Say what you want about a labour govt but thanks to 2 good increases in minimum wage and my employer being generous about keeping the margins between job roles this is the first year where there will be no day where turnover is higher than my annual salary - and that's really motivating

Please give me the patience to get through the next 3 days of pre Christmas retail. And if you're thinking of shoving your phone in someone's face to ask if they sell something, don't. We have not memorised a stock file that extends to tens of 1000s of lines or have any idea of what sold today

The latest in the Salt Path scandal. TV doc made by the brilliant team @candourtv will be on Now and Sky tomorrow. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

This is really fascinating especially the tiny bit about the establishment’s fascination with the exotic and that exotic changing fashion. So the orientalism of the Brighton Pavillion becomes Balmoral Castle. Plus ça change open.spotify.com/episode/6Y6Q...

Loved by booksellers and readers from day one, THE ARTIST by Lucy Steeds is our #BookOfTheYear 2025 & THE CAFE AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS by Mikey Please is our Children's #BookOfTheYear! 🎉 & Gift of the Year is Tim Siadatan's PADELLA! 🎁 Find them here: www.waterstones.com/category/cul...

The Ghost Story for Christmas Eve this year is M R James's "An Episode of Cathedral History". It'll be livestreamed at 7pm (UK) but available to watch anywhere, anytime after that. Simply register and pay-what-you-can here christmascathedralghosts.eventbrite.co.uk art by Paul Lowe

Murder in a West End boutique? 🛍️👠 Inspector Charlesworth’s on the case. This month’s Crime Classic, Death in High Heels, dives into fashion, ambition, and fatal secrets. Available today: shop.bl.uk/products/death-in-high-heels Ed: @martinedwardsbooks.bsky.social

The next club is announced! Next April, we are reading from 1961 #1961Club

George I need you to do to these companies what you could never do to your books and finish them.

That this exquisite chalk stream should be polluted with e-coli, pesticides, cleaning products, industrial chemicals, medicines + toiletries is a tragedy beyond words that could be prevented by improving sewage systems so wastewater is treated 3 times - enough to remove most chemicals + pathogens

Thanks to @adamjfarrer.bsky.social for this brilliant review of Saltburn @renardpress.com - ‘an English Vonnegut’ 😊

No I don’t, you chucklefucks, I want Norma Jean to be able to rest in peace without a bunch of technoghouls turning her corpse into a marionette.

This terrifying #yokai is actually a blood-drinking vampire tree. #LegendaryWednesday

Endorsed happily. See the film, it is a delight. It *brings* delight.

once again, please hire historians [alt text: an image of Ben & Jerry's "Black and Tan" ice-cream]

Came back from Scotland today after 2 weeks away. Every bridge we passed had union or George cross flags on it as soon as we crossed the border. It wasn't like that going up. Depressing

Will talk more on this in the coming weeks. but I'll be back at the TALES OF THE WEIRD festival this November. Thrilled to have been asked back, and you'll be able to buy my 'lost' Christmas Ghost Stories anthology ILLUSIONS OF PRESENCE and get them signed by me there.

Absolutely loving the Shetland weather, and it smells incredible here - floral and salty

I mean, this bear has SEEN THINGS

ILLUSIONS OF PRESENCE has a cover!! Really happy with how this one has turned out, it's going to be *THE* book to get this Christmas!! Links to order below! Please share this one far and wide! #christmasghoststories #santasshinyshiny

Been buying yarn, its so pretty

just saw someone sincerely arguing that they need AI bc they don't have "natural" artistic talent and idk how to make you understand that nobody comes by this shit naturally. it's just...work. it's being bad at it for a really, really, really long time. it's intention, pursued over time! wtf!!!

Early morning Shetland behind those clouds

Leaving Aberdeen, heading for Shetland. Fine night for it

If you ever wondered what difference booksellers make compared to algorithms this is it.

"One thing that does sell books? Being a Waterstones Book of the Month... find whoever is in charge of this choice & sleep with them" This reflection on the state of publishing & publicity by the great @helenlewis.bsky.social should be required reading for writers. open.substack.com/pub/helenlew...

The thing you should take away from that headline about how a huge proportion of these people already have convictions for violence is that the cops already know who most of them are, because they regularly arrest them in the town centre and they’re regularly called out to their houses.

It's a difficult time to not be that keen on pistachios

I'm in a garage for a couple of hours and it's ceased to be fashionable, so one like = one higher education postcard

If there’s one thing people need to understand about Ai it’s this 👇 It’s not a search engine. It’s (probably) not giving you an extract pulled directly from an existing page. It is INVENTING text based on training data. You can trust it as much as you can trust any piece of fiction.

Having such a middle aged week. Friend diagnosed with breast cancer, uncle died, work performance review, blood tests, mother not feeling very well and needing help, short-staffed at work so no wriggle room for dealing with any of this & lots of unexpected travel to cover in other places.

We Scots, generally, are a welcoming bunch but this is why many are very fed up with #Motorhomes and #CamperVans Dinnae be a minger.

Looking forward to this!

Use the code SUMMER25 during checkout between 28th-31st July for 25% off!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... in the middle of summer holiday season in a busy city centre shop so 2 things come to mind here, 1 - retail and hospitality are harder work & more mentally demanding than you might imagine, 2 - it's not a great environment for 16 year olds.

This bit. This bit right here. No, assholes, you do not have the right to take anything you can find on the internet and use it to feed your plagiarism machines. Another reason to be grateful we're living in the EU.

This is great by Johanna Thomas-Corr on what The Salt Path story tells us about publishing - How the Salt Path fiasco happened — insiders on the crisis in publishing www.thetimes.com/article/850a...

Some thoughts on the #TheSaltPath scandal, especially for those who write books in that general neighbourhood (the nonfiction ones with the faux-woodcut covers, shelved under "nature" even if they probably shouldn't be). 🧵1/

Wonderful story about doing the right thing.

Holy Trinity church in Rothwell Northamptonshire - one of only two ossuaries left in the country as far as I can see. Strange and moving place to visit

A day to obsessively check I'm following publishing scandals on my own account, not the work one before commenting on anything

With this and Captain Tom, it's getting hard to trust people who go on really long walks.

My Unbound expose is now live. thecritic.co.uk/issues/july-...

This is why independent publishers publishing real people really matters. @renardpress.com are fabulous.

It’s Elizabeth’s birthday tomorrow. “‘There was no need for him to be lonely. He knew he could always come here.’ ‘One can’t make much of a career out of having tea with married women.’” (‘The Soul of Kindness’) 📸 Angus McBean (c. 1949)

Loved this book with a passion desperatereader.blogspot.com/2025/06/rais...

I want to briefly talk about one thing people don't really talk about too much with precarity and one thing that most senior staff gloss over, offering a platitude instead of engaging with what is fundamentally wrong with the precarity situation in the UK. 1/

One more day and then a weekend of trying to stay cool and reading. I have a stack of proofs and arcs to look forward too with the latest T Kingfisher at the top of the pile