A lovely early shout-out for ALSTON MOOR, coming September 2026. 📚🥰📚 Thank you! (I’m also eager for the new Ben Tufnell) @solarisbooks.bsky.social

My festive season in Narnia (Bavaria). 💚 ⛄️ 🥶

My best reads of 2025. That is, a broad selection from a good reading year 📚📚📚 annecharnock.com/end-of-year-...

“[It] shows just how important the weather can be; this is particularly for young birds that are less well insulated and less experienced at finding food in difficult conditions.”

Tis the season, so, some great books I read in 2025: ejswift.co.uk/2025/12/28/y...

A few of my favourite wildlife and landscape photos in 2025, shot on the Isle of Bute. 💚 More in the comments 🙂

A hoar frost for the festive season 💚🥶💚

Early ferry! Lovely start to the day.

Oooh this tide calendar is interesting. I need to think it through but at a glance I think it relies on knowing the local "age of the tide". That is, it would work only at a specific location. Did they have them for different ports? Or get told a local correction to apply?

Enjoying that Oxford Press allows you to search their Global Middle Ages books through an interactive map. More of this, please! blog.oup.com/2024/06/the-...

Beautiful book post; coming soon from @goldsf.bsky.social! @darusha.ca

For Monday: a wren! 💚 Isle of Bute.

‘Taking the guesswork out of farming’. Exciting stuff. Fingers crossed, @georgemonbiot.bsky.social 💚 Measuring peat depth too!

Happy to see eco-fiction When There Are Wolves Again on this intiguing list. More for the book pile! 📚💚📚 @catamaroon.bsky.social @adamroberts.bsky.social

Oh, my favourite wading bird: a bar-tailed godwit 💚 Isle of Bute

For Monday: a little egret lifting off from Ettrick Bay. Isle of Bute 💚

A curlew! Snacking on the shore of Scalpsie Bay.

Great moments in the life of my first novel in English, The Golden Key (Titan, 2020), author's edition: 💙The Golden Key getting a cute advert on the London Tube 😮. 💙The librarians from the Modern Languages Faculty Library at Cambridge gifting me a cake on publication.

“The younger generation is the most ecologically informed ever." They are also “the most emotionally involved in [nature loss], have contributed the least to [its] causing, and are going to suffer most as a result.” The power of rewilding to transform our own lives, as well as nature.

Reach for the stars... New @backlisted.bsky.social, LAST AND FIRST MEN by Olaf Stapledon, with @mdeabaitua.bsky.social!

Guest Lesley Glaister admires Jane Rogers' climate-themed short story collection, FIRE READY: "Marvellously eclectic ... fuelled by anger about climate change but shot through with light & hope." reviewsbywriters.blogspot.com/2025/11/gues... #clifi #shortstories @commapress.bsky.social #greatreads

For Monday: An oddly robotic looking robin redbreast.

Many thanks to Gus Gresham for this fab review of Maybe the Birds 💛 everybodysreviewing.blogspot.com/2025/11/revi... @goldsf.bsky.social @goldsmithspress.bsky.social

We are very sad to learn of the death of our friend Rachel Cooke. In addition to being a wonderful writer and a superb critic, she loved books to her core. She kept us on our toes and it was a joy and a privilege to spend time with her, on and off the show. RIP. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

The best hour of my week! @backlisted.bsky.social @unamccormack.bsky.social @iammilliam.bsky.social

“The most we tend to hear from István himself is a bland, noncommittal “OK”. It’s a risky strategy, but this narrative flatness hugely pays off: it entices the reader into the yawning gaps”

For Monday: two harbour seals at Scalpsie Bay, Isle of Bute. 💚

Congratulations to Nina Allan! What an achievement! www.livreshebdo.fr/article/le-p...

Back on the Isle of Bute! Sunset stroll on Scalpsie Bay. 🙂

Still blown away by the fact that Heartwood won a World Fantasy Award last night. Such a fantastic weekend at the World Fantasy Convention, topped off in spectacular style. Wonderful to meet @joe-hill.bsky.social and @ericlarocca.bsky.social too. Now, back to work!

“a beautiful, moving story. Neither cosy nor dystopian, hopeful but not punk; it offers a future with as many setbacks and tragedies as there are joys and steps forward.” Well said, @niallharrison.bsky.social @catamaroon.bsky.social

For Monday: Isle of Arran from the Isle of Bute.

Brilliant night at The Arts Centre Edge Hill for the launch of AJ Ashworth’s Maybe The Birds - fantastic reading from Andrea!

For Monday: a carrion crow inflight on a grey day. Isle of Bute 💚

🌊20 days to go🌊 How about two very wise and brilliant authors persuade you to pre-order THE SALT ORACLE?? geni.us/saltorac @solarisbooks.bsky.social

“The sky is the chief organ of sentiment in painting.” John Constable From Gwaun y Llwyni in the Aran’s.

Oh hi. strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

If you'd like to read the speeches that were made yesterday about Ada Lovelace Day and women in STEM, you can find them here: hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2025... I'll share the right Parliament TV link as soon as the debate is up!

Left to right: a bar-tailed godwit, a curlew facing the camera, and a little egret. We’re seeing more egrets this year on the Isle of Bute 💚

Happy pub day to this wonder anthology which includes my story "Lord of the Fruit Flies" about the biologist Hermann Muller, big thanks to editor @nicholasroyle.bsky.social and publisher @saltpublishing.com

For Monday: fungi in my garden.

"It's all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses." - Charles de Lint

This is the novel everyone will be talking about. It’s wonderful. And a beautiful blogpost from @catamaroon.bsky.social to mark its release today. 📚💚📚

Paul March-Russell on EJ Swift: "in electing to write against the white noise of voices prophesying doom, Swift’s turn to the utopian is courageous ... [it's] a viable demonstration of how we can meet the greatest challenges that face us as a community." A review, and a novel, which demands notice.

I think about this LSE post a lot at the moment. blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

Heaps of praise for Nina Allan and A Granite Silence from critic Stuart Kelly. @wigtownbooktown.bsky.social A packed event. Fantastic conversation! 📚📚📚

Visiting Wigtown Book Festival for few days. And a great start with @dominicmhinde.bsky.social interviewed by Stuart Kelly about his new memoir/environmental history/travelogue Drifting North - Finding a sustainable future for Scotland’s past. Can’t wait to read. 📚

Enter the world of Dreams Before the Start of Time! 👀 Amazing development.

🧪 Open to Science Poetry Submissions 🖋️ The Consilience journal is now open for submissions of science-themed poetry and artwork! Issue 23 explores the topic of ‘Tension’. Submit your work for free here: www.consilience-journal.com/submit #SciComm #SciArt #Poetry

For Monday: seven cormorants. They love the old pier at Port Bannatyne. 💚 Isle of Bute