Jonathan Gibbs
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jonathangibbs.bsky.social
Jonathan Gibbs
@jonathangibbs.bsky.social
2.9K followers 1.1K following 4.9K posts
Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at City St George's, Uni of London. I curate the short story project apersonalanthology.com. Novels are Randall or The Painted Grape, and The Large Door. Poetry is Spring Journal. https://linktr.ee/jonathangibbs
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jonathangibbs.bsky.social
Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · Jan 6
2025 Reading 1: Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton. A fascinating use of format for a memoir/linguistic commentary: Barton picks fifty onomatopoeic or more broadly 'mimetic' Japanese phrases and explores their meaning to her, using the form to narrate her experience of working in Japan as a teacher.
White paperback book with dark blue text giving title, author and publisher (Fitzcarraldo Editions), set on a wooden table.
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
seventydys.bsky.social
The realm of all writing is the past. Writing is a practice that takes place in an unfolding present. Writing is a mediated form of touch. Everything that is touched turns to time. Writing about exteriors is always, at the same time, about the interior. Everything is lost as it is set down. The lost is ever present. The present presses through the forgotten and is as tangible, and as uncertain. History, the discipline, at its best, makes careful accommodations with the lost, and, with proper hesitancy, weighs and shapes the found to tell and explain the known. Fiction is the invented that can be true but cannot prove it. Only the reader can do that.
January 2, 2026 at 11:10 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
Love it that the naff right wing are bringing back the ‘What is Wrong with this Picture?’ puzzle format of yesteryear.

@davidcollard.bsky.social , in particular, will be pleased.
slowbikeiain.bsky.social Iain Roberts @slowbikeiain.bsky.social · 1d
London in the good old days - before everyone's feet pointed forwards.
Idiotic right-wing propoganda: "London - before everything, it was one of the most beautiful, clean and safest places in Britain." In the AI image, a character in the foreground has his feet on the wrong way, facing backwards.
January 2, 2026 at 11:19 PM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
Love it that the naff right wing are bringing back the ‘What is Wrong with this Picture?’ puzzle format of yesteryear.

@davidcollard.bsky.social , in particular, will be pleased.
slowbikeiain.bsky.social Iain Roberts @slowbikeiain.bsky.social · 1d
London in the good old days - before everyone's feet pointed forwards.
Idiotic right-wing propoganda: "London - before everything, it was one of the most beautiful, clean and safest places in Britain." In the AI image, a character in the foreground has his feet on the wrong way, facing backwards.
January 2, 2026 at 11:19 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
zamirarahim.bsky.social
I decided to finally read Middlemarch on my month off work - it's filled with sublime, carefully written passages like this, where Dorothea visits her marital home for the first time.
It had a small park, with a fine old oak here and there, and an avenue of limes towards the southwest front, with a sunk fence between park and pleasure-ground, so that from the drawing-room windows the glance swept uninterruptedly along a slope of greensward till the limes ended in a level of corn and pastures, which often seemed to melt into a lake under the setting sun.
November 15, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
sarahwolfson.bsky.social
“Your words used your way will generate your meanings. Your obsessions lead you to your vocabulary. Your way of writing locates, even creates, your inner life.”

— Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town, pg. 15
January 2, 2026 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
tomewing.bsky.social
This is the start of the updated Dance To The Music Of Time @idca.bsky.social
grindrod.bsky.social John Grindrod @grindrod.bsky.social · 3d
By the kebab van on the edge of the business park the Deliveroo drivers are making a fire from fallen branches to keep warm. Welcome to the future, 2026 style
January 2, 2026 at 11:52 AM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
Weird that you burn incense to feel calm and relaxed. It should be something you burn to rile yourself up.
January 1, 2026 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
owenbooth.bsky.social
Trinity Buoy Wharf on New Year’s Day
The boat “Suncrest” at anchor in the Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf Old-fashioned desk drawers reading “childhood” and “philosophical miscellany” A boat at anchor in the Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf with a big “W” on its single funnel The interior Michael Farraday’s hut at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London
January 1, 2026 at 6:50 PM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
We went for a walk today.
A landscape photo of a small hill with a lad on top of it, silhouetted against a pale blue-white cloudy sky, raising his arms. Lower down, walking up a path, is a woman in a green cagoule.
January 1, 2026 at 5:05 PM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
According to the ancient art of home barista divination it looks like 2026 is going to be a bit meh, I’m afraid.
A lovely old 1950s coffee cup with a flat white coffee in it, but the poured milk has accidentally produced what looks like a sad frog face with two eyes and downturned mouth.
January 1, 2026 at 10:03 AM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
Went to see The Apartment on New Year's Eve at the Star and Shadow (local community cinema in Newcastle) and yeah it's still a perfect movie.

boxd.it/clviT1
A ★★★★★ review of The Apartment (1960)
MINOR SPOILERS They were showing this at the Star and Shadow, a community-run cinema just up the hill from where I was staying in Newcastle. Wife was at work (who doesn't like this kind of film anyway...
boxd.it
December 31, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
donaldclarke.bsky.social
Here comes my favourite 20 albums of 2025. The list nobody has been waiting for.

