These books for spring keep on blooming 🌿More here from ⁦Cathy Newman⁩ ⁦Michiko Kakutani⁩ ⁦Alpa Shah⁩ ⁦Christopher Hadley⁩ ⁦Gareth Russell⁩ ⁦Tom Burgis⁩ ⁦Tom Baldwin⁩ ⁦Dr Paula Byrne Author FRSA⁩ ⁦Rebecca Smith⁩ Matthew Lockwood Steve J

A wonderful party & a real pleasure to meet you all, swap stories and ideas & pick your brains. Thank you for making me an honorary member of last night's archaeologists' club.

I plucked up the courage to circulate & only embarrassed myself twice- when I told William Boyd he was William Dalrymple (he didn't seem to mind) & when I interrupted Simon Schama to gush how important Dead Certainties had been to me as a young writer (he was lovely about it)

Four days to go. Hope to see some of you there on Thursday. Tickets here hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/libra…

New #Folklands is out! With Phil Catling we explore everything from nuclear bunkers to Alan Garner's Brisingaman via Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising. Expect dystopian futures, ancient barrows & darkening skies. The brilliant Richard Rankin reads from ‘The Princess & The Goblin.' Enjoy!

If you've experienced the visual & verbal joys of hwaet! zine, you'll understand why I was honoured to be asked to contribute to the new Forests & Ancient Woodland issue. I hope you like my words; you'll definitely like diddumsdoodles' magical take on them hwaetzine.co.uk/product/zine-i…

Thank you Dr Kelcey Wilson-Lee . You're very kind.

My review of Catherine Fletcher 's The Roads to Rome is in the latest volume of Itinera. Read it here romanroads.org/itinera.html then be sure to order a copy of Catherine's book.

'Enthralling' has an interesting history, and is high praise. Thank you Richard.

View from the office this month. The Haute-Savoie works wonders for my spirits and the book in progress. Lots of reading, writing and hiking, and a little bit of missing the kids - it was our first summer getaway without one or more of them for 23 years.

Extraordinarily interesting & portentous discovery from Roman Wales, its early indications echoing John Reid’s 2023 revisionist interpretation of the military scale & endemic violence of the Roman presence in Scotland. theguardian.com/uk-news/articl…

I do enjoy writing and giving talks about my work and I try to make each one different - so as not to bore myself. My next talk and reading will be at the wonderful The Book Nook next month. Details below. (I might weave in a few words about Hollow Places as well.)

I've just read a very enjoyable London Review of Books Diary by Tom Johnson Tattered mss., outlandish corbel stones, restless spirits and M.R.James.

An exciting day for me as 'Eerie East Anglia', the new book I've edited for British Library Publishing 's 'Tales of the Weird Series', is published today. And it's already out there in the wild, with this lovely display in Waterstones Norwich. For more info see: shop.bl.uk/collections/br…

'It was once said that you could trace the ancient roads the Romans used by looking for the cherry trees that grew beside them – presumably from cherry stones spat out by marching soldiers.' True or not, I love this from @BenTheEpicure 's new book.

The best exhibitions, festivals and theatre shows to get in your diary timeandleisure.co.uk/things-to-do/a… Including this year's fab Clapham Book Festival. Tickets at payhip.com/claphambookfes…

Just a month to go until the wonderful Barkway Literary Festival returns. Grab your tickets now. I'll be talking about Romans, dragon slayers and ways to the past at 7pm.

Self, on dragons and Norman knights lincolnshirefolktalesproject.com/2024/09/11/ant… University of Lincoln, UK Adverse Camber Five Leaves Edward Parnell Christopher Hadley Tolkien Society

Today, Asthma + Lung UK launch a clean air campaign centred around school playgrounds. As someone who’s lived with asthma my whole life I know only too well how air pollution affects us all. Children especially are the most vulnerable to the impact of toxic air which can cause

I'm looking forward to reading at Bishops Stortford Library on 3 October. I don't know anyone in that part of the country, yet. Tickets here: forwardartsfoundation.org/event/open-mic…