Oliver House
@oliverhouse.bsky.social
Roving Archivist @senatehouselib.bsky.social
Formerly Superintendent, Special Collections Reading Rooms @bodleian.ox.ac.uk
Opinions mine
Formerly Superintendent, Special Collections Reading Rooms @bodleian.ox.ac.uk
Opinions mine
Thoroughly enjoying Michael Scammell’s biography of Arthur Koestler, and this fine point of detail about his name.
November 28, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Thoroughly enjoying Michael Scammell’s biography of Arthur Koestler, and this fine point of detail about his name.
‘…everyone has it inside himself, this plague, because no one in the world, no one, is immune. And I know that we must constantly keep a watch on ourselves breathing in another person’s face and infecting him…The decent man, the one who doesn’t infect anybody, is the one who concentrates most…
November 22, 2025 at 6:13 PM
‘…everyone has it inside himself, this plague, because no one in the world, no one, is immune. And I know that we must constantly keep a watch on ourselves breathing in another person’s face and infecting him…The decent man, the one who doesn’t infect anybody, is the one who concentrates most…
A dramatic looking @stpaulscathedral.bsky.social this evening.
November 20, 2025 at 7:50 PM
A dramatic looking @stpaulscathedral.bsky.social this evening.
November 8, 2025 at 11:46 PM
‘…there always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that two and two make four is punished by death. The schoolmaster knows this quite well. And the question is not what reward or punishment awaits the demonstration; it is knowing whether or not two and two do make four…
November 8, 2025 at 10:05 PM
‘…there always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that two and two make four is punished by death. The schoolmaster knows this quite well. And the question is not what reward or punishment awaits the demonstration; it is knowing whether or not two and two do make four…
Happy birthday to @bodleian.ox.ac.uk, which first opened its doors #otd in 1602. 423 years young today!
November 8, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Happy birthday to @bodleian.ox.ac.uk, which first opened its doors #otd in 1602. 423 years young today!
An autumnal sunrise this morning.
November 5, 2025 at 8:22 AM
An autumnal sunrise this morning.
Reading looking striking this morning.
September 22, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Reading looking striking this morning.
Intriguing to read in Koestler’s Darkness at Noon that during a purge of a library and the removal and reissuing of texts that “one time Rubashov joked to Orlova that the only thing left was to take daily newspapers from years gone by and print new and improved editions.” #GeorgeOrwell
September 20, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Intriguing to read in Koestler’s Darkness at Noon that during a purge of a library and the removal and reissuing of texts that “one time Rubashov joked to Orlova that the only thing left was to take daily newspapers from years gone by and print new and improved editions.” #GeorgeOrwell
This is very much “my” Orwell biography: it came out when I was first discovering his works and I read it as a young teenager. Will be intrigued to re-read it again now, all these years later. #GeorgeOrwell
September 8, 2025 at 6:41 PM
This is very much “my” Orwell biography: it came out when I was first discovering his works and I read it as a young teenager. Will be intrigued to re-read it again now, all these years later. #GeorgeOrwell
Extraordinary sky here…
August 29, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Extraordinary sky here…
‘An England that stayed asleep, wandering in a dream and forgetting what decency is and why it matters, is the world inherited by Winston Smith.’
Thorougly enjoyed this fine book by Nathan Waddell on #GeorgeOrwell and the everyday, quotidian ordinariness that fill all our lives and bring such joys.
Thorougly enjoyed this fine book by Nathan Waddell on #GeorgeOrwell and the everyday, quotidian ordinariness that fill all our lives and bring such joys.
August 29, 2025 at 11:31 AM
‘An England that stayed asleep, wandering in a dream and forgetting what decency is and why it matters, is the world inherited by Winston Smith.’
Thorougly enjoyed this fine book by Nathan Waddell on #GeorgeOrwell and the everyday, quotidian ordinariness that fill all our lives and bring such joys.
Thorougly enjoyed this fine book by Nathan Waddell on #GeorgeOrwell and the everyday, quotidian ordinariness that fill all our lives and bring such joys.
August 17, 2025 at 10:22 AM
‘As for me, I longed to love as people long to cry. I felt that every hour I slept now would be an hour stolen from life…that is to say, from those hours of undefined desire.’
July 11, 2025 at 11:25 AM
‘As for me, I longed to love as people long to cry. I felt that every hour I slept now would be an hour stolen from life…that is to say, from those hours of undefined desire.’
Sunny day in Oxford town.
April 28, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Sunny day in Oxford town.
March 2, 2025 at 12:54 PM
‘So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information’ - George Orwell
November 26, 2024 at 8:45 PM
‘So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information’ - George Orwell
A storm without, and a storm within. What a truly remarkable book this is: ‘Neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all and another storm abrewing’. #workingclasswriters
November 24, 2024 at 12:44 PM
A storm without, and a storm within. What a truly remarkable book this is: ‘Neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all and another storm abrewing’. #workingclasswriters
Enjoyed beginning to look at some issues of Polemic today. Beautifully designed with an extraordinary set of contributors! #GeorgeOrwell
November 22, 2024 at 5:49 PM
Enjoyed beginning to look at some issues of Polemic today. Beautifully designed with an extraordinary set of contributors! #GeorgeOrwell
