Anne Charnock
@annecharnock.bsky.social
Writer. Alston Moor 1st September 2026. Dreams Before the Start of Time - Arthur C Clarke Award. A Calculated Life - finalist Philip K Dick Award. Books, birds, climate. Rep’d Sarah Such. https://linktr.ee/annecharnock https://annecharnock.com/
Author copies! Such beauties 🥰. I’m so thrilled ALSTON MOOR is alive! And I’m immensely thankful to everyone involved @goldsf.bsky.social @goldsmithspress.bsky.social @unamccormack.bsky.social Pre-orders are open at all excellent bookshops. 📚🥰📚 Coming 1 September 2026. @sarahsuch.bsky.social
All excellent booksellers are taking pre-orders for my latest, a work of eco-fiction, set in the peatlands of North Pennines today and 500 years ago! ALSTON MOOR coming: 1 Sept 2026 @goldsf.bsky.social @goldsmithspress.bsky.social @unamccormack.bsky.social @sarahsuch.bsky.social
“Martin’s revisionist point is that Vargas Llosa crossed a shorter ideological distance than is often imagined. He never truly belonged to the left.”
Mario Vargas Llosa by Gerald Martin review – the passions and politics of Peru’s Nobel laureate
This stylish biography of the author traces his journey from left to right, and from ‘posh Lima’ to Cricklewood
theguardian.com
‘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
A thoroughly delightful interlude:
Suw@suw.bsky.social · last wk.Back in March, I had a lovely walk around Brompton Cemetery with @levparikian.bsky.social, looking and listening for birds with the help of the Merlin app. I wrote it all up for @katebevan.com and the FoBC Magazine. fieldworkpodcast.substack.com/p/why-brompt... Enjoy and share!
For Monday: two curlews inflight over Ettrick Bay, Isle of Bute. 💚🙂💚
The ever-brilliant Michael Cunningham: “I’m wired differently. I see the train before I see the continent it traverses. For that matter, I see the passengers before I see the train.”
Michael Cunningham on the Question of Scale in Writing
This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. I don’t work on an epic scale, though my ambitions run more to epic proportions than I like to admit. It’s a question of…
lithub.com
I wrote about language, lying & world-building for the NYTBR as expressed in 3 extraordinary & very different books: THERE IS NO ANTIMEMETICS DIVISION by qntm, THE MISHEARD WORLD by Aliya Whiteley, & THE LANGUAGE OF LIARS by SL Huang.
New Science Fiction About Truth and Lies in an Age of War (Gift Article)
Three recent novels explore the use of deception by both invaders and the invaded.
nytimes.com
Best review Publisher's Weekly has ever given me! Really lovely to see. 🌳 www.publishersweekly.com/9781250448613
The Killing of a Chestnut Tree: A Havelock Harper Mystery by Oliver K Langmead
Langmead (City of All Seasons) offers up an enchanting Sherlock Holmes pastiche that follows gay detective Havelock Harper and h...
publishersweekly.com
I am so grateful to Lancaster University for awarding me an honorary doctorate DLitt for my fiction ‘including near-future environmental collapse and ectogenesis.’ Many thanks to Dr Oliver Langmead for his oration, and Prof Rebecca Lingwood. A joy to share the day with all the graduating students!
Cormorant drying out and preening at the old pier, Port Bannatyne 💚🔆🙂
Good morning. And here’s a juvenile eider. In the Kyles of Bute.
“People engaging in nature today are going to think the numbers they are seeing are normal, particularly children. But if you go back 50 years, they would have been able to experience a much richer environment.”
Listen to Britain’s dawn chorus of 1976: the dramatic loss of birdsong in 50 years
Guardian recreates audio landscape of past filled by loud morning symphony before 73m wild birds were lost
theguardian.com
Brilliant! “I literally would bet that if you made a kind of Marshall plan investment in soccer pitches, public libraries, public pools, and made it beautiful, you would see health benefits and lower crime and a lower cost to the state.”
‘Make people dream’: how to build an economy for the common good
Economist Prof Mariana Mazzucato says governments must ‘get back their mojo’ and believe they can change the world
theguardian.com
“I’m here to question your relationship to the environment.” Photographer Shane Hynan. #peatlands #peatbogs #peatlandsmatter
Documenting Ireland’s vanishing boglands: ‘They hold millennia in their layers’
Photographer Shane Hynan explores the tension between the central role peat bogs play in Irish life and their wider environmental impact
theguardian.com
For Monday: a robin redbreast on its usual perch in my garden. 🔆💚😎
Interesting to compare Cade's state-of-climate-fiction reflections at the end of this (great) review-essay with those in this essay in Prospect, also jumping off from the Climate Prize shortlist www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/7375...
The state of cli-fi
Can novels about the climate emergency offer hope for a better tomorrow?
prospectmagazine.co.uk
Dan Hartland@danhartland.bsky.social · 2mo agoFirst review of the week over at SH is a long one, and brilliantly so. Here’s @octavia-cade.bsky.social on this year’s Climate Fiction Prize shortlist. Producing this *after* the winner was announced for me lets the shortlist breathe some more - and affords alternative readings to the judges’.
“Recruiters have begun advising applicants to leave a single deliberate typo in a cover letter, precisely to signal that an interested human wrote it.”
How human error became a weapon against large language models
Alan Turing proposed a test for machine intelligence: could a computer convince a human it was human? We have begun conducting the same test on ourselves, writes Max Moser
appuk.newscientist.com
“That I would be watching a stunning new species for Britain, with the imposing Caernarfon Castle as a backdrop, was not what I initially expected to be doing at the weekend.”
Tropical heron spotted in UK for first time as more exotic birds arrive to thrill birdwatchers
Appearance of a western reef heron in north Wales is unlikely to be the last, as heating temperatures mean species can survive Britain’s winter, say experts
theguardian.com
What's better than an opportunity to join the Science Museum curatorial team working on exciting forthcoming projects? *Two* opportunities to join etcetc! We are recruiting 2x assistant curators, please pass this along to anyone you think might be interested: ce0111li.webitrent.com/ce0111li_web...
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Together in all their glory, the 2026 winners: The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet and The Correspondent by Virginia Evans🏆 Thanks to our 2026 sponsors Audible, Baileys and @findmypast.bsky.social.
Completed: a final, FINAL proofread, and now ALSTON MOOR goes off to the printer. Major milestone! 📚👀📚 Coming 1st September 2026 @goldsmithspress.bsky.social @goldsf.bsky.social @unamccormack.bsky.social @sarahsuch.bsky.social Reviewers pls contact K.Reynders@gold.ac.uk More: annecharnock.com
The Fife Regatta under power along the Kyles of Bute. Too calm to sail! My friends are in the little boat being towed yesterday by the two-masted boat - both vessels are a hundred years old at least.
Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors. 📚📚📚
The Arthur C. Clarke Award@clarkeaward.bsky.social · 2mo ago✨The Shortlist 2026!✨ DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL, Matt Dinniman THE DREAM HOTEL, Laila Lalami LUMINOUS, Silva Park THERE IS NO ANTIMEMETICS DIVISION, qntm WHEN THERE ARE WOLVES AGAIN, E.J. Swift THE SALT ORACLE, Lorraine Wilson This year’s winner will be announced on Weds 12 August.
#WorldPeatlandsDay If you're into peatbogs, as I am, look out for ALSTON MOOR, a novel, coming in September 2026 with Elizabeth, an intrepid peatlands scientist as a main character! @goldsmithspress.bsky.social @goldsf.bsky.social @unamccormack.bsky.social More: annecharnock.com
