Judith Pascoe
@judithmpascoe.bsky.social
Books: ON THE BULLET TRAIN WITH EMILY BRONTE, THE SARAH SIDDONS AUDIO FILES, THE HUMMINGBIRD CABINET
www.judithpascoe.com
www.judithpascoe.com
Pinned
Judith Pascoe
@judithmpascoe.bsky.social
· Jul 10
A Good Mother Is Hard to Find - The Georgia Review
In December 1950, Flannery O’Connor boarded a train in Connecticut to visit her mother, Regina O’Connor, in Georgia for Christmas. She was twenty-five years old, had left Georgia at age twenty, and wa...
www.thegeorgiareview.com
I wrote about Flannery O'Connor's mother in the summer Georgia Review www.thegeorgiareview.com/posts/a-good...
“[T]hrifty sheet printing manages risk: the almanacs selling steadily, the devotional tract perpetually reprinted, the blank form to keep one afloat, the fugitive ad of merciless gain,” writes Matt Brown in his cultural history of eighteenth-century British American print shops. #TheNovelandtheBlank
November 21, 2025 at 8:52 PM
“[T]hrifty sheet printing manages risk: the almanacs selling steadily, the devotional tract perpetually reprinted, the blank form to keep one afloat, the fugitive ad of merciless gain,” writes Matt Brown in his cultural history of eighteenth-century British American print shops. #TheNovelandtheBlank
When Matt Brown reads the preface to Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling in British American reprints, he discerns a rich publication culture encompassing “scandalous history, the sermon market, literary medleys, . . . disbound sheets, title-page format, and the moody reader” (183). #TheNovelandtheBlank
November 20, 2025 at 6:32 PM
When Matt Brown reads the preface to Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling in British American reprints, he discerns a rich publication culture encompassing “scandalous history, the sermon market, literary medleys, . . . disbound sheets, title-page format, and the moody reader” (183). #TheNovelandtheBlank
In a fascinating chapter of The Novel and the Blank, Matthew P. Brown argues that jokebooks, a staple of the eighteenth-century book trades, “are a species of conduct literature, of self- and soul-fashioning, existing at one extreme along a continuum of character formation” (128).
November 19, 2025 at 7:07 PM
In a fascinating chapter of The Novel and the Blank, Matthew P. Brown argues that jokebooks, a staple of the eighteenth-century book trades, “are a species of conduct literature, of self- and soul-fashioning, existing at one extreme along a continuum of character formation” (128).
Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Matthew P. Brown was able to explore sheet-based texts in the amazing holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia, and to tell a revelatory story about British American literary dynamics. #TheNovelandtheBlank
November 18, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Matthew P. Brown was able to explore sheet-based texts in the amazing holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia, and to tell a revelatory story about British American literary dynamics. #TheNovelandtheBlank
One of the nine things I admire about Matthew P. Brown’s The Novel and the Blank: A Literary History of the Book Trades in Eighteenth-Century British America is how he makes printed ephemera—legal forms, manuals, advertisements, militia directions, almanacs, jestbooks—seem as interesting as novels.
November 17, 2025 at 9:07 PM
One of the nine things I admire about Matthew P. Brown’s The Novel and the Blank: A Literary History of the Book Trades in Eighteenth-Century British America is how he makes printed ephemera—legal forms, manuals, advertisements, militia directions, almanacs, jestbooks—seem as interesting as novels.
Of The Season, Helen Garner writes: "Really I'm trying to write about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life-hymn. A poem. A record of a season we are spending together before he turns into a man and I die."
November 7, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Of The Season, Helen Garner writes: "Really I'm trying to write about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life-hymn. A poem. A record of a season we are spending together before he turns into a man and I die."
I'm fascinated by how exactly Helen Garner in The Season, a book about her grandson's Australian footy team, manages to captivate a reader whose previous interest in football of any kind was limited to American college coach drama.
November 6, 2025 at 6:25 PM
I'm fascinated by how exactly Helen Garner in The Season, a book about her grandson's Australian footy team, manages to captivate a reader whose previous interest in football of any kind was limited to American college coach drama.
Midway through The Season, Helen Garner writes, "Am I wasting my time? . . . I'm losing my nerve. I also know that at about this stage of everything I've ever written or tried to write, I get scared. I know it's part of the deal, that I just have to slog on past it, but knowing this does not help."
