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ianhunt.bsky.social
Ian Hunt
@ianhunt.bsky.social
870 followers 1K following 1.3K posts
art, architecture, environment & politics | former UKHE worker | GPEW (but here as a civilian) | chief distractions: novels, poetry, botany, buildings | he/him | Green Light (2006) https://www.barquepress.com/media/12/pdf/ian_hunt_green_light.pdf
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ianhunt.bsky.social
Ian Hunt @ianhunt.bsky.social · 6d
Most fiction I read is historical, by which I mean pre-1970. A list of books old and new read in 2025. Some aren’t novels. These aren’t recommendations though many are enthusiasms. Seeing what we read is a way of learning about gaps: as you attempt to fill in gaps, other gaps become clearer.
Africa Biyi Bándélé, Burma Boy, 2007, Yorùbá Boy Running, 2024 Alex La Guma, Time of the Butcherbird, 1967, The Stone Country, 1979 Ayi Kwei Armah, Two Thousand Seasons, 1973 Nuruddin Farah, From a Crooked Rib, 1970 Cyprian Ekwensi, Burning Grass, 1961 Peter Abrahams, A Wreath for Udomo, 1956 Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing, 1950 This year was marked by the death of Zoë Wicomb and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. N America Lydia Davis, Break It Down, 1986 Maya Angelou: first three books of her amazing autobiographical sequence, 1969-76 Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, 1952 Zora Neale Hurston, Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948 Gertrude Stein, Wars I Have Seen, 1945 C21 Geoff Gilbert and Alex Houen, See You Through, 2025 Holly Pester, The Lodgers, 2024 Roy Claire Potter, The Wastes, 2024 Mathias Enard, The Deserters, 2023, tr Charlotte Mandel 2025 Vincenzo Latronico, Perfection, 2022, tr Sophie Hughes 2025 Jenny Erpenbeck, Go Went Gone, 2015, tr Susan Bernofsky 2017 Yoko Tawada, The Last Children of Tokyo, 2014, tr Margaret Mitsutani 2017 Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin, 2010 C20 Georges Simenon, Maigret’s Pickpocket, 1967, tr Siân Renolds Brigid Brophy, The Finishing Touch, 1963 William Golding, The Inheritors, 1955 Mary Butts, The Crystal Cabinet, 1937 Steve Smith, Novel on Yellow Paper, 1936 Helen Ashton, Bricks and Mortar, 1932 Andrey Platonov, The Foundation Pit, 1930, tr Robert Chandler & Geoffrey Smith Siegried Sassoon, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, 1930, Sherston’s Progress, 1936 Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House, 1944, The Voyage Out, 1915, Mrs Dalloway, 1925 David Garnett, Lady into Fox & Man in the Zoo, 1922 & 1924 Trudi Tate ed. Women, Men and the Great War (short stories), 1992 Joseph Conrad, Chance, 1913 HG Wells, Marriage, 1912 DH Lawrence, The White Peacock, 1911 Jack London, The People of the Abyss, 1903 Rudyard Kipling, Kim, 1901 C19 Beatrice Webb, My Apprenticeship, published, 1929 Arthur Morrison, Tales of Mean Streets, 1894 George Gissing, New Grub Street, 1891 and The Nether-World, 1889 Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders, 1887 W H Hudson, A Crystal Age, 1887 Vernon Lee, Juvenilia, 1987 Gustave Flaubert, Bouvard and Pécuchet, 1881 Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1847-48
Reposted by Ian Hunt
jes1003.bsky.social
mass failure to get memo.
January 6, 2026 at 11:31 AM
Reposted by Ian Hunt
arunacsekhar.bsky.social
Modi govt raids climate activist Harjeet Singh's NGO, hailed for his work on loss & damage, adaptation.

