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causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Caustic Cover Critic
@causticcovercritic.bsky.social
3.5K followers 2.7K following 7.5K posts
Uncharismatic megafauna.
Too fat to ride a horse, too poor to own a carriage.
Buy my book, keep me off the streets: http://bit.ly/JMgibbons
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causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Caustic Cover Critic @causticcovercritic.bsky.social · Aug 22
A new addition ('The Woman in Cabin 10') to the surprisingly extensive Keira Knightley library, for people who only want to read books with Keira Knightley on them.
15 different books, all (but one) movie or TV tie-in titles, all with Keira Knightley on the cover.
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
By chance the first book I picked up to read in 2026 was by someone with a surname starting with A, so in a pointless bit of self-constraint my plan is (aside from a couple of books I have to read for Special Projects™) to read 26 books in a row with each by an author chosen alphabetically in order.
A chart showing the origins of each of the English alphabet letters, going back roughly 4000 years, from https://mymodernmet.com/history-of-the-alphabet-usefulcharts/
January 6, 2026 at 12:33 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Sometimes you’re reading an old book and you find yourself wondering if you’re encountering the first occurrence of something in literature. For example, is this, from 1913, the first time in fiction that someone got their clothes irritatingly caught on a door handle?
“ She departed in calculated disorder, slithering about in her man's slippers, catching her Japanese sleeves on the door-key.”
January 4, 2026 at 10:05 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Albanese in "weak as piss" shocker
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
Albanese calls for ‘peaceful, democratic transition’ of power in Venezuela after US capture of Nicolás Maduro
Australian prime minister says government has ‘long held concerns about the situation’ in South American country
www.theguardian.com
January 4, 2026 at 2:17 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Card from a board game reading "Attacked by hungry baboons. Lose 1 Food."
January 3, 2026 at 7:44 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
You say "extrovert", I say "someone who can't sight quietly in a room for one bloody minute without bothering somebody else".
January 3, 2026 at 12:37 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
I bought some what so he what now?
Paragraph from a book: “I found one, a beat-up sedan, on a side street that led to the river. I ditched it three blocks from Dr. Algees. I'd put on a different shirt, no wine on it, and I bought some chlorophyll in a drugstore, so Dr. Algee wouldn't know I'd been drinking. The only thing: Had he found the clams yet? If he had, my story wasn't too good.” The sentence about chlorophyll is highlighted.
January 1, 2026 at 4:26 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Happy new year to all you people who live in this strange glowing rectangle I stare at too much.
Faded vintage photo of a nude woman holding a glass of champagne and also a huge Nebuchadnezzar of same, with streamers hanging down from above
December 31, 2025 at 1:34 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
A tragedy in 2 parts:
A ludicrously expensive $1000 bottle of Penfolds Grange The broken-off cork stuck in the bottom of the neck of the wine bottle
December 31, 2025 at 8:16 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
[extremely manly voice] ONE OF EACH PLEASE GARCON
Extremely tasty cocktail menu
December 31, 2025 at 3:06 AM
Reposted by Caustic Cover Critic
ronanhession.bsky.social
We need a literary version of the TV documentary series Seven Up, where we track a book from its inclusion in "most anticipated" lists to "end of year" then its journey through awards season and then review it every seven years to see how it holds up.
December 28, 2025 at 12:06 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Cortázarpalooza
Four books by Julio Cortázar: 'The Winners', '62: A Model Kit', 'A Manual for Manuel' and 'Final Exam'
December 29, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Reposted by Caustic Cover Critic
jjvincent.bsky.social
another robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls
December 27, 2025 at 5:27 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Some sort of seals, probably
December 26, 2025 at 11:35 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Met these two lovable derps
Two black and white alpacas in a field, looking over a fence at the camera
December 25, 2025 at 6:11 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Christmas Eve, the traditional festival where in-laws gather with you and give you arse-numbingly detailed (yet somehow deeply incoherent) précis of the endless terrible cozy crime shows they've been watching on Britbox.
December 24, 2025 at 8:30 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Very rude of this book to expose me like this:
"Of course as a boy I did not think that my timidity would turn out to be invincible. On the contrary, I convinced myself that it would inevitably disappear of its own accord in the face of a growing acquaintance with people and the ways of the world. I counted on experience breaking down my timidity, when in fact timidity would prevent me from gaining experience."
