It’s that time of year. Time to celebrate the Yuletide season with @tomgauld.bsky.social ‘s John Le Carre advent calendar.

Rush - 2013 was a strange year…

Finding this very absorbing

New Celia Fremlin novel drops.

Winter Sea https://www.wikiart.org/en/paul-nash/winter-sea-1937

News! On 16 April (same day my book comes out) I'll be chatting with @jennashworth.bsky.social at @blackwellsmcr.bsky.social We'll be talking all about LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK, and I’d love it if you could join us. Tickets here! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/like-a-cat...

Happy Birthday, Anton

Always good to see a shout-out for Irmgard Keun

A statement about David Bellos just issued by his department: www.princeton.edu/news/2025/11...

New on the blog today, I've written about the TIRZAH GARWOOD: Beyond Ravilious exhibition at Dulwich PG, which showcased Garwood as a highly talented artist in her own right. One of my favourite exhibitions in recent years! #NonFictionNovember2025 #BookSky jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/11/14/t...

Really glad to hear (belatedly) that CD Rose won the Goldsmiths Prize

One for the Henry Green fans

Still got it. Congratulations to David Szalay on winning the Booker Prize, most conspicuous of the prizes, for his truly excellent novel Flesh.

We were the only folks on the beach, just like on postcard.

Wise advice from Laura Mulvey to her students: ‘You can’t write until you’ve thought…’

The sharp, dark, dazzling fiction of Beryl Bainbridge is being reissued by @dauntbookspub.bsky.social, starting next year with ‘The Bottle Factory Outing’ and ‘An Awfully Big Adventure’ with new introductions by Yiyun Li and A.K. Blakemore.

I thought this piece by @ds228.bsky.social was spot on 👇

@richardfallon.bsky.social 👀

This (unfortunately timely) documentary about art theft is well worth a look www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

📣 Two new tickets released!📣 Join writer and podcaster Caroline Crampton for a one-day masterclass. Learn how to weave personal journeys into works of creative non-fiction, balancing structure, pacing, and material for maximum impact. 🗓Sat 8 Nov '25 🕓10.30AM-3PM 🎟️£70 Our website to book!

The strange world of occultist surrealist Ithell Colquhoun, Tate Britain

From @jacquiwine.bsky.social, a thoughtful review of a novel I really loved 👇

👀

The Dark Blue Bird, Edward Lear.

Surrealist painter, writer, and occultist Ithell Colquhoun was born #OTD in 1906. She was fascinated by megalithic sites, which she explored in painting and in her travel books 'The Crying of the Wind: Ireland' (1955) and 'The Living Stones: Cornwall' (1957). 🎨'La Cathedrale Engloutie' (1952)

Very good news to see that an exhibition of Denton Welch's work is on display at John Swarbrooke Fine Art at 11 Fitzroy Square, London from 10 October to 30 October. This portrait of Welch (1935) is by his friend Gerald Leet.

Oct 8th - A week before she was murdered, Mrs Emily French made Leonard Vole the sole beneficiary of her will. 📽️📅 Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Was very happy to make the cut for the Leicester Writes anthology. Many thanks to @farhanashaikh.bsky.social and congratulations to all.

A happy October wish for us all. 🖼️ Grasset

'The Concerto', Queen's Hall, Langham Place (c.1935) by Cyril Power

It has arrived! The nation’s favourite short story anthology in a new shiny livery — grab yours now!

Laurie Colwin is a new author to me, and I’ll be seeking out more by her - the blurb describing her as “the Barbara Pym of 1970s New York” seems about right. Recommended by @ds228.bsky.social, I think?

Claude Cahun Portrait of Jacqueline Lamba and André Breton 1936

Today is Louis MacNeice’s birthday. He was a poet & playwright. From ‘Perdita’: “Somewhere or other a green Flag is waving under an iron vault And a brass bell is the herald of green country And the wind is in the wires and the broom is gold.”

Oh, hello - knew this was on the way, but hadn't seen the synopsis... www.panmacmillan.com/authors/gwen...

Really looking forward to reading @damianbarr.bsky.social’s novel about the Two Roberts

More Annie Ernaux from the archive, #BornOnThisDay in 1940. My thoughts on SIMPLE PASSION (tr. Tanya Leslie), her candid account of an all-consuming affair. An exquisitely written book by one of my favourite writers in translation. #BookSky 💙📚 #AnnieErnaux jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2022/09/29/s...

This was very readable

Autumn is a sad & melancholic yet beautiful season & does strange things to me.

'We can ask and ask but we can't have again what once seemed ours for ever - the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face. They've gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.'

Lots of fascinating things in the Ithell Colquhoun exhibition at Tate Britain. www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tat...

👀

RIP Terence Stamp

I always said universities were a bit like zoos.

Aug 11th 1958 - A George Kaplan checked into the Statler Hotel. Days later advertising executive Roger Thornhill is kidnapped by people who believe he is George Kaplan. 📽️📅 North by Northwest (1959)

Very much with @jacquiwine.bsky.social on this one 👇

By the way, I noticed Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves is on BBC iPlayer for the next few months. Lovely little film. Deadpan humour, understated and poignant. I recommend, if you haven’t seen it.

Really looking forward to this