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lifeisamazing.bsky.social
Life Is Amazing publisher
@lifeisamazing.bsky.social
I deal in rare books, write & publish books, give talks, present shows. I make my living from words.

If you're rude or aggressive I'll block - I am curating, that's all. I block habitual shitposters because I hate lies. I do not engage with the far right.
Currently reading Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan in a lovely Victorian straight grain morocco binding, and also The Ticket That Exploded by William Burrroughs in the paperback first edition.

Here's the Bunyan...
December 1, 2025 at 8:07 PM
This is great from the Pope. I'm reposting from the original poster with alt text added.
November 17, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Working out a scene I'mwriting by using tarot cards. This is what I have. I think it works, structurally.
November 3, 2025 at 7:11 PM
The Victorians knew how to bind books. This one in red morocco with gilt frames and embellishments to boards, gilt spine, gilt edges and inner dentelles is a beauty. I read these sometimes just for the physicality of the medium. An embodied intellectual pleasure.
October 30, 2025 at 8:23 AM
George Eliot in the Mill On The Floss skewers the difference between the creative and business mind.
October 28, 2025 at 6:04 PM
So, I was trying to tell this guy who had come late to collect something from facebook marketplace that I wasn't going to come outside because I wasn't suitably attired, that he had my house number, and he should knock at the door.

Instead, I wrote this:
October 28, 2025 at 10:02 AM
George Eliot absolutely shredding the novelist's conceit that character is destiny...

The Mill On The Floss
October 24, 2025 at 8:34 AM
I'm not great at art. I struggle to make a decent drawing with pen and paper. Tonight I was invited to a friend's birthday painting party. We were given a painting to copy, image 1. Image 2 is the first painting on canvas I've ever done. I'm amazed. I love it!
October 23, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Writers at the Guardian appearing not to know what a metaphor is.
October 23, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Down the local boozer: Puccini, anyone?
October 19, 2025 at 3:51 PM
ebay promised they would end transation fees for private sellers.

So I'd love to have these transaction fees explained to me.
September 23, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert... etc

All looks very familiar.
September 22, 2025 at 7:46 AM
A note to myself, sitting on the Phoenix pub, Southsea...
September 16, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Genuinely hilarious seeing rightwing trolls try to start arguments on bsky. This one makes inflammatory challenges then takes the silence as evidence he's right rather than others seeing through his bullshit. On his timeline the only person to respond to ANY of his posts is himself. Well done bsky!
September 13, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Portsmouth City Council posts they are saddened by the Duchess of Kent, and this is what someone replies. I dont think I've ever known the country so utterly deranged and afraid, so completely unmanned. Who are these crazy, mad obsessed people?
September 6, 2025 at 7:09 PM
I knew I'd seen him somewhere before...
August 30, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Here's a little show I'm running in Portsmouth, UK!

The Holmes Fest Show is back with an all-new variety night of fun, laughter, music, sketches... and Sherlock Holmes!

@ The Groundlings Theatre, Portsmouth!

Get your tickets here: groundlings.ticketsolve.com/tick.../show...
August 30, 2025 at 3:44 AM
Q: How do you make a nationalist look stupid?

A: You don't. They do it for you.
August 24, 2025 at 12:19 PM
While other companies are worrying about microplastics and reformulating their packaging to biodegradable forms, Parker decide they'll replace their serviceable iconic card boxes with this shitty blister pack. This will be the last time I buy Quink ink. Arseholes in the marketing team, for sure.
August 17, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Have been reconsidering Tade Thompson's Rosewater Trilogy, and i really think the ambition and joy in it are fantastic. A kind of mash-up of spy/detective/alien invasion/dystopian genres, there is something very cool about it. Tade is one of the greats of this generation. A one-off.
August 17, 2025 at 6:35 AM
I've been a busy bee and have organised a Festival in Portsmouth this September. 10 days of events celebrating Arthur Conan Doyle's creation of Sherlock Holmes while he lived in Southsea. The full programme is here www.lifeisamazing.co.uk. Please share this post! :)
August 16, 2025 at 10:50 AM
I'm well aware of the unfashionable nature of sonnets... but this popped up on social media - something I wrote after the Charlottesville car attack in 2017, and the far right rally.

I think it's quite good.

I would replace "stepped" for "crept" in a redraft (which I have done in the alt text).
August 16, 2025 at 7:55 AM
Ecosia offers AI returns in searches when I specifically deactivated AI in my profile.

Which now leads me to think that this claim from Ecosia is a lie:

@blog.ecosia.org.web.brid.gy
August 6, 2025 at 4:10 AM
This is my design for the little book that will accompany Holmes Fest this year. It's only around 50 pages, but it will be a nice souvenir edition for attendees, or anyone who's interested in Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes.

More on Holmes Fest here. www.lifeisamazing.co.uk
August 5, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Stumbled across notes I laid down for a novel 2 years ago. This pair of paragraphs stood out.
June 21, 2025 at 4:25 AM