November 5, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Midway through The Season, Helen Garner writes, "Am I wasting my time? . . . I'm losing my nerve. I also know that at about this stage of everything I've ever written or tried to write, I get scared. I know it's part of the deal, that I just have to slog on past it, but knowing this does not help."
In The Season, Helen Garner writes, "Blokes I know get excited when I tell them I'm trying to write about footy. You should do this! You should do that! . . . The only thing I can think of to say is, 'It'll be a nanna's book about footy.' Short silences fall."
November 4, 2025 at 7:40 PM
In The Season, Helen Garner writes, "Blokes I know get excited when I tell them I'm trying to write about footy. You should do this! You should do that! . . . The only thing I can think of to say is, 'It'll be a nanna's book about footy.' Short silences fall."
I first read Helen Garner because a librarian put her novel The Spare Room in a display of short reads, and now I'll read anything she writes, including The Season, a book about Australian football, boyhood, parenthood, the pangs of aging, and the scary middle stage of book writing.
November 3, 2025 at 7:29 PM
I first read Helen Garner because a librarian put her novel The Spare Room in a display of short reads, and now I'll read anything she writes, including The Season, a book about Australian football, boyhood, parenthood, the pangs of aging, and the scary middle stage of book writing.
In a big book hiding in an elegant little book, Jacqueline Labbe convinces you that Austen and Smith are "a matched pair, complete, together, imperfect apart."
October 31, 2025 at 5:09 PM
In a big book hiding in an elegant little book, Jacqueline Labbe convinces you that Austen and Smith are "a matched pair, complete, together, imperfect apart."
"[O]riginality and individual genius? The latter depends on a troping of a canon of Very Special Works and ignores the community-based practices of the period, its culture of clubs, coteries, salons, and partnerships," writes Jacqueline Labbe in Reading Jane Austen After Reading Charlotte Smith.
October 30, 2025 at 4:24 PM
"[O]riginality and individual genius? The latter depends on a troping of a canon of Very Special Works and ignores the community-based practices of the period, its culture of clubs, coteries, salons, and partnerships," writes Jacqueline Labbe in Reading Jane Austen After Reading Charlotte Smith.
In Reading Jane Austen After Reading Charlotte Smith, Jacqueline Labbe writes: "Austen inserts a Smith into three of her novels in significant ways, thereby elevating a common surname that, on its own, functions merely as an ‘everywoman’ signature. One, or even two Smiths could be overlooked."
October 29, 2025 at 6:20 PM
In Reading Jane Austen After Reading Charlotte Smith, Jacqueline Labbe writes: "Austen inserts a Smith into three of her novels in significant ways, thereby elevating a common surname that, on its own, functions merely as an ‘everywoman’ signature. One, or even two Smiths could be overlooked."
In Reading Jane Austen After Reading Charlotte Smith, Jacqueline Labbe says Austen finds in Smith “a companion, a pre-thinker, a co-interrogator of issues, themes, and ideas," which is a pretty great way of thinking about how a writer can befriend another writer even if they never meet.
October 28, 2025 at 6:05 PM
In Reading Jane Austen After Reading Charlotte Smith, Jacqueline Labbe says Austen finds in Smith “a companion, a pre-thinker, a co-interrogator of issues, themes, and ideas," which is a pretty great way of thinking about how a writer can befriend another writer even if they never meet.
Jacqueline M. Labbe calls Reading Jane Austen After Reading Charlotte Smith "a provocation and a thought experiment." She goes on to write of her inspiring book, "It creates a Smith/Austen bubble, mostly ignoring other life."
October 27, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Jacqueline M. Labbe calls Reading Jane Austen After Reading Charlotte Smith "a provocation and a thought experiment." She goes on to write of her inspiring book, "It creates a Smith/Austen bubble, mostly ignoring other life."
In Clam Down, Chen writes of writing about her father: "He overreacted to perceived slights because he read others in the most uncharitable light, but in her case, was he so wrong? . . . She was ashamed to think . . . she had even drawn a chart for herself of rising action and increasing stakes."
October 24, 2025 at 5:10 PM
In Clam Down, Chen writes of writing about her father: "He overreacted to perceived slights because he read others in the most uncharitable light, but in her case, was he so wrong? . . . She was ashamed to think . . . she had even drawn a chart for herself of rising action and increasing stakes."
