Only in the country that gave the world Monty Python 🙌 A Campbell: They're are not going to get better schooling or better healthcare as a result of Wayne Rooney being a summariser on the Eurovision Song Contest. Ct Binface: ɴᴏ, ᴛʜᴇʏ’ʟʟ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ ꜱᴏᴜʟꜱ, ᴀʟᴀꜱᴛᴀɪʀ. open.spotify.com/episode/6QT3...

200. Count Binface: Nigel Farage's Biggest Threat?

The Rest Is Politics: Leading · Episode

open.spotify.com

Chagall wanted to „express his feelings of loss [for his late wife] and nostalgia (…). Bella in bridal dress sweeping into the picture like a comet, Chagall himself turning to embrace her… a crowing cock seems to indicate the passage of time and a recall to reality.” - Bouquet with Flying Lovers 🤍

„In here, life is beautiful... the girls are beautiful, even the orchestra is beautiful!” 👯‍♀️♥️ I’ll never tire of Cabaret, partly because of its political timelessness. @thehistoryguy.bsky.social puts it neatly: „In the end it was the economy, stupid […]. Their siren song? Take Back Control.” 📸Brenner

G. Saunders on #ThisCulturalLife about being broke and with kids: „So I thought I got to write a book and get us out of this mess. I said to her [my wife]: ‚Don’t worry, we’re sitting on a gold mine.’ She started reading it […], her head in her hands, like, ‚Oh my God, this is so bad.’” #booksky 💙📚

From the Ministry of Truth

Dan Hon@danhon.com · 2mo ago

OCEANIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN VERY CLOSE TO A DEAL WITH EURASIA

Poets see it all: ‘[...] the large leaves and great, welling fruit of a mango tree by moonlight are like gigantic tears’ - ‚Mangoes’ by David Brooks #readingcommunity #writingcommunity #WritingAustralia #booksky

Oh no 🖤 I remember watching Persepolis during my first year abroad and falling in love with Satrapi’s family, who kept their heads high during Iran’s Islamic Revolution, no matter the challenges they faced. RIP, Marjane Satrapi. „Nothing’s worse than saying goodbye” 🤍

Seán Costello@seanjcostello.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Sad to hear Marjane Satrapi, author of this extraordinary memoir, has died

After delays and confusing comms, The Marlowe & Christie Novel Prize have just announced their *shortlist* which includes nearly 50% of all the entries (261 out of 533) and they're deleting all negative comments from their forum. Wow #societyofauthors #booksky #writingcommunity

Christopher Fielden@christopherfielden.bsky.social · 10mo ago

The Marlowe & Christie Novel Prize is open for entries until 5th January 2026. Submit the opening 3,000 words of your novel. £24 entry fee (early-bird fee of £19 available until 5th November). £1,200 top prize. Winners receive feedback from agents, editors and authors. www.marloweandchristie.com

Superb talk by @juliahbell.bsky.social: 'AI leaves us with the one thing that was always the point: creativity, which is a self attending to the world, responding to the world from its own territory, from its own space, from its own circumstances, something that cannot be copied by anybody but you.'

Writers Online@writersonline.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Happening TOMORROW! We aren't just talking algorithms - we’re exploring the craft. How do you protect your unique voice? And in a world full of automated text, what does it actually mean to write as yourself? Get your ticket. https://writ.me/CreativeWriting

This was in 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐮𝐳 - from a boat party ten years ago. We watched dolphins, did deep water soloing, and I dropped tuna steaks into the sand. One of those quietly mind-bending „little did we know” moments

Found it in a poster shop in Hanoi. Peace for all 🙏

‚Let the first lines do the talking’ - my favourite bookstore game 📚💙 #readingcommunity #writingcommunity #booksky

The Booker Prizes@thebookerprizes.com · 4mo ago

Not sure where to start with the International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist? Read the opening page of each shortlisted book and let the first lines do the talking. 📖 🔗 Tap the link to explore extracts from all six books. https://thebookerprizes.pulse.ly/amlt8xmsit

Brené Brown nails it again: ‚The root of the word courage is cor- the Latin word for heart […]. Courage originally meant „To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”’ ♥️ #readingcommunity #writingcommunity #amreading #booksky 📚

If you’ve been agonising how to paint your eggs or what should go into your Easter basket, this manual will save you: culture.pl/en/article/p... 🪺🧑‍🎨🐣🇵🇱 Wishing everyone a ‚Joyful Hallelujah’!

