I'm planning to set up a food delivery business, but don't want to pay the people who make the food. If they won't give me free food, they'll kill my business.

Those tedious and mysteriously funded transphobes want to limit access to the Ponds so I’ve had a pleasant 10 mins filling this out on why seeing a variety of women is magic and judging by what people look like or can do is very slippery territory hampstead-heath-bathing-ponds.commonplace.isn

Very pleased to have acquired this for HarperNorth in my time there - it’s an incredibly important and powerful book, of course, but also one written with verve and great imaginative energy by Bill. Coming atcha in May next year:

Frame this. Hang it in every primary school classroom in the UK. Organise a daily pledge of allegiance. #KidLit #KidLitUK

Vigdis Hjorth has been my best new fiction reading this year. I’ve read her Will and Testament, If Only and now this. She does the fraught and ever-lasting emotional turmoil of families better than anyone. Thank you @versobooks.bsky.social

This is great

The truth: we need migration. The problem: too many politicians are terrified to say it. Why? They're led by a) toxicity of the charlatans & b) wealthy media organisations who demand these useful distractions rather than us talking about inequality. Reject it. Draw the line.

Suspecting as I do that, were I born ten or fifteen years later, I might’ve been taken in by at some manosphere nonsense I read quite a lot about it. This is up there with the best, not least in its giving no quarter to ‘understanding’ manosphere influencers’ prejudices and hatreds:

This was really astonishingly good, a contender for the best novel I’ve read this year @colwillbrown.bsky.social @jonathancape.bsky.social

Wow Sally Rooney. Fair play. ‘I feel obliged to state once more that… I too support Palestine Action. … If the British state considers this "terrorism", then perhaps it should investigate the shady organisations that continue to promote my work and fund my activities, such as WH Smith and the BBC.’

Arresting the poets are we? Not a good look.

This is characteristically outstanding from Dan:

Made my greatest-ever single edit today:

This benefits nobody. Legalising it, however would stop migrants being exploited, enable businesses to function, reduce crime and cut waiting times for food deliveries

This, on the frailties of human bodies fighting the passage of time and Ozzy Osbourne’s last gig, is well worth a read. thequietus.com/opinion-and-...

Breaking News: Ozzy Osbourne has died at 76. The lead singer of Black Sabbath helped invent heavy metal before becoming a reality TV star on “The Osbournes.”

This is amongst the very finest art humankind has produced. RIP Ozzy: youtube.com/watch?v=K3b6...

11:30pm, New Year’s Eve, 2014, I get a text message. “Look this up. Move fast,” it said. “Do not contact the court clerk.” And so it was that I spent the stroke of midnight in 2015 sitting under a kitchen counter reading the first court document to accuse Prince Andrew of sexually abusing a minor.

honker sylvia plath piece out today and yes it did cause me to write poetry again

🚀 We’re #hiring a PhD student to join our research project – “Talking Empire – Prime Ministerial Rhetoric and the Search for a Usable Past in Post-Imperial Britain (1960-2025)” 🇬🇧 – funded by the Carlsberg Foundation! 👉 fa-eosd-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid... 📅 4 Sep 2025

Jo is absolutely right here: it's not just our moral compass that we have lost, but our entire sense of perspective and scale. Utterly shameful.

I was really sad to hear of Richard’s death. We worked together for years at Icon and I always looked up to him. He was dazzlingly clever and often riotously, mordantly funny. He was the publisher - the guy - I wanted to be when I grew up, and that’s still true. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Hang on a second - 51% don't want the defense spending increase at all, 57% don't want taxes to rise for it and 53% don't want other spending to be cut. These are all very similar numbers, there's nothing very contrary or inconsistent here at all.

G, by Zaffar Kunial

This is an outstanding piece, me and @drkerryandrew.bsky.social were falling about:

“I agree with Nick.” Kill the industry, you say? That sounds tough for that industry. Which industry was that again? Oh. The stealing industry? Maybe killing that industry wouldn’t be such a bad thing? Considering it’s kind of a bad industry. Unlike the other one, which it’s currently killing.

