I didn't miss it at all, so why stop now?

It's here! The long-awaited (lol) best books I read in 2025. Plus - because you've been good this year - runners-up and a cheeky peek at what I DNFd. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/12/19/b... #reading #books #bookreview #bestbooksof2025

Best Books I Read in 2025, + Runners-Up and DNFs

Last year I wrote in my 2024 wrap-up and 2025 reading hopes post that I wanted to keep raising the bar for inclusion in the best reads of the year. I’d already said, in 2024’s best book…

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Such a terrific, informative talk - I'd had no idea about the numbers of Black men we know voted in the 18th & 19th centuries, let alone that two of them were MPs! Particularly interested by William Cuffay/-ey: not an MP, but tailor, Chartist organiser, and short king (4'11").

IHR British History in the Long C18th Seminar@long18thsem.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Next Wednesday 3-12 we are holding a joint seminar with @histparl.bsky.social! Join us at 17:30 at the @ihr.bsky.social or online via zoom to hear Dr Helen Wilson discuss ‘Black & Political: Black Political Participation in Britain, 1750-1850’. Register now! 👎 www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

November was a less slumpy reading month, although I also appear to be running out of things to read. Good thing Christmas is coming. You can see what I thought of this month's non-library reading here: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/11/30/n... #reading #books #bookreview #booksky

November 2025 Superlatives

Less slumpy in November – I read some excellent books this month. The real issue has been the feeling that I’m teetering on the verge of running out: my print TBR is down to zero, my Ki…

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Most of October's non-library reading. I've spent the month in varying degrees of physical pain and my reading has been slow but more or less successful. Here's what I thought: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/10/31/o... #bookstagram #reading #books #bookreview

October 2025 Superlatives

My reading really slowed down in October. I’ve been in pain for much of it – the chest/rib injury from late September, plus what appears to be fasciitis in my left foot, which is being …

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There is precisely one defensible use case for ChatGPT in the humanities, and that is "clear, succinct explanations of literary theory concepts, with examples". Émile Benveniste's I-you polarity in 100 non-jargon words, please. Literally nothing else. #academia

You will absolutely never guess what the context is for this rather ominous passage www.thenational.scot/news/2553640...

MAGA and its agenda are *wildly* unpopular, and media are hugely out of touch for not saying so. Politicians who tap into this reality will thrive, and media outlets that reflect this truth will earn enormous audiences.

G Elliott Morris@gelliottmorris.com · last yr.

A majority of adults oppose Trump’s use of the National Guard in America cities www.gelliottmorris.com/p/a-majority...

Chuffed to be in vol.2 of @plantperspectives.bsky.social. Thanks to all at the journal & @rbgkew.bsky.social for including my weird little piece about working-class C19th poet Eliza Cook, trees, illness& intertemporal weirdness. Read it here: www.whp-journals.co.uk/PP/issue/vie...

I LOVE @overleaf.bsky.social's writing, both critical and creative. Now you can read it too! Her article is now out OA, exploring C19 poet Eliza Cook, the Slaugham Yew, and their C21 traces/resonances. doi.org/10.3197/WHPP... #19thcentury #poetry #ecopoetry #arborealhumanities #academia

Attending online! Full of interesting tidbits, from what a C18 valet did immediately after unpacking his master's belongings (find a fellow English servant and go drinking) to what these journals don't include (surprisingly, servants rarely wrote about their actual work). #18thcentury #academia

Tim Hitchcock@timhitchcock.bsky.social · last yr.

Just listening to @richardjansell.bsky.social talking eloquently about servants and their journals on the grand tour @long18thsem.bsky.social @ihrlibrary.bsky.social

How cool does this lineup look! Thrilled to be part of Romanticism Across Borders's 25-26 series - thanks for asking me @paulinehortolland.bsky.social et al.!

deven parker@devenparker.bsky.social · last yr.

Check out this year's program for 'Romanticism Across Borders' virtual speaker series. I'm on there along with some of my favorite people 👯✨

I knew they’d come for the archivists and librarians but honestly I assumed it would be for a reason better than “Our Special Boy wants to give his friend a sword! Give him a sword!”

Jess Piper@piperformissouri.bsky.social · last yr.

“They asked for a sword, and we said, ‘Well, we do have swords, but we can’t give them away because they’re museum artifacts,’” said Todd Arrington, forced to resign as head of Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library.”

Can't make it this week, but this promises to be fascinating - d'Eon is a figure of enduring intrigue. I've signed up to attend the other seminars for the term online now! #c18 #long18thcentury #history #genderstudies #academia

Tim Hitchcock@timhitchcock.bsky.social · last yr.

