I hope someone draws this wonderful story about Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the power of the arts to help us see things differently, to the attention of our Education Secretary. Do read it, it will lift your spirits.

-small town romance -second chance (love after loss) -enemies (ish) to lovers -looking after a teenager when there's no phone signal! -family loyalty is complicated Belonging - a ##romance ##novella ##britishromance www.books2read.com/u/bzPAZq

It shows that the criticial Goodreads review had gone largely unnoticed, that many couldn't stomach the book privately, but didn't feel able to speak up (how right they were), until Clanchy poured petrol on the review, set it alight for everyone to see, and then blamed everyone else for the fire.

Reminder this all started off when someone quoted her book on Goodreads and she threatened to sue them. For quoting words that she wrote. In her book. That she wrote.

Tried to write a thread on this as Kate Clanchy is back in the news but it won't post. This is a good article on the whole shameful affair, by @michaeljarvie.bsky.social

www.culturematters.org.uk/kate-clanchy... my review.

As the latest rehabilitation tour revs up its engines, here’s something more honest to read. www.theguardian.com/books/2021/a...

57, 100 words now god help me

Sharing again in case anyone is able to help support #LGBTQ+ refugees in the Kakuma camp in Kenya, who are facing extreme hardship & threats to their safety. Donations can help with security, basic needs, education & healthcare: www.gofundme.com/f/the-lgbtq-...

Sharing again in case anyone is able to help support #LGBTQ+ refugees in the Kakuma camp in Kenya, who are facing extreme hardship & threats to their safety. Donations can help with security, basic needs, education & healthcare: www.gofundme.com/f/the-lgbtq-...

It looks like I put the book next to the cat but in fact the cat put herself next to the book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ For the whole Her Majesty's Royal Coven trilogy by @junodawson.bsky.social, I've not quite finished this final book (Human Rites) but I love this whole coven of witches ✨

Watched the waning gibbous moon rise up on Glastonbury Tor earlier this week ( actual moon not shown due to crapness of photo)

I wrote to M&S about the stupid lingerie department story - confirms nobody offered a bra fitting to a teenage girl. The Telegraph and JK can (always) do one.

Dazzling by @chikodili.bsky.social That's it that's the best book

Another incredible resource is lifeline4gaza.com, which currently includes 400+ funding appeals from people in Gaza and displays the amount donated over the last 5 days. Open the link and you will see the appeals ordered from least to most donations so the most neglected campaigns are at the top.

““As outsiders, we built everything from scratch. There’s still too little support for truly independent, diverse-led publishing – and the playing field isn’t level.” We’re so sad to hear that Tiny Owl Publishing is closing after 10 years. www.thebookseller.com/news/inclusi...

In the latest free post on ‘All Old Strange Things’ I enter the fairy toot… open.substack.com/pub/drfranci...

It's Monday again and today I'm reading Britain's Folklore Year by Norman Mark What book(s) are you reading this week? 💙📚 #BookSky #AmReading #MondayReads #TBR alt text in images please

I have written 45,000 words of my new book and if I write another 45,000 I'll have 90,000 and that's a book

Soad in Gaza has had her bluesky account closed again. She's really scared she's going to lose her son Omar. He's getting weaker and thinner and keeps falling over. Can you help with some ££ for vitamins and food? It would mean a lot. www.gofundme.com/f/providing-... #FreePalestine

Remembering Sir William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, Queen Elizabeth I's Lord High Treasurer and most influential minister, who died #onthisday August 4, 1598 at Cecil House in Westminster, London, at the age of 77. #Elizabethan #Tudors

Can you donate to this project supporting LGBTQ refugees? Their current aim is to set up a poultry project in the camp: 👇

This is the end result of anti-trans bigotry: more harassment of girls and women, more policing of gender roles, more gender McCarthyism.

