Dominic Shryane
@sootyshryane.bsky.social
printer’s devil | editor at large | Walthamstoat
Book Nos. 2025/21–24 were holiday reading: Graydon Carter, When the Going was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines (2025); Edward St Aubyn, Parallel Lines (2025); Nick Harkaway, Karla’s Choice (2024); and P. G. Wodehouse, Joy in the Morning (1947).
June 18, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Book Nos. 2025/21–24 were holiday reading: Graydon Carter, When the Going was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines (2025); Edward St Aubyn, Parallel Lines (2025); Nick Harkaway, Karla’s Choice (2024); and P. G. Wodehouse, Joy in the Morning (1947).
Book No. 2025/20. I’d not before heard of Mudlark, the imprint under which Adam Buxton’s I Love You, Byeee: Rambles on DIY TV, Rockstars, Kids and Mums (2025) was published. Its cover might be a tad overwrought; but otherwise the book’s a delight—and v. moving, as the crow flies.
June 4, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Book No. 2025/20. I’d not before heard of Mudlark, the imprint under which Adam Buxton’s I Love You, Byeee: Rambles on DIY TV, Rockstars, Kids and Mums (2025) was published. Its cover might be a tad overwrought; but otherwise the book’s a delight—and v. moving, as the crow flies.
Book No. 2025/19. Janet Todd’s Living with Jane Austen (Cambridge University Press, 2025) is admirably produced, and highly recommended. (Would that more modern books included pleasing typographical ornaments like the wibbly-wobbly flourishes and silhouettes that adorn this one.)
May 30, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Book No. 2025/19. Janet Todd’s Living with Jane Austen (Cambridge University Press, 2025) is admirably produced, and highly recommended. (Would that more modern books included pleasing typographical ornaments like the wibbly-wobbly flourishes and silhouettes that adorn this one.)
Book No. 2025/18. Joe Dunthorne’s Children of Radium (H. Hamilton, 2025) is v. good—not least on acquiring a post-Brexit EU passport. I can confirm that reifying my Irish ancestry into a passport felt ‘deeply meaningful and completely dishonest at exactly the same time’ (p. 282).
May 21, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Book No. 2025/18. Joe Dunthorne’s Children of Radium (H. Hamilton, 2025) is v. good—not least on acquiring a post-Brexit EU passport. I can confirm that reifying my Irish ancestry into a passport felt ‘deeply meaningful and completely dishonest at exactly the same time’ (p. 282).
Book No. 2025/17. Adam Phillips, On Giving Up (Penguin Books, 2025). ‘There may be nothing else we can do but go on inventing competing and complementary accounts of the ways in which we are and are not the authors of our lives’ (p. 56). Recommended, esp. for the discombobulated.
May 9, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Book No. 2025/17. Adam Phillips, On Giving Up (Penguin Books, 2025). ‘There may be nothing else we can do but go on inventing competing and complementary accounts of the ways in which we are and are not the authors of our lives’ (p. 56). Recommended, esp. for the discombobulated.
Book No. 2025/16. Lucy Mangan, Bookish: How Books Shape Our Lives (London: Square Peg, 2025). I can’t get enough books about books; and LM’s contribution to the genre is bostin, and very moving. (It does, however, contain a shocking editorial error on p. 118.) Highly recommended.
April 27, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Book No. 2025/16. Lucy Mangan, Bookish: How Books Shape Our Lives (London: Square Peg, 2025). I can’t get enough books about books; and LM’s contribution to the genre is bostin, and very moving. (It does, however, contain a shocking editorial error on p. 118.) Highly recommended.
Book No. 2025/15. After I’d stopped fretting about the sporadically applied demotic spellings (e.g. ‘gonna’), I couldn’t get enough of Gary Stevenson’s The Trading Game (2024). His colours are vivid (e.g. ‘Billy took me into a room and told me to stop being a cunt’ (see p. 222)).
