When I interviewed Steve Van Zandt a few years ago, he memorably said the only way to defeat Trump and his henchmen would be for “the tough good guys” to make a stand. I put it to you that Springsteen is doing that right now. 🫡

The Dud Avocado is the most gloriously quotable book I have ever read. Here’s one, out of so many other possibilities. ‘To find someone to giggle with I place just below finding someone to flirt with and just above the ability to knit’. Truly words to live by. #BookSky

Remembering Michael Longley, who sadly passed away a year ago today.

Listening to The Secret Life of Books’ Oscar Wilde episodes and am reminded that when I studied The Importance of Being Earnest as an undergrad in Ireland 25 years ago, not once was homosexuality mentioned by our lecturer. Remarkable how far we have come in relatively short span of time. #BookSky

New ep: Our top 10 books of 2025! www.stuckinabook.com/146-our-top-...

If only there was a recent book that had some really untold stories about Seven Dials in the 1920s and 1930s to tell. Oh, hang on... manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526181954/

Rosamond Lehmann’s The Weather in the Streets’: ‘London in the scorched irritable airless end of day was an extension of the mind’s loathing and oppression. Petrol fumes were nausea; the traffic a fatuous, reluctant, laborious progress towards a pointless destination’. #BookSky

In Ireland, too, the laws that criminalised homosexuality were a legacy of the British Empire. #GCNnews

You know when people have a couple of kids together and then another kid many years later. They should call the last one Kinder Surprise.

An illustrated line from the Prayer Of St. Brendan The Navigator, who is said to have travelled from County Kerry in Ireland to America a thousand years before Columbus made his journey. Trust in the darkness. 🌌 Prints available here: www.ciaraioch.com/artprints/p/...

Art can change the world. This is powerful.

This put a lump in my throat. Love your libraries.

Hello our International Readers👋🏼 Do you have people in Ireland you'd like to send a book (or three) to but are hesitating because of the price of postage and/or a concern about the parcel getting caught in Customs? We can help! >> 1/3 (🎨Anna Shuttleworth whose cards we stock)

Michael D Higgins leaving office this evening to make way for his successor, Michael E Higgins

Just paid the aul' income tax for the year and consequently have about two beans left to rub together, so if you've been looking for a bit of Irish art now's a very good time to buy. It's this or train the crows to rob billionaires and I'm running out of cheese bribes

Finished The Towers of Trebizond, thanks to @stuckinabook.bsky.social recent Rose McCaulay rankings and I just loved it! A wonderfully clever parodic take on colonial travel writing. So many quotable laugh-out-loud passages. Can’t wait to read more of her work! #📚💙 #BookSky

thebookshop.ie/james-joyce-... Copies in stock now, ahead of release date next week! A VERY handsome edition of Joyce's The Dead, from @newislandbooks.bsky.social , and introduced by @nualaoconnor.bsky.social . Get one!

‘There’s no Ringo in the Brontës and that is why the Beatles are better than the Brontës’. This glorious episode of @backlisted.bsky.social is all a Beatles-Brontës fangirl could want in a niche books podcast (said no one ever before now)

Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.

Great episode from @mookse.bsky.social and @bibliopaul.bsky.social on reading slumps and how to get out of them. Lovely to hear all the love for @iammilliam.bsky.social too - I recommend The Year of Reading Dangerously whenever I can!

Brilliant to see this. I get so weary from the massive waste and cost to the environment that is caused by purchase of cheap Halloween costumes that are only worn once. Would be great to see this take off in other areas, kudos to @marthafanning.bsky.social

“The bogs, rivers, mountains, and shorelines are more than preservers of old myths, bones, and memories. They are energy banks and time sponges, and what is held within them seeks release.” As were you Manchán. As were you. Tá mo croí briste. Go dté tú slán, a chara.

Manchán’s sustainable lifestyle was more than idealism it was committed practice. His legacy asks: What sustainable act will you plant today? In his memory, I’ll plant these native flowers this weekend. I invite you to share one small biodiversity action you’ll take? #speirgorm

Was so looking forward to #HouseOfGuinness and I absolutely hated it. Interesting that the critical reviews widely vary and I’m wondering about the experience of watching this as an Irish vs non-Irish person. It felt stagey, clichèd and depicting Fenians as leprechauns was unforgivable.

