Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Rather than 'examine' and 'identify', I would say 'contest'. 010
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Here's a report. You'd think if it was over Ukraine it would be cited with admiration. lithub.com/award-winnin...lithub.comAward-winning poet Alice Oswald was arrested for supporting Palestine Action.Alice Oswald, one of Britain’s most acclaimed poets, was arrested at a mass sit-down demonstration outside the houses of Parliament in London on Saturday for holding up a sign in support of d… 010
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Do you also find it curious that the Guardian's review of Alice Oswald's book of essays doesn't mention her recent arrest? www.theguardian.com/books/2026/o...theguardian.comRhapsody: A Manifesto by Alice Oswald review – a history of the spoken word, from Homer to Ted HughesA twisting, beguiling investigation into the art of poetry that ends in a call to arms on behalf of the natural world 100
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Blanchot's essay Orpheus' Gaze read by an AI voice. His surname rhymes with Flipchart. rss.com/podcasts/30-...rss.comOrpheus Gaze - M. Blanchot | Podcast Episode on RSS.comOrpheus descends into the underworld. His music charms the gods. They grant him one condition: he may bring Eurydice back to the light, but he must not look back at her. He looks. She vanishes.For mos... 000
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 21/09/2026"He was a very famous rabbit and President Putin had met him twice." www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/202...craigmurray.org.ukFour Days in Ekaterinburg - Craig MurrayI was surprised a few weeks ago to get an invitation from Yana Lantratova, Russian Federal Commissioner for Human Rights, to deliver a speech on human rights to the International Youth Festival in Eka... 000
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 21/09/2026I reviewed his "translation" of Jean-Luc Champerret's The Lascaux Notebooks. this-space.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-...this-space.blogspot.com 000
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 21/09/2026An interview by Tony White with the British OuLiPo writer Philip Terry, conducted while he packs up his office, a constraint of sorts. review31.co.uk/interview/vi...review31.co.ukWriting on the Verge of Prophecy: An Interview with Philip TerryReview 31 is an online literary review. 110
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 12/09/2026"Belben's writing, with her love of commas and use of parataxis, manages to be quaintly British, yet startling and subversive." sebald.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/w...sebald.wordpress.comWeek 36 Reading (2026) Rosalind Belben & William Kentridge“In humdrum fashion one goes slowly crackers.” from “The Hole in the Sky” The 85-year old British writer Rosalind Belben is having a moment. At least four of the eight books… 040
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 29/08/2026@timesflow.bsky.social I imagine this video will cause you much agitation! youtu.be/EuHYBFh3K30?...youtu.beTour the 20,000 Book Library of a Professional Classicist (Complete Loebs, I Tatti, Pauly etc.)YouTube video by Timothy Kenny 120
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 22/08/2026"Why the 18th November, specifically? I don't know" It's the day Marcel Proust died.this-space.blogspot.com<i>On the Calculation of Volume 1</i> by Solvej BalleThe premise of this multi-volume novel is simple: a modern-day French woman called Tara finds herself stuck inside the eighteenth day of a N... 110
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 19/08/2026That would be Alexis Wright. I would strongly recommend Jen Craig's three novels. 010
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 13/08/2026'Publishers still love literature to a degree, but increasingly in the manner that politicians once possessed "convictions": as vestigial accessories attached to managerial careers.' x.com/wself/status...x.comWill Self (@wself) on XThe Novel Is Dead. This Time It's for Real 000
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 05/08/2026Just discovered this 1990 BBC Bookmark documentary on Gert and Michael Hofmann I saw at the time. But hang on, is that a young Rory Stewart at 0.54? www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gTY...youtube.comBookmark Gert and Michael Hoffman 1990YouTube video by Shaun Belcher Writes 021
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 04/08/2026I was a big fan of Hüsker Dü after Zen Arcade, but this was too poppy for me. I didn't buy another LP of theirs. 200
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 04/08/2026Wow. I have never thought of the 'th' as together, which is why I asked. The mispronunciation of Kundera as 'KUN-dare-ah' bugs me. 000
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 04/08/2026Very few English people pronounce my English surname correctly. "Michael-Moore" is the commonest. Your surname can't be that confusing. How did people mispronounce yours? 100
