Maylin

@blithespirit4.bsky.social

295 Followers 239 Following

Canadian living in Liverpool, UK. Knitter, reader, hiker, lover of all textiles and the great outdoors. Once a bookseller, always a bookseller.

A copy of Long Live the Post Horn! by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund, is held up against a red postal box. The cover shows a desk with a slumped arm reaching out for the phone. There's a photo of a generic office building on the wall and another of a red haired woman staring blankly.
A cooy of Eastbound by Maylis De Kerangal, translated by Jessica Moore, lies on top of a white wrought iron table. The cover is green with a black and white photo of a train rushing around a corner.
A copy of Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, lies on a crumpled grey bedsheet. The cover is white with the title in black followed by the first sentence.
Five books lie on a Persian carpet: Woman of Genius - Simone de Beavoir, translated by Patrick O'Brian Long Live the Post Horn by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund We Were Forbidden by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated by E.Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, and Dead-End Memories by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Asa Yoneda
A large art quilt hung on a wall depicting a close-up of the wings of a moth or butterfly. Layers upon layers of colour build up the overall effect.
A pile of books on a window sill: Greek Lessons - Han Kang Taiwan Travelogue - Yang Shuang-zi Cathedrals by Claudia Piñeiro Eastbound - Maylis De Kerangal Abigail - Magda Szabó Sun City - Tove Jansson Crazy Genie - Inès Cagnati The Seventh Cross - Anna Seghers Stay With Me - Hanne Ørstavik Yell, Sam, If You Still Can - Maylis Besserie
A copy of The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft lies on a crumpled cotton blanket. The cover is a slightly surrealist, spooky painting of a dark forest with blue trees.
Two novels lie on a mustard duvet cover - Val McDermid's Past Lying and Alice Thompson's Burnt Island.
A smallrock garden showing some succulents in bloom with pink flowers and a few grasses and lavender stalks in the background.
Two Muriel Spark novels sit on a shelf - Symposium and The Finishing School. The first has an illustration of people, cartoonish, sitting around a dining table. The second is a painting of a teenager wearing a short skirt, showing off long legs, reading a book.
A montage of photos from the Isle of Arran showing caves, sea thrift and lichen along the coast, wide open beaches and a sunset.
A selection of David Hockney's work. At the top is his painting of Salts Mills also showing surrounding Victorian workers' houses. Then a selection of 8 works showing trees in different seasons, some created digitally.
Two biographies of Muriel Spark lie on a wooden desk. One is Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark by Frances Wilson and Like A Cat Loved A Bird: The Nine Lives of Miriel Spark by James Bailey. Both have photographs of Spark on their covers.
Movie poster of Night and Day showing a young, confident woman at the front in a blazer with notebook and telescope in her hand, with supporting characters behind, including her parents, her fiancé, and two friends.
The interior of a bookshop with lots of plants and fairy lights hanging from the ceiling. To the right is a small area with a coffee machine and shelves with bottles and pots. The books are on a table and in crates for browsing.
Photo of a man playing a guitar and singing on a small stage with wood slat walls in the background and festive lighting.
An advertisement on the back of a toilet stall door showing a flock of sheep with "A story Woven in Wool" headline and text explaining their local sheep wool gets processed in Yorkshire with care and skill.
Photo of Angle Tarn in the Lake District - a small body of water with two islands in it, surrounded by green hills.
A copy of On the Calculation of Volume, Vol 4 by Solvej Balle, translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell, lies on a cafe table next to a half empty cup of coffee.
Two books in a pile with their spines showing: Heart the Lover by Lily King and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.
Two books in a stack, balancing on a staircase railing with a window and some plants in the background. On the bottom is Flashlight by Susan Choi. On the top is The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin.
A handknitted scarf lies across a blue bench. It has five sections in different shades of natural wool, creams, greys and browns.
Photo about 200m up a hill in the Lake District, overlooking Grasmere and Rydal Water. A few grey, threatening clouds in the distance.
A hardcover copy of the Everyman edition of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, open to the title page.
The end papers from the book A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914-39 by Nicola Beauman published by Persephone Books which she founded. The image is the cover of the previous Virago edition of her book showing a still from the movie Brief Encounter. The character of Laura stands, wicker basket in her hand containing that week's library books.
A still from one of the first scenes of the 1943 film of Jane Eyre starring Joan Fontaine. The camera draws in for a close-up of the first chapter of the book - except it isn't at all. Instead, it reads: My name is Jane Eyre . . . I was born in 1820, a harsh time of change in England. Money and position seemed all that mattered. Charity was a cold and disagreeable word.
Three white-spined books by Nicholas Royle sit on a crowded bookshelf. They are White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector, Shadow Lines: Searching for the Book Beyond the Shelf, and Finders, Keepers: The Secret Life of Second-hand Books.
