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Reposted by James Crawford

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 03/10/2026

Keepers of the Light Currently on BBC Sounds For generations, the Stevensons built lighthouses around Scotland. Robert Louis was expected to do the same – but chose to write instead. Keepers of the Light explores the uneasy boundary between #art & #engineering #C19 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Keepers of the Light

Robert Louis Stevenson, the lighthouse dynasty he left behind and the sea that shaped him.

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Helen O'Sullivan @helenosullivan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I really enjoyed this. @jdcrawf.bsky.social is always a great storyteller and this exploration of family expectations and the tension but connection between scientific and literary imagination was fascinating. It is also supported by some beautiful music choices.

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Les Back @academicdiary.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This is such a beautiful programme - I love the image of Robert Louis Stevenson doodling in his lectures dreaming of anything else other than his engineering studies but also never dishonouring his family of lighthouse builders - gorgeous song from Louis Abbott too. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

Sunday Feature - Keepers of the Light - BBC Sounds

Robert Louis Stevenson, the lighthouse dynasty he left behind and the sea that shaped him.

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Prof Bob Davis @rokewood.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Following BBCRadio3 Lighthouse Day on Saturday, here is a compelling episode from the station’s glittering Sunday Feature strand on Robert Louis Stevenson, lighthouses, the sea, & the bonds between engineering & literature in Scotland’s culture www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Keepers of the Light

Robert Louis Stevenson, the lighthouse dynasty he left behind and the sea that shaped him.

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Reposted by James Crawford

BBC Radio 3 Now Playing Bot (Unofficial) @bbcradio3bot.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature: Keepers of the Light James Crawford explores how Robert Louis Stevenson rejected his family's lighthouse dynasty for literature, and how the sea and its lights continued to shape his imagination.

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Reposted by James Crawford

Julie Dunlap @juliej.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Can a daunting global journey examining industrial-scale natural resource extraction see past the toxic ruins to another extreme: planetary healing? Read Vanishing Earth by @jdcrawf.bsky.social to find out. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/bookreview/t...

washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com

The Vanishing Earth: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Extraction | Washington Independent Review of Books

The Independent is an important voice in the community of readers and writers dedicated to book reviews and writing about the world of books.

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Love this wide-ranging review from @wirobooks.bsky.social for The Vanishing Earth! “Timely and profound… It sheds light in innumerable directions on our obdurate looting of resource-rich splendours from the Andes to the Boundary Waters to the deep sea floor”

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Reposted by James Crawford

Francesca Rheannon @writersvoice.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

This week on Writer’s Voice, James Crawford talks about The Vanishing Earth, climate, extraction and repair. Plus, my archival interview with Max Page on why we’ve imagined New York’s destruction for generations. tinyurl.com/WVvanishing

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Review for THE VANISHING EARTH in today’s @theobserveruk.bsky.social “Requiem for a ravaged planet… Despite its gritty subject matter The Vanishing Earth is poetically written and it ends in hope” @scribeuk.bsky.social @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social

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John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋 @wjpme.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

It’s really good when a book enlightens you & in so doing enrages you as well. Books need to make you think & provoke you to action - any writing really! Here is an example from @jdcrawf.bsky.social’s The Vanishing Earth.

Cover of A DEEPLY REPORTED JOURNEY INTO THE SCARRED LANDSCAPES OF GLOBAL EXTRACTION - AND A SEARCH FOR THE PATH TO REPAIR by James Crawford

Synopsis: Humanity has remade the Earth with astonishing speed. In the last fifty years alone we have taken more out of the planet than in all prior history combined. Everything we touch - rock, metal, sand, water, even thought itself - feeds the pursuit of limitless economic growth.

Born into a family and a Scottish landscape steeped in fossil fuels, James Crawford travels through the living ruins of extraction and meets the people living within its extremes: exploring the radioactive fertiliser-ziggurats of Florida's Bone Valley, the lithium flats of the Atacama, Greenland's collapsing melt-edge, the desertified shores of Spain's Sea of Plastic, and the resource-hungry cloud centres birthing new artificial intelligences, to expose the true cost of this hollowed-out dream.

