Review 31
@review31.bsky.social
An online literary review. Est. 2011 www.review31.co.uk
"We have in Henri Coulette a new major minor poet to marvel at: his forms are exact, his humour dark & wry, & he wears his learning lightly." Austin Spendlowe on Henri Coulette's New and Selected Poems (@carcanet.bsky.social) review31.co.uk/article/view...
"We have in Henri Coulette a new major minor poet to marvel at: his forms are exact, his humour dark & wry, & he wears his learning lightly." Austin Spendlowe on Henri Coulette's New and Selected Poems (@carcanet.bsky.social) review31.co.uk/article/view...
"Those looking for poetic diction will be thinly sated... What there is instead is a relentless exercise in auto-therapy, working through, stumbling on the occasional breakthrough." Stuart Walton on Joe Carrick-Varty's BEFORE VIOLENCE (@carcanet.bsky.social) review31.co.uk/article/view...
"Halfon’s descriptive, collative method allows her to remain slightly askance of Gombrowicz, sketching out his contradictions without ever flattening them." Simon Firth on Mercedes Halfon's OUTSIDER EVERYWHERE (@fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social) review31.co.uk/article/view...
"Those looking for poetic diction will be thinly sated... What there is instead is a relentless exercise in auto-therapy, working through, stumbling on the occasional breakthrough." Stuart Walton on Joe Carrick-Varty's BEFORE VIOLENCE (@carcanet.bsky.social) review31.co.uk/article/view...
"Halfon’s descriptive, collative method allows her to remain slightly askance of Gombrowicz, sketching out his contradictions without ever flattening them." Simon Firth on Mercedes Halfon's OUTSIDER EVERYWHERE (@fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social) review31.co.uk/article/view...
"An eloquent, humane work of criticism, which displays Vendler's typical sensitivity to what Wordsworth called the ‘turnings intricate of verse.’" Bret van den Brink on Helen Vendler's Inhabit the Poem review31.co.uk/article/view...
"At his best, Lerner combines fiction & criticism to postulate both a novel vision of the social possibilities of art & the artistic possibilities of socialising." Nick Bartlett on Ben Lerner's Transcription review31.co.uk/article/view...
"The Palm House is a funny book. Part of me wants to write blackly funny; darkly funny — but in truth, it’s the humour that operates the levers of complexity." @marrrtha.bsky.social on Gwendoline Riley's The Palm House review31.co.uk/article/view...
Here’s my take on Cory Doctorow’s #enshittification published by @versobooks.bsky.social for @review31.bsky.social (give them a follow)— it’s funny, depressing but ultimately it’s a useful resource for working out why so many platforms increasingly offer up awful UX. review31.co.uk/article/view...
End-stage Rot
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
“Cooper’s novels remind us that an artistic life is all about practice, a way of living: observation, questions, uncertainty.” In @review31.bsky.social, Thomas Chadwick reviews Jeremy Cooper’s new novel, “Discord” - review31.co.uk/article/view...
A Longer, Deeper Look
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
The Plains, by Federico Falco and translated by Jennifer Croft, is a "moving and beautifully made novel". Thank you @review31.bsky.social! review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
Chard and Beans
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
I spent some time with last year's Nightjar Press chapbooks and ended up writing about creepy birds and the contemporary gothic. Review 31 kindly took it on. Free to read here: review31.co.uk/essay/view/1... @review31.bsky.social @nightjarpress.bsky.social
Contemporary Gothic
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
"The letters convey a picture of two writers in alternating states of vitality & decline, pushing against the threat of both illness & obscurity." Rachel Dastgir on LETTERS TO EUGENE review31.co.uk/article/view...
More Acute Agony
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
"Dog Days is a work that contends with the difficulty of committing words to a page, & letting them stay there." Julia Merican on Emily LaBarge's DOG DAYS review31.co.uk/article/view...
The End of the Good Story
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
My pick for @review31.bsky.social's Books of the Year 2025 is Alex Pheby's Waterblack, the third volume in the Cities of the Weft trilogy. Superb, strange fantasy that has reinvigorated the genre. @alexpheby.bsky.social @galleybeggars.bsky.social review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
Review 31's Books of the Year 2025
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
A pleasure to contribute to this connoisseurs' list of books of the year for @review31.bsky.social review31.co.uk/essay/view/1... I chose Old Kiln by Jia Pingwa, translated by James Trapp, Olivia Milburn and Christopher Payne, published by @sinoistbooks.bsky.social
Review 31's Books of the Year 2025
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
"Pester has a precise ear for the frictionless formulations of contemporary organisational life that promise progress while pointing at nothing. These empty signifiers become a source of dread rather than comedy." Robert Kiely on THE EXPANSION PROJECT review31.co.uk/article/view...
Scope Creep
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
"The internet is cooked. What began as a genuinely participatory medium ... has since become an extractive device, mining human creativity for corporate profit." Christopher Webb on Joanna Walsh's AMATEURS! review31.co.uk/article/view...
‘Some of what we did became a thing'
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
Thrilled to share this lovely review of my book @review31.bsky.social
At the Desk
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
"It’s in the precarious middle zone between personal rage & systemic failure that disaster nationalism mutates." Tymek Woodham on Richard Seymour's Disaster Nationalism review31.co.uk/article/view...
The Ground Beneath Our Feet
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
"The result is a book that emerges as of a spell: of preservation, but also a conjuring of memories that have been lost or deliberately forgotten." Jemima Skala on Olga Tokarczuk's House of Day, House of Night review31.co.uk/article/view...
Myth and Supposition
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
hello Bluesky I wrote an article about the French author, photographer, and conceptual artist Édouard Levé, who wrote a book called “Suicide” and then immediately killed himself review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
The Foundational Act
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
“The result is a book that emerges as of a spell: of preservation, but also a conjuring of memories that have been lost or deliberately forgotten.” In @review31.bsky.social, Jemima Skala reviews Olga Tokarczuk’s newly translated novel, “House of Day, House of Night” review31.co.uk/article/view...
Myth and Supposition
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
Very grateful to Hugh Foley and @review31.bsky.social for this thoughtful and perceptive review of Poor Ghost!
So much to answer for
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
"Little Pink Book doesn’t just perform dandyism; it participates in what Fredric Jameson famously called pastiche: a ‘blank parody’ that imitates style without satirical intent or critical edge." Elena Basada on Olivia Kan-Sperling's LITTLE PINK BOOK review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...
Moodboard Maoism
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
“‘Cautery’ follows two women, one real and one imagined, one left unnamed and one semi-forgotten to history.” In @review31.bsky.social, Bronwyn Scott-McCharen reviews Lucía Lijtmaer’s newly translated novel, “Cautery” - review31.co.uk/article/view...
Women's Fiction
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk
“The object of fixation becomes an instrument for self-flagellation, rather than a breathing person to know and to love.” In @review31.bsky.social, Brynn Valentine reviews Harriet Armstrong’s debut novel, “To Rest Our Minds and Bodies” - review31.co.uk/article/view...
To Be a Machine?
Review 31 is an online literary review.
review31.co.uk