also a load of wine just arrived In a parallel universe I would definitely be tempted to

Ok that’s it, am gonna stuff face with Christmas cake, it is currently only viable way forward

v enjoyed listening to Mick Herron's @bodleian.ox.ac.uk talk on John le Carre a few quotes scribbled in my scruffy notebook: JLC, asked where one should start a story: 'Begin as near the end as possible' 'We fight the wars we inherit' - not sure if that was JLC himself, or someone else...

the weird crux magic of Chapter 17 strikes again! Somehow it always seems to be the one where the really bad thing happens

on the bus in Christmas jumper (actually my son’s, outgrown two seasons ago) and the bus driver has a Christmas jumper too and maybe my Scroogelike heart is beginning to feel the teensiest bit tinselly

(have always slightly envied Jocasta’s Christmas in the bedsit in Pick of Posy)

hey-ho, hey-ho, it’s off to Winter Funland I go. Time to dig out my moderately tasteful Xmas jumper. Or maybe borrow the one that, if you look closely enough, features a dinosaur chomping on a reindeer. Bah humbug, one and all. Love Mrs Scrooge 🦖🧑‍🎄🙄😒🤷‍♀️

btw human authors can sign up to find out more about the UK human authored mark (due to launch 2026) @societyofauthors.bsky.social here: humanauthored.co.uk bot authors can go embrace an eternity of writer’s block (… but can’t, as ‘they’ aren’t ‘authors’ at all but scam content pushed by chancers)

also I made the mistake of reading one of those articles on limerence and now my feeds are as full of dewy-eyed heartbreak as a round table full of courtly-loving knights mixed in with content on safeguarding and The Summer I Turned Pretty, which is as headache-inducing a blend as an AI image

it is not a good harbinger for the day when the kettle is broken for morning coffee

(in 2025, I have quite often found myself thinking about that very good Raymond Carver short story about the birthday cake)

for the first end-of-November in many years, not putting the Playmobil advent calendar out tonight

Creeping back on here for the first time in ooh a long while with a #Jillystack which I am about to lend out to someone, and which will hopefully bring some pre-festive-season joy… (or maybe it is now the actual festive season already…)

I was taught to always avoid the Oxford comma by Mrs Nelson, my year 4 primary school teacher and a formidable dominatrix. But seriously, I love the Oxford Comma. So I made a starter pack of other serial comma aficionados. And I'll keep adding to it as I find more members of Team Oxford Comma . . .

Having filled one starter pack for book lovers with animals, I've started another of book publishers. If you are a publisher or have a favourite publisher that you think should be included, please let me know. Re posts would be awesome! 💙 go.bsky.app/HHdzkXR

Looking to connect with the bookish community? 📚 I’ve put together a starter pack of authors, bloggers, bookstores, librarians, reviewers, & all-around great people! It’s not exhaustive—so many amazing folks on BlueSky. Drop your recs for who else should be included! #BookSky 💙📚 go.bsky.app/KQrxmsW

*Useful Starter Pack Alert*

got a Louis MacNeice situation out there I see, what have you got to lose by admitting that the last line of that poem underlies yr entire persistent episteme

today I have been sitting next to a radiator and a window in the sun, which is going down now, and I am soaking in the very last of its lemon-yellow glow and it feels like such luxury.

ordering new slippers, I can't help but be faintly conscious of the probability that my children will tease me for them. Hum ho middle age

started reading Small Things Like These and oh boy, it's good (as good as everyone says)

a lull in the storm in #Oxford earlier today... in the morning, groups on walking tours huddled under the frontage of the Weston Library for shelter from the rain. Not that many takers out and about for the sequin jackets and shiny red ouchy-looking high heels left over from Christmas...

planning to make bubble and squeak for the first time ever. I think everybody else will probably refuse to eat it. Vaguely reminded of Douglas Adams' 3 stages of civilisation... what shall we eat, how shall we eat, where should we have lunch. Now: what to do, or not do, with old brussels sprouts?

4.19 start this am. 🥴 (my son is excited... he's not usually such an early riser...)

Muddy walk therapy! My son has been poorly but is better now, so off we went for a walk beside the swollen Thames. (Me looking slightly more knackered than usual.)

‘the lapsing, unsoilable, whispering sea’… which is the last line of an Oliver St John Gogarty poem in The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse, an anthology that my aunt gave me for my 16th birthday (cover tattered now.) Anyway, it came back to me on the beach in Kent with my son at the weekend.