Yet within these same landscapes lie radical alternatives. Hope emerges in the communities waging legal battles to leave oil untouched beneath the rainforests of Ecuador and the wildfire-stricken plains of Montana; technologists attempting to reverse extraction on Iceland's tundra; and architects raising wooden skyscrapers amid Scandinavia's felled forests - finding the path to repair for a world pushed to the brink.

Incisive, immersive, and visionary,
The Vanishing Earth exposes the ideological forces that have shaped the planet and charts the essential pathways that could yet save it.

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Reposted by James Crawford

The Observer @theobserveruk.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

James Crawford’s requiem for a ravaged planet Mining and industry have laid waste to landscapes across the world. According to The Vanishing Earth, radical change is needed if we are to fix them ✍️ @jeevanvasagar.bsky.social bit.ly/4hovC05

bit.ly

James Crawford’s requiem for a ravaged planet | The Observer

Mining and industry have laid waste to landscapes across the world. According to The Vanishing Earth, radical change is needed if we are to fix them

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Also, by coincidence look who I was interviewing this week!

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Thanks Doug! Delighted to be in that choice pile! 📚

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Reposted by James Crawford

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋 @wjpme.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This wonderful tome - THE VANISHING EARTH: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE LAST DAYS OF ABUNDANCE By JAMES CRAWFORD - has arrived! It’s proving unputdownable! All other activities might have to be put on hold! Congratulations on publication @jdcrawf.bsky.social

Cover of: THE VANISHING EARTH:
A JOURNEY THROUGH
THE LAST DAYS
OF ABUNDANCE
By JAMES CRAWFORD

Synopsis: A DEEPLY REPORTED JOURNEY INTO THE SCARRED LANDSCAPES OF GLOBAL EXTRACTION - AND A SEARCH FOR THE PATH TO REPAIR.
Humanity has remade the Earth with astonishing speed. In the last fifty years alone we have taken more out of the planet than in all prior history combined. Everything we touch - rock, metal, sand, water, even thought itself - feeds the pursuit of limitless economic growth.

Born into a family and a Scottish landscape steeped in fossil fuels, James Crawford travels through the living ruins of extraction and meets the people living within its extremes: exploring the radioactive fertiliser-ziggurats of Florida's Bone Valley, the lithium flats of the Atacama, Greenland's collapsing melt-edge, the desertified shores of Spain's Sea of Plastic, and the resource-hungry cloud centres birthing new artificial intelligences, to expose the true cost of this hollowed-out dream.

Yet within these same landscapes lie radical alternatives. Hope emerges in the communities waging legal battles to leave oil untouched beneath the rainforests of Ecuador and the wildfire-stricken plains of Montana; technologists attempting to reverse extraction on Iceland's tundra; and architects raising wooden skyscrapers amid Scandinavia's felled forests - finding the path to repair for a world pushed to the brink.

Incisive, immersive, and visionary,
The Vanishing Earth exposes the ideological forces that have shaped the planet and charts the essential pathways that could yet save it.

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Reposted by James Crawford

Raven Books @ravenbooks.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

🌍 @jdcrawf.bsky.social's new book is out in the world

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Reposted by James Crawford

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋 @wjpme.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

First learned of it via @jdcrawf.bsky.social on the excellent Take Four Books. It’s unnerving me but that is not a bad thing. #TakeFourBooks Bought it in the excellent Galeri a Siop Lyfrau Pen’rallt Gallery Bookshop in Cymru’s real capital - Machynlleth! It’s on @thebookerprizes.com long list too!

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Reposted by James Crawford

Helen O'Sullivan @helenosullivan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Looking forward to joining in the session on @jdcrawf.bsky.social new book from all the way down in Hampshire! Hurrah for livestreams!

