James_AL_Downs

An opened notebook, showing two pages of yellow lines paper. The first page bears the title 'Rebecca'. Plot notes for the first few chapters of the novel are written by Daphne du Maurier in pencil.

The novel 'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier was published on this day - 05 August - in 1938.

Our collections include several archival items relating to 'Rebecca', such as this notebook, which contains plot notes for the story.

📷 EUL MS 144/1/1/4

#OnThisDay #OTD #Archives #LiteraryArchives #DuMaurier

Resistance | Format: the Women’s Photography Agency (in person) | National Galleries of Scotland Join Resistance photographers Pam Isherwood and Maggie Murray for a discussion about Format, the agency founded as a collective to represent women photographers.  Format was established in 1983 and op...

In-person tix for this #photography talk @nationalgalleries.bsky.social are nearly gone - but a livestream is available to hear Pam Isherwood and Maggie Murray discuss Format, the agency est in 1983 (closed 2003) to represent women photographers. 🗃️📜📷📸🔥

Tuesday, Aug. 12th, 12.45-1.30 pm in Edinburgh

Watercolour painting of an owl sitting on a log, captioned 'Strix stridula. Common brown Owl'.

Good morning to everyone, but especially to all the owls, for today is their special day!

This lovely tawny owl is from a volume of 76 watercolour illustrations of birds, painted in the early 19th century.

📷 EUL MS 23; digitised by @dhlabexeter.bsky.social

#InternationalOwlAwarenessDay #Archives

Woman’s memoirs give fascinating insight into life in 17th-century northern England Newly reunited manuscripts by Alice Thornton show how she navigated personal crises during tumultuous events such as the civil war

Alice! Top work @hagenilda.bsky.social @cordeliabeattie.bsky.social @sharonhoward.bsky.social et al!

www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

News - Newly Deciphered Cuneiform Tablet Contains Unknown Sumerian Myth - Archaeology Magazine CHICAGO, ILLINOIS—A riveting lost Sumerian myth was recently rediscovered thanks to University of Chicago Sumerologist […]

A new Sumerian myth discovered: archaeology.org/news/2025/07...

Ah, the Pergamon was shut for renovations during my visit - there's always something going on with at least one of Berlin's museums. Looks like you've found plenty of other things to do!

Photograph of one of the galleries inside the Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin, showing multiple screens and mirrors around an illuminated walkway, with a scene from the film 'Run, Lola, Run' showing red-haired actress Franka Potente

Are you planning on going to the Kinemathek during your stay? This is from my visit eighteen months ago

A black and white watercolour painting of the mysterious carved stone in woodland in Brittany, known as 'the Baboon'

A black and white watercolour painting of the stones of Men Marz in Brittany.

Just one day of my Etsy sale left and prices start at just £20 - if you want to pick up original works of art featuring sacred springs, medieval castles and standing stones at a 20% discount, check it out now here: shorturl.at/HDzSI
#StandingStoneSunday

Watch online: Mahmoud Muna & Matthew Teller: This Is Gaza From Mon 11 Aug - Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller join us to discuss Daybreak in Gaza, an anthology they have co-edited which illuminates in vivid detail the extraordinary individuals, meaningful plac...

3 Gaza book talks in Scotland:

11/8 Edinburgh festival: www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival...

12/8 Edinburgh fringe @lighthousebks.bsky.social: lighthousebookshop.com/events/stori...

13/8 Dundee Palestine Solidarity: www.eventbrite.com/e/daybreak-i...

Hundreds of medieval medical manuscripts now accessible Over the course of the last three years, the Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries project has been enhancing the discoverability of medieval medical recipes in historic library collections across the ...

Over 3 years, the Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries project has conserved, catalogued and digitised 190 manuscripts, containing 7000+ pages of medieval medical recipes. These recipes are now freely available on Cambridge Digital Library: www.lib.cam.ac.uk/stories/curi...

Photo of a stream on Dartmoor surrounded by thick bushes, ferns and trees, beneath blue sky

With bracken, gorse, pines, silver birch, rowan trees laden with berries, and a good amount of heather, many parts of Dartmoor remind me of Scotland

My University has opened a virtual scholar scheme for scholars from Gaza. Please share widely and help stop scholasticide. www.exeter.ac.uk/faculties/ha...