Indian tax authorities seem to think promoting a non-binding, activist-led fossil fuel treaty "could seriously impact India's energy security." Ridiculous.
www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/e...
ED raids NGO run by climate activist over FEMA violations
ED is investigating foreign funds worth over ₹6 crore received by Singh’s organisation, Satat Sampada Private Ltd (SSPL), to allegedly run narratives to influence the govt policies in energy sector| ...
www.hindustantimes.com
January 6, 2026 at 8:16 AM
ianhunt.bsky.social
Twelfth Night at the Barbican Theatre @the-rsc.bsky.social dir Prasanna Puwanarajah, is among the very best Shakespeare productions I have ever seen. Until 17 Jan. There are still tickets. www.rsc.org.uk/twelfth-night/
Twelfth Night | Royal Shakespeare Company | Royal Shakespeare Company
Washed up on an unknown shore, a woman embarks on a secret new life but discovers she's not the only one hiding something...
www.rsc.org.uk
January 6, 2026 at 7:45 AM
Reposted by Ian Hunt
anjalikdayal.bsky.social
webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1k... if you’re interested in this morning’s emergency security council meeting on Venezuela, it’ll start here at 10am. It was called by Colombia, and can help us get a sense of the public lines coming from a diverse group of countries
Threats to international peace and security - Security Council, 10085th meeting
The situation in Venezuela.
webtv.un.org
January 5, 2026 at 2:54 PM
ianhunt.bsky.social
'. . . resisting the violation of rules and insisting on adherence, even if certainly in vain, is how norms are established and then maintained. Lying low and hoping that this too shall pass is cowardice, denial and historical illiteracy.' Nesrine Malik.
January 5, 2026 at 9:40 AM
ianhunt.bsky.social
when reading Vanity Fair last year, especially the sections set in the pleasure grounds of Europe, after the Napoleonic wars, I remembered that I need to read The Last Man as an antidote and a key book of the 1820s . . . glad this is happening. #LastMan200
rachelfeder.bsky.social Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 3d
Hey friends! I’m psyched that so many folks want to read Mary Shelley’s prescient climate/pandemic apocalypse novel, THE LAST MAN, in community, in this, its bicentennial year.

#LastMan200
January 5, 2026 at 9:25 AM
ianhunt.bsky.social
Gavin Stamp's Interwar (2024) is an an incredible work of synthesis, mature judgment and writing craft. (Editing craft too: it was edited into shape by Rosemary Hill and others after his death.) It was the buildings of this period that first got me started on #ArchitecturalHistory . . . . /
Cover of Gavin Stamp's 'Interwar: British Architecture 1919-39' with picture of Battersea Power Station The extension to the German Hospital, Fassett Square, Hackney, by Burnet and Tai, 1936. Yellow brick (elongated, long bricks), 5 storeys, regular grid of steel windows in turquoise-green, top floor windows inset and varied, between tiled columns. Not symmetrical: building is actually L-shaped, behind facade. Historic England text: 'Eastern extension of narrow buff bricks with some decoration in turquoise tiles, flat roof. 'L' shaped. 5 storeys. 7 main bays to Fassett Square. Entrance recessed beneath cantilevered concrete canopy with vertical staircase window above, to fourth floor; short tower with attached flag pole above. 3-light horizontal windows with horizontal metal glazing bars set in bands between projecting bands. Facade to hospital with projecting wing to north-west, with cantilevered block to third floor on north-west corner. Cantilevered semi-circular balconies to south end of block facing with metal balustrades west and top floor with solid balustraded cantilevered balcony. Roof terrace with semi-circular feature. Interior retains original staircases to north and south ends, with decorative chrome balustrade; original reception area with built in desk attached to circular pillar. The original block has special historic interest as an exceptionally early civilian example of a pavilion plan hospital. The eastern extension is of special architectural interest in its own right.'
January 2, 2026 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Ian Hunt
acfick72.bsky.social
Books read in the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi in 2025 one would recommend: 2.

