Anthony

@timesflow.bsky.social

234 Followers 201 Following

Rootless cosmopolitan | Reading wildly | 'Obscure enough to be left in the sweetest of solitudes.' — De Quincey | ‘. . . the importance of being at all times occupied with literary activities’. – Flann O’Brien. https://timesflowstemmed.com

Natalia Ginzburg’s The Little Virtues
Three volumes of the Bollingen Series Nabokov Eugene OneginEach page reads "Eugene Onegin — A Novel in Verse by Aleksandr Pushkin, translated from the Russian, with a Commentary, by Vladimir Nabokov," with the title in black and the subtitle in red italic, above "In four volumes" and the volume number: volume 2, Commentary One to Five, and volume 3, Commentary Six to End. The Bollingen Series LXXII / Pantheon Books imprint sits at the foot of each page beside the small Bollingen device.
A wide sandy beach on Ireland's southwest coast.
Flann O’Brien’s ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’.
Hélène Bessette's 'Twenty Minutes of Silence'
Dag Solstad’s Armand V.
Open copy of Giacomo Leopardi's Zibaldone on a dark table, beside a crystal tumbler and coffee cup, photographed in moody black-and-white from above.
Josef Koudelka: Diaries
Juan Rulfo’s ‘Pedro Páramo’
Two stacks of books on a dark wooden table against an olive green wall. The left stack includes three Antoine Volodine titles (Writers, Radiant Terminus, Bardo or Not Bardo, Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons), Granta 174 Therapy and Granta 173 India, The Letters of Gustave Flaubert, and Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. The right stack includes Nicholas Royle's Shadow Lines and Finders, Keepers, Nastassja Martin's East of Dreams, Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, Natalia Ginzburg's The Little Virtues, Kenkō and Chōmei's Essays in Idleness and Hōjōki, William Marx's A Scholar's Life, and Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals.
Paul Delvaux, Solitude, 1955
Writers by Antoine Volodine, translated by Katina Rogers. A copy of In the Wake of the Wake (TriQuarterly 38) sits beside it.
A copy of East of Dreams by Nastassja Martin catching a patch of afternoon sunlight.
An open paperback book resting on a dark surface. The left page shows a colour photograph of a tall, narrow whitewashed farmhouse in a green field under a clear sky. The right page is headed "EXCERPTS FROM THE FIVE VOLUMES OF DIARY OF A PLAYWRIGHT" by Lars Norén, followed by a dated diary entry in small print.
Libraries of the Mind by William Marx
A paperback copy of Radiant Terminus by Antoine Volodine, translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman, lying on a dark wooden surface. The cover is deep purple and black with scattered cross-like marks. A black leather tassel bookmark sits to the left, a fine-line pen to the right.
Contents page of Denise Riley's 'Impersonal Passion: Language as Affect'
Cover image of Hans Haider’s biography (in German) of Friederike Mayröcker.
A screenshot of prose from James Elkins' website, describing A Short Introduction to Anneliese as, at heart, a book about long books — centred on a hundred-page chapter in which the protagonist reviews dozens of works, from Tibetan epic poetry and Anatomy of Melancholy* to Pynchon, Wallace, Proust, and Joyce, concluding that every one of them fails at controlling its structure.
A Short Introduction to Anneliese by James Elkins. Vol. II of Five Strange Languages.
Larkin’s ‘Coming’
Hogarth edition (1959) of Laurie Lee's 'Cider With Rosie'
Stella Gibbon's 'Cold Comfort Farm'. Penguin Books edition (2020)
Line-drawing illustration from a mid-20th century book: a stout man in a bowler hat stands with his back to the viewer, facing a surprised-looking woman. Two men observe from behind. Caption reads: "M. Boissonade softened for an instant. Then he congealed again."
'Essays One' by Lydia Davis.
Three books on a dark surface: Melanie McDonagh's Converts, and both volumes of The Benson Diary edited by Eamon Duffy and Ronald Hyam.
Hardcover copy of “The Book of Disquiet” by Fernando Pessoa on a wooden desk with pens, a folding knife and a bookmark nearby.
Book cover of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation by Charlotte Beradt, featuring a cracked glass design resembling a bullet hole.
Two glossy Penguin Classics paperbacks, George MacDonald and William James, on a wooden table.
Page from a poetry book showing Thomas Hardy's poem 'Ἀγνώστῳ Θεῷ' (To the Unknown God).
Adam Smith's 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments'
This portrait presents Donne in the guise of a brooding, melancholic lover. The inscription around the oval ‘O Lady, lighten our darkness’ is a deliberate misquotation of Psalm 17, and implies the cause of Donne’s misery is a woman.
Panoramic view of Hong Kong's skyline from Victoria Peak, looking down through foreground foliage at the dense cluster of glass and steel skyscrapers on Hong Kong Island. Victoria Harbour stretches across the middle ground, with ferries leaving small wakes. Kowloon's urban expanse fills the far shore, dominated by the International Commerce Centre tower, while hazy mountains form the distant backdrop. Clear day with slight atmospheric haze softening the horizon.
Paperback copy of Elizabeth Bowen's "The Heat of the Day" (Vintage edition) against a dark background. The cover shows a cropped 1940s-style image of a woman in a green knitted top, face cut off at the chin, holding a compact mirror. A photo bookmark with trees is visible at the top of the book.
A paperback copy of Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey by Frances Wilson
Richard Sampson's 1779 painting 'The Nine Living Muses'
Book cover of "Palace of Books" by Roger Grenier, translated by Alice Kaplan, showing a sepia photograph of a Parisian bookstall vendor on the street
Bar chart showing annual views for Time's Flow Stemmed blog from 2010 to 2025. Low start in 2011, sharp rise to peak around 65,000 views in 2013-2014, gradual decline through late 2010s, steep drop to lowest point in 2020, slow recovery through 2021-2024, then strong rebound in 2025 to approximately 55,000 views.
A bright yellow hardcover of "The Complete Notebooks" by Albert Camus, translated by Ryan Bloom, lying on a dark wood surface. The cover features Camus's silhouette in grey and notes "Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature." A Micron 05 pen rests beside the book.
Man in houndstooth jacket and cravat holding champagne glass, smiling in profile. Still from Columbo: Murder by the Book (1971).
Page from A.E. Housman's letters describing Oxford floods
**Alt-Text:** "Film poster for 'Restless' starring Aston McAuley. The poster features dramatic red lighting against a dark background, with the actor in a contemplative pose. Bottom shows Haus Pictures production credit and Tribeca Festival 2024 Official Selection laurel."
Red-hot twisted metal stock glowing orange at the forge, held upright on a wooden work surface with the decorative spiral pattern visible at the top.
A copy of “The Unforgivable and Other Writings” by Cristina Campo rests on a wooden desk. A black pencil lies across the cover near the illustration of a hand reaching for a piece of fruit on a tree. A postcard with handwriting and a purple stamp peeks out from the top of the book.