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Jo

@jo.readsalot

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Books & art.
📚 classics and knausgaard
👩🏼‍💻 producer @apple
📍london

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Did you know that sometimes when you send in proposals ‘for fun’, they can get accepted? Well, I’m speaking at a conference in October, which is slightly terrifying?? But also 100% exciting?? by @jo.readsalot

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13 days ago

Me 🤝🏻 absurdist novels
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Not intended but I’m currently reading The Plague, which was published (a little over) 79 years ago. Camus, my guy! by @jo.readsalot

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4 months ago

Books we read on trains and before bed, rarely the same genre or author 👀 by @jo.readsalot

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9 months ago

20 years after my first Murakami novel, I finally saw him in person last night at the Barbican, in conversation with Simon McBurney. Still processing, so here are the words I can’t stop thinking about - thank you @barbicancentre for the invite! 💙
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I wrote about the whole evening on my new Substack, link in bio ✨

(Quotes paraphrased from my notes)

He writes with no plan, no outline, no idea what’s coming next. He’s a writer and a reader at the same time, chasing the story same as his characters.

In Japan, he said, the living and the dead can cross paths, so what the West calls magical realism isn’t magic at all to him. It’s all a real story.

We live on a flat surface. A writer’s job is to go down into the basement of the mind, witness what’s there and come back up, if you can.

Those endings where nothing seems to happen are completely intentional. He prefers ambiguity because life is ambiguous too.

And the line that got the biggest laugh of the night 😂 by @jo.readsalot

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14 hours ago

Sometimes I swap the books at home with the books at the library 😌 by @jo.readsalot

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2 days ago

..has officially started! 📚🐈‍⬛🎷
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I’ll be covering the season, starting this Sunday when Haruki Murakami himself takes the stage to read from The City and Its Uncertain Walls in conversation with Simon McBurney, followed by a screening of Tony Takitani with its gorgeous Ryuichi Sakamoto score.
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Also on: the stage adaptation of End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland (until Sunday), a screening of cult classic Battle Royale introduced by Tatsuya Fujiwara (Saturday) and a Japanese jazz weekend inspired by Peter Cat, his old jazz bar, in November.
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Which Murakami novel is your favourite? And which of these would you go to? by @jo.readsalot

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3 days ago

October's pick for the Classics Book Club is The Nose by Nikolai Gogol, the gloriously absurd tale of a man who wakes up to find his nose has gone off to live a life of its own. Once again, the lovely folks at @fourcornersbooks have gifted a few of us their special edition, and it gives the story a brilliant twist.
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Designed by John Morgan, this edition includes photographs by artist Rick Buckley documenting a Gogol-inspired street intervention where he fixed plaster noses on to buildings all over London.
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Join us on October 29th for the chat! by @jo.readsalot

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6 days ago

Another Steinbeck and this one is even easier to love! Journal of a Novel is a series of letters Steinbeck was writing to his editor, Pascal Covici, while writing East of Eden. There's a lot of context we're getting, but it's also a testament of such a great friendship! What will I do when I run out of Steinbeck titles?
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'I have just put in a call for you but you are out for coffee. This does not surprise me at all. You are out for coffee a good deal I think.' by @jo.readsalot

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19 days ago

Colours in my camera roll, no concept whatsoever. I miss all these places!! by @jo.readsalot

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22 days ago

When life is too busy to carry a big book, but you still want a classic in your bag ✨ by @jo.readsalot

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a month ago

A week in Croatia ☀️ by @jo.readsalot

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a month ago

Thrilled to share that I've been invited to New Nordic Voices, a film festival at UCL East Cinema this October, spotlighting cinema from Greenland, Finland, Sápmi, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Sweden and the Faroe Islands! Very excited, especially for Armand and The Last Paradise on Earth!

📅 Friday 2 - Sunday 4 October 2026 📍 UCL East Cinema, One Pool Street, Stratford E20 2AF 🎟️ FREE - all screenings open to everyone

Link in bio to reserve your seat - hope to see you there! 🎬 by @jo.readsalot

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a month ago