After 11 days in the nest box our Swifts have laid their first egg. #ukwildlife #ukbirds

For the past 6 days we've had a pair of swifts in our box. They leave about 7am and return at 9pm. Hoping for eggs soon. #ukwildlife #UKBirds

A train to nowhere anytime soon that only costs £100,000,000,000. A financial disaster and an environmental scar across the land. I’d like my share (c£1500) redirected to hospitals, education and pothole filling please. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The 100 best novels of all time www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

New on the blog today, I've written about THE SUNDIAL by Shirley Jackson. Shades of Barbara Comyns & Ivy Compton-Burnett in this irresistible blend of Gothic horror, suspenseful ambiguity & barbed humour in the dying days of an era. I loved it! #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/04/26/t...

Så fin.

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

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

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 😤

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. >

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

“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

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

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.

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

'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.

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.

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

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 celebrate good restoration of pools everywhere..

“Who are we as a species if we allow monarch butterflies, a living symbol of metamorphosis, to cease to exist?” Terry Tempest Williams on the plight of the monarch butterfly.

The 'Royal Family' are a disgrace. They've spent most of their lives killing animals and then have the nerve to lecture the public about protecting the planet.

It's always worth having some muscari in a window box just to observe hairy-footed flower bees from the comfort of your own home... 👀

Hardly been out with the camera so far this year 🌧🌧🌧 The sun came out today for a bit though 😃📸 and I'm off to a start with my #ladybirdyearlist 🐞 1️⃣ Propylea quatourdecimpunctata (14 spot ladybird) #ukladybirds #ukwildlife #macrophotography

@jonathangibbs.bsky.social 's A Personal Anthology project now features over 300 guest editors. I'm honoured to be the latest -- my selection of 12 stories that have taken up permanent residence in my head can be found here:

New on the blog today for #ReadIndies, I've written about some of my favourite books from NYRB Classics. Featuring books by Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Comyns, J. L. Carr and more! @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social #BookSky 💙📚 #TranslationThurs jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/s...

You could start here. And there is great grandeur in this episode. But you could also start anywhere. @backlisted.bsky.social is a real national treasure, I don't say that lightly. If you need inspiration to read, you'll always find it here. Bravo Andy, and all the team. Heroic, heroic stuff.

New on the blog today I've written about STORIES FOR MOTHERS & DAUGHTERS, another excellent anthology from the @blpublishing.bsky.social Women Writers series. Featuring stories by Maeve Brennan, A.S. Byatt, Jeanette Winterson & more! #BookSky #ReadIndies 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/02/08/s...

Can’t wait for it to be like this. Spring scene with insects, from ‘Brehms Tierleben’ (Leipzig, 1892). Waddleton.b.1.146 @theul.bsky.social

Humans continue to poison the species that sustain planetary ecosystems. We are so very stupid.... www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

"Riddley Walkers ben to show Riddley Walkers on the go Dont go Riddley Walkers track Drop Johns ryding on his back Stil I wunt have no other track." Happy birthday Russell Hoban.

Please see A Personal Anthology by @polyscribe70.bsky.social for an insightful analysis of his fave #shortstories inc. Celia by @grahammort.bsky.social and Helium by @david-bevan.bsky.social from Fictive Dream. Courtesy of @jonathangibbs.bsky.social apersonalanthology.substack.com/p/a-personal...

An interesting coincidence. This morning I took down from a shelf a book that's been there for a few years: Stories from the New Yorker 1950-1960. I'd decided to do something I'd intended for a while: read it cover to cover, with perhaps a reading thread to accompany it.

Murmuration - by Scottish artist and printmaker, Babs Pease We loved this one so much that we have a copy hanging on our wall! More of this artist's fabulous work, here: www.babspeasedesign.com #art #printmaking #linocut #hares #birds

Yay! And So Did I (Boiler House Press, 2025) is now on the dedicated Malachi Whitaker stand at Waterstones, Bradford. Alongside The Journey Home & Other Stories (Persephone, 2017) and Benighted by JB Priestley (who went to the same Bradford school).

'Share' if you agree!

Book Review - Whale Fall by Elizabeth O'Connor whatcathyreadnext.co.uk/2026/01/19/b...

I loved Sylvia Townsend Warner's stunning, funny, richly imagined historical novel, THE CORNER THAT HELD THEM. My thoughts: readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/16/t...

Jake Thackray - The Unsung Writer explains his approach.

And off it goes, Mike Fox’s Personal Anthology, stooping at the bathroom sink in stripy pyjamas to wash, filling its smelly pipe with minute pinches of tobacco from a pouch in its cracked sheepskin waistcoat, going through the moor gate and following the path along the drainage dyke...

After 41 years at the Guardian, Martin Kettle has written his last column. This is it. (I have read him since I was a politics sixth-former, and his wisdom and ability to see the big picture is immense.) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...