repetition, however, is a durable garment that hugs you tenderly but never constricts or swamps you.' Vigdis Hjorth Suspect I mostly agree

A side view of the sharp edged, redbricked Radhus (town hall) on Oslo waterfront, showing a white van parked in front of a stature. The sky is visible and bright and blue.

A picture of a woman with long hair and glasses sitting in an armchair at a table in a cafe with a book, a coffee and a cheese roll in front of her.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

In which a child meets a fish, and a thousand other things happen... This is the novel you write because you can, because there's no one to stop you. (slightly shocked by how good I think it is.)

A copy of Maggie O'Farrell's new book open face down in a cafe. The cover is a modern art take on the contour lines on an old OS map.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Incorrectly shaped coulibiac for Good Friday (some habits die hard)... Also, fish pasty because I had both fish and pastry left over.

Round fish pie made from flaked fish, diced egg, mushrooms, peas, and roux, wrapped in pastry and baked for an hour. It's resting on a worktop, on a metal pizza tray because that works. Also, a fish pasty made at the same time.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Now does this look like heather or a tree stump to you? For reasons known only to itself, a crow landed on my head and travelled for the handful of paces it took the crow to realise I was walking and it wanted to be still... #themeadows. #edinburgh

A brown and frankly quite drab tweed flatcap resting on a kitchen table.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Absolutely loved this. (Very like L in B, but fiercer. Might be slightly marmite)

Cover of George Saunders new novel Vigil, showing a huge pillared house with most of its lights off. The sky behind is vivid lit in spooky, slightly unnatural pins and purples.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

For International Women's Day can I tip my hat to Theodora, daughter of a bear keeper, single mother, sometime street walker and actress, also saint, who moved on to conducting strategy meetings and making foreign policy as empress of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Early 7th century Mosaic of the empress Theodora, dressed in ornate, jewelled covered robes and crown. The predominant colour of the mosaic is gold or deep brown.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Well, we seem to have added a Tracey Emin tea towel to our collection. (Mostly, they're just agitprop or cats.)

A white tea town with a Tracey Emin painting of a slightly soft focus pink nude seen face on, with writing across the bits of tea towel the nude is occupying...

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Used to think the best bit of writing was editing, after you finally had something written. Now I think it might be staring into space, with a coffee in a cafe, looking up random facts, and calling it coming up with ideas... #whatsynopses?

Japanese wood block print of a cream coloured cat, with a red scarf round its neck, staring out intently at the viewer from a black background. It is impossible to tell what the cat is thinking. Nothing good, probably.
Early 1920s.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Thank fuck. And that despite all the excited national media tarting for the hard right in the Gorton and Denton by-election. (And I know it's impossible to judge general elections on mid term by-elections, but all the same...)

the new Green party MP for Gorton and Denton, Hannah Spencer, in pink and green, stands next to party leader Zack Polanski, in crumpled open white shirt , and dark suit jacket, as they take a selfie on a pink phone , with press photographers with much bigger cameras stand around them.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

'Much later, because there’s always a later, he’s sleeping on the floor of an empty flat in South London in his thirties, when he wakes and wonders what crystal meth reminds him of, and finds himself on the rocks in Malta by the salt pans. Not mugged by flashback. Simply carried on memory.'

Salt pans cut into the rock in Malta at Bugibba , with a blue winter sky in the background, a spit of rock in the distance, and a blue sea between. The salt pans are in shadow, partly filled with water that will evaporate, leaving salt crystals. Although no one now gathers them.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

The wild cats are camera shy. This fellow, however... #malta

Very showy white cockerel struts along the top of a stone wall belonging to a ruined farm in Malta

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Proust had madeleines, I have Bugibba bread, but that's tomorrow. Meanwhile... #stpaulsbay #malta

Yellow can of Maltese Cisk beer, next to a half full glass, on a tile patterned table, with a pot plant in the background.

Maltese meatballs in a very garlicky and tomato sauce, served in a metal bowl, on a ceramic plate. Half of the meatballs have been eaten.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Streetmog, having colonised a washing basket next to the only radiator that's on 24 hours a day. He's giving it up for nobody...

Cold tailless black cat skulking in a half full washing basket next to a radiator, while glaring out at me in case he's moved. (He won't be, we wouldn't fit.)

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

Cramond Island being picturesque. Also, freezing and windswept.

Photograph showing a low and windswept island in the distance, with sand showing where the sea would be at high tide. A low wall and rocks lead down to the sand. A spindly tree is dark, windswept and winterlike. The sky is overcast. Drizzle fills the air.

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

You'd think the Guardian would be able to spell kidnapped...

Screen grab from Guardian site, reads...

Venezuela
• Live updates
US will be 'strongly involved' in Venezuela oil industry, Trump says after Caracas attacked and Maduro captured
2m ago

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Jon Courtenay Grimwood @joncg.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

File under, we never quite know what's coming next. One of my favourite embassy reports. The UK ambassador in East Berlin reporting in after the fall of the Wall...

A photocopy of a letter that reads..

British Embassy
EAST BERLIN

The Rt Hon Douglas Hurd CBE MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
London SWl

Sir,
GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC : ANNUAL REVIEW 1989

1. I ended my last year's Review With the remark that
"Accidents apart, I expect no substantive change of course in 1989"...

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