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The London Magazine
@thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
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The UK's oldest literary journal: a review of literature and the arts, est. 1732, published bi-monthly.

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The London Magazine @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social · Oct 1
Our October / November 2025 issue is out now!

Cover image by Sandra Blow, cartoon by Dan Sperrin.

Order here: thelondonmagazine.org/product/curr...
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somanybooks24.bsky.social
“Perhaps the real theme of the novel is forgiveness. What Harold fears is being found out. Being judged. What Castro does is refuse to judge him.”
In @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social‬‬, Hugh Foley reviews Jordan Castro’s new novel, “Muscle Man” - thelondonmagazine.org/review-to-go...
Review | To Go Through the Raskolnikov Process by Hugh Foley - The London Magazine
Hugh Foley reviews Muscle Man by Jordan Castro, 'a distinguished survivor of probably the last avant-garde grouping in US letters'.
thelondonmagazine.org
November 10, 2025 at 1:03 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'While toxic figures with millions of online followers dominate the cultural conversation about masculinity, Szalay’s novels offer a more honest account of male experience. In short, most men are losers.'

Guy Stagg reviews David Szalay's Flesh: thelondonmagazine.org/article/revi...
Review | Most Men Are Losers by Guy Stagg - The London Magazine
From our April / May issue, Guy Stagg reviews David Szalay's Booker-shortlisted novel, Flesh, an 'honest account of male experience'.
thelondonmagazine.org
November 10, 2025 at 12:19 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'The reason I want to write novels rather than philosophy is that I want whatever point the novel makes to have a kind of undertone of disagreement with itself.'

@faberbooks.bsky.social @thebookerprizes.com

Benjamin Markovits interviewed by Jamie Cameron: thelondonmagazine.org/interview-th...
Interview | The Rest of Our Lives: Benjamin Markovits in Conversation - The London Magazine
Benjamin Markovits discusses his new book, The Rest of Our Lives, and the influences of Updike, basketball, inaction and Roth.
thelondonmagazine.org
November 10, 2025 at 11:07 AM
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I wrote about London, psychogeography and Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia for @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social October / November issue.

Read the first few pages below and then buy a copy here: thelondonmagazine.org/product/curr...

Thanks @jamiepcameron.bsky.social for the great editorial work
November 8, 2025 at 1:20 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'Sandy had decimated our marine life and scarred our coastline, and then came the developers to carve up the carcass. These days, the new residents have a saying for the remaining pre-Sandy locals: the leftovers.'

Gabrielle Showalter recalls Hurricane Sandy: thelondonmagazine.org/essay-the-le...
Essay | The Leftovers by Gabrielle Showalter - The London Magazine
Brought up in Long Island, Gabrielle Showalter recalls Hurricane Sandy and reflects on natural disasters, gentrification and greed.
thelondonmagazine.org
November 6, 2025 at 11:49 AM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'The result is beyond his competence as a writer, but it is nevertheless an interesting attempt to channel alt-lit’s commitment in new directions.'

Hugh Foley reviews Jordan Castro's novel, Muscle Man (@catapultbooks.bsky.social): thelondonmagazine.org/review-to-go...
Review | To Go Through the Raskolnikov Process by Hugh Foley - The London Magazine
Hugh Foley reviews Muscle Man by Jordan Castro, 'a distinguished survivor of probably the last avant-garde grouping in US letters'.
thelondonmagazine.org
November 5, 2025 at 11:07 AM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
Last week we hosted the first event in our new poetry series Off the Page at Alice Black Gallery.

Huge thanks to Camille Ralphs, Declan Ryan, Dominic Leonard and Jo Bratten for reading, and to all for coming.

Off the Page will return in the new year with a new line-up.
November 4, 2025 at 1:36 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
‘Selfie’, a poem by Eric McHenry, from our October / November issue.

