I am so sorry. Grief is unbelievably tough to weather. Sending you both my thoughts.

And before that I read my first Balzac which I adored. I now want to read everything by him....

I am reading A RETURN TO SELF by Aatish Taseer. It's wonderful. I am doing an event with him on May 1 in NYC as part of the @penamerica.bsky.social World Voices Festival. I highly recommend it!

What a lovely way of reading it.

I was walking around Hackney Wick yesterday with a fellow Canadian when I spotted this poster. It’s basically a copy of Burton Kramer’s CBC logo. Kramer taught at OCAD when I was a student there. I wonder what he’d make of this. He’d probably find it funny.

#graphicdesign #CBClogo #canadiandesign

I agree. She was indeed a visionary.

Finally made it to the V&A East Storage where I swooned at the Frankfurt Kitchen. These were designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky for German social housing in 1926 and were the forerunner of the ‘fitted kitchen’. Such beautiful simplicity.

#V&A #frankfurtkitchen #london #architecture #design

I loved it! Brilliant and complex.

Yes! I read it at the British Library. I was so interested in the Jameson / Fuller overlaps!

Fantastic Little Library haul today. Wilhelm Reich’s ‘The Function of the Orgasm’ alongside Percy Lubbock’s ‘The Craft of Fiction’.
Could Leytonstone get any cooler?

#littlelibraries #littlefreelibrary #wilhelmreich #thefunctionoftheorgasm #percylubbock #thecraftoffiction #leytonstone

For anyone hitting the road & wanting a companion, GREYHOUND might do the trick. It runs for 9 hours - roughly the time it takes to drive from Missoula to Portland or Albuquerque to Laramie...
tantor.com/greyhound-jo...
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#audiobooks #tantormedia #greyhound #roadtripping #roadtrips

GREYHOUND is now available in the US as an audiobook! This is thanks to the wonderful people at Soft Skull @catapultbooks.bsky.social and @tantoraudio.bsky.social
It is read by Courtney Patterson @copatter.bsky.social who reads it beautifully and sensitively. What an incredible skill.
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I did have Vermeer in mind, too. Something about those colours and the light. London never ceases to surprise.

Thank you so much. Felt very ‘London’ somehow.

I feel like I’m in a minority in thinking ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’!(i.e. if someone offers you a ton of money, they might require a little something in return even if you are a talented, wonderful writer. Has everyone collectively forgotten the eternal truth of the no free lunch?)

Today’s wander in town. Abandoned chair with pigeon, Goodge Place, central London.

#abandonedchair #pigeon #london #goodgeplace #londonpigeons #centrallondon #urbanwanders

I have been finding this saga absolutely extraordinary. The mean-spiritedness has been astonishing.

Through Foreign Eyes Two memoirs look at how travel proves a lens for exile, identity, and seeing the world—and oneself—anew.

Feeling incredibly grateful. 🙏
I will paste the URL to the event below.
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www.eventbrite.com/e/through-fo...

#penamerica #worldvoicesfestival #newyork #greyhound #areturntoself #nonfiction #softskull #catapult #literaryfestivals #litfests

One of the great joys of being a writer is engaging with the work of other writers and having the opportunity to discuss ideas, forms, approaches, language and content at events and festivals.
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Fantastic book post day! Thank you so much Lena Moses Schmitt and the Soft Skull and Catapult team for sending me this gorgeous book by Aatish Taseer —
Aatish and I will be in conversation May 1 as part of the Pen America World Voices Festival.
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Those little fingered feet! Adorable!

That is the correct response! 🐍

Ha. Yes! Three kinds of snake, I think. The adder is the only venomous one.

I loved that one.

We had just been talking about adders when we almost stepped on this lovely juvenile curled up on our path. He quickly slithered off when we gasped in surprise.

#commonadder #adder #venomoussnakes #suffolk #snakes

Conversing with the sea kale on Sizewell Beach. This is the kind of ‘power plant’ we need.

#plants #plantcommunication #seakale #suffolkcoast #suffolk #powerplants

Yes, me too. So symmetrical.

Right? The blossoms are so blousy and these are just so beautiful!

A book held in hand. The title says GREYHOUND, the author, listed in the middle, is JOANNA POCOCK

Really enjoying “Greyhound” by @joannapocock.bsky.social, an especially great companion while traveling in the US.

Pretty sure it’ll make an appearance in one of my upcoming newsletters.

I’ve always preferred off-season hydrangeas to ones in full bloom. I met these beauties in Suffolk yesterday.

#plants #hydrangeas #offseason #suffolk