I clicked with some trepidation, expecting the usual bromides. But this excellent piece by none other than Elizabeth McCracken is full of wisdom and practical thoughts. @elizmccrack.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
1824: Recievd a letter from Hessey & wrote one took a walk in the fields gatherd a bunch of wild flowers that lingerd in shelterd places as loath to dye - the ragwort still shines in its yellow clusters & the little heath-bell or harvest-bell quakes to the wind under the quick banks & warm furze...
Pleased to say @oxlifelonglearning.bsky.social have commissioned a new live online course from me for summer 2026 onward! Medieval Chivalry for 10 weeks! Chat with me weekly! lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk/courses/medi... Please share.
My story ‘Small Bad Things’ which came third in @themothmagazine.bsky.social short story prize is published in @irishtimes.com today 🎉 There is a small paywall - (£1 for first month) 👇
🚨NEW: The Israeli government banned journalists on their PR aid flight from filming Gaza from above.
They told journalists the air drops would be cancelled if they broadcast any footage of the destruction below.
A rogue state trying to hide its genocide. Israel won’t ever come back from all this.
Credit to the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen.
Defying the Israeli ban on filming Gaza from above, Bowen instead describes the carnage & genocide he can see:
“I can tell you that communities in the north of Gaza that I knew well…with tens of thousands of people…are flat. There’s nothing left of them.”
This week Penguin publishes the paperback of my acclaimed memoir ‘Home Is Where We Start: Growing Up In the Fallout Of The Utopian Dream’: the story of my utopian commune childhood & a book about the many meanings of home.
Extracts were published in The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
What is a townland? Here’s a breakdown of the land divisions you will come across in Irish genealogical records, and why you need to know them #genealogy #Irishgenealogy #familyhistory
GAZA TODAY.
"A one-and-a-half-year-old child in Gaza facing life-threatening malnutrition as the humanitarian situation worsens due to ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade."
#Israel #genocide #starvation
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...
😍
Salt Path headlines have dwindled - has there been any published analysis of sales figures which post-date the scandal? Presumably sales rocketed...
Good to know 👇
Yes.
De noche, los gatos son pardos, la comida sabe distinta, y el amor puede florecer a pesar de que no lo alimente la luz.
This is so shite. Ditto the government proposal a while back to stop storing the physical wills-and-testaments of all but the most noteworthy (or so considered at the relevant time) people...
"Much #digitisation is being performed by private companies operated for profit. In the future, do we want the only copies of rare and important #books and #periodicals to be controlled by businesses rather than public #libraries that are free for all?"
theconversation.com/valuing-our-...
As Bookbanks new Ambassador I’d like to spread the word about this brilliant charity giving books with food at food banks.
Please share and support if you’re able :)
www.bookbanks.co.uk
Genuine question - what gives the impression that a female writer (specifically a novelist, I guess) has written a book "for women"?
Just finished "Ripeness", the latest by Sarah Moss. It's a novel about many things; the depictions of female friendship in late middle-age will stay with me in particular.
Lapsed Irish speakers will relate to this: Andrew McNeillie citing Welsh poet Robert Minhinnock saying that his remaining Welsh language ability "was like wool caught in a strand of barbed wire with the sheep long gone over the mountain."
Interesting to see the phrase "Glaschu mòr nan stìoball", "Great Glasgow of the steeples", in late-1820s texts by both Dr Norman MacLeod and Ailean Dall.
I guess that's what first struck the eyes of Gaels arriving in the city: all those rival denominations, racing each other to heaven...
A photograph of a blackberry bush, some berries pink but many fat and dark.
Mid-summer blackberry ripening in London.
When we walk in green spaces our eyes scan the landscape-move side to side-an ancient behaviour our ancestors used to check for danger & food.This eye movement literally rewires our brains giving us more resilience to trauma & is the basis of EMDR therapy.Go for a walk among plants today if you can🌿
This is fascinating: www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/s/I...
Someone “worked on a book with ChatGPT” for weeks and then sought help on Reddit when they couldn’t download the file. Redditors helped them realized ChatGPT had just been roleplaying/lying and there was no file/book…
A Borges story about a guy who gets AI to summarize all the world’s information for him, and then summarize the summary, until the AI has the whole world summarized into a single word. He sits alone at his desk, staring at the word, repeating it endlessly, certain he is experiencing everything
West Dorset is heavenly - enjoy ! (P.S. The Lyme Regis Bookshop often has L&HP in prime position on the display tables!)
‘The Plath-Hughes mythology presents a problem if the first glimpse you had of Plath’s life was the one she lived while making her poems. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 life, those mornings, is never to be pitied.’
@tricialockwood.bsky.social on Sylvia Plath: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
'Telegraphy', a novel, will be out in the UK in January 2026 from CB Editions. That cover – that I love – is courtesy of Charles at the press.
If you would like to review the novel/talk about it/question it/ask me about all its earlier names, let me know.