April 8, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Book No. 2025/15. After I’d stopped fretting about the sporadically applied demotic spellings (e.g. ‘gonna’), I couldn’t get enough of Gary Stevenson’s The Trading Game (2024). His colours are vivid (e.g. ‘Billy took me into a room and told me to stop being a cunt’ (see p. 222)).
Book No. 2025/14. Michelle de Kretser, Theory & Practice (London: Sort Of Books, 2025). ‘My mind foamed with envy and loathing of parents who conversed in cafes about music and art’ (p. 145). V. enjoyable, not least as a reminder of some of the wonders of 1989 (e.g. index cards).
April 2, 2025 at 7:37 AM
Book No. 2025/14. Michelle de Kretser, Theory & Practice (London: Sort Of Books, 2025). ‘My mind foamed with envy and loathing of parents who conversed in cafes about music and art’ (p. 145). V. enjoyable, not least as a reminder of some of the wonders of 1989 (e.g. index cards).
Book No. 2025/13. I thought that Will Hodgkinson’s Street-level Superstar: A Year with Lawrence (Nine Eight Books, 2024) would be fascinating. But I was not expecting it to be so poignant, and hilarious. (Nor to see references to both Walthamstow and Solihull.) Essential reading.
March 22, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Book No. 2025/13. I thought that Will Hodgkinson’s Street-level Superstar: A Year with Lawrence (Nine Eight Books, 2024) would be fascinating. But I was not expecting it to be so poignant, and hilarious. (Nor to see references to both Walthamstow and Solihull.) Essential reading.
Book Nos. 2025/11 and 12. Julian Baggini’s How to Think Like a Philosopher: Essential Principles for Clearer Thinking (Granta Books, 2024) was closely followed by Armistead Maupin’s Mona of the Manor (Penguin, 2025)—in which 1993 seems like a long time ago. A recommended pairing.
March 18, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Book Nos. 2025/11 and 12. Julian Baggini’s How to Think Like a Philosopher: Essential Principles for Clearer Thinking (Granta Books, 2024) was closely followed by Armistead Maupin’s Mona of the Manor (Penguin, 2025)—in which 1993 seems like a long time ago. A recommended pairing.
Holiday fun! Book Nos. 2025/07–10: Emmanuel Carrère, V13: Chronicle of a Trial (Fern Press, 2024); Joanne Barchas, The Lost Books of Jane Austen (J. Hopkins, 2019); Vincenzo Latronico, Perfection (Fitzcarraldo, 2025); and P. G. Wodehouse, Uncle Dynamite [1948] (Everyman’s, 2006).
March 7, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Holiday fun! Book Nos. 2025/07–10: Emmanuel Carrère, V13: Chronicle of a Trial (Fern Press, 2024); Joanne Barchas, The Lost Books of Jane Austen (J. Hopkins, 2019); Vincenzo Latronico, Perfection (Fitzcarraldo, 2025); and P. G. Wodehouse, Uncle Dynamite [1948] (Everyman’s, 2006).
Book Nos. 2025/05 and 2025/06 are from two of the greats: Hanif Kureishi’s Shattered (Hamish Hamilton, 2024) (‘Since I became a vegetable I have never been so busy’ (p. 24)); and Jane Austen’s Emma [1815] (No. 36 in the Everyman’s Library, 1991). Recommended for advanced readers.
February 18, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Book Nos. 2025/05 and 2025/06 are from two of the greats: Hanif Kureishi’s Shattered (Hamish Hamilton, 2024) (‘Since I became a vegetable I have never been so busy’ (p. 24)); and Jane Austen’s Emma [1815] (No. 36 in the Everyman’s Library, 1991). Recommended for advanced readers.
Book No. 2025/04. ‘But I think that in your place I should have thought of an explanation of your presence calculated to carry more immediate conviction than that you were searching for a mouse’—P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing [1960] (Everyman’s L., 2002). Essential reading.