December 20, 2025 at 9:08 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Peering suspiciously at the grounds from my locked cell in the attic:
Fancy English-style garden viewed through panes of upstairs window
December 20, 2025 at 4:58 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Canadians watching '80s Australian horror movies (in this case 'Howling III: The Marsupials'), from Lee Lai's wonderful graphic novel CANNON:
4 monochrome black/red panels from a graphic novel showing someone beginning to change into a werewolf, to somebody's horror, then a 4th panel showing that this is happening on a TV while two unseen people watch. One says 'God, you weren't kidding. These Australians do not fuck around."
December 19, 2025 at 3:25 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
And what fucken thanks do I get?
It's estimated Australians will buy about $1.4 billion worth of paperbacks and hardbacks this year, including about $400 million worth in the weeks before Christmas. With audio books and ebooks, the total annual sales figure may be $2 billion. That sounds encouraging, but there may be more to this story. A core of very dedicated readers could be buying more books and offsetting a general decline in purchases among the broader population, Burkey says. "It's dispiriting, but we fight on."
December 18, 2025 at 10:39 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Not sure which is the biggest insult to her memory--the soft-focus AI pap cover image or the ludicrous typo in the title.
"The Dairy of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank, with a crappy and inaccurate AI portrait of Frankl on the cover.
December 18, 2025 at 2:59 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Oh, this one's easy, it's because Woolf was a vile, self-regarding bigoted snob:
"Why Virginia Woolf thought Katharine Mansfield stank like a “civet cat taken to streetwalking.” | Lit Hub Biography"
December 17, 2025 at 11:15 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
From William Donaldson's GREAT DISASTERS OF THE STAGE:
When Orson Welles gave his one-man show of Shakespearean readings in Phoenix, Arizona, only five people turned up. 'Allow me to introduce myself,' said Mr Welles. 'I am an actor, a writer, a director, of both films and plays, an architect, a painter, a stage designer, a brilliant cook, an expert on the corrida, a conjuror, a collector, a connoisseur, an enfant terrible and an authority on modern art. How come there are so many of me, and so few of you?' Then he walked off. The Least Successful Theatrical Dinner Party Nicol Williamson was invited to dinner by Kenneth Tynan. He turned up an hour early, catching his hosts unbathed and unchanged. He volunteered to pass the time hoovering the floor. Then he asked, 'Who else is coming?' Tynan told him that one of the guests was Jonathan Miller. 'Biggest phoney in London,' said Williamson crisply. 'Who else?' Tynan told him that there would be a pretty young actress who had been having an affair with Roman Polanski. When the guests arrived, Williamson aborted polite conver-sation by producing an LP of the Mamas and Papas and playing it at full volume. In the dining-room Williamson munched in silence before addressing his first remark to the pretty young actress. Placing his left hand on his right bicep and making a swift upward jab with a clenched right fist, he said, 'So you're the girl who was being fucked by Polanski.' 'Wrong, Mr Williamson,' she said. 'I am being fucked by Polanski.' This exchange seemed to annoy Williamson, and a few minutes later he got up and left the room. There was a deafen-ing five-minute blast of The Mamas and the Papas, then he marched out, slamming the front door. 'I enjoy baboons,' said Dr Miller, 'but preferably in zoos.' In the early seventies, Sir Richard Attenborough, as he then wasn't, arranged a charity performance in a church hall in aid of the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre. After the show some thirty of our most dependable middle-order mimes Frank Windsor, Stratford Johns, Geoffrey Keen, Rupert Davies, Barry Foster, Gerald Harper, Jon Pertwee, Pat Phoenix, Una Stubbs, etc - much pleased with their efforts and swapping anecdotes, left together by a side-door and walked into a septic tank. Mr George Maguire, who had installed twenty temporary lavatories for the occasion, said: 'That's show business.' Invited to dinner at Kensington Palace, Michael Holroyd was warned that Princess Margaret liked to set the table on a roar with her skilful impressions. At her first attempt, the celebrated biographer screamed with laughter and banged the table. She had been speaking in her normal voice.
December 17, 2025 at 5:49 AM
Reposted by Caustic Cover Critic
marcelkrueger.bsky.social
December 17, 2025 at 5:06 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Some brain genius thought they would host this work meeting from a cafe while they had breakfast. A cafe without internet, so the rest of us have to talk to her and the other attendees via Whatsapp. The audio quality means this is like listening to R2-D2 fart in a bath for 90 minutes.
December 16, 2025 at 10:25 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
The very fact that you enjoy the idea of shooting a living thing with a gun should automatically disqualify you from ever being allowed to have one.
December 16, 2025 at 3:43 AM