Nathan Waddell

Front cover of paperback edition of Nathan Waddell's book A Bright Cold Day: The Wonder of George Orwell, out from Oneworld Publications in June 2026--featuring a black and white and yellow patterning, with a black-and-white photo of Orwell in the centre.

Paperback edition of my book A Bright Cold Day: The Wonder of George Orwell, out from @oneworldbooks.bsky.social in June 2026. oneworld-publications.com/work/a-brigh...

Friday night can only mean one thing: Rachmaninoff.

Audio now available.

Latest episode of my 'Reading Orwell' podcast is on its way soon. This one considers Orwell and Aldous Huxley, and how each thought they'd outdone the other in imagining the future. The text is here: drnjwaddell.co.uk/26_orwell-an...

Very excited to see this when it appears in May!

is so interesting and necessary. The audience is there. These things need investment. More than anything they need conviction. [4/4]

But what I did manage to do was a lot of fun, and you can still access the podcast in the usual places. I still think we need a public show like this, not only for the sake of it but also as a means of spreading the word about what literature scholars do and why what they do [3/4]

and why both matter. I made it to nine episodes of the show, which I called 'Critical Attitudes' in homage to Ford Madox Ford's 1911 book of a near-identical name, before the toil of solo-producing a podcast overtook me. I just didn't have the time to do it on my own. [2/4]

About eight years ago I started playing with the idea of a podcast in the mould of 'The Life Scientific' (BBC), but with a literature focus. The idea was to interview colleagues across the UK, asking them about their careers and inviting their reflections on literature and literary studies [1/4]

Thank you, Rhonda--good of you to say. There's a lot of interest to be taken in Orwell and the months / seasons more generally. 😊

What January taught George Orwell about control and resistance Like many of us, Orwell saw January as a month to be endured rather than enjoyed.

A short piece from me, via @uk.theconversation.com, on Orwell and January, and why, despite the gloom at this time of year, he found reasons to be hopeful. theconversation.com/what-january...

"I have often found that the cheapest way of buying a frame is to buy a picture and then throw away the picture." First published in the Evening Standard, 5 January 1946

#GeorgeOrwell on the pleasures of the junk shop
#OTD in 1946: ‘A junk shop has a fine film of dust over the window, its stock may include literally anything that is not perishable, and its proprietor, who is usually asleep in a small room at the back, displays no eagerness to make a sale.’

Freshly baked clementine cake!

Done! Now to resist tearing into it while it cools …

No worries! I loved Q from the outset and have been a lifelong defender of his necessity to the show (well, to TNG at least). He’s less obviously necessary for DS9 and VOY, in my opinion, though I enjoy his first two appearances in the latter (not so much the third).

Yes—that duality is precisely what Q challenges: why just explore space endlessly when it means ignoring the fundamental questions of being. Q is also good at making Picard see the hypocrisy underlying his principles, even as the Q are themselves hypocritical tricksters (by definition).

It’s clearly a meta-moment, and a ploy to get Picard to start comprehending the paradox on which the episode depends, but it’s also a judgement, and a dismissal, and it depends absolutely on JdL getting the tone right (as he so often did with such a tricky character to make believable).

Really fascinating. With this in view, I’m reminded of how John de Lancie inflects the word ‘trek’ in his performance as Q in the series finale of TNG (‘All Good Things …’: ‘It’s time to put an end to your … “trek” … through the stars, to make room for other, more worthy species.’

I thought I was where I am.

😆

Paperback copy of the Jupiter edition of The Childermass by Wyndham Lewis

Happy Childermass Day to all who celebrate

[me, doing nothing]

…

My five-year-old: ‘Daddy—imagine if our house was made of pants.’

Dr Jo (2016).

Never Say Elsevier Again

Have we already had … TEF Gold(eneye)?

Always lovely to wake up on Christmas Day to a Daily Work Flow reminder from your employer

Ending the week by writing about carpets & Vilém Flusser's idea that carpets conjoin the nest and the cave: 'The carpet is to the culture of the tent what architecture is to the culture of the house. But it has flown out of the tent across the steppe and in through an open window of our dwellings.'

Well—this looks *superb*.

Saw on @qi.com that kids ask their parents on average 150 questions per hour, and honestly I feel seen—mine certainly do this—but also that it may as well be 1,500 because after the first 50 everything blurs into a haze of inquisitorial cognitive overload.

John Carey obituary: literary critic Witty, eclectic and sometimes scathing scholar and reviewer who held sacred cows in little respect dies aged 91

John Carey RIP. Everyone should read his books on Dickens and Donne and the Faber Book of Reportage. Vary rarely a dull review...

the texts I know very well if I can--not only to keep my teaching of them fresh but also to remind myself of why I specialised in said material in the first place. [4/4]