maxcairnduff.bsky.social
Repairer of Reputations.
854 posts
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Getting Started
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2025 reading 🧵
I’m normally a fan of Lavie Tidhar’s work and this has had a lot of solid reviews, but his reimagining of Arthurian myth in a Guy Ritchie vein with an undercurrent of high weirdness just wasn’t me. So it goes and it won’t stop me from reading others by him.
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Not a book but have you seen the film Le Corbeau?
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2025 reading. 🧵
I’m a sucker for a good poison pen story and this is a very good one. Focus is much more on the slow poisonous impact of poison pen letters on an idyllic village. The whodunnit is wrapped up really quickly at the end and is fine if a bit complex, but the journey is just great.
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I certainly don’t and they sound interesting.
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Well that doesn’t sound terrible.
Thanks!
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I don’t know that one, even though I too remain a Sarah Moss fan.
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2025 reading 🧵
Sharp and funny but very pointed satire on modern weightless lifestyles. A refresh of Perec’s Things, which will add to the enjoyment for those of you who have read that but doesn’t remotely depend on you having done so.
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I read it last weekend in preparation for this. It’s fascinating and I think you’d enjoy the juxtaposition.
Didn’t take at all though to A Man Asleep.
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Just got to the Syrian refugees section which is a painfully sharp satire.
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I’m reading that right now funnily enough. I think yours is the only review I’ve seen which draws out the very clear and obviously intentional way in which it’s in conversation with Things, a modern reprise of it.
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Netflix back when I had it. Both high octane zombie series though Kingdom is set in the Joseon period so great costumes. The court manoeuvres are often deadlier than the zombies…
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Honourable mentions to Kingdom (come for the zombies, stay for the hats!) and All of us are Dead but they’re tv shows.
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Ten Korean films to get to know me by...
Mother
The Host
Parasite
Lady Vengeance
The Woman who Ran
Train to Busan
Memories of Murder
#alive
Decision to Leave
The Handmaiden
I’ve seen a bunch of less well known stuff but mostly it turned out there was a reason it was less well known.
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2025 reading 🧵
Something of a fever dream of a novel by one of my favourite authors. Mexican revolutionaries in exile, waiting in a brilliantly realised 19th Century New Orelans. The outrage at the slave trade feels fresh and urgent, over 150 years later.
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The Eel is great.
If you watch One Cut the trick is to go in knowing as little as possible. The first half hour is the most amateurish film you’ll have seen. There’s a payoff for that and it’s worth it.
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And I missed One Cut of the Dead.
For Japanese ten is way too few.
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No, think it’s long gone now.
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I missed Tampopo!!!
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Hausu, definitely an experience.
I missed Rashomon!
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Ten Japanese films to get to know me by:
Yojimbo
Ringu
Turtles are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers
Drive my Car
Seven Samurai
Violent Cop
The Eel
Battle Royale
Kid’s Return
Tokyo Story
Akira
Which is eleven. I apologise for nothing!
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Ah! I ruled out the Ukrainian trilogy by Dovzhenko, but to be honest I don’t think I’d be comfortable counting Ukrainian cinema as Russian right now (plus they’re silent and I don’t know what language the original intertitles were).
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Have we done Japanese yet? If not I can kick us off.
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I’d struggle to get that much darkness, particularly now it’s summer. And most cinemas nowadays have too much light with the emergency lighting I suspect.
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White Sun of the Desert is the one cosmonauts traditionally watch before each launch. Lots of fun.
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Ten Russian films to get to know me by:
Leviathan
Solaris
Ivan’s Childhood
Engineer Prite’s Project
Aelita Queen of Mars
Battleship Potemkin
Man with a Movie Camera
White Sun of the Desert
I don’t get to ten! And four of those I do have are silents. Clearly I need to watch more Russian film.
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That is particularly cruel
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That’s what happened to me with the Bassani Ferrara novels. Penguin do this all the time and it now puts me off buying series from them.
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I really liked Havana Year Zero. Marvellous sort of shaggy dog tale. A conspiracy nobody really cares about.
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Now you’re bringing it! I really didn’t take to Krustalyov unfortunately.
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My grandfather was a big Maugham fan. I used to be sniffy about him as a writer. No idea now why. A misperception no doubt. My grandfather I think would be wryly amused that I came round in the end.
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Ashenden I loved. This is interesting and rewarding but I think Ashenden is stronger.
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Yes but it’s not fiction, mostly not anyway. It’s very short pieces so makes a good just-before-bedtime read. I’ve mostly read his short stories - the Far Eastern Tales and More Far Eastern Tales are both good. Painted Veil I also enjoyed though I think it’s maybe ‘lesser’ Maugham.
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2025 reading 🧵
Spectacular wartime thriller from Dorothy B. Hughes. A maze of fear and paranoia with a refugee on the run in the US from the authorities and nazi agents and not knowing which is which. Loved it. Thanks to @jacquiwine.bsky.social for this one.
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2025 reading 🧵
Lovely collection of what are essentially fuielletons by Maugham on his observations in China. He’s notably sympathetic to the Chinese themselves, unusually so for a man of his time, nationality and class. Beautifully written and observed as ever with Maugham.
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5. No. Jesus. Would a 7 and Only as friends have been so difficult? It just feels cruel and it’s not like he did anything obnoxious, they just didn’t connect.
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Yeah it’s great
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I misread that as punch some salmon and was briefly horrified.
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Isn’t that just a pub that doesn’t do food?
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Eleven writers by whom I’ve read more than five books.
Penelope Fitzgerald
Jane Austen
Olivia Manning
Agatha Christie
Claudia Piňeiro
Ann Leckie
Dorthe Nors
Irmgard Keun
Patricia Highsmith
Octavia Butler
Enid Blyton! (Though not recently)
Several on four with a fifth in my tbr…
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I think you’ve pulled off the change of co-host pretty well by the way. Can’t have been easy. Good luck until we see you here again!
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What did you make of the ending?
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Sorry, meant to reply, I take the point and I think you’re right.
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Have you considered weeping?
Best of luck. That is particularly rubbish.
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Yes, I see that
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On which note, Margaret?