Chris Power
@chrispower.bsky.social
I read books, write books (Mothers, A Lonely Man) and write about books (LRB, Guardian, NY Times etc). Booker judge 2025.
Maybe the greatest ever example of nominative determinism
January 21, 2026 at 12:07 PM
Maybe the greatest ever example of nominative determinism
Reposted by Chris Power
From the Sunday Times, Nov 8th 1987. What became of Motion’s ten-novel sequence?
January 20, 2026 at 11:36 AM
From the Sunday Times, Nov 8th 1987. What became of Motion’s ten-novel sequence?
From the Sunday Times, Nov 8th 1987. What became of Motion’s ten-novel sequence?
January 20, 2026 at 11:36 AM
From the Sunday Times, Nov 8th 1987. What became of Motion’s ten-novel sequence?
Kenneth Roth looks back at 30 years of genocide, repression and state-sponsored terror. And you know what? It almost looks like a golden age compared with today. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: Righting Wrongs by Kenneth Roth
Roth spent three decades as head of Human Rights Watch. His record of past victories is also a warning for the future
observer.co.uk
January 17, 2026 at 11:58 AM
Kenneth Roth looks back at 30 years of genocide, repression and state-sponsored terror. And you know what? It almost looks like a golden age compared with today. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov: another lost classic plucked from oblivion’s clutches you’re welcome observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor D...
A new edition of this mysterious and immersive novel reminds us why it is one of the greatest ever written
observer.co.uk
January 8, 2026 at 9:36 AM
Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov: another lost classic plucked from oblivion’s clutches you’re welcome observer.co.uk/culture/book...
November again already?
January 5, 2026 at 11:18 AM
November again already?
Reposted by Chris Power
"Williams is my platonic ideal of a writer."
Very good review (unbylined but I presume by @chrispower.bsky.social) of Joy Willams's new collection of stories, The Pelican Child.
Very good review (unbylined but I presume by @chrispower.bsky.social) of Joy Willams's new collection of stories, The Pelican Child.
Paperback of the week: Pelican Child by Joy Williams
The real and fantastical merge in this landmark collection from an idiosyncratic American master of the short story
observer.co.uk
January 3, 2026 at 8:36 AM
"Williams is my platonic ideal of a writer."
Very good review (unbylined but I presume by @chrispower.bsky.social) of Joy Willams's new collection of stories, The Pelican Child.
Very good review (unbylined but I presume by @chrispower.bsky.social) of Joy Willams's new collection of stories, The Pelican Child.
My last review of the year is this very enjoyable study of The Magic Mountain, a novel I read during a month in hospital. When a doc asked “What’s the book about?” I said, “Among other things death, disease, & the seductions of illness”. He looked utterly appalled www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...
The Master of Contradictions by Morten Høi Jensen review – how Thomas Mann wrote The Magic Mountain
A vivid account of the creation of one of literary modernism’s greatest achievements
www.theguardian.com
December 31, 2025 at 3:54 PM
My last review of the year is this very enjoyable study of The Magic Mountain, a novel I read during a month in hospital. When a doc asked “What’s the book about?” I said, “Among other things death, disease, & the seductions of illness”. He looked utterly appalled www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...
Coetzee on Dostoevsky’s compositional method
December 29, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Coetzee on Dostoevsky’s compositional method
I like the way Mann and Dostoevsky hold the reader by the hand at the end of the authors’ notes to The Magic Mountain and Brothers Karamazov
December 21, 2025 at 8:54 PM
I like the way Mann and Dostoevsky hold the reader by the hand at the end of the authors’ notes to The Magic Mountain and Brothers Karamazov
Halfway through. Not ‘no notes’. In fact many notes, but they’re all like, ‘Holy shit!’ and ‘So good!!’ and ‘Sick!!!’
December 20, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Halfway through. Not ‘no notes’. In fact many notes, but they’re all like, ‘Holy shit!’ and ‘So good!!’ and ‘Sick!!!’
Reposted by Chris Power
@chrispower.bsky.social wrote a bittersweet review of Soraya Antonius's The Lord: a rich picture of Mandatory Palestine, its independence movement, the consequences and follies of empire, and the unfortunate circular nature of history. It's worth reading.
Paperback of the week: The Lord by Soraya Antonius
A welcome return to print for this sophisticated, still-relevant story of Palestine's struggle for independence
observer.co.uk
December 18, 2025 at 6:00 PM
@chrispower.bsky.social wrote a bittersweet review of Soraya Antonius's The Lord: a rich picture of Mandatory Palestine, its independence movement, the consequences and follies of empire, and the unfortunate circular nature of history. It's worth reading.
