Welcome to this blog, inspired by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of “flow.” Those rare moments when time stands still, offering profound joy and demanding intense focus, serve as the foundation for this blog’s name.
In the evolving landscape of the blogosphere, this space has transformed into a reading journal and commonplace book. Blogging has had a positive impact on my reading habits, and I’m grateful for the literary-minded friendships I’ve cultivated over the years, extending beyond the confines of the online world now dominated by corporate marketing.
For me, reading is an inherently social experience. If you share a longing for conversations about literature and the exploration of human nature, please feel free to reach out to me via email at timesflowstemmed AT gmail.com. While I hold mixed feelings about social media, you can find me on Twitter (@timesflow) and I also utilize LibraryThing to organize my reading collection.
As you may gather, I lack a scholarly background in literature. There’s no explicit information about the person behind this blog, except for what can be inferred from my reading and writing. I don’t intend to be mysterious, but rest assured, I am far less captivating than the books I engage with. This blog was previously featured in The Guardian and was honoured as the Blog of the Year 2011 by 3:AM Magazine.
Anthony
Time's Flow Stemmed 
Ah, you’re the first book blogger I’ve seen to share your temperament. I’m an INFP. 🙂
Good to meet you!
Good to meet you too, Jillian. INFP is the classic writer’s profile.
Wow, I just discovered your blog after being on wordpress myself for over a year. Love the ideas and content here. Can’t wait to read more!
Thank you very much, Beverley. Your blog is immensely interesting. I look forward to exploring.
Wow is that really a photo of your personal library?! It is gorgeous! I’m intrigued by how you described this blog and will be perusing more of it 🙂
Thank you. I added your blog’s feed to my watch list today. It appears we have uncannily similar film tastes, judging by your recent post. Yes, that is my library.
I am not a blogger so far; yet I love your ideas and let us hopefully communicate more on what we read. Not just naming books and authors
Krishnan Unni.P
Thank you, Krishnan, for your comment. I look forward to the communication.
Thanks. Love the amateur ethic and the list of favourite writers … Big Beckett fan myself. Lots of reading for me here! Regards from Thom at the immortal jukebox.
Thanks, Thom, for your comment. Thank fuck for amateurs!
Szymborska’s quoted manifesto is exactly right—there’s something deadening about reviewing. For me, at least, the felt need to review takes over and inhibits actually lingering with the work (whatever the medium). It seems like you’re the same. Much better to follow out the thoughts brought to the surface by reading than to try to find the exact balance of praise and blame to dole. (And I find that reading such responses is much better advertisement, anyway—I’d rather find the stimulus of new thoughts than the stimulus of praise.)
I’ve written one review proper on my blog. It’s a failure. I wrote it only because I had come up with what I thought (and think) is a pretty clever bit of wordplay—the only redeeming quality it has.
I’ve read some of your posts, and enjoyed them. I’ll be stopping by more often.
Thank you, pleased that you enjoyed some posts here.
Aside from a few of the bloggers I include in my blog roll. I don’t read reviews much either. Reading is so subjective, so personal, that straight book reviews are dead as soon as the words hit the page. I’ve come to trust some readers as having a taste broadly similar to my own, but sufficiently different to introduce me to new writers frequently.
I’m delighted to have discovered your blog! I can’t wait to read it more fully when I have a chance. I think I’m going to learn a lot here!
Thank you, Sarrah, for the comment. Feel free to ask any questions, or talk about anything you find here that interests you.
What a delightful library! I myself aspire to have something remotely close to this some day. But for the time being it seems rather improbable.
By the by, this blog is a constant source of learning for me, Anthony.
Also, it inspires me to read more!
Thanks, Wajiha, fulfilment of a long awaited dream.
Dear Anthony, I note – with a touch of sadness – your recent absence from the howling desert of Twitter, but would like to wish you a very happy New Year in any case. I have had email issues of late, so may have missed a few updates to your blog, but continue to visit and enjoy same… Anastasia
Thank you, Anastasia, happy new year to you. I’ll return to Twitter sometime soon, just taking some time to concentrate on reading without its distraction.
I should probably do likewise! Alas, I am weak of will…
Hi!
Hi. Thanks for reading.
You’re welcome. I hope you don’t mind but I’d like to invite you to my blog at http://www.insanitybeautiful.wordpress.com if you’re interested
Thank you. I look forward to exploring.