‘Local sports champion’: Palestinian boy, 17, dies of starvation in Gaza Atef Abu Khater’s weight dropped to just 25kg (55lbs) before he died of malnutrition, his family says.

Horrifying

I thought the civilised world had said they would never let this happen again?

Why is Starmer not acting?

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/...

Photo of a boat shed at the edge of a lake surrounded by trees

Stillness at Shobrooke this morning

I should be in Suli in a few weeks, where it should be slightly cooler, but I may well follow your example

Given that he's regarded as the father of allegorical interpretation, it's bewildering that he would apply a literal interpretation to the one Biblical verse that should be taken allegorically

Photo of a bottle of Singleton single malt whisky alongside its cardboard case and a near empty glass

Just cracked this open and it's going down rather well

Photo of a wide-eyed Klaus Kinksi standing in a doorway

I've got an older dvd of the rather similar 'The Devil's Daffodil' (the German title was, translated, 'The Secret of the Yellow Daffodils') from 1961, which I acquired as an actress who appeared in it wanted me to write her biography.

Photo of a ruined Roman temple, visible in the form of two concentric squares of white stone on grass, beneath blue skies

I wonder if there was a standard size and layout linking the temple on Maiden Castle, Watling Place and this one - which I visited a couple of years ago - on Jordan Hill, above the cliffs at Weymouth

I continue to collect examples of feathers in books (that is, examples in general of Coleridge would call "volatilia") &, bsky, I would love your suggestions. Found this in Ackermann's Repository earlier this week: "Lines, written in a Lady's Album above a Painting of a Jay's Feather." More please!

Image of Myrna Loy and William Powell as Nora and Nick Charles

Haven't watched any for a while, but at one point the Thin Man films were a form of go-to comfort food, largely because of the Loy-Powell relationship

A room full of empty chairs, which hopefully will soon have people on them

Devon’s forgotten witches book cover

It’s the first outing for the new talk to accompany our book Devon’s Forgotten Witches, and we couldn’t hope for a better place to start than Sidmouth International Folk Festival.

The book releases on August 21 but you can get one now from the podcast website. We will even sign it

🏺 Archaeology is in this, deep.

I recommend the work of Dima Srouji for many-layered responses to the long history of colonial archaeology in this region

www.architectural-review.com/essays/depth...

www.dimasrouji.com

#Photography folk, have a look at this weekend of events from @sidegallery.bsky.social, August 22 to 25 (Bank Holiday weekend) in Newcastle. Exhibition, workshops, portfolio review, and much more still to be announced – come out to support this historic Tyneside gallery and its work. 🗃️📜📷📸

Magic Rays of Light Magic Rays of Light is an original and ambitious history of the largely unknown early years of television in Britain. A detailed cultural study of the first dem…

And for those who would, rightly, prefer to avoid Am*z*n, her is Magic Rays of Light at Bloomsbury, where both hb and pb are currently cheaper too, and there are e-book options:

www.bloomsbury.com/uk/magic-ray...

Magic Rays of Light Magic Rays of Light is an original and ambitious history of the largely unknown early years of television in Britain. A detailed cultural study of the first dem…

My book 'Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain' can be pre-ordered from Bloomsbury here, currently with discounts on the hardback, paperback and e-book versions.

Publication 8 January, just ahead of the centenary of television in Britain.

www.bloomsbury.com/uk/magic-ray...

An announcement on today's news made me think straightaway of reading 'On the Beach', on the beach, a few years ago. We had 'The War Game' (1966) and 'Threads' (1984) broadcast on BBC4 this week; a rescreening of the Gregory Peck film wouldn't go amiss

Pressed fan-shaped red algae with branched blades

Pressed brown algae with thick branches

Pressed green algae with long fronds

Pressed delicate red algae with intricate branches

It's National Marine Week! 🌊

These specimens of marine algae were collected in Plymouth and pressed in an album by Russel Harris in c late 1800s or early 1900s. Their vibrant colours last to the present day!

📷 EUL MS 278

#NationalMarineWeek #MarineWeek #Devon #MarineAlgae #Seaweed #Archives

Out next month with @stanfordpress.bsky.social! "The struggles between Palestinian theater artists and Israeli authorities form the central relationships in this history."