Guy on the district line just asked the woman next to him to turn down the brightness on her phone because it was getting in his peripheral vision while trying to read a book. My new hero

Mudie's Select Circulating Library lay at the heart of the Victorian publishing system. Karen Wade's site, now at a new URL, makes it possible to explore the library's catalogues as never before, with an index of 22,000 novels by 6000 authors. curatr.ucd.ie/mudies/ #victorian #bookhistory

A Hosting: Interviews with Irish Writers 1991-2026 – A good listener’s illuminating, engaging conversations. Margaret Kelleher, chair of Anglo-Irish literature and drama at UCD, reviews A Hosting, my new book www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

NEW PODCAST! Ian Patterson in conversation with Ali Smith about his latest work BOOKS: A MANIFESTO. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/i...

Calling all Elizabeth Bowen fans! This will be available to view online. #BookSky 💙📚

A gorgeous furry Batman hoverfly in Ely today. 📷 #photography #Diptera #Hoverflies

One of the nice things about the forthcoming edition of The Poems of Sylvia Plath is that the editors note when she underlines the dictionary definition of words that appear in her poems. Seems Tom Cruise does the same thing for his films.

This very night at 7pm (BST)

Thank you (!!!) Anne Enright 💖. ‘This is Also a Love Story’ publishes five weeks from today in the UK/Ireland, & a few weeks later in the US/Canada. It’s available for preorder now. sallyhayden.net/2026/01/26/t...

Book Cover of the Day:

Our #NursesInRed #Wikipedia group are adding nursing to key topics💙 Bedford College London was the 1st HE college for women in the UK. 1921-39 it ran postgrad #nursing courses, inc for international students w/ @rcn.org.uk #HistNursing #WomensHistory #WomenInRed en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford...

Love that this chromolithograph (I assume?) is the colours of the Suffrage Flag! #vexillology (Img: Canadian Museum of History, 2010.232.1)

"Many readers, and surely most Irish readers, will finish this book in a state of white-knuckled rage, mingled with sorrow and at least a pang of guilt. It is a detailed, thoroughgoing and appalling account of the Magdalene laundries ..." #Spéirghorm #SpeirGorm www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Later this month we will have a new article from @martinspychal.bsky.social as part of his series on Peter McLagan, Scotland's first Black MP. Here's a reminder of Martin's first article on McLagan and the process of researching his background: victoriancommons.wordpress.com/2025/06/12/p...

Such a treat to see this rare collection of pre-1910 British women's suffrage posters up close at @theul.bsky.social this week. This is the top half of a gigantic poster using French revolutionary archetypes to accuse the Liberal prime minister H.H. Asquith of hypocrisy. J'accuse, indeed.

Here are the dates for my UK publicity tour for "The Traveller. The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity". Can't wait to tell you all about this man who tried to find what connects us rather than what sets us apart. And he was Humboldt's mentor. Please come!

Thrilled to have @martindoyle.bsky.social in to sign copies of his new book A Hosting: Interviews with Irish Writers 1991-2026 out this Thursday! 🙌 Catch Martin at @kennysbookshop.bsky.social ennysbookshop on Thursday, or in @hodgesfiggis.bsky.social s on Tuesday 21 April-

‘What if we conceive of Gustave Caillebotte as having a gay or queer male gaze, which structured or directed much of his work? We look over the paintings, and remember the images of men watching men, alone or in pairs.’ Tom Crewe on the painter. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Hard to believe that it's the 55th anniversary of the UK publication of Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road. Her memoir Underfoot in Show Business is out now from @manderleypress.bsky.social – this Foyles event with Jean Hanff Korelitz & Emma Gannon looks great. www.foyles.co.uk/events/helen...

A very funny memoir by Helene Hanff - yes, she was so much more than 84, Charing Cross Road! #1961Club www.stuckinabook.com/underfoot-in...

Among the cool people who turned down prizes: Julien Gracq who refused the Goncourt (though I think it's never been a financially lucrative award).

I’m old enough to remember when I could enjoy that author’s books without needing to separate the art from the artist i.e. last week.

To people outside of academia, it must be strange to see otherwise extremely rational academics terrified of becoming furniture, but we are all deep in our hearts terrified of becoming Chair.

