Mathew Lyons

I haven't, no. A still mysterious and elusive source for one of the most famous books on the planet, you say?

[Um, er, has anyone ever heard the suggestion that Dickens adapted A Christmas Carol from a mysterious, elusive earlier work, like Shakespeare and the so-called Ur-Hamlet?]

[Asking, literally, for a friend.]

Spycraft - Yale University Press London A fascinating exploration of the devious tricks and ingenious tools used by early modern spies—from ciphers to counterfeiting, invisible inks to assass...

To make things even more fun, if you go to the UK Yale website, and look up Spycraft, you'll see a little link called 'related content' where you can download some DIY cipher wheel blanks! yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

There's a new exhibition about Eleanor of Castile at Leeds Castle that I thought looked interesting until I read that it boasts an AI avatar of Eleanor, which just makes me cringe.

Thousands of authors publish ‘empty’ book in protest over AI using their work About 10,000 writers including Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory and Richard Osman join copyright campaign

I’m one of the thousands of authors who have published this empty book, in protest at AI companies stealing our copyrighted work www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Ooh yes! 😍

I amused myself imagining that I'd come out and there would be a couple of German guys in lab coats standing over a bank of 1970s synths and staring coldly into space while they played

The Baltic Crusades: A Photo Gallery - Yale University Press London Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, crusading armies unleashed a relentless holy war against the last pagan societies in northern Europe. In the Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, c...

Between the 12th and 15th centuries, crusading armies unleashed a relentless holy war against the last pagan societies in northern Europe. Aleksander Pluskowski, author of The Black Cross: A History of the Baltic Crusades, shares some photographs from the region.

yalebooks.co.uk/the-baltic-c...

Today @plough.bsky.social 47 is out, featuring my short story 'Sieidi' - which has been beautifully illustrated

Sad news.

This was great fun to do. My Writer’s Bookshelf, spanning from Sherwood Anderson to Sue Townsend, via Joseph Roth, the Usborne Guide to the Supernatural World, Peanuts, Toni Morrison and many others… Many thanks to @mathewlyons.bsky.social for asking me!

Some lunchtime reading from me!

The Mother's Legacy in Early Modern England | Jennifer Heller | Taylor Using printed and manuscript texts composed between 1575 and 1672, Jennifer Heller defines the genre of the mother's legacy as a distinct branch of the advice

Does anyone have a pdf of Heller's The Mother's Legacy in #EarlyModern England? #CanIHazPdf #HistGender #SkyStorians www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/1...

Many hands In Caravaggio’s “St Matthew and the Angel” (1602), the Bible seems to arrive as a shock to those who wrote it. Matthew, bare-armed and dirty-toed, is a

Fantastic to see William M. Schniedewind’s Who Really Wrote the Bible reviewed in @thetls.bsky.social! Read the full piece here:

Good news that the digitised Beowulf manuscript has survived the digital equivalent of the Cottonian Library fire, the British Library cyberattack of 2023

Our Autumn/Winter 2026 catalogue is here 🎉 📚

Discover original and impactful new titles ranging from a chilling investigation into modern surveillance states to a history of the kola nut, and more.

Browse the full list ➡️ tinyurl.com/mvkkycsw

See the thread below for some highlights ⬇️

New on the Writer’s Bookshelf this morning: eight questions about writers, books, and reading with the wonderful @keironpim.bsky.social. mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-writer...

Ha!

What did Amy Mary,my clever village grandmother,think of her grandest employers? The Kindle/phone/computer edition of 'Village' is FREE today.This is not the world of Downton Abbey. But Amy Mary's bag of fragrant mints may rustle open! SEARCH ALISON BRACKENBURY VILLAGE AMAZON #women'shistorymonth

Some weekend reading from me. First up, a brilliant edition of the Writer's Bookshelf with @j-amesmarriott.bsky.social.
mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-writer...

Thanks!

What platform is that on? We've been watching Man on the Run, and, well, it would be good to watch something better.

Edinburgh launch for Little Griefs complete! Next up: London in April. Free but ticketed: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...

And finally, ten of my favourite paintings, etc up for auction in London this week. Featuring Redon, Richter, Magritte, Nolde, Man Ray, Sargent and more! mathewlyons.substack.com/p/going-goin...

Then an essay remembering my week performing in a production of Christopher Marlowe's Massacre at Paris many years back.
mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-massac...

Some weekend reading from me. First up, a brilliant edition of the Writer's Bookshelf with @j-amesmarriott.bsky.social.
mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-writer...

Only Howard Jacobson could find comedy in the horrors of October 7 Howl is an angry and surprisingly funny novel — it is his best since The Finkler Question

Let me get this straight: Howard Jacobson has written a novel about Israel, October 7 and Gaza protests - topics on which some may say we've heard enough from him - and it's pizzazzy, funny, and his best novel in probably 25 years?

Me on Howl, and how you needn't agree with a book to like it:

TRUE story of Charlie Chaplin's upbringing that inspired The Tramp Charlie Chaplin was not raised in affluence and comfort, quite the opposite. New book explores the poverty stricken childhood that shaped the star.

'Jacqueline Riding evokes late 19th-century London with an artist’s eye'

Read a review of #HardStreets by @jacriding.bsky.social in the Mail Online and learn more about the working-class streets of Edwardian London that shaped Charlie Chaplin.

www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/a...

The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer.

🧵 1/5

A quote from TS Eliot against a light teal background. The text reads: 'Whether one is a prolific writer or not, the question whether one is a writer at all is one which constantly asks itself and I think ought to go on asking itself ... At any rate I have never got rid of it myself and it attacks me from time to time most unexpectedly.'. – TS Eliot, letter to Henry Treece, 9 Sept 1943' northseapoets.com. The North Sea Poets logo is in the bottom right corner.

– TS Eliot, letter to Henry Treece, 8 Sept 1943

#NorthSeaPoets #CommonplaceBook #PoetrySky