Sarah Hall will deliver the 2026 Faber Lecture, under the title, Burning Snowflake: Nature. Writing. Rebellion. Hall will give the lecture on 10 October in Manchester, with Burning Snowflake also published in hardback on 8 October. faber.co.uk/journal/sarah-hall-will-deliver-the-2026-faber-lecture

Dear Bluesky folk, What are your favourite nature-quest non-fiction books? I'm writing a piece about this peculiar sub-genre. My own The Butterfly Isles is one but there's also Much Ado About Mothing, The Orchid Hunter, Orchid Summer, Chasing the Ghost. There must be loads of others I'm missing!

The family of the Belfast stabbing victim have released a statement saying - like the family of Henry Nowak last week - that the attack should not be used to "divide people or fuel hostility" They condemned disorder and praised the "valuable contribution" by migrants inews.co.uk/news/politic...

Congratulations to @julianhoffman.bsky.social on winning the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award for his book 'Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece' (@eandtbooks.bsky.social). deskboundtraveller.com/julian-hoffm...

'Keep your dawn-splashed canyons and soaring cathedrals; keep your pyramids, your temples, your gold-domed pagodas rising above ancient capitals. The Metro Underground Transit system is the wonder of the world.' -- Emily Carter Roiphe on the best part of New York: memoirland.substack.com/p/transit.

Gaudí Centenary celebrates the legacy of an architect like no other: https://www.dezeen.com/2026/06/08/antoni-gaudi-centenary-100-years/

UK folks, let's jump on this AI regulation petition the Society of Authors emailed out! It's an actual parliament one so the government HAS to respond if it reaches the signature threshold. It calls for regulations to make AI developers disclose copyrighted works trained on. Sign & repost!! ❤️

I wrote a piece in The Observer about George Forster and “The Traveller”.

From Kenya's Tree of Life to a Svalbard glacier, these stunning photos are taken from a new book by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, whose The Earth From Above was a smash hit 25 years ago

Timely journeys into history in Cuba and the US, from JS Tennant and Beverley Gage: deskboundtraveller.com/journeys-int....

WATCH: Journalist and author Suzy Hansen joins Faisal Al Yafai on the podcast to discuss what one Istanbul neighborhood reveals about Turkey under Erdoğan, and her new book, "From Life Itself." https://f.mtr.cool/mrvfzoqyki

How strong a wind was I heading into this morning, running west along Worthing prom? The BBC and the Met Office couldn't agree, but here and there I was swaying along with the tamarisk hedges. And then I was flying home...

Timely journeys into history in Cuba and the US, from JS Tennant and Beverley Gage: deskboundtraveller.com/journeys-int....

"Irresistible." -- Peter Moore, in the Literary Review, on @andreawulf.bsky.social's new biography of the 18th-century traveller, thinker and humanitarian George Forster: literaryreview.co.uk/out-of-the-a....

Lovely piece by @danigaravelli.bsky.social on a long-overdue visit with her mother to Ailsa Craig -- "Scotland’s Uluru, Ayr’s Rock".

Considered a run earlier in the day... then remembered what heatstroke did to me in Mombasa: deskboundtraveller.com/lighting-loc....

Looking forward to returning to @stanfordstravel.bsky.social in London next month to discuss epic journeys, untold histories and unlikely characters with fellow travel writer Louis D Hall. 🎟️ 16 June, 7pm. Ticket info: www.stanfords.co.uk/event-stanfo...

Death of a Naturalist’ turns 60 🎉 First published on 19 May 1966, #SeamusHeaney’s landmark debut collection announced a major new poetic voice. To mark the 60th anniversary, we’re revisiting the collection through a new lens: www.nli.ie/news-stories/stories/seamus-heaney-man-myth-making-poet

Glorious picture…

Online Book Club 📚 | Death of a Naturalist 📅 Fri 29 May, 1pm https://ow.ly/svsq50YSo7m Join us on Teams to explore Seamus Heaney’s iconic debut, 60 years on—featuring poems, manuscripts & letters from our collection. All welcome—no poetry expertise needed!

On this week's #LARBRadioHour, Kate Wolf speaks to the Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Suzy Hansen about her new book, "From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdogan." Listen now: https://lareviewofbooks.org/av/suzy-hansen-from-life-itself-interview/

COMING UP THIS SATURDAY Heaney: A Style Guide – with Don Paterson 🗓️ Saturday 9th May ⏰ 11am-1pm GMT 🎟️ £35/£25 Book your spot at buff.ly/OKvv7Cj #NorthSeaPoets #PoetrySky

So, not the way, the Truth Social and the life. Could Trump be just the latest embodiment of what Sinclair Lewis, in the 1930s, summed up as ‘government of the profits, by the profits, for the profits’?

Tomorrow night in Dulwich! My first event for 'En Route'. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/en-route-p...

