Train announcement a London station: ‘During this hot weather, please carry a bottle of water with you, and contact station management if you feel unwell.’

The weather in question?

Better out than in (plasma, that is)!

If you’re doing some early holiday shopping, you could do worse than to buy a friend a copy of ‘Twenty-Two Impressions: Notes from the Major Arcana.’

This book is one that is close to my heart: an exploration of the strange and lovely things that sometimes give us space for quiet contemplation.

Lovvvvvveee this poem so much, especially as quoted in this classic weepie:

A friend of my mum’s sent her this snap, which is how I found out my book was in a paper this weekend. (I asked which paper and the answer was ‘the weekend papers’ – a satisfying answer if my wish was never to know.)

I’d love to know what’s behind Amazon’s sales algorithms, because this feels extremely unlikely! (But a good way to fudge the idea of ‘bestselling’ on future grant applications.)

A good tree.

It’s the worst, just most hilarious time to launch a book into the States at the moment, but nonetheless ‘Twenty-Two Impressions: Notes from the Major Arcana’ is out in America!

This book was such a labour of love, and I hope that it finds its way into the hands of interested readers.

Since October 7th I’ve been returning again and again to Lynne Reid Banks’ books on Israel, written in a concentrated spate between the ‘60s and the ‘80s.

These books are knotty and complex, and feel particularly timely; they’ve been formative for me in conceptualising what this *is*.

Never quite feel like I’m back in Naarm til my feet have hit the water.