‘…These things never die out. You can pay and pay but you never get rid of it. You think you’ve buried it all in the past but there’s someone knows somewhere, there’s a record kept somewhere, nothing’s ever wiped out.’ #BookSky 💙📚 #CeliaDale
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Over the past few years, Celia Dale has become one of my favourite rediscovered authors, largely thanks to Daunt’s reissues of her darkly compelling stories of suburban deception, A Helping Hand, S…
A wonderfully insightful review from Alexandra Harris @theguardian.com. I loved Melissa Harrison's The Given World with all my heart. Still letting it percolate. It IS stunning & both deeply familiar & strange. One of those incredible books that reveals something about yourself, to you.
A completely new creative workshop in celebration of Mid-Summer. Join me on Saturday 27 June among the hops and orchards of Brenley Farm, Faversham to make embossed foil decorations. Make hanging decorations, garlands or cards. All materials, Cake & Cordial included haggytea.com/workshops
Eerie omens haunt this absorbing group portrait set over six months in an English village
This week's post explores the perfect marriage between writer and illustrator: HE Bates and the wood engraver Agnes Miller Parker, and how some books follow us through life. open.substack.com/pub/stillske...
My take on The Tortoise and the Hare (1954) by Elizabeth Jenkins. Hoping that (having just finished Anita Brookner) Hermione Lee might write her biography next.
Some more pics from Tate Britain’s excellent WHISTLER exhibition. Haunting, hazy and ethereal all spring to mind… #Art #ArtSky
New on the blog today. I've written about INCIDENTS IN THE RUE LAUGIER by Anita Brookner.
I loved this precise, psychologically astute novel in which a young woman's life is cruelly shaped by an ill-advised love affair at an impressionable age. #BookSky 💙📚
jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/05/05/i...
I love Anita Brookner. Her insights into the loneliness and isolation that characterise her protagonists’ lives are painfully acute. Every time I read her, I seem to discover a new favourite, and h…
For the past few weeks, my garden has been my refuge. This post began as a search for paintings of women in gardens which led me to Roger Fry, Jean Cooke and The Secret Garden. It became a reflection on how gardens can become places of refuge in difficult times. open.substack.com/pub/stillske...
Deborah Vass
Ann Kennedy Smith
The acclaimed illustrator, Krystyna Turska, won the Kate Greenaway prize in 1972, and yet only a few bare facts remain of her life. This post is about my search for her. open.substack.com/pub/stillske...
Searching for the life of a forgotten illustrator and a magical book forty years on
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Deborah Vass
First look at the JAMES MCNEILL WHISTLER exhibition at Tate Britain. Lots of interesting artworks to see, blissfully cool in the gallery. I’ll be going back for another visit! #Art #ArtSky #London
