Ruth Martin

Sad that the indoor pigeons have eluded me. Will try harder to find one tomorrow

In the IRC eh? He must have a meeting with his agent

Two (presumably overheating) people dressed in big furry costumes as Peppa Pig and whoever that other one is.

London Book Fair wildlife report: two pigs, but so far zero indoor pigeons. Do better tomorrow, pigeons!

Yes! Am planning to have dinner with Jen Busch and whoever else wants to join us, though we haven't done any actual planning yet

A middle-aged white woman in a Cornish national tartan neckerchief, looking a bit tired on a Kentish beach

Out here in my tartan, might have a pasty later. Gool Peran Lowen!

That's brilliant

*shudders* no, I like to think of momnets as hapless, fluffy little creatures who pop up in texts where they shouldn't be, like moles on a golf course

For me it's "momnet". No idea why I can't type this very simple word, but I sure as hell know when I'm overusing it

You know one of the Miss Merkel books is available in English, right? Tr. Jamie Bulloch: oldstreetpublishing.co.uk/88/murder-at... Looks truly bonkers

Thank you Mandy! Superb review x

Thank you!

Thank you lovely xx

Thank you! This is such a beautiful book, it's great for it to have some more publicity

Thank you Jo x

Thank you! It really is a great book and hasn't had much attention until now, so am very pleased to see it on the longlist

Thank you Jen x

Thank you! Yeah, mine too, this time of year is dangerous for that

Thank you Rachel x

Thank you! X

Longlisted! If you haven't read Shida Bazyar's beautiful polyphonic novel about a family's flight from and return to Iran, you definitely should

100% agree. By the way, I got here via clay country / Jack Clemo / A Cornish Childhood - it's been a very enjoyable ride and I'm truly grateful to you for triggering it. Learned so much from The Granite Kingdom!

A copy of The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey, next to A.L. Rowse's book Tudor Cornwall, containing several enthusiastic post-it notes

The 18-month-long reading rabbithole that began with @timhannigan.bsky.social's wonderful The Granite Kingdom has led me here, to the far reaches of nerdiness. Who knew a book about Tudor history written in 1941 would be so engrossing?

Reading the editing tips has exacerbated the situation and now I've got agents telling me how to query them. At this rate I'm going to find myself writing a novel just to make use of this information

Roses are red
Violets are blue
*Translator writes detailed marginal note about the range of colours these terms cover in different languages, because in English this isn't entirely true*

Superb! The roofer has now ghosted me so things are still no better at my parents' place, though the ceiling hasn't actually fallen in yet

Translator from German? Here are the application details of this year’s online summer school based at Oxford University. Dm me if you have any questions!

I bought a book for a friend about how to get published, and now Instagram is serving me a solid stream of editing tips. Which is actually kind of useful. But also scary.

It feels like an indulgence when there are all these other books you're supposed to be reading, but... that's the point of reading for pleasure, right?

Re-reading - I've just re-read Gwendoline Riley's My Phantoms, to enjoy the language and the razor-sharp observation again even though I already know what happens.

Well I'm glad it has brought joy to someone!