#BookSky 📚💙
VAN MAN TO TOT MAN door Olive Schreiner en J. M. Coetzee (2025) De boerenzusjes Rebekah en Bertie groeien op in koloniaal Zuid-Afrika. In hun tienerjaren raken de twee van elkaar verwijderd. Rebekah trouwt jong en verhuist naar Kaapstad, haar zusje wordt door een diamanthandelaar meegenomen naar Londen. Maar ook daar wordt Bertie achtervolgd door haar verleden. Hoewel de levens van de twee een volstrekt andere wending nemen, blijft het verlangen naar elkaar groot - en dat heeft onverwachte consequenties. "Van man tot man" is een indrukwekkende roman over imperialisme, over de onderwerping van vrouwen en over hoe zusterliefde daarin een baken van troost kan zijn. ——— FROM MAN TO MAN by Olive Schreiner and J. M. Coetzee (2025) Sisters Rebekah and Bertie grow up on a farm in the east of colonial South Africa's Cape Colony. In their teens, the two are separated by life choices. Rebekah marries young and moves to Cape Town, her sister is taken to London by a diamond trader. But even there, Bertie is haunted by her past. Although the lives of the two take completely different turns, the longing for one another remains great - and that has unexpected consequences. "From Man to Man" is an impressive novel about imperialism, about the oppression of women, and about how sisterly love can be a source of comfort. DEALING WITH THE DEAD by Alain Mabanckou (2025 [2022]; translated from French by Helen Stevenson) Abruptlv deceased at the age of twenty-four and trapped forever in flared purple trousers, Liwa Ekimakingaï encounters the other late residents of Frère- Lachaise cemetery, who each have their own complex histories of life and death. Against all ghostly advice, Liwa makes his wav back to his childhood home in Pointe-Noire to see his devoted grandmother one last time. Disturbing rumours and political corruption swirl together with Liwa's jumbled memories of his last night on earth as he tries to solve the riddle of his untimely demise. A sardonic and surreal reckoning with modern Congolese history from beyond the grave, "Dealing With the Dead" is a darkly humorous tale of community, aspiration and forces beyond human control. THE WREN, THE WREN by Anne Enright (2023) Nell is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape. For her mother, Carmel, Nell's leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a litetime begins to churn. Over them both falls the long shadow of Carmel's famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions. From one of the greatest contemporary chroniclers of family life, "The Wren, The Wren" is a story of the love that can unite us, and the individual acts that threaten this vital bond. RES SIDE STORY by Jasper Fforde (2024) It's the UK, but not as we know it: civilisation has rebuilt after an unspoken 'Something that Happened' five hundred years before. Society is now colour-based, the strict levels of hierarchy dictated by the colours you can see, and the economy, health service, and citizens' aspirations all dominated by visual colour, run by the shadowy National Colour in far-off Emerald City. Out on the fringes of Red Sector West, Eddie Russett and Jane Grey have discovered that all is neither fair nor truthful within their cosy environment, and currently face trumped up charges that will see them die of the fatally soporific tones within the Green Room. Negotiating the narrow boundaries of the Rules within their society, Jane and Eddie must find out the truth of their world: what is it, where is it and even when it is. As they unpeel the lies that cloak their existence they come to the worrying conclusion that they may not be alone; that there might be a Somewhere Else beyond the sea, and more, Someone Else living there - and observing them all, purposefully unseen.
December 31, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Ian Hunt
djpressman.bsky.social
"List of aid groups working in Gaza that Israel is suspending":

