Writers: please be aware of scammers impersonating Canongate editors canongate.co.uk/news/writers...

You'll be aware that I have a YouTube channel talking about carving #lettering on stone. www.youtube.com/channel/UCNM... YT offers suggestions on what video to make next. Some of their AI images are bonkers. I don't know what's going on here but it isn't lettering:

Mesmerising.

'Benbecula' is part of Polygon’s Darkland Tales series, in which Scottish authors delve into the nation’s history. Based on the true case of 3 murders in 1857, Burnet inhabits the voice of the murderer's brother and what a voice it is. This unreliable narrator had me holding my breath.

There was the feeling of eavesdropping, of an intimate exchange with the filmmaker, his family and the abhorrent Nazis in the reading of Daniel Kehlmann’s fictional portrait of the most influential film director in Weimar Germany, G.W. Pabst. Stunning. Translated by Ross Benjamin.

Carving while listening to a bit of old school Elton John, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Fantastic album from my youth.

'Daphne' Oil on paper by Welsh painter Sarah Evans #Womensart

I was in a bookshop today when the fire alarm went off. All of the customers, including me, remained browsing until the staff insisted we evacuate. Happy to report no fire occurred, books safe, people safe but longing to return to buy one get the second half price. www.tumblr.com/alvaod/69831...

All done. My first ever British vote in this the year I became a citizen. #vote

Great jacket.

Guessing: A father’s favourite car in memoriam.

'Rooks' by Jackie Morris, contemporary artist, author and illustrator based in a little cottage near the sea in Wales #Womensart

Käthe Kollwitz, Working Woman (with Earring), 1910 etching #WomensArt #MayDay, also known as Labour Day is a celebration of the working classes #InternationalWorkersDay

The Queen of #May, 1900, (detail) by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh of the Glasgow School, who pushed the boundaries of Art Nouveau #WomensArt #May1st #FridayFeeling

Just a quick video on carving letters upside down. I mean. Why would you?... youtube.com/shorts/zYstc...

“If you descend the spiral steps that lead below the water level of London’s ‘dark river’ Thames and into the underbelly of Tate Britain, you will find a vault brimming with magical objects,” Victoria Jenkins states in her book 'Visions of the Occult'.

Bumping this up again. Please do repost if you feel so inclined. Preparations are very much afoot, and it promises to be an absolutely brilliant day at St Albans in June: www.stalbanscathedral.org/event/ann-ra...

www.wsj.com/arts-culture... I cannot count the times a book has not put me to sleep, but thrilled me to stay awake.

THE WITCH is a slim, unsettling dreamsape of a novel packed with the detrioration of a family brilliantly depicted by a trio of witches with varying degrees of talent and sharply drawn supporting characters.

“I drew them all one evening, I was quite alone, Willie was away. I could not stop,” she wrote. Striking drawings, sketches included in this. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2026/04...

‘Backrooms’ and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/backrooms-an... #Backrooms #Gothic #Internet #Liminal #VideoGames via @mitpress.bsky.social Yikes.

NEW ESSAY – Roger Luckhurst exhumes the history of body snatching and burial Reform in 19th-century Britain — publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-gr...

I am so enjoying Jane Rogoyska’s 'Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War’. I admire the energetic flow of her writing and the scope and magnitude of the pre-war, war, and after war periods as we move through the doors of the Lutecia grand luxe hotel. Moving, atmospheric and sobering. Fabulous.

Total Eclipse of the Sun, 1882. Chromolithograph after a pastel drawing by astronomer, artist, and amateur entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot. Learn more about his life and see a collection of his stunning astronomical art here: https://buff.ly/2ENtY5g #eclipse #solareclipse

An unpredictable, tense and beautifully written thriller. ‘A Proper Mother’ by Isobel Shirlaw is a tautly drawn narrative of motherhood and marriage with an ending I didn’t see coming.

Threatening charcoal sky over today’s diary of the broken.

Wholly deserving of this nomination and many more.

Thank you @alcs.co.uk for being the champion of authors. Your work is always appreciated. UK authors join, register your published works and start collecting!

Pioneering French photographer Felix Nadar died #onthisday in 1910. @AllisonCMeier explores his determined efforts to document the beauty and terror of this realm of the dead: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/photographing-the-dark-nadars-descent-into-the-paris-catacombs #otd

Nothing short of astonishing, powerful and courageous. Giséle Pelicot and Virginia Roberts Giuffre have lent their voices to history to record the unimaginable. Manon Garcia's insights are brilliant, translated by Maya B. Kronic. None are easy reading, and are at times harrowing, but indispensable.

The 2026 Climate Fiction Prize shortlist is here! 🤩 📚️ The Climate Fiction Prize, supported by Climate Spring, brings together six spectacularly wide-ranging novels for our 2026 shortlist, exploring the climate crisis, and our response to it. Discover the shortlist: climatefictionprize.co.uk

Our reaction to today's AI news 📣 “The Government’s decision to move away from its previously ‘preferred option’ of a broad copyright exception.. is welcome & reflects the positive impact.. the creative industries.. have had." Stay tuned for more. questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-stat...

It all began in Ireland. My mother’s ancestors were coffin makers in Donegal who immigrated to America in the late 1900’s. Half a century later my mother married a farm boy who became an undertaker. My memoir was published in the UK where I have happily immigrated & the US. 🍀 Happy St Patrick’s Day.

At dusk on a Monday.

Fashion goal 2026 mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-conten...

On International Women’s Day, #internationalwomensday just a few stellar female authors. *there are many more*!

The critics are at odds with George Saunders’ VIGIL. I’m entranced. It compels me to think that bit harder. I am falling under the spell of its characters.

Felt like a vampire in London’s sun today. Bright, consuming, enveloping.

Delighted to have received an ARC of @emilymidorikawa.bsky.social 's powerful debut novel 'A Tiny Speck of Black and then Nothing'. A story seeped in Osaka noir, both tender and razor-sharp. With memorable, complex characters. Out in July by @bonnierbooksuk.bsky.social

Fascinating. George Saunders is such a generous interviewee. Here he talks about his new novel VIGIL and shares his writing process, inspiration and insights. Great job @lonesomereader.bsky.social

Wouldn’t mind adding the Vampire Castle bag to my essentials. By Abodi Transylvania aboditransylvania.com/cdn/shop/fil...

ABODI TRANSYLVANIA, 2026 rtw Photography by Szilveszter Makó Set Design by Obsidian Lune

Stormy Sunday reading. The art of Macbeth’s witches. From the accompanying book of the 2013 exhibition of the National Galleries of Scotland.

A bit of a walk across the grounds of lost loves on the 14th of February.

;-) #WinterOlympics #Olympics #milanocortina #Olympicgames #Cumbria #bobsleigh

NEW ESSAY — Christine Jacobson’s “Typing for Love or Money”, on the neglected efforts of women like Theodora Bosanquet, Véra Nabokov, and Valerie Eliot, who — through their work as typists and editors — had a profound impact on modern literature: publicdomainreview.org/essay/typing...

Stripping away the sensationalism that surrounded these unimaginable crimes, AS IF by Blake Morrison, and THE CASE OF MARY BELL by Gitta Serena boldly and bravely sought answers to the questions the courts did not ask. #books

Hamnet-ing at table lucky 13. #hamnet