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Christopher Tayler

@mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social
412 followers 650 following 381 posts

Writer and editor. New York Review of Books, Harper's, London Review of Books, Financial Times, Guardian etc. Robert Silvers Prize for Literary Criticism 2025. Paul the Psychic Octopus Memorial Award 2021.

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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"... and I still think that an hundred Bishops, with Athanasius at their head, were as competent judges of the discipline of the fourth Century, as even the Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford" is an extremely sick burn by Mr Gibbon.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
It's actually a pretty amazing party trick-type ability how long Chris Mason can talk without saying anything
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Not a Christian or religious in any way, but I'm sad to learn that the "woman taken in adultery"/"cast the first stone" story is universally agreed to be a later addition, because it's a banger.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Practical Magic 2 is diabolical but my whole household is still laughing about the Ian Wright/custard scene.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
My new crank belief is that The Man has deliberately made morning R3 music choices crap in order to drive everyone back to the hated Today Programme to be radicalised by Justin Webb
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Telling teenagers that the stereo has an input "on the back of the amp" turns out to have the same sort of results as telling Hansel that the files are "in the computer" in Zoolander.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
@crookedfootball.bsky.social
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
I kind of love the way all of Hall and Oates's songs are about how this scarily hot woman is making unreasonable sexual demands of Hall and Oates, who look like this.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
The nicest man in rock strikes again: a friend went to interview Johnny Marr and mentioned what a fan I was, so he sent him back with this.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
My only real Odyssey criticism is that the sun god had a weirdly mixed herd of cattle. I think there was a Frisian in there at one point. They should have been all Limousin.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
The are/is thing for teams blowing minds at the New Yorker - www.newyorker.com/sports/world...
newyorker.com
British Grammar Invades the American World Cup
The World Cup has brought Britishisms to U.S. soccer coverage. “Linguistically, as on the pitch, the Americans can often be found ball-chasing,” Zach Helfand writes.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Akusmi at Rough Trade East last night. New album here - share.google/wZMVzszHdcjb...
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Wrong use of "disinterest" on the first page of the first Game of Thrones book
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
At last catfishing.net #737 - 10/10 🎉 🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈 🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈
catfishing.net
catfishing - the Wikipedia guessing game
Guess the Wikipedia article from its categories. 10 interesting people, places, and things to guess every day.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Come to this - dice.fm/event/bbo96v...
dice.fm
Akusmi: Live w/ Sarathy Korwar, Marysia Osu, Dudù Kouate and more Tickets | From £14.62 | 6 Jul @ Rough Trade East London, London | DICE
Rough Trade East is very excited to present a live performance from Akusmi w/ Sarathy Korwar, Marysia Osu, Dudù Kouate and more and signing from Akusmi. This...
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Random guy on my feed having a normal one
A coloured pencil drawing of Andy Burnham with octopus legs marked "corporate rule" etc, being puppeteered by a grinning soldier marked "IDF" standing on some blood and skulls (rather unusually it's the puppet rather than the puppet-master who has octopus characteristics), above the caption "AS USUAL".
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Good piece on the cage fighting/manosphere/MAGA entertainment complex www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...
nybooks.com
Planet UFC | Nic Johnson
For decades it has been White House tradition to invite Ireland's prime minister, the Taoiseach, to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day with a ceremonial
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Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
I hate to hand it to him, but he's right, my girlfriend is women
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
If Baron Harkonnen was fried eggs
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
After revising Macbeth all day, daughter thought she heard me mutter "The sad people always ride single file." Yes, she thought, they're each trapped in their individual sadness, unable to reach out to one another - great image. Was then disappointed to learn I'd actually muttered "sand people."
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
youtu.be/OCcys7FIhis?...
youtu.be
Miles Davis - Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins [1954]
YouTube video by Classic Mood Experience
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
This is good, and I think it's right too.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
RIP Clarence Carter. People are going on about your novelty record but this is immortal. youtu.be/tj8eAHn_2YM?...
youtu.be
Slip Away- Clarence Carter
YouTube video by LaBamba1680
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The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · 14/05/2026
“One of the qualities that has helped Ben Lerner’s writing flourish...is a knack for treading a nicely judged line between intellectual grandiloquence and comic self-deflation.” —@mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social
nybooks.com
‘Facing the Past’ | Christopher Tayler
Ben Lerner’s dazzling new novel, Transcription, plays variations on the conflicts and bonds that are felt among three generations.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
There are times when I wonder about the wisdom of choosing "Mansfield Von Rank" as a social media handle, and this is one of them.
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The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · 08/05/2026