Polish Easter Traditions

Some argue that Easter is more important than Christmas... does the array of Polish Easter traditions and customs support that hypothesis?

culture.pl

I feel seen 🥲

Bookshelfie ⭐️@bookshelfie.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Annie Leibovitz’s teacher said she’d never make it; her mum defended her. My piano tutor insisted I’d be better off laying cobblestones, so I left music school. Later people praised my writing, so here I am: just cut 25k from my Lindisfarne Prize-nominated monster, next one’s at 62k 🫠 #booksky 💙📚

If you need some beauty in your life right now 🌸

Richard Morris@ahistoryinart.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Stanley Spencer recorded in his 1938 Desk Diary that he began 'Magnolias,' in March of that year. On 5th April 1938, he wrote to his dealer Dudley Tooth saying that the painting was 'as good as anything I have done.'

If I owned a grocer’s called Tuck Shop, I would have not have chosen this font

The White House & Pentagon updates about the war remind me of the pressers depicted in ‘The Quite American’: ‘The colonel tells you that the enemy has suffered a sharp defeat and severe losses (…). They are shelled all the time by the Air Force.’ #readingcommunity #writingcommunity #booksky 📚🇻🇳

After almost a month, my best friends finally made it through customs and arrived in Vietnam! Had to pay over £100 in taxes, but honestly so worth it 🎉 18kg of inspiration, wisdom, and love 💙 #readingcommunity #writingcommunity #amreading #booksky 📚

Wishing you all a smooth ride in the Year of the Horse 🐎 🌼 🐎 🌼 Chúc mừng năm mới!🎇♥️🇻🇳

It’s Fat Thursday 🥳 Instead of Shrove Tuesday, Poles celebrate #FatThursday by scoffing bucketloads of pączki (donuts, pron. PONCH-kee; singular PONCH-ek). If you don’t have a Polish bakery nearby, you can still honour pączki by replacing one word in a book title with pączek, e.g. War and Pączek

Moved back to #Vietnam and learnt about the poem “My Dear Poland” (Em ơi… Ba Lan) by revolutionary poet Tố Hữu. Seems solemn: Warsaw, Chopin, Mickiewicz, the Red Army, Auschwitz… Still no decent translation, so leaving you with “Vietnam” by Wisława Szymborska 🇵🇱🇻🇳 #writingcommunity #amreading #booksky

Harold Pinter said that his stay in #Cornwal during WW2 evacuation turned him into “quite a morose little boy.” I love it here approximately twice a month - when the rain stops 😉 #readingcommunity #writingcommunity #amreading #booksky

Tell me you’re Polish without telling me you’re Polish: two guys in hospital after exploding a WW2 artillery shell in their flat while pissed 😆🇵🇱 What would be an improbable yet entirely plausible twist in the socio-cultural setting of your story? #booksky #readingcommunity #writingcommunity

Two men hospitalised in Poland after drunkenly exploding WWII artillery shell in apartment

notesfrompoland.com

After two months away, these two marvellous treats greeted me home 🙏 #14magazine #booksky #readingcommunity #writingcommunity

Sounds like something from Zola’s ‚J’accuse!’ manifesto 😉 #booksky

Bookshelfie ⭐️@bookshelfie.bsky.social · 10mo ago

#booksky

‚Come, the sun beckons in exquisite tones.’ - from ‚Midi’ [‚Noon’ - I know! Love the poem though] by Leconte de Lisle #booksky #readingcommunity #writingcommunity

‚You can die for it– an idea, or the world. […] But this morning, climbing the familiar hills in the familiar fabric of dawn, I thought of China, and India and Europe, and I thought how the sun blazes for everyone […]’ - from Sunrise by Mary Oliver #booksky #writingcommunity