Hayley Anderton

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW
PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going—
SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT
PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti—
SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

Romantic History: Balmoral

This is really fascinating especially the tiny bit about the establishment’s fascination with the exotic and that exotic changing fashion. So the orientalism of the Brighton Pavillion becomes Balmoral Castle.
Plus ça change
open.spotify.com/episode/6Y6Q...

Loved by booksellers and readers from day one, THE ARTIST by Lucy Steeds is our #BookOfTheYear 2025 & THE CAFE AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS by Mikey Please is our Children's #BookOfTheYear! 🎉

& Gift of the Year is Tim Siadatan's PADELLA! 🎁

Find them here: www.waterstones.com/category/cul...

The Ghost Story for Christmas Eve this year is M R James's "An Episode of Cathedral History".
It'll be livestreamed at 7pm (UK) but available to watch anywhere, anytime after that. Simply register and pay-what-you-can here
christmascathedralghosts.eventbrite.co.uk

art by Paul Lowe

Murder in a West End boutique? 🛍️👠 Inspector Charlesworth’s on the case. This month’s Crime Classic, Death in High Heels, dives into fashion, ambition, and fatal secrets.
Available today: shop.bl.uk/products/death-in-high-heels

Ed: @martinedwardsbooks.bsky.social

1961 club badge (13-18 April 2026)

The next club is announced! Next April, we are reading from 1961 #1961Club

George I need you to do to these companies what you could never do to your books and finish them.

That this exquisite chalk stream should be polluted with e-coli, pesticides, cleaning products, industrial chemicals, medicines + toiletries is a tragedy beyond words that could be prevented by improving sewage systems so wastewater is treated 3 times - enough to remove most chemicals + pathogens

This collection of interwoven stories is like a fever dream and Gummerson is an English Vonnegut. I assure you that this statement will make complete sense to you by the time you've reached, I'd say, page 6. What a bloody delight.

Thanks to @adamjfarrer.bsky.social for this brilliant review of Saltburn @renardpress.com - ‘an English Vonnegut’ 😊

No I don’t, you chucklefucks, I want Norma Jean to be able to rest in peace without a bunch of technoghouls turning her corpse into a marionette.

This terrifying #yokai is actually a blood-drinking vampire tree.
#LegendaryWednesday

Endorsed happily. See the film, it is a delight. It *brings* delight.

I needed a break to realise I mostly do it to help my own memory. I thought about substack but the more I read about it the less I like the sound of it.

Will miss your posts. Have also been posting much less and considering if I should carry on, I think I will for now as I've kind of missed it over the last month

once again, please hire historians

[alt text: an image of Ben & Jerry's "Black and Tan" ice-cream]

Came back from Scotland today after 2 weeks away. Every bridge we passed had union or George cross flags on it as soon as we crossed the border. It wasn't like that going up. Depressing

Will talk more on this in the coming weeks. but I'll be back at the TALES OF THE WEIRD festival this November. Thrilled to have been asked back, and you'll be able to buy my 'lost' Christmas Ghost Stories anthology ILLUSIONS OF PRESENCE and get them signed by me there.

Absolutely loving the Shetland weather, and it smells incredible here - floral and salty

I mean, this bear has SEEN THINGS

ILLUSIONS OF PRESENCE has a cover!!

Really happy with how this one has turned out, it's going to be *THE* book to get this Christmas!!

Links to order below! Please share this one far and wide!

#christmasghoststories #santasshinyshiny

A collection of balls of yarn

Been buying yarn, its so pretty

just saw someone sincerely arguing that they need AI bc they don't have "natural" artistic talent and idk how to make you understand that nobody comes by this shit naturally. it's just...work. it's being bad at it for a really, really, really long time. it's intention, pursued over time! wtf!!!

Landscape emerging from cloud cover and the sea

Early morning Shetland behind those clouds

A picture of Aberdeen harbour

Leaving Aberdeen, heading for Shetland. Fine night for it

If you ever wondered what difference booksellers make compared to algorithms this is it.

The Bluestocking 379: The economics of writing a book Infinite scroll means infinite ad inventory

"One thing that does sell books? Being a Waterstones Book of the Month... find whoever is in charge of this choice & sleep with them"

This reflection on the state of publishing & publicity by the great @helenlewis.bsky.social should be required reading for writers.
open.substack.com/pub/helenlew...

The thing you should take away from that headline about how a huge proportion of these people already have convictions for violence is that the cops already know who most of them are, because they regularly arrest them in the town centre and they’re regularly called out to their houses.

It's a difficult time to not be that keen on pistachios

It really is. I loved that book, partly because in places she's quite provocative. Interesting to find that a lot of people I recommended it to struggled with that and how there isn't an easy redemptive arc in it.

This is one thing I really liked about Sally Husband's Sea Bean - nature isn't a cure, it isn't redemptive, it's not always even accessible, but it's a point of focus