darling, funny, illuminated poet lieke marsman died on june 3rd in paris. this is a very difficult read but yes, putting it here.

from On Another Planet They Can Save Me - Asymptote

from God, PerhapsI don’t remember much from the day I was told that I was terminally ill. The one thing I do recall clearly is that I threw myself rather dramatically to the hospital floor,...

asymptotejournal.com

Wes Streeting would be the final nail in Labour's coffin. More neoliberalism, more privatisation, more austerity, more grovelling to economic power, when we desperately want change.

THE DAVID COATES STAMP OF APPROVAL!! The Owl Bookshop's Gary last week, now David?! cock-a-hoop for Jean.

David Coates@oziasmidwinter.bsky.social · 6mo ago

March reads… Jean - Madeleine Dunnigan IT - Stephen King About to Fall Apart - Ashley Hickson-Lovence Charlie the Choo Choo - Beryl Evans Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group - Rebecca Gransden All good stuff. Adored Jean and loved how About to Fall Apart and Figures… played with language.

I LOVE INDEXERS!! A brilliant index is a thing of beauty. I don't really get to commission them anymore but I think the one for the Francis Bacon biog at William Collins was one of my faves. Exquisite, thoughtful, comprehensive.

The Bookseller@thebookseller.com · 6mo ago

On National Indexing Day, we need to celebrate this intensely human publishing role, says our associate editor and non-fiction previewer Caroline Sanderson 👇 #BookSky

cannot wait to gab* with Fatima Bhutto and Sarah Dennis *be intensely professional and illuminating

Chipping Campden Literature Festival@chipcampdenlitfest.bsky.social · 6mo ago

In May hear what it takes from @marigoldatkey.bsky.social to be an editor @dauntbookspub.bsky.social; from Sarah Dennis owner of indie @borzoibookshop.bsky.social; and what it took for Fatima Bhutto to break free from #coercivecontrol #memoir TICKETS: www.campdenmayfestivals.co.uk/literature/e...

What in the absolute fuck is this.

I'm losing all sense of up & down. 'From the five-time Booker-shortlisted author' - why does that somehow look right? Surely it should be 'five-TIMES Booker-shortlisted author'?? But when I make it plural, I then feel the urge to make it 'the five times' Booker-shortlisted' (surely deranged). Help?

a well-rounded and nutritious diet

alternating every other thought with a thought about The Secret Agent

Thrilled to announce we have a new editor heading our way, to replace the wonderful Dredhëza: Ben Oldfield, currently at the Wylie Agency, will be joining us at the end of this month. We're so excited to see how he helps shape the list: www.thebookseller.com/news/daunt-b...

Daunt Books Publishing appoints Ben Oldfield as editor

Ben Oldfield has been appointed to the role of editor at Daunt Books Publishing.

thebookseller.com

Over the (nearly full) moon to announce a new Amina Cain is on the way. This exquisite, enigmatic novel will slip under your skin and into your dreams. Forever grateful to Amina (and Devon at FSG) for trusting us with her brilliance.

Amina Memory@aminamemorycain.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I wrote another novel & I'm so very happy to be working with Milo Walls at @fsgbooks.bsky.social on it, to be publishing again with @marigoldatkey.bsky.social at @dauntbookspub.bsky.social & with Michael Heyward at @textpublishing.bsky.social. Thank you Mel Flashman! Thank you Devon Mazzone!

Booker International contender of the future nb

Jen Calleja@jencalleja.bsky.social · 7mo ago

The news is out! I'm translating Swiss author Dorothee Elmiger's literally spectacular German Book Prize AND Swiss Book Prize-winning novel Die Holländerinnen. It will be out next year as The Dutch Women from Granta Books in the UK and FSG in the US. @grantabooks.bsky.social @fsgbooks.bsky.social

This is genuinely insane, I clicked to see the years expecting the low part to be 70s or maybe 90s but its 2015!!!!! The entire anti trans panic is a decade old

Toby Buckle@polphilpod.bsky.social · 7mo ago

a stat i always cite is the number of anti-trans articles in the press went from 60 in a year, to 7,500

Requesting from libraries helps tell them what readers want, too, so helps them spend their budget more accurately. And, my librarians tell me, requests helps them advocate for a higher budget. Because 'look at all these books we didn't have that people wanted!'

the pushing-women thing is SO ODD. I've had it happen to me twice (& I'm white, middle-aged & not pretty, so am usually fairly invisible): both times it was so startling & aggressive. It's a mild form of what's in this piece but it's worrying to extrapolate from: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A man pushed me in the street, he wanted to teach me a lesson. Is that OK now? | Lucy Pasha-Robinson

Many women reading this will have experienced something similar: a warning that sharing public space isn’t a man’s job, it’s a woman’s, says Lucy Pasha-Robinson, a Guardian assistant Opinion editor

theguardian.com

Dave vs Bacon

whoops, missed the title but maybe that was a cunning tactic to get you to click into AND READ this most fabulous of reviews?! Couldn't ask for a better one, tbh:

Daunt Books Publishing@dauntbookspub.bsky.social · 8mo ago

The most wonderful review by Neil Bartlett for @theguardian.com's BOTD on Madeleine Dunnigan's '[It will] speak to anyone who can remember how glorious – and dangerous – it once felt to find yourself in possession of a fully functioning heart.' Out THURSDAY! www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

How can the other parties not beat this? I mean, seriously? These people should be shouted down in roars of laughter the minute they say this. Just toxic. www.bigissue.com/news/politic...

