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causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Caustic Cover Critic
@causticcovercritic.bsky.social
3.5K followers 2.6K following 7.1K 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
December 5, 2025 at 12:04 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Bought some books, only 2/3 of which feature women on the covers getting their kit off.
3 books: GINSTER by Siegfried Kracauer, trans. Carl Skoggard THE MOST BEAUTIFUL NIGHT OF THE SOUL by Sándor Jászberényi, trans. Paul Olchvary DISPATCHES FROM THE DISTRICT COMMITTEE by Vladimir Sorokin, trans. Max Lawton
December 4, 2025 at 2:45 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Edith Wharton describing Henry James asking for directions:
The most absurd of these episodes occurred on another rainy evening, when James and I chanced to arrive at Windsor long after dark. We must have been driven by a strange chauffeur–perhaps Cook was on a holiday; at any rate, having fallen into the lazy habit of trusting to him to know the way, I found myself at a loss to direct his substitute to the King’s Road. While I was hesitating, and peering out into the darkness, James spied an ancient doddering man who had stopped in the rain to gaze at us. “wait a moment, my dear–I’ll ask him where we are”; and leaning out he signalled to the spectator. “My good man, if you’ll be good enough to come here, please; a little nearer–so,” and as the old man came up: “My friend, to put it to you in two words, this lady and I have just arrived here from SLOUGH; that is to say, to be more strictly accurate, we have recently PASSED THROUGH Slough on our way here, having actually motored to Windsor from Rye, which was our point of departure; and the darkness having overtaken us, we should be much obliged if you would tell us where we now are in relation, say, to the High Street, which, as you of course know, leads to the Castle, after leaving on the left hand the turn down to the railway station.” I was not surprised to have this extraordinary appeal met by silence, and a dazed expression on the old wrinkled face at the window; nor to have James go on: “In short” (his invariable prelude to a fresh series of explanatory ramifications), “in short, my good man, what I want to put to you in a word is this: supposing we have already (as I have reason to think we have) driven past the turn down to the railway station (which, in that case, by the way, would probably not have been on our left hand, but on our right), where are we now in relation to…” “Oh, please,” I interrupted, feeling myself utterly unable to sit through another parenthesis, “do ask him where the King’s Road is.” “Ah–? The King’s Road? Just so! Quite right! Can you, as …
December 2, 2025 at 11:14 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
It really is!
November 30, 2025 at 11:19 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Watched 'El vampiro negro' (1953, dir. Román Viñoly Barreto) over the weekend: Argentinean remake of 'M' that shift the focus to the women in the story, and absolutely gorgeous none-more-noir visuals:
A man in a coat and hat walks off into an ill-lit wasteland holding the hand of a child A woman looks down through a dramatically ill-lit stairwell A man stalks away through a rain-dampened street arcade A nightcvlub hostess looms seductively over a manwith his collar turned up
November 30, 2025 at 10:12 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Monkeys that strangely resemble Franz Kafka, #1
a sticker of a baby monkey that looks a lot like Franz Kafka a photo of Franz Kafka, looking a lot like the aforementioned baby monkey
November 29, 2025 at 7:25 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
like Grant Morrison in ANIMAL MAN
November 27, 2025 at 8:17 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Inter-organisational meeting day
The painting 'Interrogations in Jail' by Alessandro Magnasco, showing a group of men hoisting a prisoner into the air with his arms in a noose, and poking him with a halberd, while various other miserable prisoners are scattered around the room
November 27, 2025 at 3:17 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
What do we want?!! BOOKS!
When do we want them?!!! WELL, ACTUALLY, WE ALREADY BOUGHT THESE, SO IT'S NOT REALLY RELEVANT!
Two books: 'Cryptic: From Voynich to the Angel Diaries, the Story of the World's Most Mysterious Manuscripts' by Garry J. Shaw 'Your Name Here' by Helen DeWitt & Ilya Gridneff
November 26, 2025 at 7:25 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
ahem
November 26, 2025 at 1:52 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
November 26, 2025 at 1:50 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
The conflicted feeling when an obscure (and very good) book you had to struggle to find for yourself just gets reprinted (and looks much nicer, too) when it's too late to help you.
Anders Bodelsen's book 'Freezing Point' (previously published as 'Freezing Down'); featuring a frozen head in a box
November 25, 2025 at 1:15 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
HERE WE FUCKEN GO!