Christopher Tayler (@mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social) on Ben Lerner’s Transcription
nybooks.com
‘Facing the Past’ | Christopher Tayler
Ben Lerner’s dazzling new novel, Transcription, plays variations on the conflicts and bonds that are felt among three generations.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
I write about Ben Lerner's latest novel for @nybooks.com. The marvellous editors there were okay with me spending about a quarter of the piece on a close reading of the opening page. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
nybooks.com
‘Facing the Past’ | Christopher Tayler
Ben Lerner’s dazzling new novel, Transcription, plays variations on the conflicts and bonds that are felt among three generations.
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The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · 07/05/2026
Our 5/28 issue is now online, with @bentarnoff.com on Bill Gates, Frances Wilson on Liza, @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social on Ben Lerner, Lynn Hunt on Marat’s afterlife, Charlie Lee on John Gregory Dunne in Vegas, Nina Siegal on the Hoosier grave robber, and much more.
nybooks.com
May 28, 2026 Issue
Table of Contents
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
All left-wing political parties could save a fortune by simply not leafleting people who have floor-level letterboxes, because those people clearly don't believe in the dignity of labour.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
There's now a guy permanently stationed in the locker room at the British Library to unlock your locker and slap a magnetic "out of service" sign on it when the numeric keypad fails.
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Maria J Pérez Cuervo @mjpcuervo.com · 29/04/2026
Do you realise what today’s date is? Happy The Devil Rides Out day!
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Pretty sure Bluesky went down this morning because of the volume of people firing it up to comment on the GB News-style Today Programme opening about dodgy solicitors proving asylum seekers are bad.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Charles Gray would have made a good John Ashbery
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Some of the quoted stuff is actual physical laugh out loud
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
"Space is not a safe space, it is the opposite." Justin Webb's war on woke slipping the surly bonds of earth on the Today Programme just now.
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
Feeling a bit preverted today
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Post a non-religious picture you think of as holy
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Well, I am not sure what my analysis here is worth, but here is my 7,500 word primal scream of a military historian's take on the War in Iran. My best summary: this war is dumb as hell. acoup.blog/2026/03/25/m...
acoup.blog
Miscellanea: The War in Iran
This post is a set of my observations on the current war in Iran and my thoughts on the broader strategic implications. I am not, of course, an expert on the region nor do I have access to any spec…
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Peter Guillam's tactics won't work on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
Peter Guillam saying "For god's sake, let me sweat the bastard" in the one true adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
This is good heatherparry.substack.com/p/this-is-no...
heatherparry.substack.com
this is not an essay about Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights"
why can't we cope with ambiguity these days?
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Since Malcolm Cowley is doing the rounds again - harpers.org/archive/2014...
harpers.org
The Passenger, by Christopher Tayler
Creating the Lost Generation
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Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
“Divorce, naturally, wasn’t mentioned. The affair wasn’t either. They continued to edit and publish Bainbridge’s novels.” Christopher Tayler ( @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social ) on Beryl Bainbridge and Anna and Colin Haycraft.
buff.ly
The Zone of Silence, by Christopher Tayler
Beryl Bainbridge’s dramas of failed attachment
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Does anyone want two tickets for Lost Highway at the BFI IMAX at 11am this Sunday?
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
I thought of Beryl Bainbridge as this rather normie figure growing up, but I was wrong about that. At her best she's a bit like Muriel Spark, but without the implicit idea that that all the chaos and darkness make some kind of sense from an inaccessible supernatural point of view.
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Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
“After you murder someone you should send a series of cryptic letters in some sort of unbreakable code. That’s the responsible — I would say, the fatherly — thing to do.”
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Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
“It’s all a trap. The intricate plot builds up to some disturbing sexual and emotional punch lines that are all the more disturbing because the principal characters are neither clowns nor monsters.” Christopher Tayler on Beryl Bainbridge.
buff.ly
The Zone of Silence, by Christopher Tayler
Beryl Bainbridge’s dramas of failed attachment
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Stuart Evers @stuartevers.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
I've never read Beryl Bainbridge, but this piece really makes me want to. harpers.org/archive/2026...
harpers.org
The Zone of Silence, by Christopher Tayler
Beryl Bainbridge’s dramas of failed attachment
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Keeping the flame of civilisation burning, I wrote about what's really important (English novelists in the Seventies and Eighties) - harpers.org/archive/2026...
harpers.org
The Zone of Silence, by Christopher Tayler
Beryl Bainbridge’s dramas of failed attachment
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Keep seeing the term "gutter racism", but how is that worse than "boardroom racism", "megayacht racism"? Is the implication that it's worse because uncouth?
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Christopher Tayler @mansfieldvonrank.bsky.social · 30/12/2025
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