Nigel Farage wants to cut price of beer by reinstating two-child benefit cap

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has pledged to reinstate the two-child limit on benefits to pay for a 5p cut off pints of beer to boost pubs.

bigissue.com

oh nooo Fatima is talking about a really heartbreaking moment in THE HOUR OF THE WOLF, a small, lovely moment of kindness from a stranger providing such a contrast to the man's persistent cruelty: www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

Fatima Bhutto on secrets, lies and surviving coercive control – podcast

The Pakistani writer on enduring an abusive relationship in the public eye, and how she broke free

theguardian.com

wowza, this month's Debut Nights line-up at Bàrd Books is SO GOOD!! Our own beloved Madeleine Dunnigan, author of JEAN, joins Rebecca Perry (MAY WE FEED THE KING - adore, adore), Madeline Cash (LOST LAMBS - apparently HUGE fun) and Tobi Coventry (HE'S THE DEVIL - killer title, killer cover): Feb 18!

Longing to listen to this - I adore Fatima, she's so smart, so warm, and pairs vulnerability and strength so beautifully in her writing:

Daunt Books Publishing@dauntbookspub.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Fatima Bhutto is on the @theguardian.com's podcast with @nosheeniqbal.bsky.social, on surviving an abusive relationship while in the public eye. We publish her memoir THE HOUR OF THE WOLF on 26 Feb: www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

LOVE emerging from my burrow to find this Bainbridge Appreciation afoot!!

John Self@john-self.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Reading lots of Beryl Bainbridge at the moment. So funny and dark and good at presenting inner v outer life and the turbulence between folk. The Dressmaker, The Bottle Factory Outing, Sweet William, Injury Time, The Birthday Boys (though the last less funny than others)... you can't go wrong really.

Deeply worrying. I saw only the other day that I'd missed protests against Homerton hospital entering a deal with them. Palantir supply technology to the IDF & ICE: we must resist their coming anywhere near our data & our lives. Grim, yet wholly unsurprising, that our gov is so tangled up with them:

Carole Cadwalladr@carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 8mo ago

NEW: Our investigation for @thenerve_news reveals not only that Peter Thiel’s Palantir is completely enmeshed in our critical national infrastructure. It’s also the ‘cloud support’ for our nuclear weapons system 🤯 1/ www.thenerve.news/p/palantir-t...

Dream job with @thebookerprizes.com !! #ukkidlit #kidlituk #edusky #charityjobs #booksky

Daisy May Johnson@chaletfan.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Good morning! I'm not remotely connected to this but it seems like a banging job so somebody cool please get it, thank you - Schools Engagement Lead, Children’s Booker Prize jobs.theguardian.com/job/10021632...

Three cheers for Philip Glass, whose Solo Piano record has been my boon companion for decades whenever I'm painting. (I notice that Glass didn't use the current administration's name for the center in his letter.)

Looking forward to our May event with you @marigoldatkey.bsky.social @dauntbookspub.bsky.social, Sarah Dennis @borzoibookshop.bsky.social and #author Fatima Bhutto #booksky #IndependentAlliance Festival general booking opens 1 Feb www.campdenmayfestivals.co.uk/literature/e...

'Charged with intimate undercurrents of both resentment and affection' - @keeblearin.bsky.social for the @financialtimes.com on Elisa Shua Dusapin's THE OLD FIRE (tr. Aneesa Abbas Higgins and out now, hooray!!) (I can v much recommend Helen of Nowhere too)

Arin Keeble@keeblearin.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I wrote two fiction reviews that published this weekend - on Elisa Shua Dusapin's The Old Fire @dauntbookspub.bsky.social for the TLS and Makenna Goodman's Helen of Nowhere @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social for the FT weekend. Very different books but both immensely rewarding reads!

Lovely, thoughtful review of Fatima Bhutto's THE HOUR OF THE WOLF: 'Tender and insightful'. Out in the US tomorrow (!), out in the UK next month. 'The uplifting finale begs the question of what valuable lessons we could all learn from respecting, rather than ransacking, the natural world.'

Asian Review of Books@asianreviewofbooks.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Today in the ARB: @JaneWBooks reviews “The Hour of the Wolf: A Memoir” by Fatima Bhutto @dauntbookspub.bsky.social @scribnerbooks.bsky.social asianreviewofbooks.com/the-hour-of-...

Love that @seventydys.bsky.social extracts the serious core of Ashton Politanoff's 'Dad Had a Bad Day':

David Hayden@seventydys.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Ashton Politanoff’s ‘Dad Had a Bad Day’ is a sharp-etched, unrelenting portrait of a man’s search for purpose by returning to his juvenile moment of promise as a tennis champion. A compelling examination of destructive fatherhoods and their replication across generations. @dauntbookspub.bsky.social