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 04/08/2026Do you remember when Beckett was a defence witness in a legal case and the prosecuting counsel asked if he had written a book on "Prowst"? He knew the correct pronunciation but wanted the jury to think he was a pretentious dick. 100
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 04/08/2026It's only recently that I learned Cioran is pronounced with a 'Ch'. 😠 100
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 29/07/2026Fifty years ago it would've been gorgeous pouting George Steiner interviewing Saul Bellow. No gold lamé blouses then though. We've moved on. 000
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Dustin Illingsworth's was spot on however. archive.ph/Q4I8Warchive.ph 100
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Fun fact: Ken Russell was born same city (Southampton) as Benny Hill, and both in the 1920s: two pudgy, white-haired men with questionable attitudes towards women. 000
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 23/07/2026You'd not heard of Twiggy? She was a very thin fashion model in the Swinging Sixties. Still famous in the UK. 100
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 21/07/2026"A man advances into the darkness. As he does so he advances into different moments in his life." www.carcanet.co.uk/978180017594...carcanet.co.ukA ManGabriel Josipovici's new novel consists of over 500 short sections, ranging from a single line to a page: A man advances into the darkness. As he does so he ... 031
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 18/07/2026A blogpost via the new biography of Paul Celan. this-space.blogspot.com/2026/07/some...this-space.blogspot.com"Sometimes God, sometimes nothing"Once I imagined a novel in which everything seen throughout the day by a single person is reported in detail. I was a teenager in my first j... 021
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 23/06/2026I wrote about the new translation of Proust's The Guermantes Way, including a peculiar use of Deleuze's Proust & Signs. this-space.blogspot.com/2026/06/read...this-space.blogspot.comReading, ignoranceThe papacy, people say, counts in centuries, and perhaps never even thinks of counting, because its goal is eternity. 1 It has been a plea... 011
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 19/06/2026"Literary transvaluation must be renewed, meaning that it cannot be a Bernhardian fire that needs to be kept burning, but the fire as such, a Gnostic conflagration of literature against literature." larsiyer.co.uk/2026/06/18/l...larsiyer.co.ukBernhard’s CounterwordInterview with Lars Iyer This is a full-length version of a written interview conducted by Lisa Akhila Plakolm and Juliane Werner of the GlobalBernhard project team, based in the Department of Comp… 020
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 09/06/2026The fourth volume in the new translation of In Search of Lost Time has arrived. You can just see the spine creases of the previous three. 041
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 01/06/2026No. There's also a positive review in The Guardian by Ian Maleney, whose opinion I respect. But, as a reader of novels, I'm drowning not waving. 110
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 01/06/2026In the post today, the hugely welcome reissue from @andotherstories.bsky.social of an extraordinary novel. I wrote about the first edition briefly here: this-space.blogspot.com/2024/04/39-b... 064
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 26/05/2026But part one is more fun, and a bit shorter. this-space.blogspot.com/2024/02/a-mi...this-space.blogspot.comA mighty contagious absence, part oneThe number of obituaries, tributes, backhanded compliments and overt smears in the corporate news media following the death of John Pilger r... 010
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 26/05/2026A year ago today I posted the second of two blogs on AI-generated literature. this-space.blogspot.com/2025/05/a-mi...this-space.blogspot.comA mighty contagious absence, part twoOn submission and resistance to AI-generated literature To great writers, finished works weigh lighter than those fragments on which they ... 131
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 14/05/2026"I wonder how many of those of us who write exclusively on literature and read only novels, poetry, literary criticism and occasionally into related subjects, have an otherwise unaccountable curiosity with another beyond the literary horizon." Here's mine. this-space.blogspot.com/2026/05/inva...this-space.blogspot.comInvasion of the UniverseI wonder how many of those of us who write exclusively on literature and read only novels, poetry, literary criticism and occasionally into ... 030
