Anyone want a puffin video to celebrate puffin day? You're getting one regardless

‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, i...

A retired British primary school administrator with a British passport and a valid visa was shackled, chained and detained for six weeks by ICE

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

We're also all a bit older since covid - lock down time is fuzzy, but i came out of it peri menopausal and nothing has worked the way it used to since. Hope you feel much better very soon

Retail is not the best payed career, & people spend a lot in these last few days. If you haven't been there its hard to explain how seeing those numbers feels. But yeah - thanks, our pay increase kicked in this month and now the emails about increased energy costs are water off a ducks back

Say what you want about a labour govt but thanks to 2 good increases in minimum wage and my employer being generous about keeping the margins between job roles this is the first year where there will be no day where turnover is higher than my annual salary - and that's really motivating

Please give me the patience to get through the next 3 days of pre Christmas retail. And if you're thinking of shoving your phone in someone's face to ask if they sell something, don't. We have not memorised a stock file that extends to tens of 1000s of lines or have any idea of what sold today

‘Don’t look for the money. I’ve taken it all’: Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s ‘confession’ that she stole from her family | The Observer

The latest in the Salt Path scandal. TV doc made by the brilliant team @candourtv will be on Now and Sky tomorrow.

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW
PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going—
SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT
PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti—
SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

Romantic History: Balmoral

This is really fascinating especially the tiny bit about the establishment’s fascination with the exotic and that exotic changing fashion. So the orientalism of the Brighton Pavillion becomes Balmoral Castle.
Plus ça change
open.spotify.com/episode/6Y6Q...

Loved by booksellers and readers from day one, THE ARTIST by Lucy Steeds is our #BookOfTheYear 2025 & THE CAFE AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS by Mikey Please is our Children's #BookOfTheYear! 🎉

& Gift of the Year is Tim Siadatan's PADELLA! 🎁

Find them here: www.waterstones.com/category/cul...

The Ghost Story for Christmas Eve this year is M R James's "An Episode of Cathedral History".
It'll be livestreamed at 7pm (UK) but available to watch anywhere, anytime after that. Simply register and pay-what-you-can here
christmascathedralghosts.eventbrite.co.uk

art by Paul Lowe

Murder in a West End boutique? 🛍️👠 Inspector Charlesworth’s on the case. This month’s Crime Classic, Death in High Heels, dives into fashion, ambition, and fatal secrets.
Available today: shop.bl.uk/products/death-in-high-heels

Ed: @martinedwardsbooks.bsky.social

1961 club badge (13-18 April 2026)

The next club is announced! Next April, we are reading from 1961 #1961Club

George I need you to do to these companies what you could never do to your books and finish them.

That this exquisite chalk stream should be polluted with e-coli, pesticides, cleaning products, industrial chemicals, medicines + toiletries is a tragedy beyond words that could be prevented by improving sewage systems so wastewater is treated 3 times - enough to remove most chemicals + pathogens

This collection of interwoven stories is like a fever dream and Gummerson is an English Vonnegut. I assure you that this statement will make complete sense to you by the time you've reached, I'd say, page 6. What a bloody delight.

Thanks to @adamjfarrer.bsky.social for this brilliant review of Saltburn @renardpress.com - ‘an English Vonnegut’ 😊

No I don’t, you chucklefucks, I want Norma Jean to be able to rest in peace without a bunch of technoghouls turning her corpse into a marionette.

This terrifying #yokai is actually a blood-drinking vampire tree.
#LegendaryWednesday

Endorsed happily. See the film, it is a delight. It *brings* delight.

I needed a break to realise I mostly do it to help my own memory. I thought about substack but the more I read about it the less I like the sound of it.

Will miss your posts. Have also been posting much less and considering if I should carry on, I think I will for now as I've kind of missed it over the last month

once again, please hire historians

[alt text: an image of Ben & Jerry's "Black and Tan" ice-cream]

Came back from Scotland today after 2 weeks away. Every bridge we passed had union or George cross flags on it as soon as we crossed the border. It wasn't like that going up. Depressing

Will talk more on this in the coming weeks. but I'll be back at the TALES OF THE WEIRD festival this November. Thrilled to have been asked back, and you'll be able to buy my 'lost' Christmas Ghost Stories anthology ILLUSIONS OF PRESENCE and get them signed by me there.

Absolutely loving the Shetland weather, and it smells incredible here - floral and salty

I mean, this bear has SEEN THINGS

ILLUSIONS OF PRESENCE has a cover!!

Really happy with how this one has turned out, it's going to be *THE* book to get this Christmas!!

Links to order below! Please share this one far and wide!

#christmasghoststories #santasshinyshiny

A collection of balls of yarn

Been buying yarn, its so pretty