20: STOCHASTIC DRIFT by Barker

Hey, it's ambient, but it's got a jagged edge.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jKi...
Barker - Force Of Habit
YouTube video by subsuelo
www.youtube.com
December 30, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
no-flashlight.bsky.social
Reading my first Iris Murdoch novel (The Bell) and hoooo boy, this lady can write a damn sentence
Toby had received, though not yet digested, one of the earliest lessons of adult life: that one is never secure. At any moment one can be removed from a state of guileless serenity and plunged into its opposite, without any intermediate condition, so high about us do the waters rise of our own and other people's imperfection.
December 30, 2025 at 9:02 PM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
Anyone in Newcastle, this perfect film is showing tomorrow 2pm at the wonderful Star and Shadow cinema. Tickets £7/5/3/0.

www.starandshadow.org.uk/programme/ev...
December 30, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
My latest short reading thread: on Shirley Jackson's totally fascinating and slightly frustrating Hangsaman.
jonathangibbs.bsky.social Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 5d
2025 Reading 66: Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson. The continuation (and possibly conclusion) of my Shirley Jackson Winter, after a re-read of Hill House (fab), and a first read of Castle (disappointing). This was something else entirely: an unnerving and weird novel that refuses to play by the rules.
A Penguin Modern Classics edition of Hangsaman lying on a vibrant multicoloured (mostly red) cushion. The book cover features a photograph of a teenaged girl wearing a white lace dress staring at the camera with a single wide eye (the photo is cropped to just past the centre of her face). She has freckles and long coppery-red hair that is floating in the air, as if someone has lifted it above her head and dropped it – though her features are fixed and still. It is a beautiful, unnerving image.
December 29, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
raynewman.bsky.social
BLOG POST: Notes on the best new-to-me books and films of 2025, including juvenile delinquents, witches, weirdness, and a dystopian Argentina where the tango is *banned*!

precastreinforced.co.uk/2025/12/15/f...
Favourite new-to-me books and films in 2025
Novels about juvenile delinquents, short films about consumerism, and a weird classic I got round to far too late are among my cultural highlights from the past year. I like these little bits of en…
precastreinforced.co.uk
December 15, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
ronanhession.bsky.social
Just learned that George Bernard Shaw declined the Nobel Prize money, arranging instead for it to be redirected to the translation of Swedish literature into English.
December 30, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
richardlittler.bsky.social
The last time I saw The Trial by Orson Welles it was on VHS; the teenage me probably taped a late-night TV broadcast of a cropped, substandard print.
I saw it again last night. Wow. Every frame is a work of art, not least due to cinematographer Edmond Richard.
Here's a short 🧵of frames.
#cinema
A frame from The Trial by Orson Welles A frame from The Trial by Orson Welles A frame from The Trial by Orson Welles A frame from The Trial by Orson Welles
December 30, 2025 at 10:05 AM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention."

Francis Bacon, ever relevant on reading habits.
December 30, 2025 at 10:10 AM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
My latest short reading thread: on Shirley Jackson's totally fascinating and slightly frustrating Hangsaman.
jonathangibbs.bsky.social Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 5d
2025 Reading 66: Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson. The continuation (and possibly conclusion) of my Shirley Jackson Winter, after a re-read of Hill House (fab), and a first read of Castle (disappointing). This was something else entirely: an unnerving and weird novel that refuses to play by the rules.
A Penguin Modern Classics edition of Hangsaman lying on a vibrant multicoloured (mostly red) cushion. The book cover features a photograph of a teenaged girl wearing a white lace dress staring at the camera with a single wide eye (the photo is cropped to just past the centre of her face). She has freckles and long coppery-red hair that is floating in the air, as if someone has lifted it above her head and dropped it – though her features are fixed and still. It is a beautiful, unnerving image.
December 29, 2025 at 6:13 PM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
The Night of the Hunter at the Tyneside Cinema, with the 21yo son.

(Here's his review: letterboxd.com/thurston11/f...)

boxd.it/cj2Exl
A ★★★★½ review of The Night of the Hunter (1955)
I thought I'd seen this before, but I have no memory of the ending (Night of the Hunter is a Christmas movie, who knew!) though possibly I'd blocked it out. The epilogue is fine, after all, but the pr...
boxd.it
December 29, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
rickburin.bsky.social
Popped my favourite pieces I’ve written this year at the top of this round-up. Been lucky to have a lot of great opportunities (writing on John Ford in the Guardian, Dylan in the i, Borzage on the Blu-ray) but interviewing Adrianne Lenker was very special.
rickburin.bsky.social Rick Burin @rickburin.bsky.social · 14d
He's been! Here's everything I read this year (and a few things I wrote): Henry James! Joseph Heller! Penelope Fitzgerald! A biography of the unsuccessful 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, Al Smith!
advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2025/12/Book...
Something Happened by Joseph Heller The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante Memo from David O. Selznick, edited by Rudy Behlmer What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer
December 29, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Gibbs
leerandall.bsky.social
Dipped into Joyce Carey's short story collection, Spring Song, last night. I say this without modern shade or double entendre: he spent a rewarding time observing children's behaviour. They spring fully to life on his pages, in all their emotional complexity and innocence.
December 29, 2025 at 9:28 AM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
post a perfect album from the 90s “that isn't nirvana, pearl jam, soundgarden, or Alice In Chains.” (Not that I’d credit more than one of those bands with so much as a half-decent album between them)

Whereas this album IS perfect. Not a bad song on it: a 43-minute blast of pure grown-up pop joy.
The cover of Good Humor by Saint Etienne. A white sleeve with band name and title in sans serif capital letters, separated by a dash. Below it, three two-tone black-on-green massively high-contrast photo portraits of the three band members, two men and one woman, all looking off to the right, all looking rather like extras from a 60s beach party movie.
December 28, 2025 at 3:13 PM
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
My tennis-loving father-in-law has just picked up and is reading The Last Days of Roger Federer by Geoff Dyer. Will be interesting to see how this goes.
December 25, 2025 at 5:47 PM