Its the last week of excavations by @wtm.uk @nattrustarch.bsky.social and Worthing Arch Soc on Highdown Hill above Worthing They've found lots of exciting prehistoric, Roman and sub Roman material Great to see the later life of this early hillfort being explored 📷 yesterday #HillfortsWednesday

Famine is the most dangerous for little kids like Remas & Toleen. Two months ago they restarted school after two years without. They should be learning, not wondering if they’ll eat today, tomorrow, the next day… Give/find their link here. 2065/2500 by Friday: chuffed.org/project/hope...

An epic visit to @wtm.uk's Big Dig up on Highdown Hill - archaeologists are excavating sites including Anglo-Saxon graves and a Bronze Age Barrow. Tours of the site are taking place until August 1st, well worth a visit if you love a hill fort! (I LOVE a hill fort): wtm.uk/news/the-hig...

The EHRC – the body which is meant to protect our human rights – is proposing guidance which would turn the Equality Act into a bathroom ban. If this becomes law, it would force trans people out of public life. And terrifyingly - this is all happening behind closed doors 🧵

As Bookbanks new Ambassador I’d like to spread the word about this brilliant charity giving books with food at food banks. Please share and support if you’re able :) www.bookbanks.co.uk

Babies are starving to death in Gaza because Israel is blocking food & aid, including baby formula. It is horrific to see children starve, knowing that their deaths are preventable. Some organisations are still doing what they can: follow links to donate: chuffed.org/project/1133...

Today is International Non-Binary People's Day and the first day of Non-Binary Awareness Week The day was first celebrated in 2012, started by Katje van Loon. The date was chosen for being precisely midway between International Women's Day and International Men's Day.

Friends, I need TWO MORE REGISTRANTS to run Sat July 19 4pm EST Writing Trauma W/O Traumatising Yourself! Pay as you feel! Very chilled! Please sign up here! us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

How do we build a diverse curriculum that addresses harmful material in historical literature? Join us, @darrenchetty.bsky.social & @ksandsoconnor.bsky.social for FREE CPD & FREE copy of ‘Beyond the Secret Garden’ Thursday 10 July, Cardiff literacytrust.org.uk/events/creat...

🇵🇸Beyond the Secret Garden: Palestinian People in Children’s Books. A bookshelf at @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social via @ksandsoconnor.bsky.social & @darrenchetty.bsky.social column in @booksforkeeps.bsky.social uk.bookshop.org/lists/beyond...

Anyone who knows the first thing about literary translation knows that direct translations are often impossible, and that creative, nuanced, sympathetic solutions must be found due to unfamiliar idioms, imagery, rhyming schemes, etc while balancing author motifs and style. AI simply can't do that.

The Salt Path has never appealed to me. Redemptive memoirs are really not my thing. But if Penguin had pitched it as an audacious heist getaway story...

A Book of Secrets: Born in what is now Ghana, Susan Charlewood is enslaved by the Portuguese but rescued by British sailors, who bring her to England where she is raised and educated in a Catholic household. www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Secrets... @katecmorrison.bsky.social #Elizabethan #HistoricalFiction

When it comes to memoir, what is ‘truth’? What do editors and lawyers do (or not)? And how is the process different for fiction? If today’s Salt Path story makes you want to know more….you might enjoy this series I made: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

And this one by @henrygjeffreys.bsky.social, which has new details – or new details to me, at any rate – about the Unbound scandal. All very depressing tbh. thecritic.co.uk/issues/july-...

Blimey: observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

If you were unaware of the horrific atrocities carried out in Tigray, there's a reason for that. See @tekgw.bsky.social's Open Access piece: "Tigray war: Modern geographies of mass violence and the invisibilization of populations" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

omg, it's too hot for marketing copy buy books ebooks direct instant reads support indie publishing books books booooksssss www.wildhuntbooks.co.uk/books/ebook

I had a cover reveal #UnderFire

Children in Gaza dying of thirst after trucks carrying water blocked - UNICEF

@joecozens.bsky.social, one of our seminar convenors, has just had an article published by @histparl.bsky.social discussing his research into John Lewis, a Black sailor who was arrested during the 1828 Weymouth by-election. historyofparliament.com/2025/06/24/j...

Remembering this great tweet on the Summer Solstice