January 31, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Book No. 2025/04. ‘But I think that in your place I should have thought of an explanation of your presence calculated to carry more immediate conviction than that you were searching for a mouse’—P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing [1960] (Everyman’s L., 2002). Essential reading.
Book No. 2025/03. Ben Yagoda’s Gobsmacked! The British Invasion of American English (Princeton, N.J. and Oxford: Princeton Univ. Press, 2024) is full of v. good stuff (e.g. some new—new to me, anyway—excerpts from The New Yorker’s eccentric style bible (see p. 250)). Recommended.
January 22, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Book No. 2025/03. Ben Yagoda’s Gobsmacked! The British Invasion of American English (Princeton, N.J. and Oxford: Princeton Univ. Press, 2024) is full of v. good stuff (e.g. some new—new to me, anyway—excerpts from The New Yorker’s eccentric style bible (see p. 250)). Recommended.
Book No. 2025/02. Michael Farr, Tintin A–Z: An Alphabetic Anthology of Curiosities from Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin (Éditions Moulinsart, 2024). I hadn’t before realized that Snowy possessed quite so many outfits. His headgear shown on p. 26 is especially admirable. Recommended.
January 13, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Book No. 2025/02. Michael Farr, Tintin A–Z: An Alphabetic Anthology of Curiosities from Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin (Éditions Moulinsart, 2024). I hadn’t before realized that Snowy possessed quite so many outfits. His headgear shown on p. 26 is especially admirable. Recommended.
As the year turned my reading took on a Gothic hue—Laurie Penny’s Everything Belongs to the Future (Tom Doherty Associates, 2016) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ in Everyman’s Library No. 63 (1992) (Book Nos. 2024/51 and 2025/01 respectively).
January 3, 2025 at 7:05 PM
As the year turned my reading took on a Gothic hue—Laurie Penny’s Everything Belongs to the Future (Tom Doherty Associates, 2016) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ in Everyman’s Library No. 63 (1992) (Book Nos. 2024/51 and 2025/01 respectively).
Picture books are perfect Xmas reading. I consumed (as Book Nos. 2024/47, 48, 49, and 50) Raymond Briggs’s Father Christmas [1973] (Puffin, 2013); and a trio of Posy Simmonds’s major works published by Mr Cape: Gemma Bovery (1999); Cassandra Darke (2018); and Tamara Drewe (2007).
December 31, 2024 at 4:11 PM
Picture books are perfect Xmas reading. I consumed (as Book Nos. 2024/47, 48, 49, and 50) Raymond Briggs’s Father Christmas [1973] (Puffin, 2013); and a trio of Posy Simmonds’s major works published by Mr Cape: Gemma Bovery (1999); Cassandra Darke (2018); and Tamara Drewe (2007).
Book Nos. 2024/45 and 46. Two (overlapping) collections by Saki (pseud. of the mysterious H. H. Munro (1870–1916)): Reginald’s Christmas Revel (Penguin Little Clothbound Classics, 2022); and Selected Stories, ed. Diana Secker Tesdell (Everyman’s Pocket Classics, 2017). Essential.
December 22, 2024 at 11:24 PM
Book Nos. 2024/45 and 46. Two (overlapping) collections by Saki (pseud. of the mysterious H. H. Munro (1870–1916)): Reginald’s Christmas Revel (Penguin Little Clothbound Classics, 2022); and Selected Stories, ed. Diana Secker Tesdell (Everyman’s Pocket Classics, 2017). Essential.
Book No. 2024/44. E. M. Cioran’s A Short History of Decay [first published in French in 1949 as Précis de décomposition] (Penguin Classics, 2010). (‘The universe begins and ends with each individual, whether he be Shakespeare or Hodge’ (p. 153).) Recommended for advanced readers.
December 5, 2024 at 8:05 PM
Book No. 2024/44. E. M. Cioran’s A Short History of Decay [first published in French in 1949 as Précis de décomposition] (Penguin Classics, 2010). (‘The universe begins and ends with each individual, whether he be Shakespeare or Hodge’ (p. 153).) Recommended for advanced readers.
