Chris Power
@chrispower.bsky.social
I read books, write books (Mothers, A Lonely Man) and write about books (Observer, LRB, Guardian etc). Was a Booker judge in 2025.
Reposted by Chris Power
‘Despite the conventional set-up, Cristina Rivera Garza isn’t interested in fulfilling the murder mystery contract. Satisfaction is antithetical to her aims. 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘔𝘦 is a book designed to withhold the pleasures of the genre.’
@chrispower.bsky.social:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@chrispower.bsky.social:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Chris Power · That’s a body: On Cristina Rivera Garza
Despite her novel’s conventional set-up, Rivera Garza isn’t interested in fulfilling the murder mystery contract....
www.lrb.co.uk
February 16, 2026 at 2:15 PM
‘Despite the conventional set-up, Cristina Rivera Garza isn’t interested in fulfilling the murder mystery contract. Satisfaction is antithetical to her aims. 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘔𝘦 is a book designed to withhold the pleasures of the genre.’
@chrispower.bsky.social:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@chrispower.bsky.social:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Reposted by Chris Power
‘He stirred himself to go later in August, but the painting sessions were held up initially by rain, then by a minor accident when Monet injured his leg protecting some children in the forest from a discus thrown by English tourists.’ I could do with a little more detail here.
February 17, 2026 at 2:34 PM
‘He stirred himself to go later in August, but the painting sessions were held up initially by rain, then by a minor accident when Monet injured his leg protecting some children in the forest from a discus thrown by English tourists.’ I could do with a little more detail here.
‘He stirred himself to go later in August, but the painting sessions were held up initially by rain, then by a minor accident when Monet injured his leg protecting some children in the forest from a discus thrown by English tourists.’ I could do with a little more detail here.
February 17, 2026 at 2:34 PM
‘He stirred himself to go later in August, but the painting sessions were held up initially by rain, then by a minor accident when Monet injured his leg protecting some children in the forest from a discus thrown by English tourists.’ I could do with a little more detail here.
Reposted by Chris Power
‘The novel denies us solution, catharsis and, for much of its length, comprehension. Yet this is what it must be like for Cristina Rivera Garza, to whom, I suspect, all crime novels are unjustifiably cosy.’
@chrispower.bsky.social reads ‘Death Takes Me’.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@chrispower.bsky.social reads ‘Death Takes Me’.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Chris Power · That’s a body: On Cristina Rivera Garza
Despite her novel’s conventional set-up, Rivera Garza isn’t interested in fulfilling the murder mystery contract....
www.lrb.co.uk
February 15, 2026 at 3:45 PM
‘The novel denies us solution, catharsis and, for much of its length, comprehension. Yet this is what it must be like for Cristina Rivera Garza, to whom, I suspect, all crime novels are unjustifiably cosy.’
@chrispower.bsky.social reads ‘Death Takes Me’.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@chrispower.bsky.social reads ‘Death Takes Me’.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
I’m in this week’s @lrb.co.uk writing about a novel I struggled through twice and am still in large part baffled by www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Chris Power · That’s a body: On Cristina Rivera Garza
Despite her novel’s conventional set-up, Rivera Garza isn’t interested in fulfilling the murder mystery contract....
www.lrb.co.uk
February 15, 2026 at 10:48 AM
I’m in this week’s @lrb.co.uk writing about a novel I struggled through twice and am still in large part baffled by www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Reposted by Chris Power
"Manchette wastes none of his readers’ time, one short chapter after another driving the book relentlessly to its end."
@chrispower.bsky.social on Jean-Patrick Machette's Nada. If you like Manchette we recommend you check out Jean Echenoz.
@chrispower.bsky.social on Jean-Patrick Machette's Nada. If you like Manchette we recommend you check out Jean Echenoz.
Paperback of the week: Nada by Jean-Patrick Manchette
In the 1970s, Manchette reinvigorated French thrillers with his chaotic energy and leftist politics, as deployed in this tale of ragtag revolutionaries
observer.co.uk
February 9, 2026 at 2:45 PM
"Manchette wastes none of his readers’ time, one short chapter after another driving the book relentlessly to its end."
@chrispower.bsky.social on Jean-Patrick Machette's Nada. If you like Manchette we recommend you check out Jean Echenoz.
@chrispower.bsky.social on Jean-Patrick Machette's Nada. If you like Manchette we recommend you check out Jean Echenoz.
Not a million miles off, Mr Dickens.
February 6, 2026 at 3:16 PM
Not a million miles off, Mr Dickens.
Reposted by Chris Power
Manchette is so great. His politics, his simultaneous experimentation with form and edge of the seat plotting, his sense of humour, his general fearlessness. And Nada is fantastic. Contains probably the greatest shootout scene ever set to paper.
All anarcho-Marxist killer, no filler. A fantastic novel. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: Nada by Jean-Patrick Manchette
In the 1970s, Manchette reinvigorated French thrillers with his chaotic energy and leftist politics, as deployed in this tale of ragtag revolutionaries
observer.co.uk
February 6, 2026 at 10:18 AM
Manchette is so great. His politics, his simultaneous experimentation with form and edge of the seat plotting, his sense of humour, his general fearlessness. And Nada is fantastic. Contains probably the greatest shootout scene ever set to paper.
All anarcho-Marxist killer, no filler. A fantastic novel. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: Nada by Jean-Patrick Manchette
In the 1970s, Manchette reinvigorated French thrillers with his chaotic energy and leftist politics, as deployed in this tale of ragtag revolutionaries
observer.co.uk
February 6, 2026 at 10:13 AM
All anarcho-Marxist killer, no filler. A fantastic novel. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
I spent a couple of hours walking around the Prado with Mathias Énard observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Mathias Énard: ‘I write with a bastard tongue’
The Prix Goncourt-winning novelist on the myths of the Middle East, the horrors and wonders of history, and life at a Madrid museum
observer.co.uk
February 5, 2026 at 12:58 PM
I spent a couple of hours walking around the Prado with Mathias Énard observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Rosenberg, the son of Holocaust survivors, believed in the Zionist project until a visit to Israel in the late 1960s revealed “a land filled with violence, injustice, and hatred”. His book, & its account of how Israel’s apartheid system operates, is essential reading. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week – Israel: A Personal History by Gör...
