Wes Streeting would be the final nail in Labour's coffin. More neoliberalism, more privatisation, more austerity, more grovelling to economic power, when we desperately want change.

THE DAVID COATES STAMP OF APPROVAL!! The Owl Bookshop's Gary last week, now David?! cock-a-hoop for Jean.

I LOVE INDEXERS!! A brilliant index is a thing of beauty. I don't really get to commission them anymore but I think the one for the Francis Bacon biog at William Collins was one of my faves. Exquisite, thoughtful, comprehensive.

cannot wait to gab* with Fatima Bhutto and Sarah Dennis *be intensely professional and illuminating

What in the absolute fuck is this.

I'm losing all sense of up & down. 'From the five-time Booker-shortlisted author' - why does that somehow look right? Surely it should be 'five-TIMES Booker-shortlisted author'?? But when I make it plural, I then feel the urge to make it 'the five times' Booker-shortlisted' (surely deranged). Help?

a well-rounded and nutritious diet

alternating every other thought with a thought about The Secret Agent

Thrilled to announce we have a new editor heading our way, to replace the wonderful Dredhëza: Ben Oldfield, currently at the Wylie Agency, will be joining us at the end of this month. We're so excited to see how he helps shape the list: www.thebookseller.com/news/daunt-b...

Over the (nearly full) moon to announce a new Amina Cain is on the way. This exquisite, enigmatic novel will slip under your skin and into your dreams. Forever grateful to Amina (and Devon at FSG) for trusting us with her brilliance.

Booker International contender of the future nb

This is genuinely insane, I clicked to see the years expecting the low part to be 70s or maybe 90s but its 2015!!!!! The entire anti trans panic is a decade old

Requesting from libraries helps tell them what readers want, too, so helps them spend their budget more accurately. And, my librarians tell me, requests helps them advocate for a higher budget. Because 'look at all these books we didn't have that people wanted!'

the pushing-women thing is SO ODD. I've had it happen to me twice (& I'm white, middle-aged & not pretty, so am usually fairly invisible): both times it was so startling & aggressive. It's a mild form of what's in this piece but it's worrying to extrapolate from: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Dave vs Bacon

whoops, missed the title but maybe that was a cunning tactic to get you to click into AND READ this most fabulous of reviews?! Couldn't ask for a better one, tbh:

How can the other parties not beat this? I mean, seriously? These people should be shouted down in roars of laughter the minute they say this. Just toxic. www.bigissue.com/news/politic...

oh nooo Fatima is talking about a really heartbreaking moment in THE HOUR OF THE WOLF, a small, lovely moment of kindness from a stranger providing such a contrast to the man's persistent cruelty: www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

wowza, this month's Debut Nights line-up at Bàrd Books is SO GOOD!! Our own beloved Madeleine Dunnigan, author of JEAN, joins Rebecca Perry (MAY WE FEED THE KING - adore, adore), Madeline Cash (LOST LAMBS - apparently HUGE fun) and Tobi Coventry (HE'S THE DEVIL - killer title, killer cover): Feb 18!

Longing to listen to this - I adore Fatima, she's so smart, so warm, and pairs vulnerability and strength so beautifully in her writing:

LOVE emerging from my burrow to find this Bainbridge Appreciation afoot!!

Deeply worrying. I saw only the other day that I'd missed protests against Homerton hospital entering a deal with them. Palantir supply technology to the IDF & ICE: we must resist their coming anywhere near our data & our lives. Grim, yet wholly unsurprising, that our gov is so tangled up with them:

Dream job with @thebookerprizes.com !! #ukkidlit #kidlituk #edusky #charityjobs #booksky

Three cheers for Philip Glass, whose Solo Piano record has been my boon companion for decades whenever I'm painting. (I notice that Glass didn't use the current administration's name for the center in his letter.)

Looking forward to our May event with you @marigoldatkey.bsky.social @dauntbookspub.bsky.social, Sarah Dennis @borzoibookshop.bsky.social and #author Fatima Bhutto #booksky #IndependentAlliance Festival general booking opens 1 Feb www.campdenmayfestivals.co.uk/literature/e...