Very much looking forward to Dan Gosling (TNA) speaking on 'A Question of Sex? Assessing Lord Mansfield’s “judgment” on the sex of the Chevalier d’Eon' this Wed. @long18thsem.bsky.social @ihrlibrary.bsky.social All welcome online or in person, but please register: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

The new LP issue has arrived: 'Romantic Shock and Surprise,' edited by David Duff (Queen Mary University of London) and Laurent Folliot @sorbonne-universite.fr. Université Cover design by Karolína Bendová. Read in open access: litterariapragensia.ff.cuni.cz/magazin/2025...

Sorry for never being on Bluesky anymore, BUT I had my first article published @litterariaprag.bsky.social! Here it is, free to read: Radical Reform and the Shock of the Past in Mary Robinson's Vancenza #gothic #C18 #romanticism #academia #womenwriters litterariapragensia.ff.cuni.cz/wp-content/u...

#20booksofsummer 7 (forgot to link to reviews of 4-6 but they're on the blog too!): Passing, by Nella Larsen, a novel whose extreme self-awareness stops it from being too schematic, offering instead an exploration of safety and freedom ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/06/25/2... #books #reading

20 Books of Summer, 7: Larsen

Passing, by Nella Larsen (1929): Probably everyone knows the plot of this already because I seem to be the last person on earth to read it, so really I thought I knew the salient points of the prem…

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Remembering former weaver Finton Burgin, who died on this day in 1860 at the age of 18. He was the son of the widowed Catherine Burgin, died 23rd March 1866, aged 50.

So excited about this year's 20 Books of Summer project, I'm out of the blocks fast! Here's what I thought of the first three: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/06/05/2... #bookstagram #books #reading #bookreview #20booksofsummer

20 Books of Summer, 1-3: Vo, Sinclair, Bowen

I’m so excited about 20 Books of Summer, I’m already on my way! These first three have all been very different: a distinctly grownup fantasy novella, a sometimes brutally realist memoir…

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I clung on to May by my fingernails—this is everything I read that WASN'T from the library, including three re-reads, two gripping new/forthcoming releases, and one 99p Kindle punt: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/05/31/m... #reading #books #bookreview

May 2025 Superlatives

May. I clung on by my fingernails. Deadlines came and were met. Mental gears were shifted every other day or so. Requirements seemed to cluster mid-month, in one particularly exhausting ten-day spr…

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🪨🪨🪨

The pleasure was all mine! What a fantastic weekend at the London-Paris Romanticism Seminar's annual symposium, this year at the Sorbonne on Romantic Shock and Surprise. A convivial group of brilliant and, above all, generous scholars—much to ponder and follow up on.

Dr Sharon Choe@sharonchoe.bsky.social · last yr.

& also thank you to my fellow panelists @eleanorfranzen.bsky.social & Pauline Hortolland for our fun panel on “Varieties of Gothic Shock”! 🫶🏼

Everything else I read in April, from fifth-century Northumbria to rural Massachusetts: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/05/01/a...

April 2025 Superlatives

April was… not the cruellest month! My fiancé had a birthday, which we celebrated with steak and Old Fashioneds in Mayfair. I was in Lyon for a few days for work (it’s really one of my …

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April's library reading: brief, but magical. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/04/28/l... #loveyourlibrary #reading #books #bookreview

#LoveYourLibrary, April 2025

Hosted, as always, by Rebecca at Bookish Beck, posting on the last Monday of every month. There’s no set formula to this; you can post anything about libraries, whether you’ve recently been to an e…

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The demonisation of trans people isn't normal. People pretend that it is, but it's a culture war that's been manufactured in the past decade. Trans people are here and real and who they say they are. Get with it.

James Clifford, writing on C18 biography in 1968: "The purpose of this essay is to attempt some hasty generalisations." I'll know I've made it when I can write *that* in an academic essay with confidence.

March's library reading: from Dostoevsky to carnivorous aliens. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/03/31/l... #loveyourlibrary #books #bookreview

#LoveYourLibrary, March 2025

Hosted, as always, by Rebecca at Bookish Beck, posting on the last Monday of every month. There’s no set formula to this; you can post anything about libraries, whether you’ve recently been to an e…

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Here are my thoughts on everything that I read in February that wasn't from libraries. It was a good month. ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/02/28/f... #loveyourlibrary #reading #bookreview

February 2025 Superlatives

At the end of 2024 I said I only had a few reading goals for 2025. One was reading The Pickwick Papers, which happened this month (the link to my review in February’s #LoveYourLibrary post is…

ellethinks.wordpress.com

I read five books from libraries in February, ranging from one of the thicker—and more brilliant—19th century classics to theory of education as revolutionary praxis to a 21st-century classic of how what we remember makes us ourselves. Here's what I thought: ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/02/24/l...

#LoveYourLibrary, February 2025

Hosted, as always, by Rebecca at Bookish Beck, posting on the last Monday of every month. There’s no set formula to this; you can post anything about libraries, whether you’ve recently been to an e…

ellethinks.wordpress.com