I love @akennedysmith.bsky.social's cultural recommendations, which appear in her 'Cambridge Ladies' Dining Society' Substack, so it was a wonderful surprise to see my debut novel A Tiny Speck of Black and then Nothing, featured in her 'August Letter from Cambridge': tinyurl.com/274767pj

August letter from Cambridge

Summer reading (new books and old), suffragettes and sisters

tinyurl.com

Incredible commitment to the bit! This is the standard of engagement with pop culture I expect from all of you

EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 4d ago

I cannot rest from discourse. I will see that film again tomorrow. I will drink life to the lees. Again I will enjoy greatly, will suffer greatly, both with those that love me, and in Pleasantville NY. I am become a meme. Film showing: burnsfilmcenter.org/booking/the-...

I’m really delighted to report that The British Women’s Suffrage Campaign in 100 Objects has caught the eye of @blackwellbooks.bsky.social & is prominently featured in their latest Newsletter, with a few of the inside pages, such as Object 45, displayed. blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

How banal are the plots we impose on others’ lives. —Phyllis Rose, Parallel Lives

Annual August repost, to mark the official start of tomato sandwich season

Erik Inglis@allthebeset.bsky.social · 2y ago

(In honor of August, bringing this 🧵 over from twitter) August makes me think of the best summer restaurant I ever ate at. It didn’t have a name, just a tidy hand-painted sign: “Tomato Sandwiches—all you can eat.” #tomatosandwiches

This summer has been a challenging time for gardeners! ☀️🌱 We have a hosepipe ban in the East of England, so our Conservation team have diligently been watering the Dye Garden by hand. It may look rather dry, but we have successfully harvested hollyhock flowers and woad seeds.🌿👩‍🌾

A beautiful Volucella inanis on Hemp agrimony, Garret Hostel Lane, Cambridge. #WildWebsWednesday #Hoverflies #Diptera

Incremental updates from a writing life. peachfieldpress.uk/2026/07/29/g...

Girded

Finally the Times Literary Supplement sent me the pdf proof of the Commentary article by me they are finally going to publish, in the 7th August issue (only 2 months later than first promised). Mos…

peachfieldpress.uk

In the interests of fairness, Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos is going to adapt the UK's best poem "The Tay Bridge Disaster" as a blockbuster movie.

'These posters are a record of how women fought to change public life in the early twentieth century': the extraordinary collection of suffrage posters held in @theul.bsky.social's Special Collections.

Cambridge University Library@theul.bsky.social · last wk.

The women’s suffrage movement certainly understood the power of the print. We have a remarkable collection of their posters in our collections. 🎬 Watch the video here & read the full story: loom.ly/kKvTELg We’ll be sharing more content from this collection later this week!

Great to see first @thebookerprizes.com nominations for Gwendoline Riley and Luke Kennard!

The Booker Prizes@thebookerprizes.com · last wk.

‘We are confident that our longlist of books has something for everyone’ We are delighted to reveal the Booker Prize 2026 longlist. Huge congratulations to the authors who make up this year's Booker Dozen. ➡️ Discover the full list: thebookerprizes.com/bp2026

Booker Prize 2026: Irish debutant features on longlist alongside Marlon James, Douglas Stuart and more. Djamel White’s gangland novel All Them Dogs is up against former winners Marlon James and Douglas Stuart as well as Elizabeth Strout and nine others www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Booker Prize 2026: Irish debutant features on longlist alongside Marlon James, Douglas Stuart and more

Djamel White’s gangland novel All Them Dogs is up against former winners Marlon James and Douglas Stuart as well as Elizabeth Strout and nine others

irishtimes.com

Thank you for sharing it @akennedysmith.bsky.social. I was so happy to be featured on this wonderful Substack.

Ann Kennedy Smith@akennedysmith.bsky.social · last wk.

A lovely, funny piece by Jonathan Ruppin introducing @emilymidorikawa.bsky.social's new novel A TINY SPECK OF BLACK AND THEN NOTHING @bonnierbooksuk.bsky.social. I can't wait to read it, preferably with a Japanese cocktail or two.

CELIA FREMLIN ALERT! (fao @jacquiwine.bsky.social and @andrewmale.bsky.social among others) Next Tuesday, August 2nd, at 14:00 Sky Arts are showing The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, S1 E23, 'The Lonely Hours', an adaptation of 'The Hours Before Dawn'. Starring Gena Rowlands!

The Oddiesey (2026)

release the snark cut

EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · last wk.

11. Was I too mean? Or not mean enough? I went through my first draft and tried to take out the snark. To quote the great poet: "Though much is taken, much remains... That which we are, we are."

I wrote about the Nolan Odyssey for the LRB. I'll summarize some of my main points below, in case you don't feel like reading all that. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Emily Wilson · An Uncomplicated Man

As they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Christopher Nolan has read at least the first line of my...

lrb.co.uk

A lovely, funny piece by Jonathan Ruppin introducing @emilymidorikawa.bsky.social's new novel A TINY SPECK OF BLACK AND THEN NOTHING @bonnierbooksuk.bsky.social. I can't wait to read it, preferably with a Japanese cocktail or two.

When life gives you lychees

The improbable link between novel writing, Japanese cocktails and a beluga whale

littlegoatbarn.substack.com

Instead of sitting around getting anxious about cancer, I got it off my chest in my latest Substack post. Give it a read if you’re interested in a woman who can’t quite enjoy the moment. substack.com/@janehill64/...

A whole lot of can't even

How fatigue and anxiety can screw with your mind even after a clear scan

substack.com

"The footsteps of the walking skeletons click through the great canyons of history, and down the hallways of his mind" as.ft.com/r/511ec826-8...

Giacometti’s fragile figures mingle with the gods at the Met

Installed among the Temple of Dendur’s ancient Egyptian ruins, the sculptor’s gaunt bronzes acquire an archaic stillness

as.ft.com

ICYMI @projectinfant.ie - there's a 5 page article on the dig at Tuam in the British Archaeology magazine (July/Aug edition).

200 years ago today, Mary Anning felt like giving up selling fossils. Sending a list to a dealer on 27 July 1826, she wrote, 'I belive they will be the last I shall ever offer for sale, as I cannot discover enough to get a maintenance therefor it is my intention to look out for some other pursuit.

New exhibition at the ARB 🖌️ 'Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity' 27 July-18 Sept Alison Richard Building, CB3 9DP PV 27 July 5-7pm, all welcome!🍷 Five artists whose work is connected by acts of attention that reframe the world and renew vision for viewers https://bit.ly/4fBioMw

Peek-a-boo! An illuminated miniature marking the beginning of 'Numbers', from our 13th century Bible made in Italy or France #ManuscriptMonday

Our Composer of the Week is C19th Londoner Alice Mary Smith - a series only made possible by new recordings by BBC performing groups. Donald Macleod charts the life & career of the first women in Britain to have a symphony publicly performed. 4pm @BBCRadio3 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Delighted that my chapter on pioneering Cambridge academic Ellen Wordsworth Darwin (1856–1903) is included in this new book, From Darwin to Cornford: The Evolution of the Poet Frances Cornford (Brill, July 2026).

Some personal book news

My chapter about Ellen Wordsworth Darwin published this July

substack.com

Wait does everyone here know the life-changing secret re: finding books? You photograph your bookshelves/book piles and then you can text-search in the photos.

That they may face the Rising Sun, John McGahern (2002), but set in the 70s. The Berlin Wall Café, Paul Durcan (1985), junior cert poetry it was not.

Irish Literary Times@irishlittimes.bsky.social · 3w ago

Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These.