1. Action Against Hunger
2. ActionAid
3. Alianza por la Solidaridad
4. Campaign for the Children of Palestine
5. CARE
6. DanChurchAid
7. Danish Refugee Council
8. Handicap International: Humanity & Inclusion
(cont)
December 30, 2025 at 7:07 PM
ianhunt.bsky.social
Important community news
m-amcq.bsky.social Marie-Anne McQuay @m-amcq.bsky.social · 7d
Just seen Holly Johnson on Bold Street so my Liverpool Bingo Card is complete today
December 31, 2025 at 10:45 AM
ianhunt.bsky.social
Most fiction I read is historical, by which I mean pre-1970. A list of books old and new read in 2025. Some aren’t novels. These aren’t recommendations though many are enthusiasms. Seeing what we read is a way of learning about gaps: as you attempt to fill in gaps, other gaps become clearer.
Africa Biyi Bándélé, Burma Boy, 2007, Yorùbá Boy Running, 2024 Alex La Guma, Time of the Butcherbird, 1967, The Stone Country, 1979 Ayi Kwei Armah, Two Thousand Seasons, 1973 Nuruddin Farah, From a Crooked Rib, 1970 Cyprian Ekwensi, Burning Grass, 1961 Peter Abrahams, A Wreath for Udomo, 1956 Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing, 1950 This year was marked by the death of Zoë Wicomb and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. N America Lydia Davis, Break It Down, 1986 Maya Angelou: first three books of her amazing autobiographical sequence, 1969-76 Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, 1952 Zora Neale Hurston, Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948 Gertrude Stein, Wars I Have Seen, 1945 C21 Geoff Gilbert and Alex Houen, See You Through, 2025 Holly Pester, The Lodgers, 2024 Roy Claire Potter, The Wastes, 2024 Mathias Enard, The Deserters, 2023, tr Charlotte Mandel 2025 Vincenzo Latronico, Perfection, 2022, tr Sophie Hughes 2025 Jenny Erpenbeck, Go Went Gone, 2015, tr Susan Bernofsky 2017 Yoko Tawada, The Last Children of Tokyo, 2014, tr Margaret Mitsutani 2017 Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin, 2010 C20 Georges Simenon, Maigret’s Pickpocket, 1967, tr Siân Renolds Brigid Brophy, The Finishing Touch, 1963 William Golding, The Inheritors, 1955 Mary Butts, The Crystal Cabinet, 1937 Steve Smith, Novel on Yellow Paper, 1936 Helen Ashton, Bricks and Mortar, 1932 Andrey Platonov, The Foundation Pit, 1930, tr Robert Chandler & Geoffrey Smith Siegried Sassoon, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, 1930, Sherston’s Progress, 1936 Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House, 1944, The Voyage Out, 1915, Mrs Dalloway, 1925 David Garnett, Lady into Fox & Man in the Zoo, 1922 & 1924 Trudi Tate ed. Women, Men and the Great War (short stories), 1992 Joseph Conrad, Chance, 1913 HG Wells, Marriage, 1912 DH Lawrence, The White Peacock, 1911 Jack London, The People of the Abyss, 1903 Rudyard Kipling, Kim, 1901 C19 Beatrice Webb, My Apprenticeship, published, 1929 Arthur Morrison, Tales of Mean Streets, 1894 George Gissing, New Grub Street, 1891 and The Nether-World, 1889 Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders, 1887 W H Hudson, A Crystal Age, 1887 Vernon Lee, Juvenilia, 1987 Gustave Flaubert, Bouvard and Pécuchet, 1881 Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1847-48
December 31, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Reposted by Ian Hunt
nataliesedacca.bsky.social
Reasons for Israel disqualifying the operation of international NGOs that provide essential humanitarian aid in the OPT- affecting MSF and many other orgs - include expressions of support for any of the international court cases against Israeli soldiers or leaders apnews.com/article/gaza...
Israel says it will halt operations of several humanitarian organizations in Gaza starting in 2026
Israel says it will suspend several humanitarian organizations for failing to meet its new rules to vet international organizations working in Gaza.
apnews.com
December 31, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Reposted by Ian Hunt
translationista.bsky.social
Y’all, I am so excited to bring you my new translation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain soon. After years of work (beginning in 2019!), I have finally completed the translation, written my preface, and even finished translating the French dialogues for the appendix. 1/2
An old photograph of a palatial sanatorium building in front of a mountain.
December 31, 2025 at 3:16 AM
ianhunt.bsky.social
I like to see what my pals have been reading. Here's an end of year list that has set me looking things up . . . .
cfitewassilak.bsky.social Chris Fite-Wassilak @cfitewassilak.bsky.social · 8d
A year in reading:
Scattershot as usual. the Balle Calculations are like writer’s catnip that could go in any direction. the poignantly hilarious asides in LaBarge’s Dog Days hit the best; Pester’s Expasion Project found the pleasurably unsettled spot.

(*Prophet Song is a dud. Stay away.)
December 29, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Reposted by Ian Hunt
tom--scott.bsky.social
That Chloë Deakin's 1981 letter to the head of Dulwich College about Farage's vile racist bullying was ignored prefigured the later (at best) complacency of the British establishment in the face of the rise of the racist far right.

Prefect? PM? Why not?
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
‘Of course he abused pupils’: ex-Dulwich teacher speaks out about Farage racism claims
Exclusive: Chloë Deakin tells how she wrote to Dulwich college master to argue against Farage’s nomination as prefect
www.theguardian.com
December 28, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Reposted by Ian Hunt
nataliegreenpeer.bsky.social
My letter in @thetimes.com today: what is the economy for?