Can’t recommend this training highly enough to anyone in Ireland working in the area of singing and health, especially those working with people with Parkinson’s disease. It’s been transformative for my Parkinsongs choir. @singtobeat.bsky.social

Words to live by here from Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women on spaghetti’s threat to romance. #SpinsterSeptember

Arte has a series of 12 min shorts on conflicts. The one about Rosa Luxemburg vs. Friedrich Ebert is really worth it, to remind you on how centrist betrayal allowed fascism to rise. www.arte.tv/en/videos/10...

At least when they tried to nab Kneecap the supposed offence was “committed” in the UK. But Irish Sally Rooney can do whatever the fuck she wants with her Irish Euros in the independent Republic of Ireland, so what is he on about?

Building my collection of 1930s compliments - this again from Dorothy L Sayers: ‘She thinks I’m the world’s eighth wonder. Absolutely the lobster’s dress-shirt’. (Side note: Murder Must Advertise focuses a bit on Bright Young Things shenanigans and I am in heaven) #BookSky 💙📚

Are Private Eye jokes now... criminal? PALESTINE Solidarity campaigner Jon Farley was arrested during a silent march in Leeds last weekend. What egregious act had prompted the police to act? He was, er, carrying a Private Eye joke piece as a placard! (1/2)

Alan Cumming on bathroom bills: "Why on earth would a rapist go through the bother of pretending to be trans in a country that treats rapists better than trans people."

Such a great episode from @mookse.bsky.social and @bibliopaul.bsky.social on favourite last lines in novels. I was reminded of books I have loved and as always picked up some great new suggestions. Everything you want from a books podcast! #BookSky 📚💙

Do your thing to support independent bookshops #BookSky

We’re gonna do a big run. 13 of us including @mothermarx.bsky.social will run the length of the Gaza Strip -40km- in relay from Ardagh to Listowel. We’re raising funds for Palestinian kids and young people visiting Ireland this July. If you’ve got it to spare… whydonate.com/fundraising/...

Unless you’re a Palestinian queer in which case I’ll enthusiastically help genocide you while saying “Yaaas Queen”

Bring back 1930s-era compliments I say: no-one has (yet!) called me ‘the snail’s ankles’ (From Dorothy Sayers, Have His Carcase) 📚💙 #BookSky

Super @backlisted.bsky.social episode especially given the week that was. Hats off team, more of this please! Ted Hughes audio made my day.

This story is so close to my heart. This wonderful Palestinian music teacher bringing music therapy to displaced kids in Gaza. #FreePalestine

Good lord I am excited about this!

It illustrates the pungent hypocrisy of the international community that rightfully isolates Russia from sporting & cultural events but allows Israel to continue to participate. It is a stain that will never be eradicated. A stain from the blood of starved & bombed Palestinian children.

Jorge Luis Borges and Colm Tóibín in 1982.

I just finished Anna Karenina and I can’t believe it. All thanks to @iammilliam.bsky.social from @backlisted.bsky.social and his book The Year of Reading Dangerously for inspiration. Anyone in a reading slump- I highly recommend listening to Andy’s book. I read 50 pages of Tolstoy a day and loved it

Writer #HeleneHanff was born #OTD In the 1950s she worked as an outside reader for a film company, speed-reading books to see if they were adaptable. Here's one example...

Our amazing Parkinsongs choir had a visit from musicians John and Arthur from the University of Cape Coast and we had such a vibrant joyful session. Music is medicine for the brain 🎶 Fitting to have this on #WorldParkinsonsDay @parkinsonsire.bsky.social @singtobeat.bsky.social

A benefit of doing life solo as a woman is learning how to do "Man Stuff" for yourself. Recently changed a damaged tyre, checked the pressure of and pumped the rest, gave the outside and inside of the car a deep clean, and waged war on a small neighbouring country to gain control of their resources

Very sad to see the poet and general sharp observer of life Pat Ingoldsby has died. So, as he prepared for this event, here's to Pat. 🥃

Estragon: Nothing to be done. Vladimir: I’m beginning to come round to that opinion.

What an honour it was to have our Parkinsongs choir perform at the Irish World Academy last night @unioflimerick.bsky.social So very proud of our group and huge thanks to the university for helping us promote awareness of the importance of music and creativity for people living with Parkinson’s.

These stories amount to "the left was so annoying about pronouns or liberals made people feel so guilty about plastic straws they had no choice but to get on board with the second coming of the Third Reich and the destruction of the planet."