lawrence jones
@lawrentian.bsky.social
870 followers 1.4K following 330 posts
PhD & Assoc Lecturer @ University of Reading | Modernism, 19th-20th C liberalism, Woolf, Forster, social class | Manuscripts, publishing, archives & special collections | Part-time Admin Asst @ Centre for Book Cultures & Publishing @ University of Reading
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lawrentian.bsky.social
2 years ago I worked on a project to restore a 1920s WHS railway station bookstall. It was in pieces & in a bad state. A colleague & I found old photos of it in the WHS archive at @themerl.bsky.social which helped the restoration work. Look at it now👇 Full story www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Reposted by lawrence jones
peteradkins.bsky.social
We're ALSO looking for a poet! Two years, part time teaching post in a friendly department.

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOZ075/t...
lawrentian.bsky.social
Just been made aware that the new documentary The Librarians is available for free on BBC iPlayer for the next 12 mths. It investigates what librarians in the US are going through right now as they unite to combat book banning & defend free speech. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...
Storyville - The Librarians
A Storyville documentary that explores how librarians across the US are risking their safety to defend free speech as book bans and censorship threaten democracy from within.
www.bbc.co.uk
lawrentian.bsky.social
We’re planning a trip to Florence next year & I remembered I have a 1906 edition of the Baedeker for northern Italy. I’ll take it with me as our guide. Should be fun. This Baedekar is possibly the same edition EM Forster put into the hands of Lucy Honeychurch in A Room With a View (1908).
lawrentian.bsky.social
It was my birthday the other day & my partner got me this card. She knows me well…
lawrentian.bsky.social
This is my favourite photo of VW. Prefer it to the better-known 1902 ones by Beresford.
lawrentian.bsky.social
I have my supervisors’ feedback on my thesis, so today I begin the process of editing my tome on EM Forster & Virginia Woolf. I discovered that the only way to do this work is to print out my thesis & work slowly through it page by page - with a mug of tea on hand.
lawrentian.bsky.social
It is, as far as I know. If you’re thinking of going to the museum, it might be worth checking with them beforehand.
lawrentian.bsky.social
Reminded myself earlier that the village of Summer Street in EM Forster's A Room With a View is believed to be based on Holmbury St Mary near Dorking. More here: dorkingmuseum.org.uk/a-room-with-...
lawrentian.bsky.social
2 years ago I worked on a project to restore a 1920s WHS railway station bookstall. It was in pieces & in a bad state. A colleague & I found old photos of it in the WHS archive at @themerl.bsky.social which helped the restoration work. Look at it now👇 Full story www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
lawrentian.bsky.social
Had a dream last night that public schools had access to AI+ which scraped the digitised collections from the Bodleian, the BL, the NYPL etc. Comprehensive schools only had access to a cheap AI alternative which scraped old websites on the Internet Archive. 🤔
Reposted by lawrence jones
cbcp-unirdg.bsky.social
The Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing's autumn events schedule is now live 📚 All welcome, events are free - join us. research.reading.ac.uk/centre-for-b...
Reposted by lawrence jones
vwoolfturkiye.bsky.social
Abstract Submission Deadline: 20 December 2025

For the call for papers and further details, please see the conference website: www.bilgi.edu.tr/en/academic/...
lawrentian.bsky.social
Simon Goldhill discusses his book, Queer Cambridge, in this clip. He comments on AC Benson, Forster, Goldie Dickinson, Turing & others. Many of whom lived on H Staircase. A time, Goldhill says, when Cambridge showed us “how to live with difference in the world.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UEy...
The queer men of H staircase at King's College, Cambridge
YouTube video by Cambridge University
www.youtube.com
lawrentian.bsky.social
It seems to me more & more clear that the only honest people are artists, & that these social reformers & philanthropists harbour so many discreditable desires under the disguise of loving their kind, that in the end there's more to find fault with in them than in us.
Virginia Woolf, D1, p. 293.
lawrentian.bsky.social
Apple & blackberry clafoutis. Nothing really special about that, except that I baked it this afternoon using apples from an apple tree in our garden & blackberries picked from the hedgerows near our home. Never done that before. It tasted delicious. Reckon I’ll have a go at Bake Off next year 😜
lawrentian.bsky.social
This is a new documentary about what librarians in the US are going through right now as they unite to combat book banning. It's due for release in UK cinemas on 26 Sept. I don't know when it'll be streamed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykll...
THE LIBRARIANS | Official Trailer
YouTube video by The Librarians Film
www.youtube.com
lawrentian.bsky.social
I recently read Francesca Wade’s new biog of Gertrude Stein as well as Stein’s Autobiography of Alice B Toklas - both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. My Stein journey is set to continue with this👇 A book which some (incl Stein!) consider her masterpiece.
lawrentian.bsky.social
Anyone use AI detectors? I tested gptzero.me, Originality.ai & gowinston.ai today & concluded that I can't trust them at all e.g. I uploaded an essay I wrote in *2016* & one of them (I won't say which one) said it was 99% sure is was AI-generated. Then I read this: arstechnica.com/information-...
OpenAI confirms that AI writing detectors don’t work
No detectors “reliably distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated content.”…
arstechnica.com
lawrentian.bsky.social
Love this 3 minute talk by poet & U of Reading PhD student, Vic Pickup, on her research into Mills & Boon. She packs so much into just 180 seconds, & will possibly change any negative views or opinions you may have about M&B. youtu.be/qzFDFZqTLNE?...
Three Minute Thesis Competition Winner 2025 Sorry not sorry: The invisible women behind Mills & Boon
YouTube video by University of Reading
youtu.be
lawrentian.bsky.social
Very sad to see Melvyn Bragg leave In Our Time after 26 yrs. The breadth & range of subjects he’s covered in that time is mind-boggling.
But who’ll be the next In Our Time presenter?

Shahidha Bari?
Tom Sutcliffe?
Samira Ahmed?
Matthew Sweet?
Ekow Eshun?
Anne McElvoy?
Anyone else?
lawrentian.bsky.social
Love this anecdote from Edward Mendelson’s new book, The Inner Life of Mrs Dalloway. It explains why, as a lecturer, he didn’t dwell on Virginia Woolf’s breakdowns.