Jo Walton
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bluejo.bsky.social
Jo Walton
@bluejo.bsky.social
4.7K followers 120 following 880 posts
Writer of SF and fantasy. Superintelligent shade of the colour blue. "Even better than cold carrots." Vocateur reader. Philhellenist. Loves tea, trains, travel.
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Reposted by Jo Walton
mealofthorns.bsky.social
Enjoyed the heck out of talking to @benjaminrosenbaum.com about Laurie J. Marks' FIRE LOGIC. Which is really just supremely good fantasy, different priorities & conceptions than the swords & magics might suggest, and Ben as always is full of interesting insights:
A Meal of Thorns 17 – FIRE LOGIC with Benjamin Rosenbaum
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Benjamin RosenbaumTitle: Fire Logic by Laurie J. MarksHost: …
ancillaryreviewofbooks.org
January 1, 2026 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
dailybookcovers.bsky.social
Book: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965)
-Standalone-
Author: Philip K. Dick

#BookSky #Books 💙📚👀 🪐📚 #bookskyES #PhilipKDick
January 6, 2026 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
followinghadrian.bsky.social
For #Epiphany, a detail of a 6th-century AD mosaic in the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (Italy) depicting the Three Magi, Gaspar (or Caspar), Melchior, and Balthasar, offering gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the newborn King. 👑
January 6, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
jenniferashby.bsky.social
Snow on the hilltops of Fiesole above @euilibrary.bsky.social
Snow in Fiesole on the hilltops, including Monte Ceceri where Leonardo Da Vinci is believed to have experimented with flight, above the Badia Fiesolana. Green grass, olive groves, and cypress trees below. Florence, Tuscany, Italy.
January 6, 2026 at 7:11 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
racheldeering.bsky.social
Goodnight. May we sleep deep and dream our own tangled branches of magic, another dawn will be here soon enough.
🖼️ Philippe Fix
Illustration of a forest scene at night, a dark blue sky with stars. A large, ancient-looking tree with gnarled, twisting branches and roots is on the right side of the image. An owl is perched inside a hollow in the trunk. In the foreground, there are pink foxgloves, various fungi, and rocky terrain. A small, thatched-roof cottage with a warm light glowing from its window sits atop a grassy mound in the middle ground, nestled among the roots and smaller trees.
January 6, 2026 at 8:55 PM
bluejo.bsky.social
Happy Epiphany! It's the time when I traditionally post this manuscript image: There Was Only One Bed
In a green E of an illuminated manuscript the three kings are asleep in one bed, under a pink coverlet. They are wearing their crowns, but though we can only see arms and shoulders and heads, it seems like they're naked. One is white with a long grey beard, one is white with a short black beard, and one is beardless and black. There's a golden angel hovering over them in the top part of the letter, looking glowing and benevolent.
January 6, 2026 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
windypops.bsky.social
"There's a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they're absolutely free. Don't miss so many of them." – Jo Walton
January 5, 2026 at 9:08 AM
Reposted by Jo Walton
suzywriter.bsky.social
Post 31 books you read in 2025 that you recommend. One book per day for 31 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no expectations, just covers. 1/31 Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer
#AmReading
#Bookstagram
#BookSky
#2025ReadingChallenge
#31BooksReadIn2025
January 4, 2026 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
dbellingradt.bsky.social
Holding hands with a feline species while trying to start your desk work. This 1482 image of St. Jerome and his lion nails it timelessly. #catcontent #academicchatter
St. Jerome sitting at a desk, with a lion nearby. The illuminated detail os from the "biblia latina" from 1482, and the page can be accessed here: https://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/show/inc-iii-104/
January 5, 2026 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Jo Walton
mariafarrell.bsky.social
I'm minding this rehomed young collie dog - his future career as yet unknown, but sheep trials were very definitely not for him. He crossed the stream at Derrynane strand in two magnificent skimming leaps yesterday.
On a sunny winter day at the beach a black and white smooth-coated border collie crosses a shallow tidal stream in two leaps, with a promontory of rocks in the immediate background and mountains beyond. The image captures him fully stretched in mid air two feet above the water, a splash behind him from where he bounced off, mid-stream, to complete the crossing with a second leap. Below him as he flies his shadow crosses the water just a little faster, chased by the lowering afternoon sun.
January 4, 2026 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
kilianjoerg.bsky.social
"This is a neat encapsulation of the whole AI story: the chatbot can't do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with a chatbot that can't do your job."