Book No. 2024/43. Although Alan Bennett’s Killing Time (London: Faber & Faber and Profile, 2024) is of modest dimensions it’s an ideal Xmas read. (Spoiler: ‘Miss Rathbone dies … with her fingers still cradling an errant piece of an uncompleted jigsaw’ (p. 103). What a way to go!)
December 3, 2024 at 8:58 AM
Book No. 2024/43. Although Alan Bennett’s Killing Time (London: Faber & Faber and Profile, 2024) is of modest dimensions it’s an ideal Xmas read. (Spoiler: ‘Miss Rathbone dies … with her fingers still cradling an errant piece of an uncompleted jigsaw’ (p. 103). What a way to go!)
Book No. 2024/42. Judi Dench, with Brendan O’Hea, Shakespeare: The Man who Pays the Rent (2024). Mr Wm. Shakespeare’s work usually goes over my noodle. But—after screwing my courage to the sticking place—I found much to enjoy in this duologue. The illustrations are also charming.
December 2, 2024 at 2:39 PM
Book No. 2024/42. Judi Dench, with Brendan O’Hea, Shakespeare: The Man who Pays the Rent (2024). Mr Wm. Shakespeare’s work usually goes over my noodle. But—after screwing my courage to the sticking place—I found much to enjoy in this duologue. The illustrations are also charming.
Book No. 2024/41. Jonathan Coe, The Proof of My Innocence (Viking, 2024). This is the third time that one of Mr Coe’s masterpieces has been my 41st read of a year (cf. 2018/41 (Middle England) and 2020/41 (Mr Wilder and Me); see also 2015/53 (Number 11) and 2022/39 (Bournville)).
November 21, 2024 at 7:47 PM
Book No. 2024/41. Jonathan Coe, The Proof of My Innocence (Viking, 2024). This is the third time that one of Mr Coe’s masterpieces has been my 41st read of a year (cf. 2018/41 (Middle England) and 2020/41 (Mr Wilder and Me); see also 2015/53 (Number 11) and 2022/39 (Bournville)).
Book No. 2024/40. I must confess to feelings of mild disappointment for I was led to believe that Fredric Jameson’s The Years of Theory: Postwar French Thought to the Present, ed. Carson Welch (London and Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2024) would contain more amusing anecdotes and gossip.
November 18, 2024 at 6:21 PM
Book No. 2024/40. I must confess to feelings of mild disappointment for I was led to believe that Fredric Jameson’s The Years of Theory: Postwar French Thought to the Present, ed. Carson Welch (London and Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2024) would contain more amusing anecdotes and gossip.
Book No. 2024/39. Eley Williams’s Attrib. and Other Stories (Green Lanes, London, N16: Influx Press, 2017). ‘I consider favourite letters to be a better indicator of personality than star signs’ (vide ‘The Alphabet’, op. cit., p. 16). Recommended, especially for advanced readers.
November 6, 2024 at 4:04 PM
Book No. 2024/39. Eley Williams’s Attrib. and Other Stories (Green Lanes, London, N16: Influx Press, 2017). ‘I consider favourite letters to be a better indicator of personality than star signs’ (vide ‘The Alphabet’, op. cit., p. 16). Recommended, especially for advanced readers.
Book No. 2024/38. Jeremy Black’s George III (Allen Lane, 2020) includes a reproduction of John Nixon’s ‘Royal Dipping’ (1789). The good King is shown being ‘dipped’ by a bathing woman. His wife, Mrs King, and one of the princesses watch from a bathing machine. Highly recommended.
November 5, 2024 at 6:04 PM
Book No. 2024/38. Jeremy Black’s George III (Allen Lane, 2020) includes a reproduction of John Nixon’s ‘Royal Dipping’ (1789). The good King is shown being ‘dipped’ by a bathing woman. His wife, Mrs King, and one of the princesses watch from a bathing machine. Highly recommended.