Prof Rob Maslen

Just a reminder that The City of Lost Books has moved to a new URL, thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk. The old URL is being used for our new Glasgow Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic!

I have now left x. You can find me over at BlueSky.

@ceadela Thanks Ann! I look forward to it!

@DrMaslen I sent Jess a photocopy of The Sun with a Christmas card and I’ll send you a dm in the New Year

Over at The City of Lost Books: Elizabeth Maslen, Poems on Death. They're much more cheerful than the title suggests! thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk/elizabeth-masl…

@ceadela Thank you, Ann. She loved Westminster Cathedral! I’ll look up those poems now!

@DrMaslen Extraordinary poems which I did not know, though I reread the three published in Wave Number 2 recently I couldn’t get to the funeral of my 1970s Westfield tutor and mentor so I lit a candle in Westminster Cathedral in November 🕯️

Watch She-ra and the Princesses of Power now! It’s a wonderful show and needs your support!

Over at The City of Lost Books: Christmas illustrations for the most colourful of books in dazzling black and white. A despatch from the past, when I thought of being an artist. With compliments of the season! thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk/jo-heaton-red-…

An article by Alex Hearn in the Jewish Chronicle and linked here tries to retell the history of Cable Street. Here's link to Hearn's article and my reply @hearnimator thejc.com/opinion/the-ca…

@katieculture @ChartwellNT Lucky he didn’t decide to demolish it…

One of my favourite things at @ChartwellNT is Winston Churchill's Nobel Prize. I especially love that the diploma features Chartwell's south wing, with its red-bricks and iconic trellis, in the design, in recognition of the vital role it played in inspiring Churchill's words.

In honour of my late mother, Elizabeth Maslen, there's an essay of hers on Storm Jameson and Doris Lessing at the City of Lost Books. It seems right to be promoting it today, when the last volume of Pullman's The Book of Dust is being released... thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk/elizabeth-masl…

In May this year I had a conversation with Graham Foster about Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan (1946), which he recorded for his brilliant podcast Ninety-Nine Novels. Here it is! anthonyburgess.org/podcasts/ninet… @UofGFantasy @Dr_Dimitra_Fimi @MJRSangster

@maclir @Dr_Dimitra_Fimi @UofGFantasy @UofGArtsHums @UofGCritStudies @mariettarosetta @MJRSangster I love their calls, too!

@DrMaslen @Dr_Dimitra_Fimi @UofGFantasy @UofGArtsHums @UofGCritStudies @mariettarosetta @MJRSangster Yes they are, they can be aggressive and noisy...who'd have thought it!

Our 11th cohort of @UofGFantasy MLitt students have chosen a bird name! 2015-16 Canaries 2016-17 Phoenixes 2017-18 Ravens 2018-19 Merlins 2019-20 Owls 2020-21 Nightingales 2021-22 Sparrowhawks 2022-23 Nightjars 2023-24 Peregrines 2024-25 Starlings welcome: 2025-26 the Magpies!

@maclir @Dr_Dimitra_Fimi @UofGFantasy @UofGArtsHums @UofGCritStudies @mariettarosetta @MJRSangster Are New Zealand magpies similar to Australian ones? I know those well!

@Dr_Dimitra_Fimi @UofGFantasy @UofGArtsHums @UofGCritStudies @mariettarosetta @DrMaslen @MJRSangster One if them at least should read Catherine Chidgey's book The Axeman's Carnival, which is narrated by a magpie. She teaches Creative Writing at Waikato University here in New Zealand.

@BGallagherColl They chat like stones!

Stonechats, at Ardmore Point. #birds

If you’re working on any area of fantasy and the fantastic, come and join us at Glasgow in June 2026 and do consider presenting or running a workshop! All the info you need and the full CFP is here: 👇👇👇 fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/2025… @UofGFantasy @UofGArtsHums

An anniversary blog post at The City of Lost Books: Ten Years of The City of Lost Books! Find out what I've learned and failed to learn in a decade of blogging! @UofGFantasy @Dr_Dimitra_Fimi @MJRSangster thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk/ten-years-of-t…

@is_glasgow I lived in the close just up the hill on Garrioch Quad, which you can see in the picture. Loved that flat! On the ground floor of the corner tenement there was a lovely old lady called Pearl - we spoke to her often!

Red sandstone corner tenement at the junction of Garrioch Drive and Garrioch Quadrant in the northwest of Glasgow. #glasgow #architecture #architecturephotography #tenement #glasgowtenements #maryhill #northkelvinside

@Dr_Dimitra_Fimi Hurrah!!!

After 5 years in Scotland, we got to see, at last, red squirrels in action!!! #redsquirrels 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@Dr_Dimitra_Fimi I hope her ministrations are effective!

In bed with stinking cold, trying to rest so that I can still teach tomorrow. Kitty is keeping my feet warm in solidarity… 🐈‍⬛🐾 (It’s not COVID, thank goodness, I tested, but one of those nasty sneezy, throat-hurt-y, headachy, blocked-nose-y things that doesn’t let you sleep…)

Another illustration, another insect!

Stars read @MichaelRosenYes poem ‘Don’t mention the children’ in new film by @savechildrenuk & Choose Love Guy Pearce “Rosen’s brutal commands stare directly into our soul & force us to confront the cruelty of erasing a child, erasing their name, their memory & their life” #Gaza