So glad to hear it!

A book: Alison Bechdel - The Secret to Superhuman Strength

Alison Bechdel - The Secret to Superhuman Strength (2021)

Like many lesbians of my age, I discovered @alisonbechdel.bsky.social through her Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip & the ever-relevant Bechdel Test.

This is her 3rd memoir; a story of aging & searching that really hits home. Love it.

A book: Kate Summerscale - The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place

Kate Summerscale - The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place (2024)

A fascinating, almost forensic, account. Through painstaking research, Summerscale manages to evoke the atmosphere of the time in ways so rich you can almost smell the rain hitting the Notting Hill pavement.

A book: Tracy King - Learning to Think

Tracy King - Learning to Think (2024)

A raw, sometimes shocking, always compelling memoir of adversity & (ultimately) survival. Filled with both pain & hope, I enjoyed every page of it.

@tracyking.bsky.social

Three books piled on top of one another on a kitchen surface.

Fashionably late as usual, here’s my regular round up of the best books I’ve read this month - October 2025

Only three this month, but each one represents a very different way of telling a true story.

#booksky

Really good to see you and to sample such great beer & food with you!

* On time for the first - and possibly only - time…

And I loved this account of a young Damien, aged just 6, finding a wild hop growing at the roadside & discovering for the first time the beauty & aroma that this magical plant holds.

‘It was sugary-sour. It smelled like something precious. I wanted to lock it up somehow & take it back with me…’

A book: Damien Le Bas - The Stopping Places

Damien Le Bas - The Stopping Places (2018)

As someone with distant Gypsy roots of my own & a love of travelling the country in my campervan, I thoroughly enjoyed this honest & insightful account of one man’s journey through some of the Traveller stopping places of old. So many stories seldom told.

A book: David Mitchell - Slade House

David Mitchell - Slade House (2016)

It’s always good when you find a book by one of your favourite writers in a charity shop. I scooped up this pleasantly creepy little novel & read it in a couple of sittings. Bargain.

A book: Chloe Dalton - Raising Hare

Chloe Dalton - Raising Hare (2024)

The only time I’ve ever seen a hare, it appeared in the road like a bad portent during a somewhat terrifying nighttime drive through France, but this fascinating & personal book has shown me the beauty of this
misunderstood animal.

@chloedalton.bsky.social

Three paperback books on a brick wall

For the first - and possibly only - time this year, here’s my regular round up of the best books I’ve read this month - September 2025

On some days it was warm enough to read outside, on others I had my central heating on high, but these books have seen me through the change in seasons.

#booksky

A Trump flag and a Union Flag on a lamppost in East Brighton

An empty shelf in Tesco where the houmous should be.

With a Trump flag hanging just a few hundred yards from where I live, and now the shelves of my local Tesco Express completely devoid of houmous, it’s hard not to feel personally targeted as a lesbian at the moment…

London Brewers Alliance 2010 YouTube video by LambicFilms

Thank you to @willhawkes.bsky.social & his @londonbeercity.bsky.social newsletter for drawing this wonderful film to my attention. It’s a fantastic snapshot - featuring some very familiar faces - of the excitement of the London brewing scene back in 2010.

youtu.be/DggCEQoLnAs?...

Easington, 1984, photo by Izabela Jedrzejczyk. From her series Striking Women, about women there who were supporting miners during the strike.

The beer briefcase is back????

Live art depicting course of discussion. Can’t describe it all - too much!

What we did in school today. Here’s an amazing graphic summary, drawn by Rebecca Osborne as we talked, of today’s Pubs in the Community meeting @nottinghamtrentuni.bsky.social organised by @culturalclare.bsky.social

I love that!

A book: Elliot Page - Pageboy

Elliot Page - Pageboy (2023)

Meandering memoir by the actor, Elliot Page that gives an insight into his own transition & the wider, sometimes toxic, world of Hollywood.

A book: Matt Rowland Hill - Original Sins

Matt Rowland Hill - Original Sins (2022)

Given the subject matter, I did not expect this book to be as funny as it was but it had me laughing aloud at some points. A deeply personal, honest account of addiction & forgiveness with one of the best opening chapters I’ve ever read.

A book: Kieran Yates - All The Houses I’ve Ever Lived In

Kieran Yates - All The Houses I’ve Ever Lived In (2023)

A powerful memoir of home & an intelligent & timely account of how the housing system in the UK fails so many of us.

A book: Yael van der Wouden - The Safekeep

Yael van der Wouden - The Safekeep (2024)

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize & winner of the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction, this is also in the running for my own personal book of the year. An absolute masterpiece of a novel & a lesson in history everyone should learn. Read it.

A pile of 4 books on a table with a patterned tablecloth

Fashionably late, as always, here’s my regular round up of the best books I’ve read in the past month - August 2025

One novel & three - very different - memoirs have kept me company.

#booksky

What a Firkin' Life — David Bruce’s Life in Beer — Pellicle In one corner of the 17th Century barn at Hawkridge Distillers, under a fairy-tale web of timber beams, a young man is making coffee from a bag of beans on a proper barista machine. Espressos. Cup aft...

The man who started craft beer? My profile of David Bruce for @pelliclemag.com (photos by Sean McEmerson): www.pelliclemag.com/home/2025/8/...

I am a trans woman in the UK. My most influential enemies are the guy who co-created a sitcom about Catholic priests back in the 90s, a woman who wrote some children’s books about wizards, and the prime minister.

Sometimes I feel a little crazy about this.

My home printer. With stickers on it.

Just so you know, I fixed my printer this morning so I’m gonna have a go at world peace later.
#NotAllHeroesWearCapes

*nowhere near York though!

I’m currently away in my motorhome in Pembrokeshire & have been using @beerbreaks.bsky.social as a guide for St David’s & Tenby!
We definitely need a UK motorhome / beer guide (commissions welcome!) My favourite beery place to stay is currently Edwardstone White Horse (home of Little Earth Project).

If I have to explain to you why it's a bad idea to use a machine that makes shit up 15-80% of the time AND destroys the environment AND contributes to rising fascism and genocide AND puts brilliant skillful creatives out of work by stealing their work, then we're already speaking different languages

A book: Kit de Waal - Without Warning & Only Sometimes

Kit de Waal - Without Warning & Only Sometimes (2022)
Fascinating memoir of a childhood lived at the meeting point of different worlds. Painful at times but filled to the brim with courage. Wonderful.
@kitdewaal.com