Tom Gauld on the librarians who take children – cartoon A new chapter begins …

www.theguardian.com/books/pictur...

Photo of a round-shaped cuneiform tablet with well-preserved lines of text shown from the front, back and sides. The top image of the tablet’s front shows neat cuneiform handwriting while the bottom image of the back shows slightly clunkier handwriting.

Photo of a round cuneiform tablet with 3 lines of text

Photo of a cuneiform tablet with 3 lines of slightly eroded text shown

“All that he has,
Like smoke,
Into the sky will evaporate.”
- Sumerian proverb

One side of the tablet has the neat teacher’s handwriting, while the other seems to show the less perfect, but still lovely, student’s copy. It was made in a Babylonian school around 1900-1600 BCE

Mr Flamel finds himself in exceptional company!

Study finds which world languages are most complex and why Study highlights significance of using large-scale data to address long-standing questions about evolution of languages

Study of over 1,300 world languages finds which ones are most complex and why www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

‘Soon publishers won’t stand a chance’: literary world in struggle to detect AI-written books US release of horror novel Shy Girl cancelled and UK book discontinued after suspected AI use, as publishers feel ‘cold shiver’

‘Soon publishers won’t stand a chance’: literary world in struggle to detect AI-written books www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

UK Society of Authors launches logo to identify books written by humans not AI Tracy Chevalier announces registration scheme at the London Book Fair as AI works flood market

UK Society of Authors launches logo to identify books written by humans not AI www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Myth, monsters and making sense of a disenchanted world: why everyone is reading fantasy I have made the leap from literary fiction to fantasy – for those who think it’s mere wish-fulfilment, here’s why we need that thing with the dragons

Myth, monsters and making sense of a disenchanted world: why everyone is reading fantasy www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

Writing Apps for Fiction Authors pixero.great-site.net Came across this site while experimenting with a new @obsdmd plugin called Storyline. www.storyline.pixero.com

This is a photo of a paperback copy of The Atrocities by me (Jeremy C. Shipp). The book is resting on grass and there are white petals strewn about on the grass and on the cover. The cover features a creepy old manor house, storm clouds, and a hedge maze.

Hey Bluesky peeps, could you help spread the word?

My Shirley Jackson Award-nominated gothic fiction book THE ATROCITIES is on sale today for $1.99 on Kindle and Bookshop. I have no idea how long this sale will last.

www.amazon.com/Atrocities-J...

bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Coffee and writing What happens when this writing ritual and boost to focus and productivity is removed

Coffee and writing - What happens when this writing ritual and boost to focus and productivity is removed breakthroughsandblocks.substack.com/p/coffee-and...

Free: 356 Issues of Galaxy, the Groundbreaking 1950s Science Fiction Magazine Along with Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy Magazine was one of the most important science fiction digests in 1950s America. Ray Bradbury wrote for it...

Free: 356 Issues of Galaxy, the Groundbreaking 1950s Science Fiction Magazine www.openculture.com/2024/11/free...

The Largest Historical Dictionary of English Slang Now Free Online: Covers 500 Years of the “Vulgar Tongue” 'The three volumes of Green's Dictionary of Slang demonstrate the sheer scope of a lifetime of research by Jonathon Green, the leading slang lexicographer of our time. A remarkable collection of this ...

The Largest Historical Dictionary of English Slang Now Free Online: Covers 500 Years of the “Vulgar Tongue” www.openculture.com/2026/02/the-...

Agree completely. First drafts in Markdown (in Obsidian), then final draft in Libre Office.

The Digital Dilemma: Why Writers Are Abandoning Modern Word Processing Software A new era of writing as a mechanical act.

The Digital Dilemma: Why Writers Are Abandoning Modern Word Processing Software www.typebarmagazine.com/the-digital-...

8 European Forests Straight Out of a Fantasy Novel From Ireland's Dark Hedges to the French forest that inspired the Arthurian legends, these forests have inspired countless tales of magic, hauntings, and herois

8 European Forests Straight Out of a Fantasy Novel www.mentalfloss.com/geography/wa...

The Art of Haunting www.vqronline.org/fall-2025/es...

Given that day, it is important to remember that St Valentine's bones are in Dublin, Ireland. www.irishpost.com/travel/resti...

The cautionary precedent is a story about George Bernard Shaw who, browsing in a second-hand shop somewhere, found one of his own works, inscribed for a friend "with esteem, GBS". Naturally, he bought it and returned it to the same friend, "with renewed esteem"

Because of this story I can never give signed books to charity and if I buy one which turns out to have an inscription I feel bad for the signatory

Brought to book: Alison Healy on some unwise rejections of authors’ manuscripts by publishers An American publisher dismissed them as unfunny, senseless and dull

Brought to book: Alison Healy on some unwise rejections of authors’ manuscripts by publishers #booksky #authorsky www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...

What’s Happening to Reading? For many people, A.I. may be bringing the age of traditional text to an end.

What’s Happening to Reading? For many people, A.I. may be bringing the age of traditional text to an end. www.newyorker.com/culture/open...

The 1000 Libraries award trophy displayed on a wooden table inside Duke Humfrey’s Library, with historic bookcases and the decorated ceiling softly lit in the background.

Interior view of Duke Humfrey’s Library, showing dark wooden bookcases filled with historic volumes, long reading tables, and an ornate painted ceiling with carved wooden arches.

The 1000 Libraries award trophy positioned centrally in Duke Humfrey’s Library, aligned with the long aisle of bookcases and the richly painted, arched ceiling behind it.

A symmetrical view down the central aisle of Duke Humfrey’s Library, with rows of wooden bookcases, reading desks, and a detailed painted ceiling leading towards a large arched window.

Duke Humfrey’s Library was voted the 4th most beautiful library in the world! 🌍

We are delighted to have received the trophy, recognising this honour from more than 200,000 book lovers worldwide.

Read more: www.1000libraries.com/post/2025-top-10-most-be...

#selfpub #writerscommunity #authorsky #writingtips #indieauthor

Goth AF, as they say.

Inside the Long History of Technologically Assisted Writing ChatGPT-3—the Generative Pre-Trained Transformer—has recently turned all of us who write into nascent John Henrys, ready to strike the hammer at either the rail or the computer. Stephen Marche in T…

Inside the Long History of Technologically Assisted Writing lithub.com/inside-the-l...

Scientists mimicking the Big Bang accidentally turn lead into gold The physicists made an unexpected breakthrough

Nicholas Flamel was right all along! Scientists mimicking the Big Bang accidentally turn lead into gold www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

The Work Behind the Writing: On Writers and Their Day Jobs For nineteen years, until his retirement in 1885, Herman Melville would awake, slick back his dark hair and unsnarl the snags from his beard, don a uniform of dark navy pilot cloth and affix to his…

The Work Behind the Writing: On Writers and Their Day Jobs lithub.com/the-work-beh...

American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene had an article as recently as 2022 on that very subject!

Sometimes research will lead you down an odd road. Before Ozempic there was "sanitized tape worms, easy to swallow." Ad from 1898.

A Cat Left Paw Prints on the Pages of This Medieval Manuscript When the Ink Was Drying 500 Years Ago An exhibition called "Paws on Parchment" tracks how cats were depicted in the Middle Ages through texts and artworks from around the world—including one example of a 15th-century "keyboard cat"

A Cat Left Paw Prints on the Pages of This Medieval Manuscript When the Ink Was Drying 500 Years Ago www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a...

Had an intriguing editorial discussion recently: how did people in the past talk about 'minutes' when they didn't have watches or standardised times? How does that affect your thinking?

Come down an Elizabethan/Jacobean rabbit hole with me.

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