Matt Gilbert

AI coming for John Crace

I can tell you what Blink cuts out:
Everything that makes a book worth reading.
A plot synopsis isn't a novel-- and a plot synopsis has never made anyone Feel anything.

Carry on, world. Wonder why there's no meaning in your life.
I'll continue reading whole books written by people.

“I wonder if I will miss the moss” “There was mud, / and there was the walking, / all the beautiful walking.”

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Donate to Support Jon's Legacy - Raising Funds for Bookseller Crow, organized by Karen Mcleod Dear all our loyal customers, authors and friends, It is wit… Karen Mcleod needs your support for Support Jon's Legacy - Raising Funds for Bookseller Crow

gofund.me/a6a559f2d

The Book Bag: Why I Wear My Past To Work by Chris Campbell Welcome back to The Book Bag. I hope you’ve had a poetic week. I’ve probably asked this about 437 times this week, but how is it October? I’ve had quite the rollercoaster this week. Sunday morning was spent at the allotment, making a bulb lasagne. Hopefully come spring, we’ll have some lovely pastels flowering. Fingers crossed! I also saw Newcastle get (undeservedly) beat by Arsenal. But then we bounced back with a Champions League win. It was also the 2nd anniversary of getting Brody. We celebrated by giving him toys and treats.

This week in The Book Bag it's a warm welcome back to Chris Campbell with his new collection 'Why I Wear My Past To Work' published by Parlyaree Press.

Playlist, news and shoutouts as standard.

These are poems to return to time and again, it feels like having a conversation with a friend ...

The Cardinal and The Corpse: Deeper into Iain Sinclair's world Reminiscing about a lost Stamford bookshop , I mentioned Iain Sinclair's novel White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings. This film takes us deep...

This film takes us deeper into its world of disreputable book scouts.

We meet - still alive and thoroughly respectable - Michael Moorcock and Alan Moore.

Then there's David Seabrook (dead), Michael Stone (dead) and Driffield (disappeared, though see the recent court case).

Some lovely news! ❤️❤️❤️

Cover of Literary Hauntings, A Gazetteer of Literary Ghost Stories from Britain and Ireland. Tartarus Press.

Child me would love that grown up me is reading this - Literary Hauntings Tartarus Press. Like one of those old Peter Underwood Gazetteers of British & Irish Ghosts but fictional: from Victorian & Edwardian classics to contemporary folk horror. Inc Blurry B&W location shots & postcode refs too 👻 📕

Write About Walking – In the Dark

write.walklistencreate.org/wr_instance/...

Tonight! Join us at The Bridge Inn in Bristol for the launch of ‘Why I Wear My Past to Work’. With six top Bristol poets followed by open mic! 🎉 From 7pm! 🎙️ @tomsastry.bsky.social @basementofmybrain.bsky.social @sophiedumont.bsky.social @parlyareepress.bsky.social

As my daughter got sicker and sicker, our quest for answers dragged on. How did we all miss the bacteria taking over her body? I write about nature, but when Milly got sick with a mystery illness, it never occurred to me that a long-forgotten tick bite could be the cause

Please read this piece by @patrickbarkham.bsky.social
about his daughter Milly and Lyme Disease. It's important and impacts so many more people than most of us realise. Get well soon Milly ♥️

·

This is a piece I wrote about what England increasingly feels like, and how a kind of social humidity - stifling, uneasy - sweeps in from the South Coast www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Labour must grab the microphone from Reform UK and stand up for true British values | Lucy Powell If elected deputy Labour leader, I would take the fight to Nigel Farage and show him for what he really is, says Labour MP Lucy Powell

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... if only the actual leadership spoke like this and acted on it.

‘History will remember who showed up’: Keir Starmer faces call to attend Cop30 summit Response from leaders and key climate figures comes after PM’s aides advised non-attendance over concerns Reform may attack him

www.theguardian.com/environment/... And for his next trick, running scared of right wing climate deniers… “Starmer [urged] to attend the crucial Cop30 climate summit this November, after aides advised him not to attend for fear of attracting the ire of the Reform party.”

