Max Cairnduff
maxcairnduff.bsky.social
Max Cairnduff
@maxcairnduff.bsky.social
Repairer of Reputations.
Pinned
2025 reading 🧵
Absolutely lovely this. As so often, this is a classic for very good reason. Warm, gentle, very funny, Gaskell brings us into the company of a group of village spinsters and honestly I could have stayed twice as long. Delightful.
Reposted by Max Cairnduff
Painting is Edgar-Quinet Boulevard (1950) by Japanese-French artist Tsuguharu Foujita.
December 1, 2025 at 9:17 PM
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The illustrations are same cover artwork as for the French editions. The photograph is a crop from a picture by the great Belgian photographer Harry Gruyaert. The Cat, new translation just out from Penguin, has yet another style of cover design.
December 1, 2025 at 9:08 PM
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For UK Audible users there are some monthly deals on my books: Service Model, Children of Memory and Doors of Eden are all £3.99 for December.
December 1, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Introduce yourself with five animals you’ve seen in the wild:

Cat
Dog
Rat
Fox
Pigeon

I am a Londoner, why do you ask?

If you won’t allow cat and dog I’ll replace them with:

Tube mouse
Parakeet
Introduce yourself with five animals you've seen in the wild:
Moose
Beaver
Skunk
Raccoon (but as I live in Toronto, I don't need to go to the wild for them)
Pademelon (in Australia)
Introduce yourself with five animals you've seen in the wild:

Skunk
Moose
Humpback Whale
Bald Eagle
Orca
November 28, 2025 at 5:15 PM
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Marian Dioguardi (American, b.1954)
"Mocha Espresso," n.d.
Oil on panel
24 x 24 in
#art #painting #artist #BlueSkyArt
November 28, 2025 at 9:21 AM
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'The staging had to be perfect and the meal delicious, and now it’s time for her to spruce herself up. That’s what Étienne really expects, of course: “Go and have a shower, it’ll do you good” meant “Make yourself presentable, dress up, match the décor.” ' 💙📚

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/j...
Just a Little Dinner by Cécile Tlili (tr. Katherine Gregor)
Established in 2023, Foundry Editions are still relatively new on the UK publishing scene, but I’ve already noticed their books in several outlets in London, largely due to the striking blue-and-wh…
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
November 27, 2025 at 12:05 PM
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I've just updated the available cats page, we have some REALLY special kitties in and some of them have been waiting ages. Their forever home might be on your timeline, please share? 🥰
Moggies looking for homes
After hearing 50,000 times that we should put the available cats on the website, we’ve made a page! Hooray! However, it is still just me doing most of the work in the shelter. So there’…
hollysmerrymoggies.com
November 27, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Last and First Men! @backlisted.bsky.social is doing Last and First Men!

I quite like Last and First Men.
November 25, 2025 at 8:27 AM
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“But we are émigrés, and for émigrés all countries are dangerous. Lots of ministers make speeches against us and no one wants to have us in their country, even though we’re not at all harmful and in fact just like other people." #BookSky 💙📚

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/11/18/c...
Child of All Nations by Irmgard Keun (tr. Michael Hofmann)
Born in Berlin in 1905, the German writer Irmgard Keun rose to prominence in the early 1930s with her striking novels Gilgi, One of Us (1931) and The Artificial Silk Girl (1932), both of which I lo…
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
November 22, 2025 at 10:04 AM
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Love this new acquisition at the National Gallery of Ireland: Girl Going by Trinity in the Rain (1959) by Una Watters #Dublin
November 18, 2025 at 7:39 PM
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It's here. Our 2026 Bundle.

Nine incredible titles - including new novels from faves Claudia Piñeiro and Ana Paula Maia, sci-fi from Puerto Rico, short stories and Oscar-winning inspirations. Direct to your door, throughout the year, ahead of publication.

charcopress.com/bookstore/20...
November 12, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Fascinating thread.
It is genuinely hard for most people to grasp how poor the past was.
November 10, 2025 at 11:31 AM
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New on the blog today, I've written about CROOKED CROSS by Sally Carson.

A brilliant, terrifying novel about the rise of Nazism, the falling apart of a country’s codes of decency & the moral fortitude required to oppose persecution. Frighteningly timely. 💙📚

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/11/09/c...
Crooked Cross by Sally Carson
For a novel first published in 1934, Sally Carson’s Crooked Cross feels remarkably timely, charting, as it does, the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s, the falling apart of a country’s fundamental …
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
November 9, 2025 at 7:17 AM
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November 5, 2025 at 12:19 AM
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Hats off to the BBC for restoring Peter Watkins' The War Game to the iPlayer. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...
The War Game
Controversial drama depicting the consequences of a nuclear attack on Britain. The film was made in 1965 but not televised until 1985 as the BBC judged it 'too horrifying'.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 5, 2025 at 8:52 AM
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If you've ever wanted to see a 1970s Spanish TV dance troupe do a choreographed routine to Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express, now's your chance
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbmU...
Ballet Giorgio - Trans Europe Express (Kraftwerk)
YouTube video by javibal
www.youtube.com
October 28, 2025 at 11:06 PM
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Shall we talk about ebooks?

It might be a bit of a weird thing for a physical bookshop to do, but bear with me. There's a reason.

Take a seat for a short thread. 1/?
a woman in a suit and tie is smiling with #schitts creek written on the bottom
Alt: a woman in a suit and tie is smiling with #schitts creek written on the bottom
media.tenor.com
October 26, 2025 at 12:11 PM
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My new blog post on Sally Carson's superb, prescient novel, CROOKED CROSS. Another excellent title from Persephone.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/10/23/c...
Crooked Cross – Sally Carson
I’ve read such wonderful books from Persephone this year such as Diana Tutton’s Guard Your Daughters, Elizabeth Jenkins’ Harriet, and Frances Towers’ Tea with Mr Rochester, and now I’ll happily add…
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
October 23, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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I would laugh if this wasn't so true 😭
October 19, 2025 at 11:42 AM
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My short story ‘The Unspoken’ online @grantamag.bsky.social granta.com/the-unspoken/
October 18, 2025 at 10:52 AM
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All the London food groups.
October 19, 2025 at 8:23 AM
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"How could a weak, perverse woman like me, someone who dreams of a knife in her hand, be the mother and wife of those two individuals? What was I going to do? I burrowed deeper into the ground, hiding my body." #BookSky 💙📚 #DieMyLove #TranslationThurs

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/10/16/d...
Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz (tr. Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff)
First published in Spanish in 2012 and then in English in 2017, Die, My Love was one of the first books issued by the innovative, independent publisher Charco Press, which remains committed to brin…
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
October 16, 2025 at 7:00 AM
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Here’s the Women Writers series looking glorious at Frankfurt Book Fair! @stuckinabook.bsky.social
October 16, 2025 at 3:08 PM
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I’m thrilled to be able to share this with you! My fourth collection, Devotions, will be published next April 23rd. If you would like a proof copy please contact @faberbooks.bsky.social
October 16, 2025 at 11:33 AM