Order the latest issue here: thelondonmagazine.org/product/curr...
November 4, 2025 at 10:49 AM
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scratchbooks.bsky.social
Read this brilliant interview here!
November 1, 2025 at 8:46 AM
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thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
For a limited time only, you can subscribe to The London Magazine for just £3 a month – that’s 20% off our regular subscription price.

Subscribe before 31 October using the code OCT20 to claim your discount.
thelondonmagazine.org/subscription/
October 17, 2025 at 3:16 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'Sometimes I wish I was pigeonholed more as an Irish writer, because then I’d make more money…'

Joseph Williams speaks to Tim MacGabhann about his new book, Saints (@scratchbooks.bsky.social).

Read the interview here: thelondonmagazine.org/interview-ti...
Interview | Tim MacGabhann on Short Stories and the Anti-Plot Sentence - The London Magazine
Joseph Williams speaks to Tim MacGabhann about short stories, form, the anti-plot sentence and his new book, Saints.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 31, 2025 at 11:11 AM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'Where the sea performs feeling, unbreakable and unending, the reality of the pool is one trapped, much like the icons of this era, in aesthetic permanence.'

Emmeline Armitage on the swimming pool: thelondonmagazine.org/essay-swimmi...
Essay | Swimming Pools by Emmeline Armitage - The London Magazine
Covering Ed Ruscha, David Hockney, Joan Didion and more, Emmeline Armitage takes a deep dive into the symbol of the swimming pool.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 29, 2025 at 1:45 PM
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A conversation with Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie about their Forward Prize for Best Collection-winning books Avidya and Wellwater features in @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social's @forwardprizes.bsky.social series.
thelondonmagazine.org/interview-fo...
Interview | Forward Prize for Best Collection: Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie - The London Magazine
Joint winners of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie discuss each other's collections.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 29, 2025 at 12:46 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'I have my own poet’s preoccupations that come back to me more or less uncontrollably, which I then have to turn into something basically legible that someone else might be interested in.'

Joint winners Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie in conversation: thelondonmagazine.org/interview-fo...
Interview | Forward Prize for Best Collection: Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie - The London Magazine
Joint winners of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie discuss each other's collections.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 27, 2025 at 12:34 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'There's an interpersonal feeling that poetry does so well, where you think you’re having a solitary experience, but then you write it down and perform it, and someone's like, no, me too!'

@bellacox.bsky.social and @joshuaidehen.bsky.social in conversation: thelondonmagazine.org/interview-fo...
Interview | Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed: Bella Cox and Joshua Idehen - The London Magazine
Shortlisted for The Forward Prize for Poetry 2025, poets Bella Cox and Joshua Idehen discuss each other's work.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 24, 2025 at 2:36 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'What poetry does is give people the scope to simultaneously challenge and champion ideas. It’s good to be able to be critical of anything, even if it’s something you really believe in.'

Michael Mullen and Isabelle Baafi in conversation: thelondonmagazine.org/interview-fo...
Interview | Forward Prize for Best First Collection: Isabelle Baafi and Michael Mullen - The London Magazine
Shortlisted for The Forward Prize for Best First Collection, poets Isabelle Baafi and Michael Mullen discuss each other's work.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 22, 2025 at 11:32 AM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'The English language is a colonial weapon; it’s been used for the most gruesome atrocities. How you make something beautiful with that is a troubling question.'

Tom Branfoot and Tim Tim Cheng discuss their poems shortlisted for the @forwardprizes.bsky.social: thelondonmagazine.org/interview-fo...
Interview | Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Written: Tom Branfoot and Tim Tim Cheng - The London Magazine
Shortlisted for the 2025 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Written, poets Tom Branfoot and Tim Tim Cheng discuss each other's work.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 20, 2025 at 3:11 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
For a limited time only, you can subscribe to The London Magazine for just £3 a month – that’s 20% off our regular subscription price.

