u/pornokitsch

The stacks of the London Library! Had never been before, and it was amazing.

Several levels just like this, plus all the (more glamorous, but less adventurous) reading rooms, etc...

I am afraid that my actual shelving is not very DA (more 'Bright Brutalism') but I wanted to show off the pretty new book. I did some hasty book shuffling so it got to hang out with the cool kids.

The Elements of Dark Academia publishes on 27 August (exactly one month from now, which is also the next/only other time I will post about this, promise!) from the nice people at Vintage Classics.

It is UK-only, but places like Blackwell's ship overseas reliably and cheaply, if that's of use.

Without sounding very maudlin, I love DA and the DA community. I'm not very artistic and I'm certainly not fashionable, so glad I can contribute *something*. The roots of DA go *way* back, and the, uh, branches are amazingly prolific - it has been a great exercise in trying to create a volume that can introduce people to DA, while also entertaining (and surprising?) those who are living it already.

My books are a hot mess, but today was a rare conjunction of book shuffling, and I got all the Joe Abercrombies into one place.

Anyone else bothered by the inconsistent colophon? Why is it black? Why is it white? Why isn't it always there? Who knows! You've got to be realistic about these things.

Long time lurker (and, honestly, a terrible dresser), but I'm proud to say that I'm editing a collection of Dark Academia stories with the venerable Vintage Classics.

My task was to show the development of DA themes over time, and demonstrate how those themes came together perfectly to create the literary genre that we all enjoy so much. Plus the obligatory musings on what 'dark' means. And 'academic', for that matter!

The full table of contents is a bit of a SECRET still, but there are stories from Sayers, Poe and Evelyn Waugh, as well as M.L. Rio, Lev Grossman and Olivie Blake. (The latter is a brand new story, and absolutely brilliant.) It is a combination of the old and the new; authors and stories you'd expect but also - hopefully - some pleasant surprises. 22 stories and 500 pages, so it covers a lot of ground.

Plus, as is appropriate... there's plenty of editorial matter to ignore enjoy, footnotes galore, and a ton of 'further reading' recs.

It comes out this August in the UK (Australia, NZ to follow). There's no US publisher yet, but bookshops like Blackwell's do free overseas shipping if you're so inclined.

I promise not to swamp the sub with self-promo, but I did want to share the news here. This book took a couple of years to come together, I enjoyed every dark moment of it, and this sub has been very good company along the way. Most of all, I hope folks enjoy reading this book as much as I did reading for it.

My next challenge is finding the right wardrobe for events: I don't want to let the side down.

(update: can't believe I got fooled by a Great Tit! Thanks everyone!)

In the Barbican. Had a very distinctive song of six chirps then a squeak.

A little larger than a tit. Back was also stripy.

Merlin no help at all!

An amazing story: one of the most formative cyberpunk works (ten years before Neuromancer!), and a really great read.

I am an adaptation skeptic, but I think this is actually *adaptable* and could be really good. Maybe. I hope.