In Anelise Chen's Clam Down, "the clam struggled down the long campus steps. . . . [I]n a few minutes, she would have to go and perform in a so-called faculty reading, which had been planned weeks in advance. . . . [N]obody ever wanted to go to a reading, especially not now."
October 23, 2025 at 4:43 PM
In Anelise Chen's Clam Down, "the clam struggled down the long campus steps. . . . [I]n a few minutes, she would have to go and perform in a so-called faculty reading, which had been planned weeks in advance. . . . [N]obody ever wanted to go to a reading, especially not now."
"She hadn't meant to become a bivalve mollusk, but it happened," Anelise Chen writes at the beginning of Clam Down: A Metaphorphosis.
October 22, 2025 at 4:49 PM
"She hadn't meant to become a bivalve mollusk, but it happened," Anelise Chen writes at the beginning of Clam Down: A Metaphorphosis.
Anelise Chen, in an author's note at the end of Clam Down, describes her "compulsion to mash up genres and styles" and her indebtedness to Yoko Tawada's Memoirs of a Polar Bear and Sigrid Nunez's Mitz.
October 21, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Anelise Chen, in an author's note at the end of Clam Down, describes her "compulsion to mash up genres and styles" and her indebtedness to Yoko Tawada's Memoirs of a Polar Bear and Sigrid Nunez's Mitz.
If you admire oddball books (like Moby Dick or Matthew Gavin Frank's Preparing the Ghost or Philip Hoare's Albert and the Whale), you will like Anelise Chen's Clam Down: A Metaphorphosis, a book about introversion, mollusks, immigrant family life, and writing.
October 20, 2025 at 4:46 PM
If you admire oddball books (like Moby Dick or Matthew Gavin Frank's Preparing the Ghost or Philip Hoare's Albert and the Whale), you will like Anelise Chen's Clam Down: A Metaphorphosis, a book about introversion, mollusks, immigrant family life, and writing.
Phyllis Rose: "This book had an enormous impact on my thinking and career. . . . Rereading Diane Johnson's masterpiece now, I appreciate more than ever its wit and generosity, the sheer delight to be found in the prose."
October 17, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Phyllis Rose: "This book had an enormous impact on my thinking and career. . . . Rereading Diane Johnson's masterpiece now, I appreciate more than ever its wit and generosity, the sheer delight to be found in the prose."
Writing about Anne Bronte's death in The Truth History of the First Mrs. Meredith, Diane Johnson pens this mordant aside: "Her brother, it is said, resolved to die standing up, and was indulged in this request by his family, who held the thin body upright until the light had gone out of its eyes."
October 16, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Writing about Anne Bronte's death in The Truth History of the First Mrs. Meredith, Diane Johnson pens this mordant aside: "Her brother, it is said, resolved to die standing up, and was indulged in this request by his family, who held the thin body upright until the light had gone out of its eyes."
"The picture that comes down to us of the ideal or even the typical woman is so constrained, so exploited, so ignorant, so dull, that it could not be borne; yet millions of women bore their lives with cheerfulness, or at least fortitude," writes Diane Johnson in The True History.
October 15, 2025 at 4:34 PM
"The picture that comes down to us of the ideal or even the typical woman is so constrained, so exploited, so ignorant, so dull, that it could not be borne; yet millions of women bore their lives with cheerfulness, or at least fortitude," writes Diane Johnson in The True History.
Of Mary Ellen Peacock Nicolls Meredith, Diane Johnson writes, "Mrs. Meredith's life can be looked upon, of course, as an episode in the lives of Meredith or Peacock, but it cannot have seemed that way to her."
October 14, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Of Mary Ellen Peacock Nicolls Meredith, Diane Johnson writes, "Mrs. Meredith's life can be looked upon, of course, as an episode in the lives of Meredith or Peacock, but it cannot have seemed that way to her."
The essayist and novelist Diane Johnson's The True History of the First Mrs. Meridith and Other Lesser Lives (1972) is a master class in how to write about little-known and little-archived people.
October 13, 2025 at 3:09 PM
The essayist and novelist Diane Johnson's The True History of the First Mrs. Meridith and Other Lesser Lives (1972) is a master class in how to write about little-known and little-archived people.