Audition for poetry journal iamb in Sept 2025 Audition to be part of quarterly poetry journal iamb between the 20th and 27th of September 2025.

**OPEN AUDITIONS CLOSE SEPT 27TH**

So far, 71 poets have auditioned to feature in @iambapoet.com in either 2026 or 2027. Of those, 53 have secured places.

Another 50+ spaces are waiting to be taken by talented poets – poets like YOU!

Don't let this opportunity pass you by.

iambapoet.com/audition

A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke - 4: Modernity, Mourning and the Shadow of War - ‘Funeral Blues’ by W. H. Auden - BBC Sounds A new history of England exploring the ways in which poetry has shaped English identity.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

‘It’s resurrection’: 1,000-year-old seeds could grow ancient plants in England’s ice-age ghost ponds An expert team are resurrecting ice age ponds and finding rare species returning from a ‘perfect time capsule’

www.theguardian.com/environment/... “This is nature’s emergency recovery mechanism. We’ve buggered almost everything up but this will still bring them back.”

Privately educated still have ‘vice-like grip’ on most powerful UK jobs Those in top roles are five times as likely to have been to private school than general population, study finds

www.theguardian.com/society/2025... ““Little progress has been made in opening up positions of power, with those from private schools maintaining a vice-like grip on the most important roles.”

My place or yours? - Flags and the far right from someone who looks different to you By Alex Andreou

I wrote something about feeling like a guest in a country that is my home.

bestforbritain.substack.com/p/my-place-o...

When I grew up in London it was a different place - not better. It was less vibrant, more divided, more rundown, unhealthier, more casually violent. It's not perfect now - no place is - but it's broadly a success story. If you don't like it, fine, your choice. Leave it to the rest of us to enjoy it.

2/2 they’d get it back and redeliver.
After a few days I enquired again with the sender, who discovered RM in some confusion, but did make it clear to the enquirer that “they seem confident that they will be unable to deliver it.” I think this should be their new slogan. Ffs

1/2 A couple of weeks ago I was expecting a parcel. When I clicked on tracked delivery, it had been taken to a completely different address & signed for with a scrawl, by someone I’d never heard of.
I contacted the sender, who chased Royal Mail, who said they’d made a mistake…

The discredited Washington Post just fired its last black full-time opinion writer for being insufficiently grief-stricken at the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Please read her full post.

Senior Labour MPs Demand Crackdown on X After Elon Musk’s ‘Dangerous’ Rally Comments Senior Labour MPs are urging the government to take urgent action against hate speech, misinformation and violent rhetoric on Elon Musk’s X platfor...

Excellent to see Labour MPs call on the government to leave Elon Musk's hate-filled X. Doing so would spark an exodus of journalists & public bodies.

Thank you @bengoldsborough.bsky.social @sarahowen.org.uk @alexballingermp.bsky.social

www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Reposting because it seems like a good time to remember how to deal with the politics of racism and how politicians and newspapers can draw red lines if they want to

Right to swim and wild camp in England should be enshrined in law, Labour MPs say Report from group of MPs calls for broader access to rivers, woodlands and fields to improve connection with nature

Labour MPs today call for new legislation to extend a right of responsible access to more English landscapes, and for the right to swim and wild camp to be enshrined in law

@righttoroam.bsky.social inputted to this new report from the APPG for access to nature:

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

It's here! 🥳 Time to get lost in the everything-always of poetry.

Rue Rue Jo Cox, Députée Britannique, a street sign in Burgundy reads, Assassinée pour ses convictions. No British road is named after her, I found on returning home, for fear it could have proved controversial. I remembered in Shakespeare rue even for ruth, called 'herb of grace' because it was used in exorcisms, by the angel to clean Adam's eyes, and Gulliver back home for his nose against the smell of his countrymen.

I think about this poem by Ian Duhig — about Jo Cox, the Labour MP assassinated by a man shouting ‘Britain first’ — every day at the moment. No other contemporary poet has looked so clearly at the political reality of the far right as a minority who must always be appeased

Unfunded Hobbit Research In defence of academic inspiration

After making a dumb joke on here about the creative side of academic writing as "unfunded hobbit research", I then wrote a serious post about it