Thanks everyone who came to Derby Book Festival on Thurs 28, especially to @alentop.bsky.social for chairing. Great audience questions. It was a pleasure to chat afterwards while signing copies of 'The Return of Russia' @yalebooks.bsky.social and proudly wearing my @kyivindependent.com t-shirt.

Finished @mikejay.bsky.social's PSYCHONAUTS. Been a fan since reading his essays in Fortean Times and Anomalist (great piece on Coleridge!). Approachable, with deep insights. Text runs from Freud to Yeats, H.G. Wells, to Crowley, Blavatsky to Baudelaire. Bold, rich, nuanced.. and fun! 🔥 #BookSky

Paperback £6 this month from Yale, same deal on Psychonauts and Free Radicals yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

Fab day last week with @patersonjoseph.bsky.social recording 'The King of the Beggars: The Music of Billy Waters' 🎼🎻 🎧BBC Radio 3 Sunday June 28th 2026 7.15pm Later on BBC Sounds #billywatersisdancing #blackhistoryisbritishhistory #disabilityhistroy #theatreland #folkies @yalebooks.bsky.social

Just stumbled on this extraordinary tragicomic image. Dancing on the grave of a giant redwood, 4 July 1853. 'Upon this stump ... thirty-two persons were engaged in dancing four sets of cotillions at one time', J. M. Hutchings, Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California, 1862.

New link for my London book launch for WE HAVE COME TO BE DESTROYED: GROWING UP IN COLD WAR BRITAIN at Waterstones Gower St on Weds 13th May at 6.30pm - because I'm now in conversation with the fantastic @nataliethomlinson.bsky.social www.waterstones.com/events/we-ha... #skystorians #histchild

*25% off even

Spotted not quite in the wild, but at least on the edge of release! Thank you @yalebooks.bsky.social for inviting me to talk about my new book today & for all your brilliant work during the publishing process. #TheLongDeathOfAdolfHitler is out 10 March! yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

At the eve of the Second World War, some 500 Jewish children escaped to France in the Kindertransport. Extracted from Who Will Rescue Us?, Laura Hobson Faure interviews Elfriede Meyer about her journey. #HMD2026 #HolocaustMemorialDay #skystorians yalebooks.co.uk/elfriedes-jo...

The London Mayor's Office recently announced a scheme to reintroduce storks to London. From 1890 storks formed one of the attractions of Kew Gardens:'their quaint appearance and philosophical habits make them rather in keeping with a botanical garden' (Journal of the Kew Guild, 1902).

Feel free to mute me if you get tired of seeing me talking about my book over the next few months but BEFORE YOU DO, I just wanted to point out that the fantastic Francis Spufford has very kindly said that it 'gives us extraordinary, privileged access to the inner worlds of a generation' 🥂🥂🥂

Cover reveal for my forthcoming book, WE HAVE COME TO BE DESTROYED: GROWING UP IN COLD WAR BRITAIN which tells the history of Cold War Britain (c.1956-89) through the eyes of children & young people! Out with @yalebooks.bsky.social 28 April 2026 #booksky #skystorians yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

Charming open-the-flap cover of 1950 guide to Kew. The wintery scene in the Palm House transforms to summer and a view of the Pagoda when the door opens. Truly, a garden for all seasons!

If anyone needs cheering up, here are three jolly dancing gardeners. Edward Bawden's illustration from Robert Herring's wonderful Adam and Evelyn at Kew (1930).

We are incredibly sad to learn of the death of John Carey, whose last three books we were proud to publish at Yale. One of our greatest literary critics, John was a strong advocate for poetry and making it accessible. He was diligent and superb at what he did, but always with a sense of fun.

Thanks for this lovely tribute to the great John Carey, he meant so much to so many of us.

www.thetimes.com/uk/obituarie... A lovely tribute to the brilliant John Carey, whose work I return to again and again and again.

The British History in the Long 18th Century Seminar resumes on 14 January 2026, in person at the Institute of Historical Research and online via Zoom. (Kate Gibson, speaking on Fostering in 18th-century Britain). Access next term's programme here. All welcome: free and open to the public.

⚠️ Stand-off in Sheringham: Local campaigners have spent the past three nights camping out overnight in an extraordinary bid to save a 1950s Streamline Moderne style bus shelter in Norfolk, thwarting council contractors who attempted to demolish the structure at 2am. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

There’s just one week of our @yalebooks.bsky.social half price sale left - must end 30th November!

‘Brilliant… A kind of shadow biography of Shakespeare from the bottom up’ - Wonderful review of Daniel Swift’s superb The Dream Factory www.nytimes.com/2025/11/22/b...

There is still time to get your ticket for Mike Jay's talk tonight 👇

Get 50% off thousands of books with free UK postage! Use code FIFTY at checkout at: yalebooks.co.uk/history Only available from yalebooks.co.uk in Nov Includes all books except those priced £100+, preorders & books published after 31/10/25 Not available N/S America & Aus/NZ #Skystorians #history

Thrilled to see Ruthless reviewed in the FT by Linda Colley, and to be placed among the FT's books of the week too! 😊 www.ft.com/content/67c1...