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 07/05/2026Review by Daniel Fraser. fallowmedia.com/reviews/2026...fallowmedia.comPaul Celan – Collected Prose | Fallow MediaIn the aftermath of an historical crisis, reality becomes a task for poetry to recover: that which, as Paul Celan writes, had to be ‘sought out and won’. 030
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 05/05/2026Last year there were 3,200 attacks against Muslims and 22 Mosque attacks, including arson. But the problem the newspapers are worked up about is anti-se...the Greens getting elected. 100
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 17/04/2026There was tiny radical bookshop in Brighton we called 'The Right-On Bookshop'. It specialised in Native American literature, oddly. I got a few Blanchot books in there. It closed in the 90s. 010
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 16/04/2026That's a rare hardback of Contre-Jour. Last time I saw one was in a library in the 80s. Must be a special bookshop. 110
Reposted by Steve MitchelmoreSteve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 16/04/2026This is not a review of Enrique Vila-Matas' novel Montevideo. this-space.blogspot.com/2026/04/mont...this-space.blogspot.comA fundamental deprivation: <i>Montevideo</i> by Enrique Vila-MatasPerhaps all novels seek to converge on a single point. The thought occurred to me as I read Vila-Matas' Montevideo , translated by Sophie H... 001
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 16/04/2026This is not a review of Enrique Vila-Matas' novel Montevideo. this-space.blogspot.com/2026/04/mont...this-space.blogspot.comA fundamental deprivation: <i>Montevideo</i> by Enrique Vila-MatasPerhaps all novels seek to converge on a single point. The thought occurred to me as I read Vila-Matas' Montevideo , translated by Sophie H... 001
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 15/04/2026It is not new when one thinks of Calder's editions of Beckett's late work. Is that "legit"? There are others mentioned here: this-space.blogspot.com/2024/05/39-b... I say we need more, with the white of larger margins there to makes us feel the silence from which the black text has been wrung.this-space.blogspot.com39 Books: 1997I found this ghastly 60-page Grove Press hardback edition in a second-hand bookshop, its large typeface and generous spacing very similar to... 200
Reposted by Steve MitchelmoreFlatlander of the Opera @flatlander.bsky.social · 14/04/2026"Dad, are we going to Disneyland?" "Somewhere even better kids! Sleaford!" 092
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 14/04/2026I wrote about it briefly in my 39 Books series. this-space.blogspot.com/2024/04/39-b...this-space.blogspot.com39 Books: 1991One the first books I found in a bookshop* upon moving to Brighton was Rosalind Belben's novel Is Beauty Good . I had seen it two years earl... 010
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 14/04/2026I'm very pleased to see that Rosalind Belben's novel Is Beauty Good (there is no question mark) from 1989 is being reissued in July by @andotherstories.bsky.social www.andotherstories.org/is-beauty-go...andotherstories.orgIs Beauty Good | And Other Stories‘That the music may be polyphonic is no grounds for not listening,’ scribbles a man for his stone-deaf friend. In […] 172
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 12/04/2026I saw a production above a Brighton pub in the 90s. It was called Finnegans Wake and there was room for about 8 people. As I lived a few yards away, I was able to correct the person chalking up the ad outside who spelled Krapp with one P. The pub is now called Grand Central. 🤮 000
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 12/04/2026Harold Pinter in Krapp's Last Tape on BBC4 this evening at 9pm, followed by a programme about Beckett. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...bbc.co.ukBBC Four - Krapp's Last TapeHarold Pinter stars in Samuel Beckett's acclaimed study of mortality and memory. 140
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 12/04/2026Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 13s I saw a production above a Brighton pub called Finnegans Wake. As I lived a few yards away, I was able to correct the person chalking up the ad outside who spelled Krapp with one P. The pub is now called Grand Central. 🤮 000
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 12/04/2026I saw a production above a Brighton pub in the 90s. It was called Finnegans Wake. As I live a few yards away, I was able to correct the person chalking up the ad outside who spelled Krapp with one P. The pub is now called Grand Central. 🤮 100
Steve Mitchelmore @mitchelmore.bsky.social · 29/03/2026A bit late in the month, but there's also this. writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/...writing.upenn.eduWallace Stevens, "Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself" 010
Reposted by Steve MitchelmoreSaul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 27/03/2026The UK at the Human Rights Council this morning: "We know it takes huge bravery to protest and to speak out in the face of this oppression" 25529
