Have we accidentally turned reading into another productivity challenge tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/07/are-...
Gordon MacMillan
@gordonmacmillan.bsky.social
Worked at Twitter. Content & social strategy. #books #writing #politics. Second novel Blind Dates. First novel Songs for your Mother. Blog: https://tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2025/07/why-you-should-be-reading-mansfield-park.html
England's match against Argentina has renewed interest in the Falklands War. If you're looking to understand what happened in 1982, here are the three books I'd recommend first. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-...
Can a disappointing ending ruin an otherwise brilliant novel? I've been thinking about books that hooked me completely, only to stumble at the finish. From The Goldfinch to Prophet Song, why do great novels so often fail in the final pages? tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/07/why-...
At what point did making books harder to read become a sign of literary quality? I've been reading King Fisher & Prophet Song, & it got me thinking about literary fiction's affair with missing quotation marks and unconventional punctuation. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/07/at-w...
At what point did making books harder to read become a sign of literary quality? I've been reading King Fisher & Prophet Song, & it got me thinking about literary fiction's affair with missing quotation marks and unconventional punctuation. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/07/at-w...
The greatest writer of the American West isn't who most people think. For me, it's Annie Proulx. Here's why her Western writing is unmatched. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/07/why-...
The greatest writer of the American West isn't who most people think. For me, it's Annie Proulx. Here's why her Western writing is unmatched. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/07/why-...
I've finally written about one of my all-time favourite novels. Frank Herbert's Dune isn't just a masterpiece of sci-fi. It's a novel about climate, religion, power, AI and the dangers of charismatic leaders. It's more relevant than ever. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/why-...
Beautiful prose can make a worldview feel inevitable. This essay asks whether literary admiration can survive closer scrutiny. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/beau...
Start with a forgotten crime writer. End up with Orwell, Cornford, the International Brigades and an entire lost literary world. That is the joy of a reading rabbit hole. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/down...
Start with a forgotten crime writer. End up with Orwell, Cornford, the International Brigades and an entire lost literary world. That is the joy of a reading rabbit hole. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/down...
One hundred years after The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published, its most famous trick still works. Why it's always worth revisiting Agatha Christie. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/read...
One hundred years after The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published, its most famous trick still works. Why it's always worth revisiting Agatha Christie. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/read...
The difficult woman in fiction was never really unlikeable. She was inconvenient, and that is what made her interesting. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-...
The difficult woman in fiction was never really unlikeable. She was inconvenient, and that is what made her interesting. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-...
Campus novels are rarely about education. They are about ambition, reinvention, class anxiety and badly behaved clever people. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/why-...
BookTok, Goodreads and Substack have made reading more visible. The question is whether visibility has made it deeper. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/is-l...
BookTok, Goodreads and Substack have made reading more visible. The question is whether visibility has made it deeper. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/06/is-l...
Are novels really getting shorter and simpler, or is fiction adapting to a culture where attention has become harder to defend? tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/05/why-...
Are novels really getting shorter and simpler, or is fiction adapting to a culture where attention has become harder to defend? tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/05/why-...
Writing live news can be tough, as MPs all become ministers.
Some novels comfort. Others ask to be endured. This post considers *A Little Life*, the debate around its relentless sadness, and five challenging books to read next. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/05/when...
Some novels comfort. Others ask to be endured. This post considers *A Little Life*, the debate around its relentless sadness, and five challenging books to read next. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/05/when...
Why are unlikeable characters often the most compelling in fiction? From Yesteryear to Yellowface, a look at the messy, difficult people we cannot quite stop reading. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-...
Why are unlikeable characters often the most compelling in fiction? From Yesteryear to Yellowface, a look at the messy, difficult people we cannot quite stop reading. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-...
For anyone curious about where to go after Dostoevsky’s shorter works, these are for me the top five Russian novels that matter most. It is part reading list, part invitation to stop circling and dive in. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/04/why-...
For anyone curious about where to go after Dostoevsky’s shorter works, these are for me the top five Russian novels that matter most. It is part reading list, part invitation to stop circling and dive in. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/04/why-...
The Capture makes no sense whatsoever. Plot completely lost. The killings, the Pocahontas cultural appropriation blackmail thread. It’s like the whole plot has been run through correction.
Readers are no longer just consuming book culture. They are shaping it. A new post from Tangled Prose looks at how BookTok, blogs, newsletters, and online communities influence what gets noticed, revived, and remembered. tangledprosewritingthroughit.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-...
