On April 19th I'm in Winchester, in conversation with the brilliant Claire Fuller, about my book 'Small Bomb at Dimperley'. I'm hoping to get some really left-field and tricky questions - the stuff that comes up at book club meetings! Do come!! winchesterbooksfestival.com/events/small...

On April 19th I'm in Winchester, in conversation with the brilliant Claire Fuller, about my book 'Small Bomb at Dimperley'. I'm hoping to get some really left-field and tricky questions - the stuff that comes up at book club meetings! Do come!! winchesterbooksfestival.com/events/small...

A letter from a group of psychiatrists in Today's Times, asking why there was never any follow up of the 9000 children given puberty blockers at the Tavistock clinic.

The Gender clinics failed to follow up on their patients. The first thing to do before subjecting a new cohort of children to blocked puberty is find the 2,000 or so adults in the UK who were prescribed puberty blockers by GIDS and see how they're doing.

'...the study wasn’t really looking at the impact of puberty blockers per se at all. It compared children who received them immediately with others who received them a year later..'

A very kind person pointed out to me that @BBCRadio4Extra is repeating an episode of a quiz called 'The Law Game', from January 1988. It was the first programme I ever produced. New producers at BBC radio light ent were....1/5 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Written English has barely changed in 300 years. If you can read Harry Potter, you can read Robinson Crusoe (1719).

Puberty blockers trial paused. Here's hoping this is the beginning of a period of people waking up, saying "what were we THINKING", and never doing it again. www.thetimes.com/article/f538...

From 2019, after the Emily Maitlis interview (I share a page with something called ‘Kids Quiz' in the guardian, which is why we used the phrase ’sex trafficker’ here, and not ‘paedophile’. You can't really throw that word around on the Kids Quiz page)

Forty years since Ted Hughes wrote his single most excruciating Laureate poem, for the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson

I can't believe you can get arrested on your birthday for being, if anything, too honourable. Bloody woke, eh?

Fiction by #OctaviaEButler #Gogol & Lissa Evans - all on A Good Read, Mon 3pm @BBCRadio4 Maria Balshaw, Director of Tate art museums & galleries & Léa Ypi, professor of politics & philosophy at LSE swap books they love with @harriettsg.bsky.social Producer @elizalomas www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

This is a potential hostage to fortune, given that I don't yet know what the guests thought of it, but I'm hugely thrilled to say that in tomorrow's episode of 'A Good Read' (BBC Radio4 at 3pm), Harriett Gilbert 's book choice is my novel, 'Small Bomb at Dimperley'.

I loved this Guardian 'Other Lives' obituary, with the most delightful and unexpected pay-off. Very sad to think that, with the evisceration of music teaching in state schools, Betty, a working-class girl, would never now have got the chance to live this sort of life...

The love duet from 'The Coronation of Poppea', exquisitely sung and acted by Hana Blazikova and Kangmin Justin Kim. I am, have always been, a stringent anti-soppist & romance-avoider, but this leaves me in a daze of joy... ❤️❤️❤️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbQU...

27 years ago today, artist John Myatt was sentenced to a year in prison for conspiracy to defraud, after painting around 200 fake works, including Chagalls and Matisses over a period of eight years, which convinced buyers despite usually being rendered in household emulsion mixed with KY Jelly 🧵

The Good Law Project's challenge to the EHRC's interim trans guidance has been dismissed in the High Court today. The High Court has confirmed that in the workplace, single-sex facilities cannot be open to anyone at all of the opposite sex.

Lots of serious ethical objections to the continuation of Wes Streeting's puberty blocker trial. This experiment on vulnerable children is an atrocity. #PathwaysTrial #PubertyBlockers #SexNotGender www.bmj.com/content/392/...

I'm currently writing about ENSA - the wartime entertainment 'service'. The quality was deeply variable. 'Three cheers for the audience' as one spectator shouted, after sitting through a performance by a stunningly bad provincial concert party.

Tomorrow we release the final episode of Backlisted for the foreseeable future.* After ten years, it's a very odd feeling. I am looking forward to spending more time with my books and fewer times on social media. * Boats against the current, we beat on via Patreon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmQK...

I am massively enjoying the Take That documentary series on Netflix. Really well made, really honest, really touching.

Currently editing my first YouTube video. Taking out all the umms... but it seems a shame to waste them, so here they are. (with a sneak glimpse at some of the books I'll be talking about)

I've written a book about a 14 year old boy - and though I hope 14 year olds will enjoy it, it's really for everybody. I wanted to write something purely funny, and I think I might love it more than anything I've ever written before. It's out in August. Cover by Jim Kay.