#PublicHealth #Wellbeing #Environment #Inequality
Slipping standards Sir, The headline on your report, “UK forecast to become world’s fifth-largest economy by 2040” (news, Dec 26), begs the question: so what? Way down in the report, it is noted that “the UK will continue to suffer from falling living standards”. This is not an Olympic running race or a children’s pony club event. What we need to ask about the economy is whether it is meeting the needs of all people in Britain, providing a secure future and starting to restore the poisoned, depleted natural world on which all of our futures, and the economy, are entirely dependent. And when it comes to those living standards, there’s a further crucial question: is everyone getting enough for a basic decent standard of life? In foodbank Britain, the answer today is clearly no. Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle House of Lords
December 27, 2025 at 10:11 AM
ianhunt.bsky.social
Architectural History is relatively quiet on this platform -- glad to learn about this book and the other prizewinners. #ArchitecturalHistory
archhistdarling.bsky.social Elizabeth Darling @archhistdarling.bsky.social · 14d
Delighted that Women & Architectural History was recognised by a Colvin Prize commendation last week. www.sahgb.org.uk/features/sah...
December 27, 2025 at 10:07 AM
ianhunt.bsky.social
Stevie Smith's Novel on Yellow Paper, or Work It Out For Yourself (1936), is a surprise in the places it goes to socially (ideas of friendships & love), ethically & historically. Hard to place in relation to other writing of its decade, sliding to war, as she recognizes. An original. #StevieSmith
cover of the Virago Modern Classics edition -- 3/4 portrait, eyes steadily right, of a young white woman w centre parting and bobbed hair, Catherine Carrington) by Dora Carrington.
December 26, 2025 at 4:58 PM
ianhunt.bsky.social
Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, continues to provide a model for what global leadership looks like. #methane
December 26, 2025 at 9:56 AM
ianhunt.bsky.social
Howard French's book on Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism -- logging this. I've slowly been finding out about Ghana through fiction (Ayi Kwei Armah, who is amazing; Ama Ata Aidoo) and earlier this year read Peter Abraham's A Wreath for Udomo, 1956, which is closely based on Nkrumah. #Ghana #PanAfricanism
December 26, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Ian Hunt
greensorganise.bsky.social
*In & Against: a new series exploring strategies for Greens in local government*

Greens are poised to take council seats & entire councils in 2026 & beyond - how do we prepare?

SESSION 1
The rise and fall of municipal socialism
with Owen Hatherley & @tamhauyu.bsky.social
13th Jan, 6:30pm
In and against poster, details on link below In and against is a Greens Organise initiative focused on strategic development and politician education around strategies for the May elections and beyond. Featuring workshops, panels and more
December 23, 2025 at 9:27 AM
ianhunt.bsky.social
One of the pleasures of bsky has been belatedly encountering minor literatures. Here, to get a flavour, is a letter from the editors.
December 23, 2025 at 9:21 AM
ianhunt.bsky.social
David Hayden posts selections of poems from a range of traditions. Anna Mendelssohn is a difficult writer to read in quantity (there is a very big collected from Shearsman, published after her death) but her work continues to demand something unusual from readers: it is not like anything else.
seventydys.bsky.social David Hayden @seventydys.bsky.social · 18d
people who took horror less seriously

Anna Mendelssohn, ‘the cliff’
the cliff. i was subjected to an alfred hitchcock mentality. surrounded by people who took horror less seriously than do i. at the faintest suggestion of violence i crack into action to prevent it. i played fast. and have still not heard the last of it.
December 21, 2025 at 6:56 PM
ianhunt.bsky.social
A secular tradition I like is the #solstice post. Here's a small contribution on dark to light thinking. Happy solstice.
ianhunt.bsky.social Ian Hunt @ianhunt.bsky.social · 19d
How did the dark/light motif work in Gundulf's #Rochester Cathedral? This is the south side of the nave and model of how the exterior looked, 1080. There wd be light from two small windows in each bay, the gallery wd be dark, as now, and above gallery another small window. #Romanesque #Darkness
South part of the nave, Rochester, two round arches of gallery (dark) over each round arch of nave. Windows above (lots of light) are later model of the 1080 cathedral
December 21, 2025 at 1:22 PM
ianhunt.bsky.social
for what it is worth, as bsky is attempt community-building among strangers: I share some posts here about Israel-Palestine, Gaza and the West Bank. That does not mean I do not understand anti-semitism is real. The 25% of me that is Jewish heritage agrees with the 75% that isn't on this.
December 21, 2025 at 12:52 PM