Opinion | Five Adults. Two Kids. One London Townhouse. Is This How We Should Raise Children?

Great to see this in the NYT about living with/near friends. For my latest book BAD FRIEND, I met many friends living in these kinds of communities, delving into its pasts, when it was a very common way for women especially to live.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/o...

Thinking about precarity and aging - CRASSH Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Excited to be involved with a new research network at @crasshlive.bsky.social exploring Precarious Ageing, past, present & future. We kick off 9th Oct/2pm, hybrid and in-person, with @paulfdhiggs.bsky.social & @evemworth.bsky.social in conversation. Register here www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/47719/

lovely review Joe

We are thrilled to partner with @leverhulme.ac.uk and 5x15 for a special event at Conway Hall on the 17th of November, featuring several researchers from our new collection to discuss the importance of knowledge in a changing world !

#PLPEXPeditions @tiffwattsmith.bsky.social

🎭 Tiffany Watt Smith (@tiffwattsmith.bsky.social), historian of emotions at the Queen Mary University of London (@qmul.bsky.social), reflects on how theatre and emotions are connected and how performance helps us understand human experience.

#Theatre #Emotions #PublicEngagement #PLPEXPeditions

oh thank you! That's very kind. I don't think I'm up to fixing it myself, even with your expert guidance, but I will check out penny machines forums - that's a great idea. Thank you!

Free Thinking - Friendship - BBC Sounds Matthew Sweet discusses the mythology, psychology and politics getting along with people.

What a treat! Just had a thoroughly enjoyable evening talking friendship with some extremely smart people including @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social @stephenshapiro.bsky.social @phuonghhle.com Alexander Douglas and Susie Orbach. Listen in! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I don't have many followers here, but...any suggestions for who could repair the mechanism on this beautiful old pinball machine? It belonged to my godfather, who recently died, and it brought joy to so many children (inc. me), and we want to repair it as a tribute to him. It is in SE London. 🙏

I agree, the Book of Human Emotions is an excellent heatwave read. Short entries = time for languid day-dreaming. Plus an entry on the feeling hot days do best: dolce far niente, or the sweet sweet pleasure of doing nothing much at all. Hope you enjoy @nicolecrust.bsky.social

@medhistoryman.bsky.social saw this and thought of your excellent-sounding project. Intrigued to know if the link between tobacco and palm reading was widely made.

oh GOD

ugh this is enraging.

At book events for BAD FRIEND, the cutest thing keeps happening. Pairs of women friends come up and buy a copy of the book to share and ask me to dedicate it to them both, and my heart is melting @faberbooks.bsky.social @smallcitybookshop.bsky.social 💓

my 11 yo daughter DEVOURED the proof! She says it's absolutely brilliant. Thank you and congratulations

And I'm even more happy because my brother just sent me this snap of BAD FRIEND as Pick of the Week in @theweek.com Thank you so much to all the wonderful historians and writers who gave it such generous recommendations and reviews, and to all of you who are buying it #friendship #theweek 😘

This Thursday I'll be talking about BAD FRIEND at the wonderful @smallcitybookshop.bsky.social in Bristol. I'm so excited because Bristol is one of my top-of-the-pops utter favourite cities in the UK. Please come and say hello. www.thesmallcitybookshop.co.uk/event-detail...

it's the gap between 1904 and 1914 which is most baffling. How is it possible no one in the church could remember?

STONE SARCOPHAGUS The Sarcophagus of Purbeck Marble was discovered many years ago beneath the North transept and placed in this position. It was opened with great care and formality in 1948, in the belief that it might contain the bones of St. Augustine which, by an old tradition lie in or near this church. Nothing was found except records of similar results in 1914, 1904 and 1883! Please: Remember the work of archaeologists and historians and pray that we may learn from the past.

My nomination for “Best Information Sheet in a Parish Church”…

oh this is wonderful news, congratulations!

Woop! Have booked x

The Unexpected Joy of Joining a Women’s Boxing Club After 40 Tiffany Watt Smith never considered herself a "joiner"—until she was magnetically drawn to a local boxing club for women over forty and had to rethink everything she knew about friendship and herself.

I wrote about friendship, perimenopause and boxing for Oprah Daily and i’d love for you to read it! x www.oprahdaily.com/life/relatio...

When no one turned up for my birthday, I knew I'd made a big mistake A disastrous birthday bash made Tiffany Watt Smith wake up to the fact she'd always been a flaky friend. But is this an inevitable pitfall of modern life - or can we change our ways?

I wrote about learning a tough lesson, and how it made me a (I think) a better friend (ps: BAD FRIEND 26% off on Amazon right now) www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/art...

it sounds incredible!

Hannah Rose Woods · Tactile Dreams The British aversion to touching wasn’t limited to the Victorian era: comparative studies confirm that we continue to...

It's great to see Simeon Koole's wonderful and important book Intimate Subjects: Touch and Tangibility in Britain's Cerebral Age reviewed in @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4....

I really can't recommend Sim's book highly enough - it's a stunning piece of historical scholarship.

Been an exciting week for BAD FRIEND, since it was published last week in the UK

I'm doing an event tomorrow night at The Wanstead Tap E7, and have a handful of free tickets. If you'd like to come, DM me! Tiff x
www.newhambooks.co.uk/displaybook....

thanks so much Deborah, what a lovely message xx

I have been loving this book too - I got to do a Free Thinking with Rachel Wiseman last year, and she was 💫

congratulations!

When crime strikes, the Cat signal will appear in the sky

'So many writers with fixes for the grips we need to get. No. Neither bother with reading like that. Both, by osmosis, staying well out of it, favouring wild worlds instead'. Eimear McBride on very cool form in her new book.