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I couldn’t wait any longer. I’ve been dying to get stuck into this lovely book by the wonderful @regretteruane.bsky.social for a while now, so I moved it 47 places up my physical TBR pile and I’m going in. 📚💙 #books

We did it. Enjoy. (No idea how the % % gets there, so please don't judge.)https://thin-skin.com/

Lombok, Indonesia - full of the nicest, most apparently content people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting - a joy 😊

Current read 📚💙

Wow ⚽️. My nerves are shredded. #lionesses

My latest read. Priestley’s utterly brilliant travelogue of his 1931 trip around England. Fascinating, wise and remarkably prescient - social history at its finest. 📚💙#books

Noah (17) has had his pencils out again. 1.5 hrs. No art at school, never had a lesson, and prepping to study Maths and Physics at uni next year! This looks pretty decent to me. Thoughts? #art

Well after 30 years on my TBR pile I finally read Middlemarch. Is it the best English novel. IMHO no. But I did really enjoy it. Why is it not at the top of my all-time list? 1. It’s 200 pages too long. 2. Ladislaw is not the man for Dorothea. 3. There is no humour in it at all. Thoughts? 💙📚 #books

The Police were the 80’s Coldplay #liveaid

Lovely run this morning. Just me and the marmottes. 🏃‍♂️🦫 (yes, that’s a beaver, but there’s no marmotte emoji) #run

Considered by some to be the greatest English novel, Middlemarch has been on my TBR pile for, oh about 32 years give or take. I’m finally going in. Have you read it? Where do is it sit in your all-time list? 📚💙#books

The final Auster 😢. I’ve been putting it off because his novels have been a part of my life since I read NYT as a student 30 odd years ago, and I didn’t want that to end. It’s a long way from his finest work, but it is unmistakably him - and for this reader, this time, that was enough. RIP 📚💙 #books

@nickmacwrites.bsky.social @writersguildgb.bsky.social The ability to write a novel sourced from the day-to-day of ordinary life and produce a story with such shine is no mean feat - yet this is precisely what McLoughlin has done with his debut novel. Slings and Arrows is an excellent read.

It’s that time of year 😊. #peonies #nature #garden

Current read: Pym’s rejected seventh novel. Written in 1962 and sent initially to Cape the following year, it was finally published posthumously some 20 years later. 💙📚 #books #Pym

I adored ‘The Fortnight in September’ so much that I put off reading this for fear that it would diminish my admiration for the author. It didn’t. This novel is such a wonderful read: a perfect antidote to the noise and nonsense of today’s world. 📚💙 #books

I’m very much looking forward to this, the next book on my reading list @nickmacwrites.bsky.social - Slings and Arrows, here I come!

We did it! It's out! thin-skin.com

Finished this final book of Rachel Cusk’s quite brilliant ‘Outline’ trilogy a few days ago. Wonderful, intelligent writing that makes you question what you thought you knew about what a novel is, or can be. Dazzling. 📚💙

Breakfast, or lunch?

Retreat: writing ✍️ , running 🏃‍♂️, reading 📖. #vanlife #run #books 📚💙

Morning.

Mont Pourri.

Nice little secondhand bookshop haul for less than a fiver. I read the Ford first, in two days: spare, tragic, elegiac. Set over 3 late-Autumn days in the early 1960’s it brilliantly catches the fragility of a settled life. I really enjoyed it. 📚💙

I drive past this tree almost every day, and always look forward to this time of year. 😊 #nature

Please share :)

My novel Slings and Arrows was published 1 year ago today. Many thanks to all those who have read, reviewed, commented or in any other way supported it. 📚💙 #books #writer

A very Happy Birthday 🎂🎈 to the wonderfully creative, quirkily funny, and straight up lovely @flamingomcflurry.bsky.social 😘

Nice flat course along the front for the Hastings parkrun this morning. But freezing 🥶 🏃‍♂️ #parkrun

Claire Keegan is so good that I ration her books and short stories so as not to run out too quickly. I read this yesterday, it’s a gem. 📚💙

Nearing the end of my current read. An unusual and intriguing novel turning over for examination the characters and events of a fateful day on an ordinary street somewhere in the north of England. Anyone else read it? Thoughts? 💙📚

Needed an afternoon in the garden away from the horrors of the purulent satsuma.

From left to right: Statesman, Rapist, Thug.

Submissions for Issue 3 close on March 31st. Get writing! thin-skin.com/submit/

My novel Slings and Arrows sits between a Booker winner (McEwan) and a Booker nominee (Mistry) on this shelf. Whose books does/will/would yours sit between? 📚💙

Early morning flight, families going on holiday for half-term, waiting patiently in the aisle for a woman anxious to stow her luggage securely in the overhead locker, and observed her husband quietly but very firmly grab her wrist and pull her into her seat abusing her under his breath. Vermin.

Detoured to Oswestry today to stand for a moment where Wilfred Owen, and Barbara Pym once stood. ‘And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.’

‘I heard a voice saying in a way which suggested that its production involved much agitation of a prominent Adam’s apple ..’ Rebecca West, The Return of the Soldier.

Grey and damp in Wales this morning for my run, but these two didn’t seem to mind. #run 🏃‍♂️

My wife and I were looking forward to a weekend away at ‘one of the world’s finest hotels.’ But I have to say it definitely looked much nicer than this on the website. Disappointed 😔.

Submissions for Issue 3 of Thin Skin are open. Just do it.

This next. 📚💙 #books #cats

Morning. One of my favourite trees.

Nothing like butter and marmalade on a slice of Nordic Bastard for breakfast. 😋

Morning run 🏃‍♂️.

This is a genuine and generous offer. I contacted Phil, and he listened and offered expert and easily understandable advice that was targeted at my specific issues - for free! Wonderful 😊.

I'm a 🐱 Epic Curious Cat Artist! Position of arrival: #2,287,653 📎 skyzoo.blue/stats/nickma... What about 🫵 ? 🐾 !?

And here's the link to prove it! thin-skin.com

Loved this collection of short stories by Tessa Hadley. This by Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social next, who I had the pleasure of meeting at a talk he gave @scarthinbooks.bsky.social last year. 📚💙 #books