A stack of books including I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult, The Double Turn by Carol Carnac, The Evin Prison Bakers' Club by Sepideh Gholian, Queen by Birgitta Trotzig, Keep by Jenny Haysom, By Horror Haunted by Celia Fremlin, On the Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle and The Feast by Margaret Kennedy.
A photo of the novel There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult publushed by Persephone Press in its classic grey covers with cream labels.
A woman stands next to a red brick wall, holding a coffee cup. She's wearing a hand knitted striped sweater in grey and variegated stripes of warm browns and oranges. The pattern is Mielinki by Veera Jussila.
A copy of On the Calculation of Volume, volume 2 by Solvej Balle lies next to a latte on the counter of a coffee shop. The cover has a blurry vase of yellow flowers in the process of tipping over.
A copy of On the Calculation of Volume, Volume 1 by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland shows a slightly blurred image of a woman turning away from the inside of a window, so we only see the back of her head and shoulders. Next to the book lies a half-filled cup of coffee.
Curling match between Canada and Great Britain on television. In the foreground a cup of tea in a mug shaped like a curling stone.
The movie poster of Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague with Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Goddard in black andcwhite in front of scenes from the movie Breathless.
A photo of four guys playing a fiddle, accordian, guitar and banjo on a stage backlit with green.
A garter stitch vest with a folded collar hangs on a hanger against a white wall. The vest is in three blocks of colour, grey, brown and red.
A copy of Julian Barnes' new novel Departure (s) sits on a window sill with a plate of mini madeleines.
A copy of Still Waters by ECR Lorac is held against a train table. The cover is a vintage illustration of the Lake District with a young woman standing by a lake and the fells rising above.
A copy of An Academic Question by Barbara Pym lies on a cafe table next to a caffe latté. The cover is an illustration of a woman's eyes peeping over the cover of a book.
Copies of Sinclair Ross's novel As For Me And My House and Lorna Crozier's Saving Grace: The Collected Poems of Mrs. Bentley sit side by side against a wooden barrel like container. The cover of the Ross novel had a piano on it; Crozier's depicts a small house behind a prairie field.
A paperback copy of Rebecca Solnit's A Field Guide to Getting Lost sits on a table next to an empty coffee cup. The cover shows a painting of water with hills behind it, all in different shades of blue.
A copy of Margaret Atwood's novel Lady Oracle with a picture of a woman covering her face with a blank book with the title on it and two holes cut out showing her eyes.
A collage of reading stats for 2025 showing my top genres were literary, contemporary, mystery, memoir and classics. I read 73 books and 18,473 pages, gave an average of 3.91 as a rating. My most read authors were Christianna Brand, Sigrid Nunez and Katie Kitamura.
Movie poster for Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value, showing two of its stars - Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgärd in a garden, facing each other but not actually looking at each other.
A pile of books on an outside table by Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood, Basic Black With Pearls by Helen Weinzweig, It Lasts Forever and Then It's Gone by Anne de Marcken, Undersong by Kathleen Winter, The Image of Her by Simone de Beavoir, Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, Fair by Jen Calleja, Katalin Street by Magda Szabó, The Wearherhouse by Nan Shepherd, God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam and These Festive Nights by Marie-Claire Blais.
A copy of the play The May Queen by Stephen Sharkey showing a stone statue of the Virgin Mary in a wrecked graveyard with some fresh roses, lies on a table next to a latte.
A long cowl knitted in rectangular blocks of colourful mohair drapes from a hanger.
A Scottish flag sits atop a rocky outcrop along the Fife Coastal path just south of Anstruther. The water is grey-green.
A green cake with white icing and toasted coconut shavings sits on a plate in front of its recipe book - Baking & the Meaning of Life by Helen Goh.
Three books stacked on a leather chair with a cozy knitted blanket draped over the back. They are Philip Pullman's The Book of Dust, Vol 3, Margaret Atwood's memoir Book of Lives and the Persephone edition of The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
A paperback copy of Cat and Mouse by Christianna Brand sits on a window ledge with a succulant popping its head over the book. The cover shows a vintage illustration of Welsh mountains.
A paperback copy of The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride lies on a polka-dot divet cover. The cover shows fragmented flowers in blue-green shades on a black backgrpund with the title and author in white.
A very muddy grass path curving to the left with one or two runners in the distance.
The window display at Type Books in Toronto showing three shelves of hardcover books all wearing a Toronto Blue Jays hat.
Two photos - top one shows trees in a park with red and orange leaves. Bottom shows calm water reflections of trees in St Mary's River, Sault Ste Marie, Canada
4 photo collage of a row of boats with Scalloway in the distance and photos of grassy moorland with Shetland sheep and ponies
A collage of photos showing lots of balls of colourful wool, some fair isle garments, a shop windiw with a skirt made out of plastic cones, topped with a sweater and cowl, and some of this year's SWW hat in different colourways.
A copy of Death and the Seaside by Alison Moore sits on a windowsill with transparent curtains behind it. The cover has the title and author in a circus like font on white paper stuck to glass windows looking on to a rainy day.
A woman in fair isle vest and hat windproof jacket on the ferry back from Bressay, with the island in the background.