Well-deserved tribute to @calflyn.bsky.social in The Sunday Times. 'Islands of Abandonment' (2021), her brilliant account of how nature recovers where humans retreat, is among the 25 best non-fiction books of the century so far. www.thetimes.com/culture/book....

Brian Jackman's new book, 'Lion Song', 'is as much the essential guidebook to African safari as it is an alarm call to the threats facing the wildlife he knows so well'. -- Chris Haslam, in The Sunday Times. www.thetimes.com/travel/inspi...

I reviewed the new Cal Flyn for the Times. 'Where many contemporary nature writers emphasise joy, Flyn leans into discomfort — physical, intellectual, moral.' Wonderful, slightly lonely book. Hard-core romantic. www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

In honor of Earth Day, see images via The Atlantic Photo of the incredible resilience of nature: the many ways that plants, animals, and natural processes reclaim abandoned human places and find ways to thrive. theatln.tc/lvtDrAUp

A week today! Join us for the online launch of @beewyld.bsky.social's new book #TheApothecaryByTheSea - a year in an Orkney Garden - pictured here during a glorious #Grasmere #GoldenHour. Vik will be interviewed by our own co-captain @pollyrowena.bsky.social - April 28th, 7.30pm BST. 
Link in bio.

A Hosting: Interviews with Irish Writers 1991-2026 – A good listener’s illuminating, engaging conversations. Margaret Kelleher, chair of Anglo-Irish literature and drama at UCD, reviews A Hosting, my new book www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Congratulations to @adamweymouth.bsky.social on winning the new £10,000 Sherborne Prize for Travel Writing for ‘Lone Wolf’. www.sherbornetravelwritingprize.com

The new £10,000 Sherborne Prize for Travel Writing has been awarded to Adam Weymouth for Lone Wolf.

Jan Morris, the historian and travel writer, was hungry for the world – all of it – and interminably restless. The roving mind of Jan Morris | Bryan Appleyard engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

More praise in The Sunday Times yesterday for Sara Wheeler’s biography of Jan Morris: ‘a riveting read by a writer at the top of her game’, says Justin Marozzi. thetimes.com/culture/books/article/jan-morris-a-life-sara-wheeler-review-mtf3ntfks

The spectacular film adaptation of my book Underland is in cinemas as of Friday. More details at: www.underlandfilm.com Working on more screenings in Scotland, Wales & NI.

Unfinished story of the day, from one elderly man to another leaving the gents’ at Marks & Spencer: ‘I can never go into a loo these days without thinking about that Winnebago…’

At the proof stage now. The new book - #ThePathlessLand - is inching towards tangible existence. Due out early September. (Cover art again by the brilliant Matt Johnson.)

Jan Morris 'could not have hoped for a better chronicler', says @ericawgnr.bsky.social in @theobserveruk.bsky.social of Sara Wheeler's 'engrossing, sensitive and fair-minded' account of Morris's life and times: observer.co.uk/culture/book....

Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride win Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize

Introducing the 2026 #WomensPrize for Non-Fiction shortlist – six exceptional books, each a testament to how vital women’s writing is to our understanding of the world, and our imagining of tomorrow. Discover the shortlist here: youtu.be/v0O74n1r780 #WomensPrizeforNonFiction

Thanks to @alcs.co.uk for my bonus -- and for all the work it does on behalf of writers.

Happy Ferlinghetti Day — which is reminding me of time spent in San Francisco: deskboundtraveller.com/lighting-loc....

Coming soon: new books from Michael Kenna & Pico Iyer, Nicholas Crane, Raoul de Jong, Robert Moor and Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi. See deskboundtraveller.com/coming-soon-....

The winner of Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2026 (Fiction With A Sense Of Place) Award presented to the author’s publisher (Duckworth) A Splintering by Dur e Aziz Amna Set in PAKISTAN @stanfordstravel.bsky.social #blueskybooks #booksky

WINNER A Training School for Elephants by Sophy Roberts wins the Stanfords Travel Book of The Year Award at the 2026 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2026 www.stanfords.co.uk/a-training-s....

Learning a lot from 'Nightfaring' (Simon & Schuster), in which @meganeaves.com celebrates a world away from the bleaching lights of towns and cities. It’s a book that helps you see more in the dark.

‘Fear is good’: my scary subterranean journey into Underland, the film of Robert Macfarlane’s dazzling book

Coming soon: new books from Michael Kenna & Pico Iyer, Nicholas Crane, Raoul de Jong, @robertmoor.com, and Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi. See deskboundtraveller.com/coming-soon-....

Looking forward to 'Lion Song', a book in which Brian Jackman says that ecotourism has -- so far -- saved wild Africa. Out on March 19 (Brian Jackman/White Fox Publishing).

“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.” -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writing about the unfortunate director of the local paper factory mannerofspeaking.org/2010/05/12/s...