We are so close to 1000 followers on here, please repost to help us get over the line by nightfall. 'Literary podcast that gives old life to new books WLTM anyone who hangs around in secondhand bookshops hoping to score.'

have sampled many and various mince pies, and now it's time to celebrate the small manky citrus fruits of Yuletide

thanks to the magic of digital publishing and algorithms and readers and reviewers, A Child's Goodbye is on a bit of a roll and back in the top 100 in Amazon UK's Kindle mystery, thriller and suspense literary fiction chart geni.us/B0BQ7P48B1so... thank you to everyone who's supported it :-)

The Children in Read @childreninread.bsky.social signed book auction in aid of BBC Children in Need is now open! My latest, A Child's Goodbye, is lot 62: www.jumblebee.co.uk/auction/deta... (UK only)

just to show I'm not a total Scrooge, here's my son enjoying the lights on the Christmas tree back in the day.

totally down with the spirit of the new M&S Christmas ad. Christmas is about having the nicest time possible consistent with cutting as many corners as possible. (Also, as I discovered last year, about Die Hard.) And is best approached with low expectations.

Very happy about this wonderful news - #Oxford-based inclusive charity the Parasol Project, which runs a holiday club for disabled and disadvantaged young people that my teenage son goes to, has been awarded £215k Lottery funding over next three years. Here's their website www.parasolproject.org

was just remembering how when Mary Wesley published her run of bestsellers later in life (after years of financial ups and downs) she decided to indulge her fondness for cashmere jumpers. Have a feeling Jean Rhys might have done the same thing after Wide Sargasso Sea came out...

I have news. I’ve now a member of the Society of Authors management committee. Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete their ballot forms and voted for me and extra thanks to Dorothy Koomson & Patricia Marques for nominating me and congratulations to my fellow successful candidates 🎉

I was just really late to pick up T (my son), which is so much one of my nightmares that I wrote a book about it (except in A Child's Goodbye the late mum runs straight into an accident and doesn't get to go home for tea. Anyway, here's me on pub day vaguely matching my cardi to my cover.) #writing

Just published on our blog: Bluesky for Journalists FAQ This page also includes a link to a waitlist form for journalists, so members of the press no longer have to email our press inbox for a code. We appreciate everyone's help sharing this information!

long, very civilised, very patient queueing at the Covid vaccination centre. Something heartening about this. And about elderly couples coming in to get their jabs together. And gentle bantering and chitchat between strangers in line. And the valiant volunteers helping to keep it all moving.

v relieved to have been able to take my son for his Covid booster today. He's 16 and on the #learningdisability register. I looked up on the national booking system yday & there was one centre in #Oxfordshire (in Faringdon) where I cd take him. I hope there'll be wider access soon for this age group

just tried to book a #covid booster for my 16yo son who is eligible and is on the #learningdisability register and there is no availability in our county (#oxfordshire) at all - the closest pharmacy where he could get a walk-in appointment is 20 miles away (his GP surgery won't do it) #disability

we've been reaching out to & been in contact with a bunch of newsrooms (including local news) but if you have personal contacts at news orgs, please have them email [email protected]!

Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books.

this time of year always makes me think of the weird but deeply familiar strangeness of starting school aged 7 back in the UK after couple of years abroad, the little desks and uniforms, and having to quickly teach myself the alphabet on the QT cos I'd never done it even tho I cd read quite well...

just heard startling new (to me) phrase: 'crotch-hungry'. Which means pretty much what you would think it would mean. (Attributed to one of my female forebears, who passed away in 1980. There must have been some spicy gossip going on there back in the day.)

I think one of the definitive 2020s experiences must be listening to on-hold music (sigh). And queueing, generally. I note that now you get little broadcasts about the virtuousness of the organisation you're trying to get through to, as well as the musak Still, shouldn't moan, it's a beautiful day

aaand now about to ring, for umpteenth time, an energy provider whose automatic billing system seems incapable of dealing with the fact that a dead person's flat may have zero energy consumption

mum guilt today cos I was distracted and didn't prompt my boy to get dressed in time for him to comfortably work through all his little rituals before going to school, and instead it was a stressy last-minute rush and got his day off to a bad start and that's unfair on him & my fault :-(

my son (who is autistic and has a learning disability) did yoga as dinosaurs at his special school yesterday (they have also done Harry Potter character yoga and Pokémon yoga, he tells me. Which sounds pretty good I think)