Dennis Duncan

Can't quite get my head round it, but INDEX was the second most critically-acclaimed nonfiction book in the States this year! (Pipped by Elena flipping Ferrante!?!) 🍾🥳🤩lithub.com/the-best-revie…

“Almost every second person on Earth speaks Indo-European.” I reviewed “Proto” by @lfspinney, all about the spread of the biggest language family on Earth. wapo.st/3FHxXDk

A little blog about Posh Spice and What We Talk About When We Talk About Reading open.substack.com/pub/scrapsando…

Would *you* return a puppy to a Mr D'Wolf? Some thoughts on a two-hundred-year-old lost dog poster. open.substack.com/pub/scrapsando…

Still circling around scraps, a blog about Donne, Hamlet, Virginia Woolf and metaphors of people as books. scrapsandorts.substack.com/p/on-reading-o…

I did a little diary for the @Lit_Review about picking up scraps in the street. literaryreview.co.uk/sacred-scraps

I've written a blog on HOW TO DO THE UFFIZI (and St Augustine's wastepaper basket) open.substack.com/pub/scrapsando…

"Don't Eat the Trifle!" A little thing I wrote about Freud, Agatha Christie & Dorothy L. Sayers open.substack.com/pub/scrapsando…

Looking at guitars on the internet. Here’s a brand I hadn’t heard of before.

A short blog I wrote on the things people have in their pockets. Also contains instructions on how to look after a duck. open.substack.com/pub/scrapsando…

"Why did everyone think it was so funny?" A little blog I wrote about The Bill-Poster's Dream - an example of the nineteenth-century genre of art depicting walls covered in posters. open.substack.com/pub/scrapsando…

You know that thing in detective films/stories where the sleuth makes a pencil rubbing from the top sheet of a notepad to reveal the impression of the last message written? Where have you seen this? Is it ever in Agatha Christie?

On "The Importance of Being Ernst". (I've started blogging some thoughts for my book on ephemera. Please do take a look.) open.substack.com/pub/scrapsando…

If you pick up a @nytimes today, have a look at the books section. I’ve got a fun piece in it about spelling reforms.

V cool beer can

“At what point do you find yourself saying, ‘Oh, stop it!’?”—@djbduncan nytimes.com/2025/04/15/boo…

I rivyood a kupl uv fun buks abowt thee Inglish langwij nytimes.com/2025/04/15/boo…

Went to the Words & Puzzles conference at @magdalenoxford. Met my literary hero, @JohnFinnemore.

Franciszka Themerson: Stories from the Life - Early Paintings and Drawings from Warsaw and London at Ben Uri gallery from Friday artweek.com/events/united-…