Big day to be a fisheries historian (fishtorian). Big day. When it comes to oily fish, the export market has always been the focus of British commerical fishing. Prior to the First World War, British fishing was dominated by the North Sea herring fishing; herring outweighed every other fish (1/?)

An island of community. An island of interconnectedness. An island of home. It was nice to be on telly this morning - CBBC reran the BBC Ten Pieces episode on 'Home', starting with my piece No Place Like. Look at that pink hair! www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis... (1/2)

Low steaks

'Keep Fighting Evil & Read More Books' is the motto @booksellercrow.bsky.social ... amen to that. Enjoying popping into South London bookshops to sign books! Lovely to see We Are Together Because in the window in Crystal Palace & in your face @claphambooks.bsky.social ±! Thanks Jonathan & Roy!

I can't recommend this We Are Not Numbers enough - written by the young people of Gaza. Pre-order now - let's make it a bestseller 👇 bit.ly/4hiPzT2

This is a v important book from @greystonebooks.bsky.social :

Thank you @iantucker v happy to get this interview into @theobserver before the handover. We’ll miss you! www.theguardian.com/environment/...

In response to today's Supreme Court ruling, we'd like to encourage you to pre-order @elierlick.bsky.social's book, Before Gender. Discover the trailblazing lives of 30 trans people who will change everything you've been told about transgender history: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526192714/

Happy paperback publication day today to my love @drkerryandrew.bsky.social - their We Are Together Because, a sultry tale of siblings, sun, sex and the apocalypse, is out now from @atlanticbooks.bsky.social!

Book publisher @melvillehouse.bsky.social is publishing the Tulsa Race Massacre report because, under Trump, they believe it won’t be available on the government’s official website for much longer. www.prospectmagazine...

SUNSHINE! My husband @andrewfurlow.bsky.social suggested I set my 3rd novel somewhere sunny, as he SELFISHLY wanted to come with me for the next research trip. The South of France it was! The rest just followed, really... PS check my accidental wardrobe-book co-ord!

There's a fun book-related giveaway over on my Insta! www.instagram.com/p/DH3w37YtRW...

Fascism on the rise, domestic violence kills thousands of women, rape is effectively decriminalised, COVID corruption goes unpunished, hate crime and child sexual abuse are rampant. But the police, those faithful servants of capitalism, are arresting peaceful protestors against climate breakdown.

Type Kathleen Stock's name into Google and scroll through the page upon page of amplification in the national press of her speech. The idea it is imperilled is Emperor's New Clothes scale lunacy.

“The OfS criticised the university's policy statement on Trans and Non-Binary equality, saying its requirement to "positively represent trans people" and an assertion that "transphobic propaganda [would] not be tolerated" could lead staff and students to "self-censor".” Uhhhhh

We are disappointed but not surprised that Meta has used millions of pirated books to develop its AI systems. As a matter of urgency, Meta needs to compensate the rightsholders of all the works it has been exploiting. But what can authors do? Read here: societyofauthors.org/2025/03/21/t...

So Meta used two of my books and numerous articles to train its AI model. And by used I mean "stole". Is there a class action I can sign up? www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

How many times do we have to say it? *Austerity doesn’t work*. More cuts to public spending is economically illiterate and morally indefensible - people didn’t vote Labour to get more Tory austerity. FFS tax extreme wealth, don’t slash public services @patmillsuk.bsky.social

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I would have thought this was like Christmas morning for conspiracy dorks, you get to pore over all these old unredacted files and see stuff nobody's ever seen - isn't that why you get into this stuff? But no, they want a speak and spell to give them a third grade summary

I really enjoyed this

This funny, moving, extraordinary novel is a worthy winner from a magnificent shortlist. Bravo Manya Wilkinson & @andotherstories.bsky.social —

This is really interesting

This unspeakable piece of shit has been sucking up to Putin since the early 'don't-poke-the Russian-bear' days of the invasion. It seems he's now set on torching his own domestic reputation as part of his slavish devotion.

Zelenskyy is my hero. A true anti-fascist. A man with more bravery and dignity in his other finger then most of his detractors will encounter in their lifetime