Subscribe before 31 October using the code OCT20 to claim your discount.
thelondonmagazine.org/subscription/
October 17, 2025 at 3:16 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'We’re not in the rubble, but we carry it inside us. That contradiction, being physically far but emotionally tied in, is a big part of what it means to be Palestinian in exile.'

An interview with Mai Serhan: thelondonmagazine.org/interview-ma...
Interview | Mai Serhan on Exile, Form and the Making of a Writer - The London Magazine
Jamie Cameron speaks to Mai Serhan about fragmented narratives, the Palestinian diaspora and her new book, I Can Imagine It For Us.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 16, 2025 at 11:56 AM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'It was in moments like these, when the blue nights grew darker and the boats began to shimmer in the bay, that Pablo questioned whether ambition could be vaster than this.'

New short fiction by @jiminkanggg.bsky.social: thelondonmagazine.org/fiction-in-t...
Fiction | In That Other City, One I Knew and Loved by Jimin Kang - The London Magazine
'It was in moments like these, when the blue nights grew darker, that Pablo questioned whether ambition could be vaster than this.'
thelondonmagazine.org
October 15, 2025 at 2:50 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'It is important to question the assumption that a love or affinity with nature, or historical injustice, automatically means we should have access to it, and what being responsible to the land we love really entails.'

Read here: thelondonmagazine.org/essay-for-lo...
Essay | For Love of the Feral by Christiana Spens - The London Magazine
Christiana Spens on 'Common People', 'Uncommon Ground' and the turbulent nature of land access rights movements in the UK.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 14, 2025 at 2:38 PM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'I was, in that moment, the thirty-four-year-old lecturer discussing the craft of writing at Aberystwyth University. I was, also, the fifteen-year-old boy in his parent’s bathroom in Beirut sheltering from the Israeli airstrikes of 2006.'

Read here: thelondonmagazine.org/essay-betwee...
Essay | Between Beirut, Gaza and Glangwili by A. Naji Bakhti - The London Magazine
A. Naji Bakhti on the dissonance of living in Wales teaching creative writing while his home city, Beirut, and Gaza continue to be bombed.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 14, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Reposted by The London Magazine
tinyowlworkshop.bsky.social
‘… it isn’t really funding or institutional backing that decides a magazine’s fate, but the determination (and health, and age) of the flesh-and-blood people behind it. If they have the energy and desire to keep on, the magazine will continue.’

Great read. Thanks @gitaralleigh.bsky.social
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social The London Magazine @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social · Oct 2
'There’s big trouble in the world of little magazines.' — Tristram Fane Saunders

Tristram Fane Saunders on what makes 'little magazines' so fragile, why they matter and why they so often vanish without any fanfare.

Read here: thelondonmagazine.org/article/essa...
Essay | Why Magazines Fail by Tristram Fane Saunders - The London Magazine
Drawing on recent literary magazine closures, Tristram Fane Saunders asks what makes 'little magazines' so fragile, why they matter and why they so often vanish.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 14, 2025 at 8:24 AM
thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
'I think of painting as something that happens to a man working in a room, alone. He is affected by his circumstances, and the standards and events of his time, but he is the sole coherent unit.' — Frank Auerbach

From 1961, a survey of British painters: thelondonmagazine.org/archive-the-...
Archive | The Predicament of International Style: British Painters in 1961 - The London Magazine
The July 1961 edition of The London Magazine was dedicated to painting. The issue spoke to several British painters about their work and international art.
thelondonmagazine.org
October 10, 2025 at 12:22 PM
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thelondonmagazine.bsky.social
We have extended the deadline for our Short Story Prize by two weeks to give any last minute writers a chance to submit.

Entries close midnight on Sunday October 12th.

Further details and link to submit here: thelondonmagazine.org/short-story-...
The London Magazine Short Story Prize 2025 - The London Magazine
The London Magazine Short Story Prize 2025 is now open for submissions. We are looking for unpublished short fiction, no longer than 4000 words.
thelondonmagazine.org
September 30, 2025 at 9:45 AM