Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 1hOne of the people who responds literally does just that. 110
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 2hDelighted to hear that. Have you read Elizabeth von Arnim’s Tye Enchanted April? 100
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 2hI own a copy! I need to slim my tbr down, though it’s one I got on Kindle back when I did that a lot more than now so easy to miss. 100
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 2hI’ve heard of it, not sure I’m persuaded to read it though. Besides, the killer confesses! Christie does love a confession. Avoids all the issues of trials I guess… 000
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 2hI’ve heard of that but don’t know it. Will look it up. 100
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 3hHumane is a great way of putting it. The Remains connection seems very credible now you point it out. 110
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 5hI don’t think it’s top tier but it’s fun and has some great characters. 010
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 5h2026 reading 🧵 Back to the ever-reliable Eric Ambler. Slight change of pace here with a typical story of international intrigue, Kurdish separatists and oil company interests, but a protagonist who is far from the usual Amblerian straightforward good egg. Fun if a bit quick on the denouement. 120
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 6hDoes that argue the BM’s real failing is not making the queue a bit longer? 000
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 6hWe left one screening (Japanese drama about a Kabuki troupe) halfway as it was just so hot we couldn’t cope. Otherwise we made it through a lot of great films but some were a struggle. I hadn’t seen most of the Visconti’s before and was (mostly) impressed. Ten Dark Women was a standout for us. 010
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 7hIf it’s ok I’ll ask my wife tonight if she’d like them. I think we donated one of our copies of this year’s so if you don’t get any takers we might have access to a good home even if it’s not us. Obvs if someone asks in the meantime that’s fine! Hope you had a good festival this year. But the heat! 110
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 7hThey are quite big aren’t they? I have this year’s (we may even still have two of this year’s) but not the others. Are you London based? 110
Reposted by Max CairnduffSanjeev Kohli @govindajeggy.bsky.social · 03/10/2026The loud showy front-of-house staff at Costa are called baristas. The behind-the-scenes guys doing the nuts-and-bolts work are called solicitas 0176
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 7hI think for obvious reasons you would really enjoy it 010
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 8hHave you played this one? It’s great though I don’t have mine anymore. 100
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 11hI’m used to it being called rules through most of my career. I know how it started but I think the usage drifted over time. 000
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Somebody I used to know it wasn’t caught until it burst at which point it’s very serious. Sounds like you’ve had a tedious wait until today but soon you’ll be on the other side! 110
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Glad they caught it in good time and good luck with a rapid post-op recovery! 110
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026One of the small bits of it I liked, particularly from being an SF reader, is he has these archaeological finds of some possibly ancient technology of unknown purpose. One expects it to be important, and it simply isn’t. It’s basically just a detail. They drop it I think from the TV adaptation. 010
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I’ve a Dunsany to read soon, not my first by him. I do wish sometimes fantasy had been more influenced by Dunsany and Lud and Travel Light than the suffocating hand of Tolkien-imitation (not knocking JRR who I think is great, but the imitations smothered the genre for me). 100
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Luddites is so obvious I’m embarrassed to have missed it! Good connection to The City & The City which is so far my favourite Miéville (though I’ve only read a few of his). 100
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 02/10/20262026 reading 🧵 Absolutely marvellous 1931 tale of an ordinary family’s annual seaside holiday. Warm, sharply observed, sympathetic to its characters, very well written. Up there with The Enchanted April which I adore. Lovely release from Persephone books. Highly recommended. 4132
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026I think that would be an incredibly stupid thing to do, particularly with Muse which has already according to reports I’ve seen shown prone to ignoring boundaries set for it. 020
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026I say that and when asked if I have allergies routinely say “not yet!” In other news I’m starting to think I may be more annoying than I realised. 1150
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026I know he has his detractors, but even the fiercest surely wouldn’t accuse him of lying to Mumsnet. 030
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Ah the 90s, carefree decade of among other things the Balkan wars. 020
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Surely if nothing else JC has read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. 130
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 30/09/2026The best kind! By the way, years ago a short piece you wrote alerted me to James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner which I loved and have recommended many times since. So thank you! 000
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I mean it would be confusing. My postcode is already big enough I think. 130
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026That doesn’t look very comfortable, the way she’s lying there. In unrelated news I may be getting older. 011
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I think White Tears may be his best but Gods Without Men is my favourite. 010
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Quite inspiring, unless sadly Jim is principally into 19th Century poetry and the music of the Renaissance. 010
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 28/09/2026I’m sorry for your loss. If you haven’t lost one I’m terrified by your gain. 100
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 28/09/2026The only difference between you and someone who’s lived their for their whole life is duration, and since when was duration an artistic metric? 000
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 27/09/20262026 reading 🧵 Fascinating 1926 fantasy novel from before any of the cruft of that genre had accrued. Lud-itM is a bourgeois town with solid burghers and steady habits, but somehow faery fruit are crossing the Debatable Hills bringing strange dreams and new feelings… Classic forgotten work. 250
Reposted by Max CairnduffLissa Evans @lissakevans.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Hilary Mantel’s exquisite description of Anita Brookner’s party technique (from the Brookner biog by Hermione Lee) 2233
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 26/09/2026The pursuit of truth, not of facts, is the business of fiction. Oakley Hall in his author’s foreword to his near-Pulitzer winning novel Warlock. 010
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Sorry, back up a moment. There’s an episode of The X-Files co-written by William Gibson? 100
Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I thought they had an issue this week that one of them just so totally aced it all and by a fair distance. 000
