iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Strong Nabokov vibe in early Henry Green “attendant angel lips”

The walls were a neutral yellow that said nothing, and on them were hung cheap Italian crayon drawings of precocious saints in infancy. The room was called the Saints’ Room. Behind the glass of each were hundreds of dead flies, midges, for the room had a strange attraction for these things in summer, when the white ceiling would be black with them by sunset. With winter coming on they would creep away under the glass to dine on attendant angel lips. Perhaps the attraction was rather the hot-water cistern that was

that was under the roof just above, and which gave a hint of passion to the virgin whitewash.
He lay in bed, imagining the room. To the left, on the dressing-table by the bed, would be the looking-glass that would never stay the right level. It would be propped up with a book, so that it gazed blandly up at the ceiling, mimicking the chalky white, and waiting for something else to mimic. On the chair between the table and the bed was sitting the young trained nurse, breathing stertorously over a book.

Blindness by Henry Green, published by Hogarth Press, 1977 reissue

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Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

You too could be like Jacob (ie excellent and reading something from my list of 75 great but neglected books): causticcovercritic.blogspot.com/2020/02/75-e...

causticcovercritic.blogspot.com

75 Excellent But Neglected Books

On Twitter I did a big thread of 75 unjustly forgotten or neglected books, so I thought I'd put the whole thing here to make it more eas...

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Clothes in Books @clothesinbooks.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

after a recent post on dower houses, the ultimate book on the subject: Henry James' Spoils of Poynton, a huge delight and as exciting as any crime story clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-...

clothesinbooks.blogspot.com

The ultimate dower house issue: The Spoils of Poynton

The Spoils of Poynton by Henry James published 1896/7 Fleda Vetch. How would you picture this character? In a Patricia Wentworth...

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Stanley Bad 🍰 @stanleybad.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

"Imitation only makes what it has seen, whereas imagination makes what it has never seen, conceiving it with reference to the thing it really is." - Apollonius of Tyana on A.I.

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

On se prend à beaucoup mieux aimer la réalité, parfois, après un très long détour par les rêves. [We come to love reality much more, sometimes, after a very long detour through dreams.] Pierre Reverdy, Le livre de mon bord

Pierre Reverdy
LE LIVRE DE MON BORD
1930-1936
Mercure de France

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X-Ray Eyes @xrayeyes.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal), Ingmar Bergman (1957)

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Kazuyoshi Kawasaki @kawasaki1972.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Conte de Printemps | Éric Rohmer | 1990.

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Clothes in Books @clothesinbooks.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

A really unusual book: Neville Shute's Trustee From the Toolroom doesn't resemble anything else - and is quite splendid clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2026/06/trus...

clothesinbooks.blogspot.com

Trustee from the Toolroom by Neville Shute

Trustee from the Toolroom by Neville Shute published 1950 sailor with a model - though not quite the right kind Always trust t...

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Live all you can — it's a mistake not to, Mr Bond hahahahaha

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Pick a Bond villain from the pictures you already have on your phone.

Henry James, about to teach you a little lesson about punctuation

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

They don’t make chapter headings like this anymore. What a book.

Book IX

More Light, and the Gloom of That Light. More Gloom, and the Light of That Gloom

[Chapter heading in PIERRE]

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

“Unravel thy gibberish!” …said by a character in PIERRE

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JacquiWine @jacquiwine.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

'Lalage, on the other hand, lay on a mossy bank of dark delicious green, with her hands clasped behind her golden head, while that nice young man who drove too fast peeled her a nectarine, and told her about motorcars.' #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/04/21/m...

jacquiwine.wordpress.com

Mr Wrong by Elizabeth Jane Howard

While Elizabeth Jane Howard is best known for her multigenerational family epic, The Cazalet Chronicles, in 1975, she published a collection of short stories, Mr Wrong, which demonstrates a darker,…

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Ivy Compton-Burnett @ivycomptonburnett.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

“It is said that effort is its own reward,” said Lavinia. “Perhaps that is why it often has no other.”

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

I love this publisher, A GREEN EQUINOX and RHINE JOURNEY are wonderful but THE KING OF A RAINY COUNTRY is incomparable.

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Appreciate the tip. I’ll try to get there this trip.

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Correct re Magus, always my first stop, but also the well-curated Lamplight

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

In Seattle again, where the bookstores never disappoint me.

What you want, baby they got it: Sorrentino, Reverdy, Barker

More more more: Warner, James, Apollinaire, Gissing

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Ivy Compton-Burnett @ivycomptonburnett.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

"In a sense he will not die.” “In a poor sense,” said Teresa, “as he will not be alive.”

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Going through a shelf of little books I came across this Jean Follain chapbook I’d forgotten about.

Jean Follain
Viandes vives
Commune Mesure

Un vieil homme assis sur une chaise basse dans une cuisine à bassines de cuivre rumine la mélancolie des viandes vives. Condamné par les médecins à

de tristes légumes, il exprime sa nostalgie de la chair du porc qu’il décrète la plus succulente de toutes. Par la fenêtre, les arbres de l’hiver frissonnent devant un ciel dont le gris ne va pas de la journée entière s’atténuer; le vieillard évoque alors la grillade sans os préférable à la côte. Il faut battre le fer quand il est chaud, dit une femme.

Imprimé cent cinquante fois sur velin de Rives en été 1976

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

What excellent books are published by Wakefield Press. Many of these I acquired on my most recent trip to Seattle, Elliott Bay Books being stunningly loaded with them.

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Ah, thanks. I believe I do have the Faber here somewhere

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

What book is this translation from?

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Frances Evangelista @nonsuchbook.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

“Why do we call all our generous ideas illusions, and the mean ones truths?” Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Shout-out to a strange and wonderful book…

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

The only reason I put it down last night was it was late and I had to go to sleep!

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

BTW, halfway through Silber’s Secrets of Happiness per your blog recommendation.

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Christopher White @bombaylychee.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Plus a power station, and both by Giles Gilbert Scott.

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phil @philjamesson.com · 12/01/2026

look upon my works, ye mighty, and let me know what you think

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Yeah man! Wonderful to put books in people’s hands.

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Wait, are you now part of the glamorous and lucrative book trade?

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Should never have sent HG that Bluesky invite

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

New Directions finally releasing titles of forthcoming previously unpublished Henry Green novels

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

Excellent, never seen these translations before, thanks

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

“I wish to God you could pay more money.” I wrote about F Scott Fitzgerald’s Christmas wish, and how his difficult final year led him to produce some of his best work: the irresistible, cynical, revealing and very funny Pat Hobby stories.

giftarticle.ft.com

When F Scott Fitzgerald’s Christmas wish came true

The Pat Hobby stories about a washed-up writer in Hollywood were written to make money fast — they are also the final flowering of Fitzgerald’s eccentric genius

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Eric Passaglia @spaceisagrail.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

English version by Simon Watson Taylor

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