Wonderfully hope-inspiring talk by @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy on the better future of the internet!
Pluralistic: The Post-American Internet (01 Jan 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net
January 5, 2026 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
followinghadrian.bsky.social
#NationalBirdDay Hellenistic mosaic floor panel from Pergamon depicting an Alexandrine parakeet. 🦜

The Alexandrine parakeet species is named after Alexander the Great, who is said to have brought several birds back from India.
January 5, 2026 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
iamdylanlewis.bsky.social
Happy New Year from this beautifully rubricated sixteenth-century book of hours (Heures de Nostre Dame, 1558, printed by Plantin). Some great analytical bib. examples here of two-color printing
January 5, 2026 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
followinghadrian.bsky.social
#NationalBirdDay - The “Bird Mosaic” from Caesarea, Israel. Each of its 120 medallions contains a bird. 🦜🦚🦢🪿🦆🐦‍⬛ Eleven different species are shown, including flamingoes, ducks, peacocks, partridges, guineafowls, ibises, geese, pheasants and pelicans.
followinghadrian.com/2014/11/23/t...
January 5, 2026 at 5:53 PM
bluejo.bsky.social
#SomethingBeautiful Bernini's Apollo
Marble face, hair, and shoulder of Apollo, from below
January 5, 2026 at 3:44 PM
bluejo.bsky.social
#SomethingBeautiful Floomp
Red panda spread out asleep as if absolutely exhausted
January 4, 2026 at 2:18 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
twistedsoup.bsky.social
This is one of my favourites from one of my fabourite authors, if you like fantasy at all I cannot recommend it enough!
January 3, 2026 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
bminsker.bsky.social
Good morning, Womble. I just finished Farthing by @bluejo.bsky.social and started right in on its sequel, Ha'penny. I suspect the stories are hitting me a bit different than it did those who read it when it came out.
The cover of Farthing by Jo Walton. A couple walks arm in arm across a foggy London street in front of a double-decker bus with the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in the background. The cover of Ha'penny by Jo Walton. A man in a coat and hat walks around the corner of a foggy, wet street in front of lit theater marquees, one of which is advertising Hamlet.
January 4, 2026 at 10:16 AM
Reposted by Jo Walton
singlecrow.bsky.social
This is one of my most favourite books. I read it in March 2020 and it was intensely sustaining.
January 3, 2026 at 2:23 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
marnanightingale.bsky.social
I adore this book beyond all sense and you should read it because I think you will too.
January 3, 2026 at 2:17 PM
bluejo.bsky.social
#SomethingBeautiful the Iris garden in the Boboli Gardens, Florence
Purple and pink irises in green grass under olive trees, the whole thing just really calming and lovely
January 3, 2026 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
tyburntree.bsky.social
INVENTING THE RENAISSANCE by Ada Palmer.
This is pretty much the best history book I've read this year, certainly the one that was the most eye-opening and page-turning (partially due to having the opportunity to visit Florence for the first time). A brilliant book!
December 31, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
andrewtroth.bsky.social
Or What You Will was the best. I’m lining up more Jo Walton to read.

How to Kill a Dragon is a hardcore academic linguistics book, just to be clear.

Both books earned their five stars, but in very different ways.
January 2, 2026 at 2:48 AM
Reposted by Jo Walton
aiun.bsky.social
Notable that the THESSALY trilogy by Jo Walton is available on Kindle Unlimited right now! It's one of my all-time favorites, frequently on my mind, I just sent it to someone as a holiday gift, and if you're on KU you can read it for free. That's wild. Do it!
December 29, 2025 at 4:08 AM
Reposted by Jo Walton
kizzia.bsky.social
Or What You Will by Jo Walton - it offered me a new perspective on what a book could be and do.
December 29, 2025 at 2:12 PM