Yay!
Hi,
I’m a german blogger and discovered your fantastic and visionary blog while taking a walk through english literature blogs.
I’ll visit you once more and learn much !
Regards from Herbert Steib
Thanks, Herbert, glad you like my blog.
Nice to be here on your site. Look forward to discovering more. Have a lovely day.
Thank you for visiting my blog, and taking the time to comment.
You are welcome Anthony!
Well, hello, I’m an INTP too. We are rare, you know:)
I came here via Twitter re your post about modernism… and I wonder, do you distinguish it from postmodernism?
Yes, very rare, the 5% I think. I once signed up to an email discussion list at intp.org but it soon drove me a bit nuts, reading messages with all that intensity!
Modernism is a house with many rooms and I think literary postmodernism falls into Bradbury’s category of those second generation modernists who were optimistic about its freedoms.
LOL I think INTPs by definition are resistant to joining such groups!
A broad church, yes. I have just finished reading Kenzaburo Oe’s Death by Water, a book which resists labels of all kinds, I think….
Yes, agree fully. The old Groucho Marx comment definitely applies.
I’ve not read his work yet but have Seventeen and J, which I plan to read this year,
I found your blog earlier this month. It is a exhilarating blog, and excellently written. I was struggling to find inspiration in regards to what to read next, but reading your blog has given me much to think upon, for which I am very glad.
Thanks, Mohsin, it’s kind of you to take time to tell me that, very much appreciated.
100% agree that if a book doesn’t move you, stop reading it! Of course some do take some time to get into, but I have wasted too many hours on stories that have never gone anywhere!
Your blog is inspiring. Thanks for keeping at it!
Thank you!
Reading wildly. I love it. Kind of breathless and timeless, or maybe time-haunted…? And from you, so many suggestions, directions. Thank you.
My pleasure … a little breathless and definitely time-haunted. Thanks for reading.
Hi Anthony, you are invited to participate in my Bookish Time Travel Tag, if you so choose. Check my blog post for more details. Thanks, EnglishLitGeek
Thank you. Did you intend to link to your blog post?
The rules for the Time Travel tag are at: https://englishlitgeek.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/the-bookish-time-travel-tag/
You are welcome to post your answers on your blog. No obligation. Just something fun to share.
Anthony, I just discovered your site and I am so glad to have found it. It is wonderful. Thank you so much. As it happens, I have recently been thinking that I must somehow find a way to make peace with the passage of time. I will be 73 next month – “Time’s winged chariot,” etc. Your site has already helped me in this quest.
Thank you, Roberta. I’m so pleased that my blog is of some interest and use.
Regarding your list of the Bowes & Bowes series ‘Studies in Modern European Literature and Thought’. I’ve been collecting them for about 10 years. I have 25, with the latest found yesterday (Malraux). You may have already seen my covers on Flickr.
A couple of things:
‘Romanov’ should be ‘Rozanov’ (no doubt a pesky auto-spell-corrector).
Charles Peguy and 49. Samuel Beckett should be 1965 not 1956 (numbers transposed).
In addition to the Fernando Pessoa, Nietzsche, Robert Musil, and Leopardi which you reference, there are 4 other titles listed as in preparation on the back flap of various titles in my collection, all of which then disappear in later back flap lists, presumably abandoned:
Karl Barth by D. M. McKinnon
Berdyaev by Morris Philipson
Karl Jaspers by Werner Brock
Remy de Gourmont by Garnet Rees
Cheers,
Ben
Ben, thank you for taking the time to provide that information. Good luck with the collection.
Hello, I would like to contact you about site permissions, but can’t seem to make the contact link work…May I be in touch somehow?
You can try emailing to timesflowstemmed AT gmail.com
You are obviously a very serious reader! Very pleased to have found you.
Thank you. I’m pleased that you found my blog.
I just discovered your blog, found it interesting and inspiring – the Gerald Murnane’s write-ups in particular.
Thank you for your interest and for commenting.
I myself am a literary blogger and this is great stuff!
If you want to check out my blog as well it is: atasteofliterature.com
🙂
Thanks for the hint to Laszlo Földenyi’s books!
My pleasure.
Anthony, I have a random question. I’m torn between purchasing Quignard’s Abysses and Villa Amalia. I know one’s a novel and one isn’t. Which one would you suggest?
I’ve yet to read Villa Amalia. Abysses is worth reading.