'I discovered Jimmy Wakely amongst my grandmother’s records. I remember thinking: what’s up with this guy? I played it & was instantly in love. It was everything I wanted.' With his latest selection, Jeb Loy Nichols is plagued by the best kind of memory www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/jebs...

'Like grandchildren accumulating memories and absorbing knowledge, the croft is storing information for future years in the seed bank of soil.' @annieworsley.bsky.social looks back over a year of nurturing child & croft www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

In great CBTR tradition, a song from us to you to mark the 25th December. This year it comes courtesy of the great John Fahey’s classic 1968 Christmas Album 'The New Possibility'. Wishing joy & peace the world over; dreaming of new possibilities 🕊️ www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/now-...

Luce, Pike fishing: a season’s greeting from John Richardson at Two Terriers Press 🎣 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/seas...

'Home has been with me all along.' As our annual series of end-of-year musings continues, Malcolm Anderson contemplates the changing face of his home county www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

In December’s subscriber-exclusive interview, Anna Chilvers & @clareshawpoet.bsky.social — editors of 'The Book of Bogs' — speak to Tallulah about bogs as living presences, the need to restore our visceral connection with the land, and the suck and ooze of the peat steady.page/en/caughtbyt...

Why is Andy Warhol Shite? asks Bill Drummond www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

Today is the last day to order from Bookshop.org to get your books in time for Christmas. Find all this year's Books of the Month, titles we've featured on the site, plus some staff picks, here: uk.bookshop.org/shop/caughtb...

Brightly Shone the Moon: The latest record from @lauracannellmusic.bsky.social is a reminder to blink hard and look up at the sky, writes Kirsteen McNish 🌕 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/brig...

‘I have no illusions about speed or style or any ambition to surf mad breakers or dive for treasure. I am just learning to float rather than flail.’ Shadows & Reflections: As she looks back over 2025, Sally McEnallay thinks of the sea www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad... Photo: Lemanieh

We have 3 copies of Edmund Newell's 'Herne the Hunter: Seeking Shakespeare’s Ghost, Windsor’s Demon and Wicca’s God', with illustrations by Charles Shearer, to give away on this afternoon's newsletter, courtesy of Herne Books. Make sure you're signed up to our mailing list for entry details!

‘This is the place of worms and beetles burrowing and chewing, of new life made from spent stems and promise.’ As our seasonal reminiscences continue, @ysella.bsky.social recalls a 2025 of growth, decay, and merging seasons 🌻 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

Stuck for a last-minute gift? There’s still ample time to take out a gift Steady membership for a loved one. Gift memberships begin immediately, on the day of purchase, & we even have a printable voucher, if you’d like something physical to put under the tree www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/chri...

Shadows & Reflections: Melissa Harrison looks back over a year of rivers both real and imagined www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

‘To speak the words of a land in the landscape that shaped the sounds themselves is a powerful thing.’ @matthewmshaw.bsky.social spent this year becoming increasingly interested in Kernewek — the language of Cornwall www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

‘[Speech and memory] are only abstract concepts until someone says they’re ready to stick a knife in. Then they become very, very real.’ For @robinturner.bsky.social, 2025 was spent making sense of a scattered brain www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

‘Think Trainspotting but Downland gravediggers, not Scottish smackheads.’ Recently published by Rough Trade Books, Sam Reid’s ‘The Pin Jar’ is full of the kind of ghost stories told by mad bastards in the Sussex pubs of @mathewclayton.bsky.social ’s youth www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/the-...

A reminder that this coming Tuesday is our final shipping day before Christmas 🌟

Plant an oak for hope: as our seasonal reflections continue, @lallymacbeth.bsky.social looks back over a year of finding acorns, and helping them take root www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

Plant an oak for hope: as our seasonal reflections continue, @lallymacbeth.bsky.social looks back over a year of finding acorns, and helping them take root www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

What I did on my holidays. @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

Please note that the last day we will posting Bandcamp orders before Christmas is a week today, Tuesday 16th December. Orders placed by midday will be dispatched before we lock up the office and put our feet up in front of the fire 🎄 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/last...

‘By summer’s end I had an entire housing estate of avian abodes, a metropolis of miniscule mansions for our feathered friends.’ This year, @benjaminmyers76.bsky.social built more bird boxes than he could ever possibly have purpose for www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

‘It feels like a breath on the page.’ Shadows & Reflections: in 2025, Nicola Healey discovered a perfect poem www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

We’re doing things a little differently on this afternoon’s newsletter. In the spirit of the season, we’ll be offering up the chance to win £23 to spend in our Bandcamp shop. Make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list for entry details!

'For years, we have told a story of bogs as unproductive, unattractive; dangerous places of waste, empty landscapes we pass through.' Read an extract from editor @clareshawpoet.bsky.social's contribution to ‘The Book of Bogs' — our December Book of the Month www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/book...

