David Hughes
@davhug.bsky.social
Books of 2025. Music, movies, nature, secondhand bookshop lover. Lanarkshire, Scotland.
I love Dexys. Aged 16 on Soul Rebels release, 18 at Too-Rye-Ay, 21 at Don't Stand Me Down; My Beauty 35, Soar 48. What gifts🙏. Bless Me Father could be fairer, more generous, to Kevin; could have said more about astonishing music & performance. But it's unique, searing, compelling riveting, moving.
November 1, 2025 at 2:52 PM
I love Dexys. Aged 16 on Soul Rebels release, 18 at Too-Rye-Ay, 21 at Don't Stand Me Down; My Beauty 35, Soar 48. What gifts🙏. Bless Me Father could be fairer, more generous, to Kevin; could have said more about astonishing music & performance. But it's unique, searing, compelling riveting, moving.
Miss Agnes Russell funded and gifted The Russell Institute to Paisley Burgh in 1927, for the health, care and welfare of mothers and children of the town. What a treat to be given a tour of this amazing building #ArtDeco #Paisley #DoorsOpenDay
October 30, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Miss Agnes Russell funded and gifted The Russell Institute to Paisley Burgh in 1927, for the health, care and welfare of mothers and children of the town. What a treat to be given a tour of this amazing building #ArtDeco #Paisley #DoorsOpenDay
Perfect late October: Robert Aickman, A Cold Hand In Mine, a roaring fire, and a few glasses of #Lochlea single malt Ploughing Edition. Stories...The Swords, The Hospice, The Same House: wow and shivers. Thanks to @backlisted.bsky.social #HalloweenSpecial for the original steer 🎃🥃🔥🌚
October 24, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Perfect late October: Robert Aickman, A Cold Hand In Mine, a roaring fire, and a few glasses of #Lochlea single malt Ploughing Edition. Stories...The Swords, The Hospice, The Same House: wow and shivers. Thanks to @backlisted.bsky.social #HalloweenSpecial for the original steer 🎃🥃🔥🌚
Loved this; great outdoor reading!
October 12, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Loved this; great outdoor reading!
Autumn reading pleasures.
October 12, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Autumn reading pleasures.
Scotland 1477. Dorothy Dunnett's Gemini closes the 8-book Niccolo series. Truly atonishing, I've deeply loved it. In the end, a love story about identity & connection, and the search for harmony and meaning. A melancholy book full of death and loss...and emergence. Out of turmoil, a testimony...
September 23, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Scotland 1477. Dorothy Dunnett's Gemini closes the 8-book Niccolo series. Truly atonishing, I've deeply loved it. In the end, a love story about identity & connection, and the search for harmony and meaning. A melancholy book full of death and loss...and emergence. Out of turmoil, a testimony...
A recommendation @pear-jelly.bsky.social. Perfectly controlled pacing: onward and inward journey, past infusing present, emergence of heroine's agency, quiet and subtle and powerful. #spinsterseptember
September 23, 2025 at 12:44 PM
A recommendation @pear-jelly.bsky.social. Perfectly controlled pacing: onward and inward journey, past infusing present, emergence of heroine's agency, quiet and subtle and powerful. #spinsterseptember
Anthony Price: hard-to-find, always rewarding. Butler's pov, and first meeting with future spymaster Audley, as young men caught in ww2 crosscurrents. Singular narrative drive, gripping action, physical & emotional dislocation, and an intense sense of the blasted mud, wood & waters of rural France.
September 23, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Anthony Price: hard-to-find, always rewarding. Butler's pov, and first meeting with future spymaster Audley, as young men caught in ww2 crosscurrents. Singular narrative drive, gripping action, physical & emotional dislocation, and an intense sense of the blasted mud, wood & waters of rural France.
My favourite reads of August 2025, in order: Gemini (Dorothy Dunnett), Rhine Journey (Ann Schlee), The 44 Vintage (Anthony Price) and Pieces of Modesty (Peter O'Donnell). Journeys outward and inward, emotions subtle and intense, high adventure and great enjoyment.
September 23, 2025 at 12:24 PM
My favourite reads of August 2025, in order: Gemini (Dorothy Dunnett), Rhine Journey (Ann Schlee), The 44 Vintage (Anthony Price) and Pieces of Modesty (Peter O'Donnell). Journeys outward and inward, emotions subtle and intense, high adventure and great enjoyment.
