Day 4, Aug 4, Tues - SHORT DAY p20 “After this sale of the Charente Advertiser…” to p22 “Spurred on by his father who…at the time Séchard was finishing his studies there.” #balzactogether

A sharp distinction is made between the agony of the sale, and the agony of turning a sale into cash! Balzac the shrewd businessman in his own way. #BalzacTogether

Monkeys, bears and the Devil. Balzac makes a mundane profession come to life. “From this sink seeped away a decoction of ink mingled with the household slops, and that gave the peasants passing by on market-days the idea that the Devil was taking his ablutions inside the house.” #balzactogether

“…they have their part to play in this great and trivial story.”- Balzac, Lost Illusions #BalzacTogether

Day 3, Aug 3, Mon - p14 “‘But father, you are bleeding me white!’” to p20 “By way of compensation…the prodigious figure of twelve hundred francs a year.” #balzactogether

here's a bull's eye window #balzactogether

what's balzac's honesty when it comes to fathers and sons/daughters? it's refreshing today. must have been shocking back in the 19th century. #balzactogether

#balzactogether there's something to be said about not overediting when it comes to rhythm. Balzac piles on the 'facts' of a story, including how much things cost and investment return specifics, which I love, but he doesn't lose the beat.

Piaze@piaze.bsky.social · 3d ago

Love how the five word aphorism breaks the tempo of the rolling sentences. Boom.

Day 2, Aug 2, Sun - p7 “If this aged printer had not long since shown how far his blind cupidity could go…” to p14 “Nonetheless, since Jérôme-Nicholas Séchard had brought the entire concern…young David exclaimed:” #balzactogether

Section ends on maybe my favorite line so far. That and “When poverty ceases, avarice begins.”

"Each image fits into place, with the calm Of not having too many, of having just enough. We live in the sigh of our present." – John Ashbery, "Blue Sonata" #botd #books #literature

From the archives, celebrating Emily Brontë #botd In Episode 763, @jackewilson.bsky.social takes a look at the five reviews of Wuthering Heights that Emily Brontë clipped and kept in her desk drawer between the book's publication and her tragically early death at the age of 30. #books #literature

763 Emily's Desk Drawer

After the publication of her debut novel Wuthering Heights in December of 1847, Emily Brontë - still writing under her pen name Ellis Bell - joined Currer and Acton…

historyofliterature.com

Our 8/20 issue is now online, with @danielmendelsohn.bsky.social on the Odyssey, Michael Greenberg on the DSA, Mark Danner on Trump in decline, @lauramarsh.bsky.social on John Lanchester, @davidcole-gtown.bsky.social on the Supreme Court’s power grab, a poem by Anne Carson & much more.

August 20, 2026 Summer Issue

Table of Contents

nybooks.com

reading a bit of balzac's bio. imagine frantically turning to novel writing as a career because you have debts! what a different planet 18th-19th century france was. #balzactogether

here we go! we are in full summer mode now...a little balzac to remind us that august means books. PART ONE: THE TWO POETS ch1 A provincial printing-office Day 1, Aug 1, Sat - start p3 to p7 “This costume…without his clothes than you could imagine an onion without its peel.” #balzactogether

A terrific book. THE HIDDEN WEALTH OF NATIONS by Gabriel Zucman. Here's a teaser. gabriel-zucman.eu/files/press/...

allez-y! #balzactogether week 1 schedule has landed!

Finally read this seminal book on race! Spoiler alert: there are positives to minorities sitting together in the cafeteria.

even this arsenal fan found this funny: "It all feels increasingly reminiscent of Marge Simpson's pink Chanel suit, which she purchased from an outlet mall and had to keep altering in order to convince people that she had multiple versions of it." www.espn.co.uk/football/sto...

Arsenal's new away kit brings back cult 'bruised banana' design ... again

Arsenal have unveiled their 2026-27 away kit and once more the inspiration for the design is their old "Bruised Banana" jersey of the early 1990s.

espn.co.uk

Need more Balzac in your life? LOST ILLUSIONS starts on Aug 1 #balzactogether #Wrote94novelsin51years

The most important book of the year -- get out the pitchforks. LIMITARIANISM: THE CASE AGAINST EXTREME WEALTH by INGRID ROBEYNS

yeah, what are you all squeezing in before august 1? I'm reading VINELAND by thomas pynchon, which was the basis for the film One Battle After Another.

christina500@christina500.bsky.social · 2w ago

Loved The Red and The Black in high school- will try to squeeze in before August 1st (maybe)! #Stendhal

wear your masks, nyc folks. www.iqair.com/air-quality/...

You never forget your first GILLES DELEUZE!

here's my review of PERE GORIOT! #balzactogether

From the archives, Marcel Proust #botd @jackewilson.bsky.social and Mike @literaturesc.bsky.social discuss Swann's Way to see whether this opening volume serves as a good introduction to Marcel Proust's magnum opus In Search of Lost Time. #books #literature

289 Swann's Way

Since its first appearance, Marcel Proust's magnum opus In Search of Lost Time has delighted and confounded editors, readers, and critics. Published in seven volume…

historyofliterature.com

you must read Maggie Nelson's BLUETS

“I have lost all my illusions.” Segue to next book! #balzactogether

#balzactogether check out eric auerbach's essay on pere goriot and the realism that he and stendhal (16 years balzac's elder) were practicing in their fiction at the same time, and balzac's 'demonic' motifs.

John Neeleman@johnneeleman.bsky.social · last mo.

#BalzacTogether Père Goriot feels surprisingly contemporary. After Tolstoy, Mann, and Proust expanded the novel in so many directions, contemporary literary fiction often seems to have circled back to Balzac’s scale and didacticism—without his astonishing gift for capturing an entire society.

“My father gave me a heart, but you have taught it to beat.” Don’t trust this bad romance novel speak. #balzactogether