In the lead up to the #WolfsonHistoryPrize winner announcement next month, we are shining a light on each of the shortlisted books. This week, Sara Lodge's (@victoriandetective.bsky.social) 'The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective' takes the spotlight @yalebooks.bsky.social.

Looking forward to spending an evening with the brilliant Jake Subryan Richards on 11 November at Waterstones on Gower Street to talk about our new books! www.waterstones.com/events/ruthl...

Join @edmond-smith.bsky.social and Jake Richards discussing their books Ruthless: A New History of Britain’s Rise to Wealth and Power, 1660-1800 and The Bonds of Freedom: Liberated Africans and the End of the Slave Trade 6.30pm, 11th Nov, Waterstones Gower Street www.waterstones.com/events/ruthl...

It’s the 111th anniversary today of the birth of Harry Rée, who was a teacher and conscientious objector when the Second World War broke out, and by the time it ended, when he was 31, had invented ‘blackmail sabotage’ and got a DSO, an OBE, a Croix de Guerre, and a Medaille de la Resistance

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-...

Congratulations to Sara Lodge, The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective has been shortlisted for the 2025 #WolfsonHistoryPrize, the UK's most prestigious history writing prize. The shortlist: www.wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk @wolfsonhistory.bsky.social @victoriandetective.bsky.social

‘One of the most superbly beautiful of trees ... worth crossing the globe to see’. For more on thawka-gyi or 'Pride of Burma', see the latest issue of Plant Perspectives. Open access: www.whp-journals.co.uk/PP/article/v...

The V&A East Storehouse is full of stunning surprises like this complete office that Frank Lloyd Wright created for Pittsburgh retail magnate Edgar J Kaufmann in 1935-1937 (THREAD)

Thrilled to share early endorsements for #Ruthless! Huge thanks to @sathnam.bsky.social, Emma Griffin, @antonhowes.bsky.social, William Pettigrew, and Nicholas Radburn for their generous words. yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

Gourock Lido, Inverdale, Scotland, 2004, by Martin Parr, whose latest book - “Utterly Lazy And Inattentive” - is a wonder.

As the 19th century opened, Britain faced an existential crisis. Just a short distance away Napoleon's army gathered on the Channel coast. The terror of that historical moment was very real – Andrew Lambert investigates how British politicians spent the next century ensuring it was never felt again👇

On the blog today! Kicking off #20booksofsummer with two immersive novels about intense but non-sexual relationships. What are you reading this summer? drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2025/06/09/2... #booksky #sff #amreading #fiction

The fact that Shostakovich watched Jesus Christ Superstar (twice!) is something my brain just refuses to compute.

What is the most beautiful flowering tree in the world? Find out in my essay for Plant Perspectives, ed. by the wonderful Caroline Cornish and Christina Hourigan. Also features a brilliant essay on ackee by Heather Craddock, @planthums-uk.bsky.social @treeseeker.bsky.social @hcraddock.bsky.social

Remembering Starling Lawrence (1943 - 2025), legendary editor of David Ignatius, Sebastian Junger, and Michael Lewis. wwnorton.com/remembering-...

My debut for @aeon.co: Life formed incredibly early in Earth's history, so the idea that our world was once an unliveable hellscape is just not true. https://aeon.co/essays/life-on-earth-emerged-fast-far-quicker-than-we-thought

This is a really fine, interesting piece on what it means to be “a writer”, among other things.

On today's new Little Atoms podcast, @mikejay.bsky.social on his latest book Free Radicals. Out now from @yalebooks.bsky.social. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or here: shows.acast.com/b5fe8d16-751...

Delighted to see my forthcoming book - The Long Death of Adolf Hitler - is now available for preorder... yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... 👀

Discussing FREE RADICALS at a launch event in Bath on Thursday 26th www.brlsi.org/whatson/free...

Pleased to have received a preview copy of Andrew Lambert’s latest. A rewarding read so far. No More Napoleons will be published by Yale University Press later this month.

Just writing a paper about this pair, Thomas Dawodu and Ferdinand Leigh, the first Africans to train at Kew Gardens. Come hear their remarkable story at Gardens & Empires conference, British Library, June 27-8, & online: events.bl.uk/events/garde... @sathnam.bsky.social @eicathomefinn.bsky.social ‬

Inspired by British Summer Time... we have a selection of lovely books at 40% off. See page for titles included and sales restrictions. yalebooks.co.uk/summertime20...

If you want 15 minutes of pure joy bouncing big white balloons around an old church, then you’re in luck. www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/the...

Every Reason to Celebrate To commemorate #VEDay80, Marc Milner writes an exclusive post on Britain’s role in the Second World War. Read more: yalebooks.co.uk/every-reason... #WW2 #VEDay #veday80thanniversary #VEDay2025

On this week's Book Club podcast Daniel Swift new book, The Dream Factory: London’s First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare, tells the fascinating story of a theatrical innovation that transformed Elizabethan drama. buff.ly/hB3B2T1