'Charged with intimate undercurrents of both resentment and affection' - @keeblearin.bsky.social for the @financialtimes.com on Elisa Shua Dusapin's THE OLD FIRE (tr. Aneesa Abbas Higgins and out now, hooray!!) (I can v much recommend Helen of Nowhere too)

Lovely, thoughtful review of Fatima Bhutto's THE HOUR OF THE WOLF: 'Tender and insightful'. Out in the US tomorrow (!), out in the UK next month. 'The uplifting finale begs the question of what valuable lessons we could all learn from respecting, rather than ransacking, the natural world.'

Love that @seventydys.bsky.social extracts the serious core of Ashton Politanoff's 'Dad Had a Bad Day':

An honour to be in the company of the likes of Fitzcarraldo, Faber and Canongate, and to be working alongside so many kindred spirits:

To all that object to us pointing out the fact that Israel is a goddamned apartheid state... now do you see it?

our wonderful debut novelist Madeleine Dunnigan ('JEAN' is out NEXT MONTH!!) has written a piece in praise of the boarding-school novel - find it here chez @lithub.com.web.brid.gy lithub.com/containment-...

I actually DO donate to Wikipedia now and again and I love that it's the work of this invisible unpaid army of geeks and enthusiasts and experts. This is so disappointing:

there's a local character who, whenever I tell him my name, cries, without fail, 'THE DARLING BUDS OF MAY'. Well, anyone, in the darling days of May (sun! greenery!) I'll be @chipcampdenlitfest.bsky.social talking to Sarah Dennis @borzoibookshop.bsky.social, with beloved Fatima Bhutto zooming in:

one applicant thinks they could bring a lot to Faber Children's. Good for them!!

SCREAMING at the number of applicants to our editor job only sending in their cv. READ THE POST. Ye godddds.

those of these I've read, I love, so I must clearly soon read those I haven't:

Sarah Moss in the @theguardian.com's The Books of My Life: 'All books change my mind, that’s what they are for. Recently @hystericalblkns.bsky.social’s Ordinary Notes altered the way I understand much of the world around me.' www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

❤️🌎🏖️ I am LONGING for others to read and fall in love with this beautiful, special novel so this recommendation has made my rainy pm:

Aspiring editors! Fancy joining our team? jobs.thebookseller.com/career/28558...

From the archive for Pamela Frankau, #BornOnThisDay in 1908, my thoughts on A WREATH FOR THE ENEMY. Pretend we’re in the midst of a lush, sun-drenched summer with this gorgeous coming-of-age story and its unexpected turns. #PamelaFrankau #BOTD #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2023/06/27/a...

I missed this gorgeous review by @westcamel.bsky.social back in Dec of Elisa Shua Dusapin's THE OLD FIRE (tr. Aneesa Abbas Higgins) for European Literary Network: 'A major piece of work that deserves repeated rereading to unpack each of its mythic items.' www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingrevi...

Lovely to see Madeleine Dunnigan's JEAN incl in @the-independent.com's round-up of books to look out for in 2026 (thank you, Daisy Lester!: www.independent.co.uk/extras/indyb...

It’s very fun that it’s the year of the horse. Imagine that. The creature of the year is an imaginary animal that does not exist 😌

'Tender, melancholic and evocative.' Lovely review of Elisa Shua Dusapin's new novel, THE OLD FIRE (tr. by Aneesa Abbas Higgins). Thank you, SBK and @asianreviewofbooks.bsky.social ! THE OLD FIRE is out later this month and you can pre-order here dauntbookspublishing.co.uk/book/the-old...

I've heard that Daniyal Mueenuddin's This Is Where the Serpent Lives is *extraordinary* & Kenan Orhan has been on my Must Read list for a while, but so many exciting-sounding debuts here - hooray for genius translator & Good Egg Polly Barton in partic www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

JEAN is out in Feb. Set in a boarding school for troubled boys in the 1970s, it's a love story, a coming-of-age tale, and an exploration of what might spark someone to try to escape all that they know:

🤮

Thanks to those who donated, they’re 1/5th to the goal of a new tent. They need 330 € more.

Ah! A Christmas blessing!! A submission! On the 18th of December! just what any editor wants at this time of year.