I've written a book about a 14 year old boy - and though I hope 14 year olds will enjoy it, it's really for everybody. I wanted to write something purely funny, and I think I might love it more than anything I've ever written before. It's out in August. Cover by Jim Kay.

Nostalgia rarely extends to British food, with good reason…

Hampstead Heath, looking like an illustration by Jan Pienkowski…

This is a wonderful piece, with comments to die for!

I dislike this sort of didacticism. Anyway, a list of great short novels that doesn’t include JL Carr’s ‘A Month in the Country’ (only 20,000 words long!) lacks any authority.

Excellent as usual by @glosswitch.bsky.social 'We should not want a world that sees female discomfort as natural, simply the way women accommodate male desires. The role of an HR manager should not be to decide how much women exist to take.' thecritic.co.uk/does-womens-...

Just finished this beautiful, quiet, devastating novel (Booker long-listed) about family and adoption, set in Trinidad and London. It was recommended to me by my sister @marykenvyn.bsky.social, and I wasn't sure what to expect, but I walked through 40 years with the narrator, and it's unforgettable.

A moment of near invisibility. This woodcock was filmed on a camera trap in Cornwall. There are points where the crown and eye line almost disappear into the leaf litter. The camouflage is extraordinary and isn’t just a nice adaptation – it’s essential for not being noticed.

Victory for the Darlington nurses in their tribunal case. From the judgement:

Picked this novel up in a charity shop. It's absolutely brilliant; utterly convincing and unputdownable - a master-class in characterisation, historical yet immediate, superb in every way. Why on earth is it out of print???

Good Lord, I thought that this series, currently on the BBC iplayer, was absolutely faultless - script, cast, direction, music, the lot. It's occasionally almost too paintful to watch, but that's not a criticism, it's a tribute to its veracity. Just brilliant. #Waitingfortheout

Hugely enjoyable and funny by @lissakevans.bsky.social - fantastic characters and I particularly loved the children

A decade ago, my photographer niece, Alys tomlinson, took an award-winning picture of a Belarusian nun. They stayed in touch and over several years, Alys co-directed a barely-funded, yet rich and extraordinary documentary about Vera -and today it’s been BAFTA longlisted!.

A decade ago, my photographer niece, Alys tomlinson, took an award-winning picture of a Belarusian nun. They stayed in touch and over several years, Alys co-directed a barely-funded, yet rich and extraordinary documentary about Vera -and today it’s been BAFTA longlisted!.

Found in a 'secret' compartment of an antique box. Date on back March 1916. When you think what was happening in March 1916... Someone choose to cut this out, keep it flat & safe. I love #antiques & their untold stories! @markavery.bsky.social @lissakevans.bsky.social @brigitstrawbridge.bsky.social

I’ve never come across this immensely stylish WW2 information poster before. It looks almost like a frame from ‘The Third Man’.

‘As much heart & plot as any good novel’ Really thrilled to be chosen as Book of the Year by @lissakevans.bsky.social for @writersreview.bsky.social! #booksky @chelseagreenbooks.bsky.social

I've been watching 'Cave of Bones', a documentary about the supposed discovery of the remains of a small brained yet fire-using human relative called the dinaledi, and they keep talking about dinaledi's bones and a dinaledi's chamber and dinaledi's burial and all I keep imagining is ....

Well, I imagine the children of Southampton were in therapy for a good few years after attending this particular panto…

I read this hugely funny and insightful book a few years back - a true account of how a journalist who knows nothing about sport gets on as a sports reporter - but have now discovered that it’s even better as an audiobook (read by the author). Lynne Truss is a genius.

The Evil Squirrel

Dating tips. From the Wikipedia biography of actor Doreen Hawkins: 'When she was eighteen she was engaged to fellow actor Peter Cushing, but she decided not to marry him. She said that she broke off the engagement because he would bring his parents on dates and he was too easily moved to tears.'

There's always someone who makes the rest of us feel totally inadequate: (from Jenny Uglow's 'A Year with Gilbert White).

I've been shown a lovely substack review of 'Small Bomb at Dimperley' which contains the phrase 'I admired Evans's ability to make competence a sexy character trait' and this has made me extremely happy.

Tomorrow is the last day of the #LiteraryAdventCalendar2025 and I'm taking suggestions for the final extract.

Just because I have issues with a book, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy a Christmas scene there.... The Matchmaker by Stella Gibbons - a book that stopped me reading the author for years clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2025/12/a-ma...

One of our sunset highlights of the year was this hour standing in the same spot on the beach at Boggle Hole, watching the sky change colour.