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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 21m

I feel the need to invoke Rebecca again:

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 22m

Shocked face emoji!

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 1h

Thank you for the shout out!

I avoided the film as there’s a scene where a horse is mistreated and apparently the horse did actually suffer.

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 1d

2025 reading 🧵
Loved this coolly professional crime novel about a police consultant who helps find missing people. Focus is firmly on the the investigation process and more widely on the impact of a disappearance on family, witnesses, community. Very tightly controlled novel. First in a new series.

Reposted by Max Cairnduff

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 4d

Overlooked female modernist artist Marthe Donas dazzles in Belgium - thanks @jenniferrankin.bsky.social for drawing the attention of a UK audience to her work
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Detail from Stilleven (Still Life), 1917, by Marthe Donas. Photograph: Hugo Maertens/Marthe Donas
Foundation, Gent, 2025

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 4d

When I say clearly Iliad-influenced by the way I expect that’s utter nonsense as I doubt the author would know the Illiad, but it certainly reads that way.

Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 4d

2025 reading 🧵
Simon Armitage’s tremendous translation of this astonishing and alliterative anonymously authored medieval masterpiece. Clearly Iliad- influenced (to my mind) it becomes a tragic tale of heroism and hubris.

Armitage happily is better at alliteration than me…

The Death of King Arthur, by an anonymous author and translated by Simon Armitage

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 5d

2025 reading 🧵
Superb collection of four short stories by a Korean author new to me. I need to see if more by her is published in English as these are very good - psychologically astute and showing a good range for such a brief collection. Great release by Penguin.

Chinatown, by Oh Jung-Hee and translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 6d

2025 reading 🧵
Very high concept crime novel about a murder in an isolated post-apocalypse community where things are far from what they seem (and thankfully there isn’t a revelation that there wasn’t really an apocalypse which is a very tired twist). Got it on impulse and it was surprisingly good.

The Last Murder at the End of the World, by Stuart Turton

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Reposted by Max Cairnduff

Mia @miavee.bsky.social · 7d

TERFs are trying to bully a beloved London public swimming space into throwing out their longstanding traditions/policies in order to force trans people out of using the space.

Please consider voicing your support for inclusivity here hampstead-heath-bathing-ponds.commonplace.is/en-GB/propos...

Public Consultation on Hampstead Heath Bathing Ponds | Commonplace

hampstead-heath-bathing-ponds.commonplace.is

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Reposted by Max Cairnduff

Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 7d

My Substack post for October is live! The usual soul-baring stuff from me, including what I did in the Moomin Museum... Also some book chat and details about my forthcoming workshops for the poetry-haters!
open.substack.com/pub/victoria...

Rejections, Spinsters and Hating Poetry (joke!)

Things I'm writing, things I'm reading, things I'm teaching...

open.substack.com

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 10d

2025 reading 🧵
I was close to abandoning Garnier as I’d read two that I disliked, but this was genuinely good. Very much in the tradition of a Simenon Romans Dur, with a man learning more about himself than it was ever in his interest to know…

The Front Seat Passenger, by Pascal Garnier and translated by Jane Aitken

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 10d

SSGB I saw the (decent I thought) to adaptation. Might give Bomber a go. Not my usual sort of thing but that’s good sometimes.

Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 10d

How were the standalones?

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 11d

Which one are you reading?

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 14d

2025 reading 🧵
A strange riverine book where things have or may be suffering a sea change. Slippery as only M John Harrison can be. Tremendously well written.

The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, by M. John Harrison

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 15d

No mate, this is heaven.

Yeah, not what I expected either tbh.

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 16d

All the hearts!

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 17d

Nothing encourages engaging with any genre than homework in advance.

I wonder when you get to hit the 2020s. I guess if you start reading now maybe in 30 years or so?

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 17d

2025 reading 🧵
September has been a very slow reading month, but I’ve enjoyed this recently written return to Alastair Reynolds’ Revelation Space universe. A pleasure for his fans, but while it does work as a standalone I think it’s plainly better in the context of the wider series.

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 18d

Loved that book. Big fan of Catton generally.

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 19d

I had the advantage of knowing S1 was thought to be a bit special!

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 19d

The tip I got was to watch S2 first, which turned out to be good advice as it’s a decent standalone show but even for an anthology show there’s no real link to S1, not even tone.

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Reposted by Max Cairnduff

Irish Literary Times @irishlittimes.bsky.social · 20d

Best Irish Books of 2025: your Culture Night (and Christmas) guide to children’s literature www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Best Irish Books of 2025: your Culture Night (and Christmas) guide to children’s literature

Elaina Ryan of Children’s Books Ireland on its latest guide to the best of Irish writing

www.irishtimes.com

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Max Cairnduff @maxcairnduff.bsky.social · 21d

Clearly given the speed with which you’re getting through them!