@chiswickrnli.bsky.social training out on the Thames last night. I am always grateful to those who volunteer their time, & lives, to save others in distress. My grandmother collected for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Living in Thurso for part of her life, she saw a lot of boats go down

Today (16th Dec) as part of their celebration of #JaneAusten at 250 BBC Radio 4 is devoting a whole day of programmes to the author. Tune in shortly to hear Val McDermid and Kate Atkinson talk about when they first encountered her work. #WomenWritersNet #BBCRadio4 www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

I think about this quote from @georgemonbiot.bsky.social a lot: “The idea that some people may freely poison others is one of the most astonishing but least contested aspects of modern life.”

My brilliant partner @guyducker.bsky.social has made a film in WW2 style to make us think about what wld have happened if Britain had taken the same complacent attitude to Hitler as it commonly takes to Climate Breakdown, which threatens more lives.

The Society currently invites applications for its David Berry Fellowship in the History of Scotland and the Scottish People. The Fellowship, for up to £2500, supports research by historians of Scotland at any career stage: bit.ly/4ns6LJj Closing date: Friday 6 March 2026 #Skystorians

Delighted to be there for this exciting announcement! Congratulations to Hannah Durkin. 🥂🥂🥂

Had a ball at @wolfsonhistory.bsky.social prize celebrations last night. Great to meet @kieranconnell.bsky.social @drmirandakaufmann.bsky.social & other luminaries. I said to my partner ‘everyone in the History World was there’ & he thought I said ‘everyone in the History of the World’ - v crowded!

"History has never been more important than it is in the current moment." 'The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective' by @victoriandetective.bsky.social is shortlisted for the 2025 #WolfsonHistoryPrize. @yalebooks.bsky.social

"Why had the character of the professional Victorian female detective suddenly materialised, then vanished?" Read an extract from Sara Lodge's (@victoriandetective.bsky.social) #WolfsonHistoryPrize shortlisted book 'The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective'.⬇️ bit.ly/4oJC6rr

Climate knowledge has been taken hostage to prevent climate action. “It didn’t happen by accident. It’s the product of a deliberate and systematic assault on knowledge by some of the richest people on Earth. Preventing climate breakdown means protecting ourselves from the storm of lies.”

"An innovative exploration of the roles of women working in policing and private agencies." The #WolfsonHistoryPrize judges on why they have shortlisted 'The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective' by Sara Lodge (@victoriandetective.bsky.social) for the 2025 Wolfson History Prize.

Nowhere in the hysterical pile-on against the BBC in the British press has anyone mentioned that BBC News now has 77 million viewers & listeners in the US and has established itself as the second most trusted news source there.

I’m truly honoured to be on this list and looking forward to meeting the other authors on 2nd December. Yale UP has a 50% off sale this November, so the pbk of my book’s a snip at just under £6. A good stocking filler, & I’m v happy to sign & send! @bavs-uk.bsky.social @vpfa.bsky.social

School pupils are to be taught how to tackle conspiracy theories, spot 'fake news' & root out misinformation. The Daily Mail, ajudged by Wikipedia to be an unreliable new source, is furious. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out why.

Fantastic show of Emily Kam Kngwarray’s work at Tate Modern. A way of dreaming landscape in its full ecological richness and variety onto fabric and canvas. The patterns we are part of; the colourful, intricate matrices of life.

For anyone who wants to have a listen to my RTE History Show chat last night about the 250,000 Irish Americans who served in the U.S. military during the Civil War, you can now listen to that section of the show here: www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Our extraordinary winter offer is live - get 50% off thousands of books with free UK postage! Only available from yalebooks.co.uk in November Includes all books except those priced £100+, preorders & books published after 31/10/25 Not available N/S America & Australia/NZ #booksale #universitypress

This #Halloween, Madeleine Vionnet is offering all of the witchy stitches with her 1927 Araignée gown, a pale and ethereal design dripping with a beaded cobweb #madparisfr #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡

Enormous pumpkin spotted today. £150. Big enough to take Cinderella to the ball. But with a green and crocodilian sheen perhaps better suited to becoming a vehicle for the evil stepmother.

At Glasgow’s Necropolis today, ahead of a warm & lively StoryCafe event at the Women’s Library. If you’ve never visited, I can highly recommend both places. Lots of great views & well-chosen words. More biscuits at the library, though. @womenslibrary.bsky.social

Sheffield looking exceptionally lovely today. I was speaking at the Off the Shelf Festival of Words. Incredibly well organised and well attended. I can heartily recommend this Octoberfest to writers and readers alike.

If you can't see how this will end, then you're not paying attention (not least to what's going on on the other side of the Atlantic).

“No one man can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.” -Edward R. Murrow

Launch day for the paperback of my book, The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective! Humbug notes that it makes excellent bedtime reading. Do you have a book club or local literary/historical society? I could drop by & give a talk or answer questions. Will be doing a giveaway too.