I really love the way she's turned her back on the pram and the dolls, and gazes up at the action cars #agency. One of my fave images from the great touring ladybird exhibition when it was at Ayr, and where I took the photo.
August 17, 2025 at 11:36 PM
I really love the way she's turned her back on the pram and the dolls, and gazes up at the action cars #agency. One of my fave images from the great touring ladybird exhibition when it was at Ayr, and where I took the photo.
MFK Fisher, Gastronomical Me (clumsy cover/title😬). A beautiful profound personal collection (1912-41) on how eating & drinking are interwoven in time and life with joy, loss, identity, memory & meaning. Wonderful and moving. Thanks @backlisted.bsky.social for author discovery!🙏 #warmroundpeachpie
August 5, 2025 at 9:05 PM
MFK Fisher, Gastronomical Me (clumsy cover/title😬). A beautiful profound personal collection (1912-41) on how eating & drinking are interwoven in time and life with joy, loss, identity, memory & meaning. Wonderful and moving. Thanks @backlisted.bsky.social for author discovery!🙏 #warmroundpeachpie
Georgette Heyer, Faro's Daughter. Hugely enjoyable Georgian romance. I love the tough, funny, expressive, decisive Deborah Grantham. Role-play, comedy, gaming, fights, kidnapping, banter & wit. (4th fave of the 11 I've read!)
August 5, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Georgette Heyer, Faro's Daughter. Hugely enjoyable Georgian romance. I love the tough, funny, expressive, decisive Deborah Grantham. Role-play, comedy, gaming, fights, kidnapping, banter & wit. (4th fave of the 11 I've read!)
Purity of Blood, Arturo Perez-Reverte. Language & description immerse you in the dank, sensual, dangerous backlanes of 17th century Madrid; religion and government are rotten with corruption, cant, hypocrisy & inhumanity, leaving our sword-for-fire Captain Alatriste as Europe's last decent man.
August 5, 2025 at 7:46 PM
Purity of Blood, Arturo Perez-Reverte. Language & description immerse you in the dank, sensual, dangerous backlanes of 17th century Madrid; religion and government are rotten with corruption, cant, hypocrisy & inhumanity, leaving our sword-for-fire Captain Alatriste as Europe's last decent man.
My favourite reads of July 2025. Books with passion, spark & life, expressed in prose that has space, music & flow. #MFKFisher The Gastronomical Me, #GeorgetteHeyer Faro's Daughter, Perez-Revente Purity Of Blood.
August 5, 2025 at 6:24 PM
My favourite reads of July 2025. Books with passion, spark & life, expressed in prose that has space, music & flow. #MFKFisher The Gastronomical Me, #GeorgetteHeyer Faro's Daughter, Perez-Revente Purity Of Blood.
Ha😄exact same, now got 11 months to wait for Doctor. Started the Dollys with Singing Bird/Rum, in view of the Isle of Rum, a few summers ago! (though also prefer the original paperbacks where possible..) #DorothyDunnett
July 22, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Ha😄exact same, now got 11 months to wait for Doctor. Started the Dollys with Singing Bird/Rum, in view of the Isle of Rum, a few summers ago! (though also prefer the original paperbacks where possible..) #DorothyDunnett
Crime fiction. Dolly and the Starry Bird, Dorothy Dunnet. Read in Bay of Naples! A fun break while I delay finishing the magisterial Niccolo series. Dated vocab, hard to follow? Riding the tone, I heartily enjoyed this twisting madcap caper with its food/drink/clothes/travel & the wind-in-its-hair!🚤
July 14, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Crime fiction. Dolly and the Starry Bird, Dorothy Dunnet. Read in Bay of Naples! A fun break while I delay finishing the magisterial Niccolo series. Dated vocab, hard to follow? Riding the tone, I heartily enjoyed this twisting madcap caper with its food/drink/clothes/travel & the wind-in-its-hair!🚤
June 25, crime fiction. The Snack Thief, Andrea Camilleri. Read in Sicily. Best of 3 I've read. Pleasingly convoluted, with delightful tangents, as the flawed detective grapples with issues of corruption & justice, fathers & sons, inclusion & alienation, in a reach for gestures of meaning & value.
