hardback copy of book the apothecary by the sea, with illustration of orkney with sea, sky and green cliffs and flowers on the cover, upright on dry stone wall in golden evening sun, with blue sky behind above green hill with oak trees

A week today! Join us for the online launch of @beewyld.bsky.social's new book #TheApothecaryByTheSea - a year in an Orkney Garden - pictured here during a glorious #Grasmere #GoldenHour. Vik will be interviewed by our own co-captain @pollyrowena.bsky.social - April 28th, 7.30pm BST. 
Link in bio.

A Hosting: Interviews with Irish Writers 1991-2026 – A good listener’s illuminating, engaging conversations The 60 authors in this ‘career retrospective’ include Claire Keegan, Anne Enright, Maeve Binchy and Sebastian Barry

A Hosting: Interviews with Irish Writers 1991-2026 – A good listener’s illuminating, engaging conversations. Margaret Kelleher, chair of Anglo-Irish literature and drama at UCD, reviews A Hosting, my new book

www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Congratulations to @adamweymouth.bsky.social on winning the new £10,000 Sherborne Prize for Travel Writing for ‘Lone Wolf’.
www.sherbornetravelwritingprize.com

The new £10,000 Sherborne Prize for Travel Writing has been awarded to Adam Weymouth for Lone Wolf.

The roving mind of Jan Morris Morris was hungry for the world – all of it – and that made her interminably restless.

Jan Morris, the historian and travel writer, was hungry for the world – all of it – and interminably restless.

The roving mind of Jan Morris | Bryan Appleyard

engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

Jan Morris was a star writer, a trans pioneer — and a monstrous egotist The travel writer covered Everest, Venice and Che Guevara — but had a deeply complex personality. Sara Wheeler’s biography is ‘brave, beautifully written and shrewdly researched’

More praise in The Sunday Times yesterday for Sara Wheeler’s biography of Jan Morris:
‘a riveting read by a writer at the top of her game’, says Justin Marozzi.
thetimes.com/culture/books/article/jan-morris-a-life-sara-wheeler-review-mtf3ntfks

The spectacular film adaptation of my book Underland is in cinemas as of Friday.
More details at: www.underlandfilm.com
Working on more screenings in Scotland, Wales & NI.

Unfinished story of the day, from one elderly man to another leaving the gents’ at Marks & Spencer: ‘I can never go into a loo these days without thinking about that Winnebago…’

At the proof stage now. The new book - #ThePathlessLand - is inching towards tangible existence. Due out early September. (Cover art again by the brilliant Matt Johnson.)

Jan Morris 'could not have hoped for a better chronicler', says @ericawgnr.bsky.social in @theobserveruk.bsky.social of Sara Wheeler's 'engrossing, sensitive and fair-minded' account of Morris's life and times:
observer.co.uk/culture/book....

Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride win Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize Books newsletter: a wrap of the latest news and preview of tomorrow’s pages

Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride win Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize

Announcing the 2026 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction Shortlist! Join us as we reveal the 2026 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction shortlist on Wednesday 25 March at 2pm GMT.

Introducing the 2026 #WomensPrize for Non-Fiction shortlist – six exceptional books, each a testament to how vital women’s writing is to our understanding of the world, and our imagining of tomorrow. Discover the shortlist here: youtu.be/v0O74n1r780

#WomensPrizeforNonFiction

Thanks to @alcs.co.uk for my bonus -- and for all the work it does on behalf of writers.

Happy Ferlinghetti Day — which is reminding me of time spent in San Francisco: deskboundtraveller.com/lighting-loc....

Coming soon: new books from Michael Kenna & Pico Iyer, Nicholas Crane, Raoul de Jong, Robert Moor and Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi. See deskboundtraveller.com/coming-soon-....

The winner of Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2026 (Fiction With A Sense Of Place)

Award presented to the author’s publisher (Duckworth)

A Splintering by Dur e Aziz Amna
Set in PAKISTAN
@stanfordstravel.bsky.social

#blueskybooks #booksky

WINNER A Training School for Elephants by Sophy Roberts wins the Stanfords Travel Book of The Year Award at the 2026 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2026
www.stanfords.co.uk/a-training-s....

Learning a lot from 'Nightfaring' (Simon & Schuster), in which @meganeaves.com celebrates a world away from the bleaching lights of towns and cities. It’s a book that helps you see more in the dark.

‘Fear is good’: my scary subterranean journey into Underland, the film of Robert Macfarlane’s dazzling book As the hit travelogue about the worlds beneath us becomes a film, its maker takes us on a voyage through Las Vegas storm drains and the caves of Yucatán – via Goatchurch Cavern in the bowels of Somerset

‘Fear is good’: my scary subterranean journey into Underland, the film of Robert Macfarlane’s dazzling book

Coming soon: new books from Michael Kenna & Pico Iyer, Nicholas Crane, Raoul de Jong, @robertmoor.com, and Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi. See deskboundtraveller.com/coming-soon-....

Looking forward to 'Lion Song', a book in which Brian Jackman says that ecotourism has -- so far -- saved wild Africa. Out on March 19 (Brian Jackman/White Fox Publishing).

“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”

-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writing about the unfortunate director of the local paper factory

mannerofspeaking.org/2010/05/12/s...

Looking forward to 'Lion Song', a book in which Brian Jackman says that ecotourism has -- so far -- saved wild Africa. Out on March 19 (Brian Jackman/White Fox Publishing).

Plan to turn Irish borderlands into Unesco ‘region of literature’ Arts group proposes literary routes across 11 counties linked to writers from Jonathan Swift to Lisa McGee The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland used to draw smugglers, paramilitaries, police and soldiers, but the landscape of twisting lanes and hedgerows may soon entice a new type of visitor: literary pilgrims. A plan is under way to rebrand it as Ireland’s “northern literary lands” and to create the world’s first Unesco region of literature. Continue reading...

Plan to turn Irish borderlands into Unesco ‘region of literature’

Powerful piece in this week’s Sunday Times Magazine… and a puzzling one on the same paper’s property page.

Some personal news: after 17 wonderful years at the New Statesman I’ve decided it’s time for something new.

Grateful to brilliant colleagues past and present. Here’s my farewell column from this week’s magazine. www.newstatesman.com/comment/2026...

State of the Union? This one's worth listening to...

Could be another one I find myself recommending -- along with Anne Lamott's 'Bird by Bird'...
deskboundtraveller.com/great-advice....

Do you know the story of Mary Ann Patten? Author of #ToTheEdgeOfTheWorld Tilar J. Mazzeo chats to Dr Sam Willis about her incredible journey through treacherous waters for The Mariner's Mirror podcast:
bit.ly/4qY2bDX

‘An absolutely brilliant book’ Dr Sam Willis

'... government of the profits, by the profits, for the profits.' Sinclair Lewis in 'It Can't Happen Here' (1935).