This made me chuckle. One for Alexander Larman.

Cambridge people! I’m going to be giving a talk on TJ Wise, detritus, stolen leaves, and made-up books on Thursday at 5pm. Do come along! english.cam.ac.uk/cmt/?cat=6

Out now! Literary Review's May 2025 issue, featuring Nicola shulman on Princess Diana Sophie Oliver on Gertrude Stein Costica Bradatan on Pascal Howard Davies on the dollar's decline Joseph Hone on Gutenberg and much, much more: literaryreview.co.uk

Hurrah! To be on a list with Henry Hemming and Kate Summerscale! Wow.

Walking home through the park: sun shining, children climbing trees, the thwack of leather against willow. A good time of year.

Only in Cambridge would a bookshop devote this much shelf space to J.H. Prynne.

Johannes Gutenberg cut corners at every turn when putting together his bible. How, then, did his creation achieve such renown? Joseph Hone investigates. literaryreview.co.uk/start-the-pres…

On this feast day of St Augustine, revisit the manuscript that started it all, the sixth-century Augustine Gospels (MS 286), carried by the Saint on his mission to bring Christianity to England corpus.cam.ac.uk/parker-library…

Very much looking forward to delivering this year's Quentin Skinner Lecture this Friday CRASSH, Cambridge Cambridge History crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/46619/

With my response!

Conflicting ideas of liberty | David Wootton engelsbergideas.com/essays/conflic…

The curse of the type facsimile strikes again! This is NOT a C17th century book. Anyone who knows anything about typefaces will tell you that’s a late C18th Caslon. I would wager this was printed c. 1820 not 1678.

This KC line is the kind of nonsense you come up with when you’ve read too much Gibbon and not enough Hobbes!

BBC boss: ‘QUICK: GET AMOL RAJAN ON THE PHONE!!’

By what I still worry must be a glaring clerical error, I will be spending the coming term at All Souls. Let’s catch up, Oxford people! asc.ox.ac.uk/person/dr-jose…

Fun fact! I use this clip when teaching A Modest Proposal…

And I strongly suspect that many young people would want to learn there.

My office for the next ten weeks!

How have I only just spotted this fabulous joke in Carter’s ABC?!

What a conundrum when you need already to have read the book to realise that you oughtn't to buy it without its jacket!