This week a 600-page internet novel that was previously only available, back in 2006, as a PDF purchase from Helen DeWitt’s blog observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: Your Name Here by Helen DeWitt | The Observer
observer.co.uk
December 13, 2025 at 1:37 PM
This week a 600-page internet novel that was previously only available, back in 2006, as a PDF purchase from Helen DeWitt’s blog observer.co.uk/culture/book...
I respect this arriving 79 pages into Hayman’s biography of Thomas Mann
December 7, 2025 at 4:06 PM
I respect this arriving 79 pages into Hayman’s biography of Thomas Mann
In this week’s @theobserveruk.bsky.social, I wrote about the case for the abolition of death observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: The Future Loves You by Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston | The Observer
observer.co.uk
December 6, 2025 at 12:11 PM
In this week’s @theobserveruk.bsky.social, I wrote about the case for the abolition of death observer.co.uk/culture/book...
The first month of my paperback of the week column in @theobserveruk.bsky.social looked like this.
Coming up in December: a neuroscientist abolishes death, a 20-year-old internet novel, and colonial crimes in Palestine.
Coming up in December: a neuroscientist abolishes death, a 20-year-old internet novel, and colonial crimes in Palestine.
December 1, 2025 at 12:42 PM
The first month of my paperback of the week column in @theobserveruk.bsky.social looked like this.
Coming up in December: a neuroscientist abolishes death, a 20-year-old internet novel, and colonial crimes in Palestine.
Coming up in December: a neuroscientist abolishes death, a 20-year-old internet novel, and colonial crimes in Palestine.
I interviewed Karl Ove Knausgård for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
‘I knew I was doing something I shouldn’t’: Karl Ove Knausgård on the fallout from My Struggle and the dark side of ambition
The Norwegian author on his autofictional epic, moving to London, and the psychopath at the heart of his new novel
www.theguardian.com
November 22, 2025 at 4:52 PM
I interviewed Karl Ove Knausgård for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
So glad she/he/they got a credit on this
November 21, 2025 at 8:04 AM
So glad she/he/they got a credit on this
“Are you a special agent sent here to ruin my evening and possibly my entire life?”
November 20, 2025 at 9:45 PM
“Are you a special agent sent here to ruin my evening and possibly my entire life?”
Godrevy Lighthouse of To the Lighthouse fame (I know Woolf transplanted it to Scotland don’t @ me)
November 20, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Godrevy Lighthouse of To the Lighthouse fame (I know Woolf transplanted it to Scotland don’t @ me)
My review of the third part of Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume - one of the most exciting things happening in fiction right now observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: On the Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle | The Observer
observer.co.uk
November 20, 2025 at 9:46 AM
My review of the third part of Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume - one of the most exciting things happening in fiction right now observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Absolutely not thank you
November 19, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Absolutely not thank you
Reposted by Chris Power
“Did I always understand where I was and what was happening? No. Did I care? Almost never. The power and surprise of the writing is so great that confusion rarely translates into frustration.”
Spot on review of Cǎrtǎrescu’s weird and seductive book:
Spot on review of Cǎrtǎrescu’s weird and seductive book:
Blinding: The Left Wing by Mircea Cărtărescu. An incredible Proustian, Schulzian book! Also very happy to bring the existence of Magnus Puke to a wider audience observer.co.uk/culture/book...
November 16, 2025 at 12:46 PM
“Did I always understand where I was and what was happening? No. Did I care? Almost never. The power and surprise of the writing is so great that confusion rarely translates into frustration.”
Spot on review of Cǎrtǎrescu’s weird and seductive book:
Spot on review of Cǎrtǎrescu’s weird and seductive book:
Blinding: The Left Wing by Mircea Cărtărescu. An incredible Proustian, Schulzian book! Also very happy to bring the existence of Magnus Puke to a wider audience observer.co.uk/culture/book...
November 16, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Blinding: The Left Wing by Mircea Cărtărescu. An incredible Proustian, Schulzian book! Also very happy to bring the existence of Magnus Puke to a wider audience observer.co.uk/culture/book...
I’ve always been suspicious of the neatness of some essayists’ lives, almost as if… they’re making it up. Emily LaBarge’s Dog Days refuses to plane off the rough edges of her experiences, even if that makes them ungainly and difficult to present in a book. observer.co.uk/culture/book...
November 9, 2025 at 12:28 PM
I’ve always been suspicious of the neatness of some essayists’ lives, almost as if… they’re making it up. Emily LaBarge’s Dog Days refuses to plane off the rough edges of her experiences, even if that makes them ungainly and difficult to present in a book. observer.co.uk/culture/book...