Victoria Ling 🌱 🎓 🪐📚

"At times, when talking to you, she would break off as though words were of no use to her, and her eyes had to seek your soul on their own account."

- Arthur Quiller-Couch "Midsummer Fires" (1901)

#Booksky #Quotes

Fuck Crufts.

WAR won't hide the #EpsteinFiles

#Iran

#Epstein

Spotted over Cranwell in Lincolnshire. Could this be a nacreous cloud?

It is a year since An Orchid in My Belly Button, a magical realism/eco fiction collection of stories, pwas published by @elsewhen.press
Thanks to all who have bought and/or read it.
If anyone else is interested-
elsewhen.press/index.php/ca...

If your middle schooler is into physics he may also enjoy @danielwhiteson.bsky.social 's books "Do Aliens Speak Physics?: And Other Questions about Science and the Nature of Reality", "We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe", and "Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe"

“However crude those ancient beliefs may have been, they were not so crude as belief in coal and petrol and money.”

- Douglas Massie "Mr Ciggers Goes To Heaven" (1931)

#Booksky #Greens #FantasyBooks

"Do you remember Schubert who could not afford to buy the paper on which to score his music? It was people like these who withheld the paper.”

- Douglas Massie "Mr Ciggers Goes To Heaven (1931)
#Booksky

It's the world's smallest woodland but the hedgehogs seems to appreciate it :-)

My front lawn and much of the lower end of the back (where I've planted the hedgehog mini woodland) is nearly all moss and I love it. Such character and the bugs adore it.

If I were a production company I'd bite your hand off!
Any smart reps out there who want to read something brilliant?
⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

I've not read anything else quite like it, and like you say, even the physicality of this particular copy is full of character. Wonderful story.

But both things can be true

University staff did do their very best, but students didn’t get the full experience they paid for

COVID students paid £9,250 a year for locked campuses & Zoom lectures, the experience was diminished

They deserve a partial rebate -- it’s basic fairness

“And where the peace and rest?”

“In stagnation, where they sought it. They are free to remain stagnant - unchanged. He who is self-satisfied remains the self with which he is satisfied. He who is afraid to change remains unchanged.”

- Douglas Massie “Mr Ciggers Goes To Heaven” (1931)

#Booksky

Are there any plans for another series of “Welcome To Our Village..”?

“Stagnation is absolutely the correct word to use for the peace and rest you desire,” replied the judge with beaming imperturbability. “Can you not see it all around you here? Look upon these people who fear to look upon themselves.”

- Douglas Massie "Mr Ciggers Goes To Heaven" (1931)

Absolutely, it's in the small print. Might even be law.

“I remember - and - you know how memory strays back, though sometimes it’s more like a goat tethered to a peg on a common.”

- "Crew" Walter de la Mare (1927)

#ClassicGhostStories #Booksky

Cover image of the Twisted Road written by Simon Kewin, artwork by Alex Storer. The cover depicts a metallic space station in the shape of a large möbius strip, in orbit around the planet Mars. Various lights are shining through portholes in the station and a docking bay is visible and well-lit. Approaching the station is a small spaceship. At the top of the image are the words THE MÖBIUS SEQUENCE 1 in white. Below that in larger white type is the title THE TWISTED ROAD. Towards the bottom of the page is the author’s name SIMON KEWIN in golden letters.

In conjunction with our friends at The Fantasy Hive, we are delighted to reveal the cover for The Twisted Road, book 1 in The Möbius Sequence, an extraordinary science fiction trilogy by Simon Kewin. Set on the battered, yet operational, Möbius station orbiting Mars, it is a SF mystery story.

Einstein said God doesn’t play dice with the universe but I reckon the Roman ones played D&D.

Below: Crystal die, Roman (1st-2nd century). Image: British Museum.

#Archaeology #DnD

Tony Benn warned me about Mandelson 40 years ago Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t convicted last week or last year, but 18 years ago, writes Jeremy Corbyn. Parliament needs to look itself in the mirror – and ask itself how it has become embroiled in a ghastly...

The Peter Mandelson scandal is what happens when a government abandons its moral compass.

Parliament needs to look itself in the mirror — and ask itself how it became embroiled in a web of lies, abuse and corruption.

My piece for The Independent.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/peter...

A match made in slightly dysfunctional heaven. Perfect.

Authors: If one of your books were made into tv/film, which book would it be and who are the ideal actors?
(I’d bagsy the cast of Ghosts for King Street Run.)
#Booksky #Authors #Booklover

Absolutely.

Billionaire non-tax payer goes to another country to not pay tax.

Arthur Quiller-Couch is best known for the monumental "Oxford Book of English Verse" (1900) but he also wrote several collections of masterful ghost stories (published chiefly under his pseudonym "Q").
#Booksky

£240m. With no tender. Palantir.

I wrote to Wes Streeting last week demanding answers.

Every day without any transparency deepens the scandal.

Palantir out.

I’m delighted to spread the word! Walter de la Mare was a favourite of H.P. Lovecraft. Typical of ghost stories from that era, Mare’s work was tinged with philosophy, wit and, needless to say, beautifully written.

Better known as an author of children's books, Walter de la Mare also wrote some beautiful (and witty) ghost stories.

“Matter seldom advertises the precariousness imputed to it by the physicist. But now, every object around me seemed to be proclaiming its own transitoriness.”

- A Recluse (1927)