P. S. Nissim
banner
ps-nissim.bsky.social
P. S. Nissim
@ps-nissim.bsky.social
Nerd. Writer. Desi. Lit critic. Erstwhile podcaster. Into Horror these days. Novellas: Brown Boy, Pillar of the King. Available at Bookworm/Blossom if you're in Bangalore, on Amazon elsewhere.
@blaftrakesh.bsky.social (or any math folks!) help!
October 14, 2025 at 1:17 PM
We might as well cut out the media middlemen and get AI to generate our listicles ourselves. Why see ads?
July 13, 2025 at 3:28 AM
I'm not religious but I believe in the holy trinity
April 7, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Well, about this AI-generated summary of this week's cricket match...
February 11, 2025 at 8:04 AM
Why, Gmail, what's suspicious about this one? Looks fine to me!
January 19, 2025 at 6:19 AM
I'm sure there's some play or 80s parallel cinema movie where this happens? If not there should be, full of explorations about how man is an animal, how poverty makes people try to steal even leopard bait, how man unwittingly traps his fellow man, how the caste system is literally a trap, etc. etc.
January 19, 2025 at 4:16 AM
Please help me with a professional question.

Which LinkedIn icon are you supposed to use when the guy who decided to lay you off a couple of years ago, is now thrown out himself and is begging for a job?
January 19, 2025 at 4:08 AM
Well
January 17, 2025 at 4:23 PM
January 17, 2025 at 12:55 AM
science: you can't hear a picture

me:
January 11, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Obviously the OG description of this place should be appended here.
January 8, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Book #3 of 2025: The Keep, by F Paul Wilson. Fun pulp-era horror-fantasy. Yep, I've got more of his books to be read next. Yep, I'd like to see that incomplete movie of this book.
January 6, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Book #2 of 2025 (also a carryover) (also my first #Horror read: We Used to Live Here, by Marcus Kliewer. Reminiscent of House of Leaves, and rewards you for going over to Reddit and reading the discussions around it :). Liked it! Want to discuss it!
January 6, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Book #1 of 2025 (carryover from 2024): To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis. Successfully straddles the line between time travel, Jane Austen, and Jerome K Jerome. And call outs to Agatha Christie and Moonstone!
January 6, 2025 at 1:45 AM
"You will be visited by three spirits."

The three spirits:
December 24, 2024 at 1:26 PM
Reposting my original response to this post from X, below.

The easiest definition of ‘fun’ in the context of books is ‘genre’, and it’s a fact that genre fiction outsells literary fiction everywhere: in western countries and in Indian languages. 🧵
December 23, 2024 at 3:51 PM
The story is still very gripping, of course, another hallmark of the good England-origin genre stuff :). Which is why I'm still listening. Should be staring the 4th season soon.

As long as you know what you're getting into, you'll love it.

/fin
December 16, 2024 at 12:35 PM
Am now understanding @talkscaredpod.bsky.social 's terror of possession stories...

Feel like writing a thread on this book, there are so many thoughts!
December 14, 2024 at 4:04 PM
If you see this post/repost/whatever your favourite cold war aircraft:
December 14, 2024 at 8:07 AM
Look what arrived today! Thanks, @blaft.bsky.social !
December 11, 2024 at 1:31 PM
If only they had admitted "good quality"/literary genre fiction into their catalogue, who knows where Hindi genre fiction would have been today!

Am definitely planning to get and read this book. @aakritimandhwani.bsky.social of course is always worth listening to! (And is that Meena Kumari 😍)
December 8, 2024 at 7:37 AM
But I must admit a sneaky respect for what Hind achieved: a direct link between perceived quality of the book and the publisher. No other Indian publisher (Penguin doesn't count) has been able to develop such mass respect for its catalogue...
December 8, 2024 at 7:37 AM
"Genres such as detective fiction, horror, thriller, and pornography were not included. (in the catalogue)."

Every single one of those genres is today underrepresented and undervalued in Indian literature. I'm not sure about cause and effect here -
December 8, 2024 at 7:37 AM
I mean it's a lot more scary isn't it, the Lovecraftian canon, than something domestic/smallscale than a crazy guy with a knife? Or a rabid dog (Sorry King guruji🙏)?

One of the awesome compliments I got for Pillar of the King (attached) references Lovecraft in the nicest way :)
December 7, 2024 at 6:15 AM
It was probably a *bad* idea to listen to BBC's Lovecraft Investigations podcast because I couldn't sleep. Now I'm not sure *when* I'll sleep again.

But it brings home the point of just how influential Lovecraft has been to Horror and popular culture. And how it shows up everywhere 🧵
December 7, 2024 at 6:15 AM