#NowPlaying: ‘Reinita Canadiense’ by Mas Aya & Lido Pimienta. Taken from Shika Shika’s incredible recent compilation 'A Guide to the Birdsong of Migration', which brings together birds and musicians who share the same migratory routes www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/now-...

‘The webs are beaded with dew, each a work of art, dangling in the tussock […] All that lies rough and ragged has been made ethereal.’ Gwennie Fraser recalls an autumn day wrapped in gossamer www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad... Photo: Simon Fraser

'With the sparrows around, the garden feels inhabited in a way it didn’t before. It feels alive.' Kicking off our annual series of end-of-year musings, Jill Hopper reflects on 2025: The Year of the Sparrow www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/12/shad...

You can still get free shipping on Bookshop.org orders until midnight tonight 📚✨

A piece I wrote 12 months ago for @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social: www.caughtbytheriver.net/2024/12/shad...

We've just added some staff picks to our @bookshop.org page. When you buy through our page, we earn a commission, plus Bookshop donates a matching sum to independent bookshops. There's also FREE SHIPPING until Monday! www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/staf... Image: Book token by Gwen White, 1936

‘Fragments of knowledge and imagination flicker in and out of view, like sunlight in seagrass.’ Christina Riley’s ‘Looking Down at the Stars’, November BOTM, gently leads us to a love that is born from looking, writes Kirsteen Bell — and to hope 🪸✨ www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/look...

A collaboration between naturalist/writer @steverutt.bsky.social and audio-visual artist Claire Todd, ‘Echoes & Whispers’ is a creative evaluation of bat conservation in the Solway region www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/echo...

[email protected]’s ‘Village’ & a re-issue of Mary Chamberlain’s ‘Fenwomen’ give voice to an otherwise largely silent corner of England, writes @nicolawriting.bsky.social, telling the evocative, hard-lived stories of rural working class women www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/vill...

In our latest subscriber-exclusive interview, Christina Riley speaks to Tallulah about the writings of Rachel Carson, seeing the world through a scallop’s eyes, and the inherent poetry of the sea. Preview here, or subscribe / sign in to read in full: steady.page/en/caughtbyt...

Reading doesn’t make you a better person: Tallulah Brennan speaks to @noreenmasud.bsky.social about the mystery of flat landscapes, the current state of nature writing, & the book industry’s reticence to support Palestinian liberation & fossil fuel divestment www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/read...

Pleased to have had the opportunity to review Common Treasures - essays on land use and the future of our countryside for @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social @littletollerbooks.bsky.social 🌱 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/comm...

We have three copies of Simon Winchester’s 'The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind' to give away on this afternoon's newsletter, courtesy of William Collins. Make sure you're signed up to the mailing list for entry details!

Written by a diverse group of farmers, foresters, smallholders, campaigners, academics, consultants and writers, ‘Common Treasures’ Vols. 1 & 2 offer an alternative perspective on the future of the countryside, writes @jenniferedgecombe.bsky.social www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/comm...

NEW in the shop: The hotly anticipated third instalment of the South London Landscape History 'Commonplace' zine series, this time focusing on One Tree Hill to Peckham Rye Common rivertones.bandcamp.com/merch/one-tr...

NEW in the shop: The hotly anticipated third instalment of the South London Landscape History 'Commonplace' zine series, this time focusing on One Tree Hill to Peckham Rye Common rivertones.bandcamp.com/merch/one-tr...

Lovely to see this review of #TheCompanyOfOwls by the brilliant Abi Andrews at @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social. Getting 'a chimerical guide to owlishness' on a banner or something.

Newly out in paperback, @pollyrowena.bsky.social's 'The Company of Owls' (@eandtbooks.bsky.social) demonstrates how we can be better neighbours to the nonhuman, writes Abi Andrews 🦉 www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/the-...

BOUGHT BY THE RIVER: With the festive period just around the corner, we wanted to share a few ways you can support Caught by the River in the season of giving www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/boug...

We have three copies of Jean Sprackland's 'Night Vision' to give away on this afternoon's newsletter, courtesy of @jonathancape.bsky.social. Make sure you're signed up to the mailing list for entry details!

#NowPlaying: ‘First Moonbeams Of Adulthood’ by Andrew Wasylyk, out today on @claypipemusic.bsky.social (with accompanying video by @surfacepressure.bsky.social) www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/now-...

'Our feet and shins are baptised in the peaty water as we walk through a leat, then pass a clootie tree and proceed to a roundhouse to consider what we have lost and what we might save.' From a Dartmoor tor, Kirsteen McNish throws wishes out to the wind www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/lich...

Over The Bridge Films are crowdfunding to finish a feature-length documentary on the importance and relevance of music to communities on the Isle of Skye, told by celebrated musicians from the island www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/skye...

We have 3 copies of @hannahcfrench.bsky.social's 'The Rolling Year: Listening to the Seasons with Vivaldi' to give away on this afternoon's newsletter, courtesy of @faberbooks.bsky.social. Make sure you're signed up to our mailing list for entry details!