Books I've actually finished lately: 129

Dostoevsky v pornography (Afghanistan edition)

Porn is prevalent, more prevalent than Dostoevsky.

- Dan Clements, in The Times

(Audio)Books I've actually finished lately: 128

Weird translation.

Frankly...

'The publisher of this book wishes me to vouch for the writer of this book who is a friend of mine in order to utilise whatever celebrity kudos the writer of this quote, i.e. me, has left in order to advance the sales of this book. That has been duly done now in the form of this quote. I am sure the book is very good though I cannot remember what it is called or whether I have read it. I've read lots of his stuff and it;s always good and I am in no way biased.' 

- Thom Yorke, middle-aged father of two

[on Stanley Donwood's Humor]

Books I've actually finished lately: 127

[S]pecialists possess the tremendous stupidity of the force of gravity.

- Friedrich Nietzsche (according to Geoff Dyer)

(Audio)Books I've actually finished lately: 126

The nostrils of the poet

The cinnamon has, unfortunately, no smell at all, but to the nostrils of the poet.

- The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, on Robert Percival's An Account of the Island of Ceylon (etc.)

Books I've actually finished lately: 125

Often books speak of other books.

- Umberto Eco

(Audio)Books I've actually (re-)finished lately: 124

More importantly, I've just discovered that a distant family member was a keen enthusiast of Basil Bunting.

Nomenclatterrrr!!!

Yes,



but...

(Audio)Books I've actually (re-)finished lately: 123

To be alive as Chaucer was not the same as to be alive as Milton - or Tennyson, or Eliot, or Plath.

- Peter Whitfield

(Audio)Books I've actually finished lately: 122

Or - Gimme Back My Goddamn Lighter, You Commie Bastard!

Spell Check A Racist

In which the ever-so-slightly smug Facebook group post an update with the inevitable spelling error...

Books I've actually finished lately: 121

I push the cause of the mullet because he is a low-class fish. He is simple. He is honest. He moves around in great formations or columns. He does damn near all the work. But he is also noble. He is like another noble thing I once loved, called 'soldier'.

- Col. Mike Malone

(This is, for better or worse, why there are no Brit warrior poets in the Iraqistan era.)

(Audio)Books I've actually finished lately: 120