You can have a situation with rising renewable absolute output and percentages of total (and falling emissions intensity!), but also stagnant or even rising greenhouse gas emissions: when *demand* itself is rising fast. This is very clearly the case in Aus, and it should trigger alarm bells

Who needs forests when we could turn everything into cornfields? 🤷🏻‍♂️

In celebration of @victoriandetective.bsky.social’s book, The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective being shortlisted for the @wolfsonhistory.bsky.social 2025, we’re revisiting some of our prize-winning and shortlisted books — with an extract from each. yalebooks.co.uk/celebrating-...

found the last remaining pure place on the Internet and it seems to be a livestream of a waterhole in Namibia www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydYD...

I’m incredibly honoured to be in this company of writers. It’s a wonderful confidence boost & I’m looking forward to meeting all of them.

I have a secret: a lovely secret. My book has been shortlisted for a major prize. I can’t say which. Soon, all will be revealed! It’s an odd time to have good news, with the world burning, but I wanted you to share my delight. Thx to all my friends & those who helped get the book/word out. ❤️

A 7% decline in English birds in just 5 years is astonishing The web of life is unravelling fast

Explained exactly this yesterday. In the same studio

There is no obvious limit to how far Trump is prepared to go. He wants everything. He wants everyone to swear undying loyalty to him. He is prepared to do anything to get it. “Anything” might currently seem unimaginable to us. It's time we started imagining it. 4/4

👻

V grateful to @thevicsoc.bsky.social for sponsoring my conversation with Jojo Silva about Victorian Female Detectives at Chiswick Book Festival this Saturday 13th September. Please do come along at 12.30 pm and stay for a drink & a chat. W4 was crawling with 19th-c sleuths...🕵️

Sara Lodge @victoriandetective.bsky.social analyzes how Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett's detective stories, published as a series in local papers, interrogate capitalism from a feminist and socialist viewpoint. Read more in VPR 57.4: muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl... @rs4vp.org

Do come along to Chiswick Book Festival! All proceeds to charity, so you can bookishly do good & get lit simultaneously. Lots of fabulous writers will be there including Petroc Trelawny, William Dalrymple, & Kathy Lette. And me! I will be there talking about Victorian female detectives.

A very kind recommendation.

Fabulous & dark & twisty things at the Royal Academy exhibition of Victor Hugo’s artistic experiments. A huge atomic mushroom atop an apocalyptic landscape. Roiling seas. Inky castles caught in moonlight. Octopi. Writing & drawing are like speech & song: twins always tugging at each others’ hair.

Leaving Ireland with very happy memories of my visit to Connemara and especially Inishbofin with @clairerockfinch.bsky.social I can’t believe the sunshine & sparkling water we’ve enjoyed while making a radio programme about Rosa Mulholland. I even swam in a loch this morning!

Gorgeous views in Connemara where I’m doing research and making a radio documentary about neglected Irish Victorian writer Rosa Mulholland. She was a major figure at the beginning of the Irish revival, a feminist, Catholic, scourge of bad landlordism & spinner of supernatural tales.

Had a lovely time this evening chatting about lady detectives with @victoriandetective.bsky.social in Dublin. A welcome break from essay grading.

Fortune published my piece on the @e3g.bsky.social report showing 97% of execs support a transition to renewables. This maps onto the fact that we underestimate how much appetite there is for climate action globally, with 89% of people favouring stronger climate action. @coveringclimatenow.org

My book’s been shortlisted for a prize! I’m honoured & delighted to be in this distinguished company & to get to go to lovely Bristol & meet crime writers & readers for a weekend of virtual murder & mayhem. Many thanks to all concerned.

A gobsmacking story. Water companies let toxic waste disposers, for cash, dump their loads into sewage farms. The sewage sludge is then spread, untested, on farmland, potentially poisoning vast areas, entire ecosystems and the people (you and me) eating the food. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

CFP: Undercover Agents: Women, Crime, and Detection in the Global Nineteenth Century (Abstract Deadline: 4/30/25) bit.ly/42cD2Mh

Delighted to be one of the keynote soeakers here along with Sara and Lucy, whose work i admite so much. navsa.org/2025/03/18/c...

"The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detectives" by @victoriandetective.bsky.social contrasts the adventurous fictional female detectives of #VictorianLiterature with their real historical counterparts in GB & USA opac.sub.uni-goettin...#VictorianLiterature #WomensDay #InternationalWomensDay #VictorianStudies

It must be Spring. Met an urban fox on the school run today. This one has a des res den on the banks of the District Line.

Great to be back in Edinburgh & take a daunder up Arthur’s Seat before giving a talk about Victorian female detectives at the Royal Scots Club.