Rosenberg was raised to believe the state of Israel was a ‘blessing’, only for years of human rights abuses to convince him otherwise
observer.co.uk
February 1, 2026 at 10:30 AM
Rosenberg, the son of Holocaust survivors, believed in the Zionist project until a visit to Israel in the late 1960s revealed “a land filled with violence, injustice, and hatred”. His book, & its account of how Israel’s apartheid system operates, is essential reading. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Fonts in conversation. A new series (probably 1 of 1).
January 26, 2026 at 9:35 AM
Fonts in conversation. A new series (probably 1 of 1).
Brilliant work @ianleslie.bsky.social
January 24, 2026 at 4:02 PM
Brilliant work @ianleslie.bsky.social
Maybe the greatest ever example of nominative determinism
January 21, 2026 at 12:07 PM
Maybe the greatest ever example of nominative determinism
From the Sunday Times, Nov 8th 1987. What became of Motion’s ten-novel sequence?
January 20, 2026 at 11:36 AM
From the Sunday Times, Nov 8th 1987. What became of Motion’s ten-novel sequence?
Kenneth Roth looks back at 30 years of genocide, repression and state-sponsored terror. And you know what? It almost looks like a golden age compared with today. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: Righting Wrongs by Kenneth Roth
Roth spent three decades as head of Human Rights Watch. His record of past victories is also a warning for the future
observer.co.uk
January 17, 2026 at 11:58 AM
Kenneth Roth looks back at 30 years of genocide, repression and state-sponsored terror. And you know what? It almost looks like a golden age compared with today. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov: another lost classic plucked from oblivion’s clutches you’re welcome observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor D...
A new edition of this mysterious and immersive novel reminds us why it is one of the greatest ever written
observer.co.uk
January 8, 2026 at 9:36 AM
Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov: another lost classic plucked from oblivion’s clutches you’re welcome observer.co.uk/culture/book...
November again already?
January 5, 2026 at 11:18 AM
November again already?
Reposted by Chris Power
"Williams is my platonic ideal of a writer."
Very good review (unbylined but I presume by @chrispower.bsky.social) of Joy Willams's new collection of stories, The Pelican Child.
Very good review (unbylined but I presume by @chrispower.bsky.social) of Joy Willams's new collection of stories, The Pelican Child.
Paperback of the week: Pelican Child by Joy Williams
The real and fantastical merge in this landmark collection from an idiosyncratic American master of the short story
observer.co.uk
January 3, 2026 at 8:36 AM
"Williams is my platonic ideal of a writer."
Very good review (unbylined but I presume by @chrispower.bsky.social) of Joy Willams's new collection of stories, The Pelican Child.
Very good review (unbylined but I presume by @chrispower.bsky.social) of Joy Willams's new collection of stories, The Pelican Child.
My last review of the year is this very enjoyable study of The Magic Mountain, a novel I read during a month in hospital. When a doc asked “What’s the book about?” I said, “Among other things death, disease, & the seductions of illness”. He looked utterly appalled www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...
The Master of Contradictions by Morten Høi Jensen review – how Thomas Mann wrote The Magic Mountain
A vivid account of the creation of one of literary modernism’s greatest achievements
www.theguardian.com
December 31, 2025 at 3:54 PM
My last review of the year is this very enjoyable study of The Magic Mountain, a novel I read during a month in hospital. When a doc asked “What’s the book about?” I said, “Among other things death, disease, & the seductions of illness”. He looked utterly appalled www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...
Coetzee on Dostoevsky’s compositional method
December 29, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Coetzee on Dostoevsky’s compositional method
I like the way Mann and Dostoevsky hold the reader by the hand at the end of the authors’ notes to The Magic Mountain and Brothers Karamazov
December 21, 2025 at 8:54 PM
I like the way Mann and Dostoevsky hold the reader by the hand at the end of the authors’ notes to The Magic Mountain and Brothers Karamazov
Halfway through. Not ‘no notes’. In fact many notes, but they’re all like, ‘Holy shit!’ and ‘So good!!’ and ‘Sick!!!’
December 20, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Halfway through. Not ‘no notes’. In fact many notes, but they’re all like, ‘Holy shit!’ and ‘So good!!’ and ‘Sick!!!’
Reposted by Chris Power
@chrispower.bsky.social wrote a bittersweet review of Soraya Antonius's The Lord: a rich picture of Mandatory Palestine, its independence movement, the consequences and follies of empire, and the unfortunate circular nature of history. It's worth reading.
Paperback of the week: The Lord by Soraya Antonius
A welcome return to print for this sophisticated, still-relevant story of Palestine's struggle for independence
observer.co.uk
December 18, 2025 at 6:00 PM
@chrispower.bsky.social wrote a bittersweet review of Soraya Antonius's The Lord: a rich picture of Mandatory Palestine, its independence movement, the consequences and follies of empire, and the unfortunate circular nature of history. It's worth reading.
This week a 600-page internet novel that was previously only available, back in 2006, as a PDF purchase from Helen DeWitt’s blog observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: Your Name Here by Helen DeWitt | The Observer
observer.co.uk
December 13, 2025 at 1:37 PM
This week a 600-page internet novel that was previously only available, back in 2006, as a PDF purchase from Helen DeWitt’s blog observer.co.uk/culture/book...