Deidre Lynch's avatar

Deidre Lynch

@drbibliomane.bsky.social

1498 followers 1323 following 1824 posts

She/her, 1st Gen, Canadian who's at Harvard but isn't OF Harvard--posting about books & reading & not reading (w/ cats & flowers & bugs thrown in for good measure). Now writing an itty-bitty book that aims to be a literary & media history of scrap.

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Elly's avatar Elly @ellyzoe.bsky.social
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Brandon Taylor writes. So. Well. His pieces are so thoughtful and perceptive. It is absolutely worth your time to read this if you are struggling with the news about Munro. “Why do you need to create a safe art that has no harmful valences in it? I know why. You know why.”

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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This gorgeous thing is a Negroni made with a muddled raspberry & featuring a sloe gin which we’ve been awaiting for the last 12 months & which @tomkeirstead.bsky.social distilled himself.
(I finished writing both the papers I’m giving on my “European tour,” & felt as tho I deserved a treat.)

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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When we lived in Buffalo decades ago we would often drive past a place called Chick ‘n Flix. You could rent videos and get takeout fried chicken. I think they also cashed checks. (I’m a vegetarian, so we never actually used their services.)

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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Kirstie Blair, Victorian poetry and the culture of the heart, may be too focused for your purposes on the later 19th c, but it’s excellent. You will never again look at a stethoscope without thinking about Victorian poems!

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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Also Three Perils of Woman does what Scott never did and exposes the absolute devastation of the Battle of Culloden. It might have your name on it, Neil!

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I find misery does love company, so thank you !

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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No , there isn’t. You should try the Three Perils of Woman. It’s weird but in a magnificent way. Brownie is his first & maybe not a good use of my time despite the Cameronian’s hymn

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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Last week I read James Hogg's weird 1818 novel The Brownie of Bodsbeck, all to write ONE sentence which today I've cut from my conference paper so as to save time.
On the bright side, the novel surprised me by containing a musical score. How often can you say that?
#c19th #romanticism #BookHistory

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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A century ago, it seems, the category of “book” was a lot more likely to include poems

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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More evidence that Edward Bawden enjoyed depicting cabbage. I haven't seen it in real life (I wish I had!), but this is apparently part of the Canterbury Tales themed mural that Bawden painted for Morley College, Oxford.

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I also want to take an Elizabeth Bowen novel along with me as well. A dilemma!

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I'm about to begin. What a first paragraph! (But do I dare put all three volumes in the suitcase I take to Vienna?)

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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Back on my joyful Bowen binge. A queer minor character of hers (an Oxonian) describing a cigarette case given by an uncle & then lost: "It was from the days when they wore opera cloaks & mashed, & killed ladies. It was very period; very virginal; I called it Henry James; I loved it." HENRY JAMES!

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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So sorry to hear this, Kadin. She was evidently just darling

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I hope this is becoming a place for recipe ideas. (Our CSA subscription often has us stumped.) My partner makes a pasta dish that involves penne w Swiss chard, roasted red peppers (could be from a jar) and anchovies. Start by frying garlic & onion, end w/ red pepper flakes. Delicious & NO oven!

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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This book sounds amazing ! Thank you, Jeff!

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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In case Bluesky folks haven't seen this (from the No Context Brits account on t'other site): Jacob Rees-Mogg (aka "the Minister for the 18th century," tho' that's unfair to the 18th c) hearing of his election loss, while standing on a platform beside another candidate wearing a baked bean balaclava

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I hadn’t seen that before: it’s great (a suggestion of Peter Lorre in M?)

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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And more Edward Bawden: has any artist ever loved cabbage this much? (Maybe van Gogh? Chardin?) This is the jacket for More Good Food, by Ambrose Heath.

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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Has anyone ever done a better job of depicting small city gardens like my own? Edward Bawden, my new art crush (I'm also falling in love with his cookbook illustrations, so more to come!)

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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All the money from Parks Canada (and private donors) went to a new roof. A week ago you could still smell the smoke on the street. I will never stop grieving

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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An update on this. No suspicions of arson, it seems. But… Despite being designated a national historical site, the church did not have a sprinkler system (no money to install one). Would be nice if the conservative powers in the province of Ontario were actually interested in conserving things!

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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That is much fancier than mine in fact. I guess that they sent the best stuff across the Irish Sea and the seconds across the Atlantic

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I didn’t know that! What should I read next? (I’ve read Rebellion already.)

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I have thoughts about how this might work here in Canada--& in that connection thinking about the outrageous decision by the provincial gov't to raze the Ontario Science Centre in part b/c its existence recalls a different time when that gov't supported public education, built things for ALL people

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I am not always a fan of Zadie Smith's journalism, but this seems SO right:
"But these days I think that historical nostalgia should not be the sole preserve of the right. The left can also make use of it."
Hoping for the best for tomorrow, UK Bluesky! 🤞

www.theguardian.com/politics/art...

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I’m glad you’re back and will hope for much floral and weedy content in the future. Skeleton Leaves even. 🙏

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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You are correct ! Did you know, though, that Benjamin Britten planned an opera based on Mansfield Park, which he was going to call “Letters to William”? I so wish he had followed through

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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But even so she mistrusts herself and is very afraid of being or doing wrong

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I really like this comparison ( which I think also explains why critics who think Mary Crawford is a new Lizzy are wrong, since Mary thinks she understands everything already). But don’t you think that Fanny is also trying to be good (and flailing about as she tries)?

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Reposted by Deidre Lynch

Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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Good news for your timeline cleanse (to be clear, I don’t know this cat or her people , but I really need a version to feel hopeful)

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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Oooohhhh! A little bit of good news on Canada Day!!

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I was just wondering how it would teach! Thanks!

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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I’m adoring it —but sad (as someone who writes often on representations of the material book and paper and waste paper especially) that I didn’t encounter it years ago!

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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What a narrator! "I've been bringing home books every evening. . . Sometimes, when I'm careless enough to turn in my sleep or call out or twitch, I am horrified to hear the books start to slide, because it would take little more than a raised knee or a shout to bring them all down like an avalanche"

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Deidre Lynch's avatar Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social
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What is your favourite black-and-white film?

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