Drawing a blank on this. Could Emmeline have v briefly visited Christabel in Paris/Boulogne at end Sept 1915? Who was other suffragette? Pointers very gratefully received. @womanssphere.bsky.social @akennedysmith.bsky.social @wendylrouse.bsky.social @kating03.bsky.social @womenshistnet.bsky.social

We're happy that our film, The ethical science of Kathleen Lonsdale, has been nominated for a Webby Award. The film features Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell FRS as they explore Lonsdale's life and legacy. Vote for our film now. #WomenInSTEM https://bit.ly/4sWuSCJ

A fascinating piece by Stella Butler on two Cambridge scientists who were among the first women to be elected to the Royal Society Fellowship. @royalsociety.org

It won’t solve the problem, but ensuring that book editors have ample time to thoroughly edit every single book on their lists would help. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/b...

New episode of @onebrightbook.bsky.social is up now. We discuss The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor - Rebecca’s pick inspired by a recent listen to an episode of the Windham Campbell Prizes podcast that featured Hanif Abdurraqib sharing love for the book. onebrightbook.com/2026/04/10/e...

"Thornton should be ranked alongside the likes of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, but instead she is little more than a footnote in the histories of Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin as the original voice behind songs they would make famous." www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...

I read an article in the Guardian last week about how we should all have a basic emergency stockpile of food, and it made me go and check the kitchen cupboards and I found lots of out of date things and threw them away, so I now have LESS food stockpiled than before, am I doing this right

Rupert Brooke studying in garden of the Old Vicarage, Grantchester, August 1911. ( Estrid Linder, NPG x198417)

Penguin Michael Joseph has acquired Victoriana: A New History of the Victorians Through the Women They Ignored from social media historian Rosie Harte 👇 #BookSky

Great to see the new combined book prize for a first book in women's history, from @womenshistnet.bsky.social and @whaireland.bsky.social. Entries can be made for research-based books published in 2025, until 31 July 2026. Spread the word! womenshistorynetwork.org/womens-histo...

It's almost the centenary of the General Strike so it's a good excuse to tell the story of an event that keeps popping up in other episodes. Nine days of national drama with an all-star cast. Featuring Bad Churchill, the BBC in crisis, fascists, communists, workers and toffs

OUT NOW: The Queer Scrapbook tells our history through the playful, messy, personal stories we save. Huge thanks to MUP and 'dream team' co-editors Matt Cook, Rebecca Jennings and E-J Scott. Check out the book, recommend it, and please share widely! manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526165312/

In a world of madness, the faces of London’s first fire brigade have been discovered.Their identities have been paired with documents which help to tell their stories. Forgotten humans, salvaged from history’s silence. Photos found of London's first public firefighters www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thanks for this boost from my fab publisher @saltpublishing.com — I hope you listen to this episode of History's Heroes and 😉 preorder my novel, Wash, out in May. Wash and Em were noble folks, and we could all use some of that, right? www.saltpublishing.com/products/was...

Are you studying, researching or teaching a history topic and not sure where to start? Try a search using the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) buff.ly/yD11954 @brepols.net

I made a whole BBC TV series (2020) about the remarkable resilience of the people of Iran and their culture over centuries of threat and callous rule. You can watch it right here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Venetian camel

'The Guardian' view on the Women's Library at 100: a cause of celebration but not complacency www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This year's Moth Short Story Prize is now officially open... And we're delighted to share that the brilliant @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social is joining us as this year's judge. THE PRIZES 1st prize €3,000 2nd prize €1,000 3rd prize a week at The Moth Retreat

@akennedysmith.bsky.social writes about Virginia Woolf, Rupert Brooke, their naked moonlight swim & 'those daring Olivier sisters'. Also included: details about this summer's @litcamb.bsky.social course on 'Virginia Woolf & the Natural World'. tinyurl.com/bdz9d3f7

Proofs! Forthcoming chapter in *The Cambridge History of the Irish Novel* amongst stellar company & excellently steered by Prof Chris Morash. I’ll be doing these with some Easter chocolate to power me through #IrishLiterature #Novels #speirgorm #GulliversTravels

Favorite books about women's history? Any time period, any geographic location. It's for a thing

It's why women's history is not a month, anymore than Black history is. It *is* the history. **Here's a short recent thing I wrote about coverture. With references to some sources of course bc #footnotes. 6// karinwulf.com/tidbits/cove...

Stunning light in #Christchurch Priory today.

Okay, so some friends and I need to choose a Dickens novel to read together. Ideally, we'd like a lesser-known but unfairly neglected one. What would you recommend?

Medieval medicine, very recent scientific findings, and maybe a snippet of a new reading of six-hundred-year-old poem. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/medieval-m...