Book: 'On the Calculation of Volume' Volume 3, by Solvej Balle
November 20, 2025 at 2:11 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
He is! Luckily there's an omnibus (OP, sadly) with them all. 'Soft Soap', where he runs an extremely dodgy industry newspaper, is especially good.
A book: 'Three Novels' by Willem Elsschot
November 19, 2025 at 9:29 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
November 19, 2025 at 6:08 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
A certain colleague always insists on attaching this shit to every petty, pissy, utterly unimportant email she sends. Absolutely maddening.
Microsoft Outlook read receipt prompt box: 'X requested a read receipt be sent when message X is read. Do you want to send a receipt?'
November 19, 2025 at 6:04 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Ha, [looking at IMDB] this has EVERYTHING
November 17, 2025 at 7:38 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Unexpected little bit of drive-by bitchery in John Bowen's THE GIRLS:
In the United States of America, the death penalty was restored, and there were stormy scenes in the Senate. In Britain there was a new leader of the Liberal Party after scandal had removed the old, and Denis Neilsen (also a multiple-murderer, but differently spelled, and mainly of sub-postmasters), whom the press called 'The Black Panther', was tried and convicted of the murder of Lesley Whittle, the Shropshire heiress, before Mr Justice Mars-Jones, while the judge's son sat in court making notes for a novel. In the village the final preparations were being made for the Flower Show.
November 17, 2025 at 6:45 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Not sure how "sophisticated" this supposedly sophisticated publishing scam is when their fake photos haven't even been cropped to hide the watermarks showing that they're fake.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
Faked profiles of three publishing executives with faked "AI" photos, each of which has the watermark in the bottom right corner showing they are AI-generated fakes.
November 16, 2025 at 10:58 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Julian Maclaren-Ross taking the piss out of Nancy Mitford:
HIS GRACE DOESN'T HALF SOUND in a wax this morning, ducks.’ And certainly the fairly big house, that in France would have been called a private hotel, in Kensington Gardens resounded with roars of rage from Uncle Hambrose’s study downstairs. ‘Bet he’s had another bad review,’ sighed Popsy, who was having her ears scrubbed and attempting to read La Madone des Sleepings at the same time. ‘He’ll be gunning for me any moment now, I suppose.’ The explosion of a blunderbuss pistol—a relic of Uncle Hambrose’s service in the Artists’ Rifles (Home Guard Section)—proved her to possess prophecy in addition to her other gifts. “Come down at once, Popsy, you dreary little witch!’ ‘Oh dear, I better dash,’ and disregarding Nannie’s ‘Put on a clean pinny first,’ Popsy headed for the staircase. Uncle Hambrose—a name which had been in the family for generations, the H silent as in heraldique—motioned her grimly through the door of Biis study with the smoking antique. Over the mantel- or rather chimneypiece hung the dried heads of four critics who had reviewed adversely his Anatomy of Snobbery, and the framed copy of Burke’s Loneaeew ith which he had battered them to death. ‘Rotten press, Uncle ?’
November 14, 2025 at 6:50 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
November 13, 2025 at 7:32 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
Genuinely laughed out loud at this poster. This is meant to be Maigret? Yeah, OK, whatever dude.
Poster for a new UK TV series of 'Maigret', starring a carefully tousled thin youngish guy who looks nothing like Maigret as Maigret, with the Eiffel Tower in the dstance because, you know, France.
November 12, 2025 at 1:22 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
If this series ever contains any other authors (or, knowing Penguin, even any other books), I will eat my Stetson.
The Penguin webpage for the series 'Penguin Modern Classics Westerns', consisting of 3 books by Elmore Leonard.
November 10, 2025 at 10:58 PM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
I like a trilogy that gets thinner with each volume. Gives you a real sense of hitting a downhill run after volume 1.

(Rereading this in preparation for a talk with @shawnthebookmaniac.bsky.social about Hungarian litarature)
The three volumes of Miklós Bánffy's Transylvanian Trilogy, 'They Were Counted', 'They Were Found Wanting' and 'They Were Divided'.
November 10, 2025 at 7:54 AM
causticcovercritic.bsky.social
In case anyone was worrying that I hadn't bought any books this week, I'd like to put your minds at rest.
5 Books: Clean, by Alia Trabucco Zerán, Trans. Sophie Hughes Moderation, by Elaine Castillo The Nuclear Age, by Serhii Plokhy I Am Clarence, by Elaine Kraf Pleasure of Thinking, by Wang Xiaobo, trans. Yan Yan
November 8, 2025 at 8:06 AM