Majeda Clarke

@SketchesbyBoze I’ve just finished the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy. Couldn’t put it down. Such beautiful writing and so evocative of a lost time. She creates such empathy for the characters despite their flaws. Loved it.

I’m currently in the middle of reading these four books and they’re all ... nearly perfect?? It’s an extraordinarily rare thing that I find myself reading four all-time great books at one time. Each is the sort of book I want to crawl inside and live in.

@annahamiltonart Your artwork is beautiful Anna and you must keep drawing. As an artist and sole trader I totally empathise. I think about giving up or at least finding a balance between a 9-5pm regular work and commissions.

Morning all. I’ve done lots of thinking this week & decided I don’t think I can carry on with my business anymore. It’s always been hard, but it’s so much harder to keep my head above water now which is not only bad for me mentally, it’s affecting my physical health too (1/4)

@mamboitaliano__ I love going to Pitti Filati in Florence to see exactly this spectacle - men of all ages - so wonderful. I suspect it’s up a notch for Pitti Uomo 👏

They are called Pitti Peacocks 🦚: Extravagantly dressed attendees who gather outside the Pitti Uomo menswear fair in Florence, creating a huge spectacle of personal style, dandyism, and individuality as a cultural and social phenomenon Only in Italy 🇮🇹

@SketchesbyBoze Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell also by Susannah Clarke. Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell and The Marriage Portrait. The Safe Keep by Yael Van Der Wouden, this Other Eden by Paul Harding and There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak - recent and brilliant. The silence of the girls.

I’m looking for a good contemporary novel. I’ve been reading a lot of medieval poems & sagas and realized I’d read hardly any recent fiction this year. I love a book that’s a bit cerebral, a bit strange, and tells a solidly plotted story with a minimum of fuss.

@todayinhistory @DannyBeck59 It is on the GCSE curriculum in the UK and still taught. My son studied it 2 years ago and I taught it 30 years ago.

@DannyBeck59 I don’t believe it is anymore. Unfortunate

Today in 1945, George Orwell published a devastating critique of Communism. Animal Farm reveals why every communist revolution follows the same tragic pattern: liberation to corruption to oppression. Here are 10 truths from Animal Farm Orwell warned us never to forget 🧵👇🏼

@lucyinglis Congratulations!

Well, pals, it's all happening. The new book has been released into the wild. 13 years in the making. Good luck, my girl, you'll find your place.

@zakwilliams What a gift to the world your dad was Zak. Must make you so proud.

Today would have been my dad’s 74th birthday. This season carries gravity. Father’s Day, his birthday, and the anniversary of his passing all fall within 60 days. For me, grief has no straight path. It revisits, reshapes, and rises when I least expect it. But alongside it lives a legacy built on generosity and kindness. He made people feel seen. Gave permission to feel deeply and to laugh through pain. That mission continues. To those carrying loss right now: you’re not alone. Happy birthday, Dad. Love you forever.

@JJ_Bola My brother in law and family live in Nagoya (about 20 mins train ride away) - they’d take you to the best ramen bars! And you’re really close to Kyoto which is unmissable. X

@JJ_Bola We were there last year. Enjoy the beauty ❤️

I was chatting to a friend and we were discussing the strange way in which some politicians, presenters, journalists and commentators appear to have had a sudden epiphany about the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. She then reminded me of this book…

@DalrympleWill See you there.

I'll be speaking against the Gaza Genocide on the Palestine March today- 2pm in Trafalgar Square. Hope to see many of you there.

@ShirleyHughes_ Brings back wonderful memories of my childhood. Will follow you on instagram.

Monday will see the last post here. Thank you so much for all of the comments & friendships forged. Sharing your reactions with Shirley was the best fun. It's been an honour to continue to post her illustrations & depictions of every day family life. Kind regards Clare SHHQ

@AmericanGwyn Shouldn’t you qualify that with ‘writing in the English language’ or do you really think that apart from about 5 on your list including - Morrison, Rushdie, Marquez, murakami - the greatest novelists are are all white European / American? Maybe Tagore, Achebe, Baldwin, Mishima?

The Greatest Novelists Are: 1. James Joyce 2. William Faulkner 3. Herman Melville 4. Cormac McCarthy 5. Vladimir Nabokov 6. Don DeLillo 7. Fyodor Dostoevsky 8. Albert Camus 9. Denis Johnson 10. Marilynne Robinson

@itsnicolefegan Definitely Rebecca, followed closely by And Then There were None / Crime and Punishment.

@_motherslug Deutschland ‘83 is a fantastic series and its sequel ‘87. And I’m sure The Lives of Others has been mentioned.

Just finished this remarkable book and now I want to watch a film, preferably a drama with political intrigue and romance, set in postwar Berlin in the ‘80s. Would love your recommendations. 👀

@ae_stallings Normal People is great. Tried the others based on that first reading and have been disappointed by every one of them.

I dunno. I'm trying to read this Sally Rooney Intermezzo book, which seems to be mostly sentence fragments describing every time someone handles their phone, and I kind of just want to bail and get back to Henry James. Should I persist? (Am not very far in, to be fair!)

@AnneLouiseAvery Your writing is a beautiful, gentle light. I love reading your posts. Can’t understand why people say such things. Keep on with your wonderful stories.

Sitting in the cancer ward crying because some horrible person has just said here that my work is pointless - nobody needs your "pretty fictions." Why are people so cruel - can't they at least check to see your circumstances before they tear you down?

@DrDavidVernon This is still my favourite ever short has stayed with me for the last 35 years since I read it at A level.

One of the greatest of all short stories, Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ (1914) is set on 6 January and just as I sat down to reread this masterpiece this morning, its famous final line came to life…

@j_amesmarriott @joumajnouna Totally agree

TS Eliot died sixty years ago today. To me he is the great artistic genius of the twentieth century.

@adrianmckinty One of my favourite authors

its legit crazy to me that we get seemingly endless film and tv versions of Dune and we've never had a single tv or film adaptation of something as smart, iconic, brilliant & best selling as The Left Hand of Darkness...