Max Cairnduff
@maxcairnduff.bsky.social
Repairer of Reputations.
Reposted by Max Cairnduff
Painting is Edgar-Quinet Boulevard (1950) by Japanese-French artist Tsuguharu Foujita.
December 1, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Painting is Edgar-Quinet Boulevard (1950) by Japanese-French artist Tsuguharu Foujita.
Reposted by Max Cairnduff
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
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.
I think I like the cover type at the bottom best, though I prefer the new ones to the photo ones. They are bright for Simenon though.
December 1, 2025 at 9:03 PM
I think I like the cover type at the bottom best, though I prefer the new ones to the photo ones. They are bright for Simenon though.
They look a bit like Pushkin classic covers. Pretty though.
December 1, 2025 at 8:54 PM
They look a bit like Pushkin classic covers. Pretty though.
Penguin drive me crazy with this. They’re constantly changing styles. Trying to create a consistent collection of any series is near impossible. Sometimes they change design part way through a release cycle even.
December 1, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Penguin drive me crazy with this. They’re constantly changing styles. Trying to create a consistent collection of any series is near impossible. Sometimes they change design part way through a release cycle even.
Expensive novelty gift that then lives in the back of a cupboard as the recipient can’t regift or donate it.
December 1, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Expensive novelty gift that then lives in the back of a cupboard as the recipient can’t regift or donate it.
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.
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.
December 1, 2025 at 8:45 AM
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.
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.
Nice still.
I’ve nothing against cats on covers except when there aren’t corresponding cats in the book!
I’ve nothing against cats on covers except when there aren’t corresponding cats in the book!
November 30, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Nice still.
I’ve nothing against cats on covers except when there aren’t corresponding cats in the book!
I’ve nothing against cats on covers except when there aren’t corresponding cats in the book!
It’s still very much a cosy comfort read. At least though it doesn’t have some supernatural gimmick which doesn’t really make sense and nobody in the fiction questions.
November 30, 2025 at 6:20 PM
It’s still very much a cosy comfort read. At least though it doesn’t have some supernatural gimmick which doesn’t really make sense and nobody in the fiction questions.
To be clear though, it is still definitely cosy.
November 30, 2025 at 6:19 PM
To be clear though, it is still definitely cosy.
2025 reading 🧵
Marketed as a Japanese magical-comfort-whimsy book (cats on the cover even though there’s none in the novel), but it’s not really one of them. A young woman shelters in her uncle’s bookshop after a bad breakup and he helps her recover. Later she helps him in turn. It’s rather good.
Marketed as a Japanese magical-comfort-whimsy book (cats on the cover even though there’s none in the novel), but it’s not really one of them. A young woman shelters in her uncle’s bookshop after a bad breakup and he helps her recover. Later she helps him in turn. It’s rather good.
November 30, 2025 at 6:12 PM
2025 reading 🧵
Marketed as a Japanese magical-comfort-whimsy book (cats on the cover even though there’s none in the novel), but it’s not really one of them. A young woman shelters in her uncle’s bookshop after a bad breakup and he helps her recover. Later she helps him in turn. It’s rather good.
Marketed as a Japanese magical-comfort-whimsy book (cats on the cover even though there’s none in the novel), but it’s not really one of them. A young woman shelters in her uncle’s bookshop after a bad breakup and he helps her recover. Later she helps him in turn. It’s rather good.
Correct, though I work near St James Park and they’re there too.
November 28, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Correct, though I work near St James Park and they’re there too.
Good choice! I was so impressed by that book. It’s an entire world.
November 28, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Good choice! I was so impressed by that book. It’s an entire world.
I liked this one, enough I’d read another by her, but it did strike me as very much a stage play in the page. Four characters come together in one space - by the end of the evening tensions will surface, secrets be uncovered, and their lives never quite the same again!
November 27, 2025 at 10:11 PM
I liked this one, enough I’d read another by her, but it did strike me as very much a stage play in the page. Four characters come together in one space - by the end of the evening tensions will surface, secrets be uncovered, and their lives never quite the same again!
Have you read more since? I was so impressed.
November 27, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Have you read more since? I was so impressed.
2025 reading 🧵
A late candidate for my book of the year, I thought this was just extraordinary. I’ve read the end three times just for the sheer joy of it. Tremendous prose style and great character and story. I was genuinely tempted to start it over to see how she does it. My first Mantel too!
A late candidate for my book of the year, I thought this was just extraordinary. I’ve read the end three times just for the sheer joy of it. Tremendous prose style and great character and story. I was genuinely tempted to start it over to see how she does it. My first Mantel too!
November 27, 2025 at 8:41 PM
2025 reading 🧵
A late candidate for my book of the year, I thought this was just extraordinary. I’ve read the end three times just for the sheer joy of it. Tremendous prose style and great character and story. I was genuinely tempted to start it over to see how she does it. My first Mantel too!
A late candidate for my book of the year, I thought this was just extraordinary. I’ve read the end three times just for the sheer joy of it. Tremendous prose style and great character and story. I was genuinely tempted to start it over to see how she does it. My first Mantel too!
2025 reading 🧵
Le Guin’s Earthsea exploration continues in this short story collection that fills out the history of her world and slowly recasts much of the worldbuilding of the original novel. A Wizard of Earthsea centred men and marginalised women and all that follows corrects that.
Le Guin’s Earthsea exploration continues in this short story collection that fills out the history of her world and slowly recasts much of the worldbuilding of the original novel. A Wizard of Earthsea centred men and marginalised women and all that follows corrects that.
November 26, 2025 at 7:53 AM
2025 reading 🧵
Le Guin’s Earthsea exploration continues in this short story collection that fills out the history of her world and slowly recasts much of the worldbuilding of the original novel. A Wizard of Earthsea centred men and marginalised women and all that follows corrects that.
Le Guin’s Earthsea exploration continues in this short story collection that fills out the history of her world and slowly recasts much of the worldbuilding of the original novel. A Wizard of Earthsea centred men and marginalised women and all that follows corrects that.
I still remember the dog complaining of how its lack of thumbs make it effectively disabled in a human designed world
November 25, 2025 at 10:06 AM
I still remember the dog complaining of how its lack of thumbs make it effectively disabled in a human designed world
His novel Sirius is heartbreaking. Scientists create a dog with human intelligence and the ability to speak, which condemns it to a life of loneliness as it’s the only one of its kind.
November 25, 2025 at 8:47 AM
His novel Sirius is heartbreaking. Scientists create a dog with human intelligence and the ability to speak, which condemns it to a life of loneliness as it’s the only one of its kind.