One of the best I read last year

Where to start with: Muriel Spark From an extraordinary debut inspired by a real-life breakdown to a creepy masterpiece, here’s a guide to the Scottish novelist’s works

What a way to end publication day! For the Guardian, I’ve written a piece on navigating the weird and wonderful word of Muriel Spark.

Read it, and do give my book a read, too.

LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK is out right now! 🐈‍⬛

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Well, this is *fantastic* news! #BookSky

I also watched it. Brilliant

This would be a better use of the tech. bsky.app/profile/thel...

A photo of me, holding up a copy of The Times which features a review of my book, accompanied by the headline: ‘A genius with claws - the picaresque life of Muriel Spark’

Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark is BOOK OF THE WEEK in The Times, and it's frankly outrageous that a small marching band hasn't trundled into my house to make some little celebratory parps in my honour 😤

What's it about?

I talked about My Phantoms too much, so this thread will probably be the only thing I post about Gwendoline Riley’s new novel The Palm House. I have read it twice, first in proof and again now the novel is ‘in the shops’. As usual, the style is the substance, and the style is impeccable. >

How about a short story anthology?

The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley review – the laureate of bad relationships Riley has always skewered cruelty with shattering exactitude. What’s new in this story of two old friends in London is the delicacy she brings to moments of tenderness

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Cramp-ball Fungus Weevil (Platyrhinus resinosus). I found five of these stunning weevils today in Long Melford, Suffolk. As their common name suggests, they feed on Cramp-ball fungus.

Tomorrow, in the @nationalgalleryirl.bsky.social, Patrick Bringley will be giving a free talk around his book "All the Beauty in the World"
www.nationalgallery.ie/whats-on/tal...

Many good stories and wonderful people as finalists for the Derringer this year.

This is a shout out to @frankvatel312.bsky.social for his short story nom for CHAINS - a tale I clearly remember reading and enjoying immensely. And, best of all, it surprised me.

Congrats Frank and Everyone!

With the sun shining it was nice to be pottering outside and tidying the garden. A delight late afternoon when this Holly Blue settled down on a climbing rose. Spring time is so uplifting. 🙂 (Bristol, 31.03.26) #ukbutterflies #ukwildlife #insectphotography
@savebutterflies.bsky.social

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie review — is this the end of cinema? Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy and Glen Powell joylessly bleat their way through this supremely vacuous anti-movie which is, at times, physically painful to watch

“At a time when cinema is fighting for its existence and defining itself as a recognisable expression of lived human experience, this is precisely the kind of ugly, overbranded, lifeless digital marketing vomit that represents the sinister end of it all.”

Kevin Maher on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

Top view of a large moth whose wings are a bright lemon yellow with a variable black serrated line near the bottom and with each forewing having two black spots.

Anthela inornata

We are seeing quite a few of these lovely moths at the minute.

They are quite large, with a wingspan of 6-7cm, and can be seen in early autumn in Western Australia and South Australia

#teammoth #ausinverts #wildoz #Lepidoptera #inaturalist

The Lowlife, Alexander Baron

2026 reading 🧵
End March and here’s a contender for book of the year. Another marvellous Faber Editions, a cult novel, but more than that just a spectacular work of prose, of character, of pacing, simply superb. Full of life. I raced through the back end as if it were a thriller. Too good.

A photograph showing a group of long male Alder Tree catkins that are a wine-red colour, hanging from a small branch. A few smaller female catkins are seen behind the main group swell as some old tree fruits. These small, woody, cone-like fruit structures turn dark brown or black in the autumn, often remaining on the tree through winter. The photograph was taken on a bright but breezy day, the background is grey/blue from a cloudy sky. England, UK

One for #WildflowerHour #treeflowers challenge: So many to choose but it was the beautiful elongated wine red male catkins from this Alder tree that impressed me... almost ready to turn yellow and release its pollen! 📷 🌿

Happy new week everyone! 🕊️

#Nature #Trees #NativePlants #NaturePhotography

Doesn't sound good for wild bees only cultivated ones

'The Icknield Way.' (1911) The originality of this work represents Spencer Gore's response to European Post Impressionism in several shows staged in London, in particular Manet and the Post Impressionists and the Italian Futurist Painters in the same year this was made.

Cover of Claire Keegan's Foster

A tiny perfect novel ☘️

So, just watching ’The Other Bennett Sister’ and I see the Box Tree Moth was around in Jane Austen’s time! Oh dear.

I use a kobo which does everything a kindle can do and has all the same special offers of 99p books

Then & Now: Frank O’Connor and Kevin Barry #readingirelandmonth26 One of the great strengths of the Irish short story tradition is its attention to ordinary lives lived on the margins: people who are awkward, disappointed, or quietly excluded. Reading Frank O’Con…

wp.me/p49UqI-540

The Lighting Of The Lamps Isleworth: ink and watercolour on vintage paper. On show at my exhibition Seasons In Suburbia at Moore Gwyn Fine Art 6 Masons Yard Duke Street St James until tomorrow, March 13th.

Spring Day at Durdle Door - by Dorset artist, Gina Marshall

More of this artist's wok, here: www.ginamagnoliaart.com

Maybe it's either this or AI, take your pick

The women published by Persephone Books. Malachi Whitaker is 4th from left, on bottom row.

The Journey Home & Other Stories (2017; foreword by Philip Hensher) is the only work of Whitaker's fiction currently in print.

Thanks to Persephone for the image & for publishing Malachi 💛 💛 💛

Virago Modern Classics and @radzpandit.bsky.social? The perfect combination.

I went on one a couple of years ago. Strange how places that I once just thought of as home, are now tourist attractions