July 14, 2025 at 3:17 PM
June 25, crime fiction. The Snack Thief, Andrea Camilleri. Read in Sicily. Best of 3 I've read. Pleasingly convoluted, with delightful tangents, as the flawed detective grapples with issues of corruption & justice, fathers & sons, inclusion & alienation, in a reach for gestures of meaning & value.
June 2025. Crime. City of the Dead, Sara Gran. Smart, quirky, funny, vivid & compassionate. Ace detective Claire DeWitt trawls the urban edges of post-flood New Orleans, in dialogue with dreams & death, history & mystery, in search of truth. Dale Cooper would enjoy. Can't wait to read the other two!
July 14, 2025 at 3:10 PM
June 2025. Crime. City of the Dead, Sara Gran. Smart, quirky, funny, vivid & compassionate. Ace detective Claire DeWitt trawls the urban edges of post-flood New Orleans, in dialogue with dreams & death, history & mystery, in search of truth. Dale Cooper would enjoy. Can't wait to read the other two!
Tove Jansson, The Summer Book. The beauty, clarity & fragility of a cherished dream. Attentive to pebble, light, insect, moss, seedlings; small things, sounds, tastes. Unsentimental, immersive. Summer: across memory, childhood, age & identity. Floating, sinking, diving, drifting, sailing.
July 14, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Tove Jansson, The Summer Book. The beauty, clarity & fragility of a cherished dream. Attentive to pebble, light, insect, moss, seedlings; small things, sounds, tastes. Unsentimental, immersive. Summer: across memory, childhood, age & identity. Floating, sinking, diving, drifting, sailing.
Penelope Mortimer, About Time Too. This maligned memoir (so poorly reviewed, a planned follow-up was dropped) is sparse, skipping, poetic, witty, questioning, engaged. Full of pain, and chocabloc with damaged, entitled, blustering men, it still finds a kind of peace through its great writing.
July 14, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Penelope Mortimer, About Time Too. This maligned memoir (so poorly reviewed, a planned follow-up was dropped) is sparse, skipping, poetic, witty, questioning, engaged. Full of pain, and chocabloc with damaged, entitled, blustering men, it still finds a kind of peace through its great writing.
Recording, for myself, my top reads of 2025. Much travelling in June, has led to having mistly lighter books in tow!
July 14, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Recording, for myself, my top reads of 2025. Much travelling in June, has led to having mistly lighter books in tow!
Dorothy Dunnett, Caprice And Rondo, 15thC, 7 of 8. Truly loving this reading adventure: moving, confounding, heartbreaking, wondrous; want them to never end and I go into the final book emotionally fragile, intensely engaged, and with a deep, lunatic pang of pure love. 'Whoever cast love aside...'
June 6, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Dorothy Dunnett, Caprice And Rondo, 15thC, 7 of 8. Truly loving this reading adventure: moving, confounding, heartbreaking, wondrous; want them to never end and I go into the final book emotionally fragile, intensely engaged, and with a deep, lunatic pang of pure love. 'Whoever cast love aside...'
Elizabeth Taylor, 1st short story collection. My standouts: Hester Lily, Spry Old Character, Gravement. Tales of the unspoken, miscommunicated, saddened, illusory; surfaces, depths, defeats, laughs, and radiant moments.
June 6, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Elizabeth Taylor, 1st short story collection. My standouts: Hester Lily, Spry Old Character, Gravement. Tales of the unspoken, miscommunicated, saddened, illusory; surfaces, depths, defeats, laughs, and radiant moments.
What a debut. Already in place: the conversational, intimate, even-handed, analytical voice; honed classical prose; great dialogue; witheld info "I meant to keep myself out of this story..." Cool on food/decor/clothes. Open-ended/canny-quite-find-an- ending? Fab springboard for the brilliance ahead.
June 6, 2025 at 7:16 PM
What a debut. Already in place: the conversational, intimate, even-handed, analytical voice; honed classical prose; great dialogue; witheld info "I meant to keep myself out of this story..." Cool on food/decor/clothes. Open-ended/canny-quite-find-an- ending? Fab springboard for the brilliance ahead.