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Reposted by James Crawford

Raven Books @ravenbooks.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

"You cannot ignore a god" Even though this one of hers isn't translated, the interview may be of interest to the #WITmonth crowd: Valeria Luiselli talks to @jdcrawf.bsky.social on Take Four Books about Beginning Middle End open.spotify.com/episode/5Rbd...

open.spotify.com

Valeria Luiselli

Take Four Books · Episode

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Reposted by James Crawford

Serpent's Tail @serpents-tail.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Listen to M. John Harrison on BBC Radio 4's Take Four books, where he discusses J.G Ballard, John Wyndham and Robert Aickman alongside his 2026 Booker Prize longlisted novel #TheEndOfEverything 🐚 🎧 Listen here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

Take Four Books - M. John Harrison - BBC Sounds

On his latest novel - The End of Everything - and the three texts that helped to shape it.

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Reposted by James Crawford

Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

“Technology is breaking through to the very core of our beings—& bringing with it the apparatus of ‘mining.’ Extraction is arriving at the coalface of our consciousness, at the very bedrock of our thoughts.” @jdcrawf.bsky.social Truly terrifying …& individual legal rights will not protect us.

James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Extract from my new book THE VANISHING EARTH in @wired.com - as well as journeying to physical landscapes of extraction I also consider what may be extraction’s final frontier - our individual thoughts, the coal face our consciousness… @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social @scribepub.bsky.social

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Reposted by James Crawford

Kate Tuttle @katekilla.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

The rage I feel is so tangled with the grief I feel. I think this is what Homer meant by wrath, the first word in the Iliad.

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Reposted by James Crawford

Helen O'Sullivan @helenosullivan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

‘So here is one answer to Pliny’s question. This is the point to which avarice will finally penetrate. To the opening up of a rift from nature so absolute that economics and vested interests float free from measurable reality.’ A taste of what looks like another great book from @jdcrawf.bsky.social

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Thanks John - not long now till our in UK too!

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Reposted by James Crawford

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋 @wjpme.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

A nice aperitif so I am now looking forward to the rest of the book! #TheVanishingEarth #ClimateBreakdown #Avarice

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Excerpt from the introduction to my new book THE VANISHING EARTH - out now in US - on @literaryhub.bsky.social! This piece goes from Pliny the Elder lamenting Roman extraction to oil execs turning to climate denial….

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Reposted by James Crawford

Bloomsbury Books US @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Happy #pubday to THE VANISHING EARTH by James Crawford! A journey to the ravaged frontiers of extraction and the promising, often radical alternatives emerging just as we reach the point of exhausting the earth’s natural resources. On sale now! geni.us/vanishingearth

geni.us

From the acclaimed author of The Edge of the Plain, a journey to the ravaged frontiers of extractive industry and the promising, often radical alternatives emerging just as we reach the point of exhau...

Order now:

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Reposted by James Crawford

Raven Books @ravenbooks.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

It's our very own @liznugent.bsky.social on Take Four Books this week, talking to @jdcrawf.bsky.social at the Hay Festival open.spotify.com/episode/1GV5...

open.spotify.com

Liz Nugent

Take Four Books · Episode

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

It really is a superb book - I found the father/son dynamics devastating

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John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋 @wjpme.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Another wonderful listen with @jdcrawf.bsky.social discussing Elizabeth Strout’s new novel The Things We Never Say! So good I had to but it & read it very quickly. A true craftsperson! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

Take Four Books - Elizabeth Strout - BBC Sounds

The award-winning author on her newest book and its three key literary influences.

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

First event is at Edinburgh Book Festival in August, but book not actually out till September in UK so events TBC!

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Pre-order my new book THE VANISHING EARTH now in US & Canada! Barnes & Noble @barnesandnoble.com Rewards and Premium Members get 25% off all pre-orders through Friday, June 26th. Premium Members get an additional 10% off! geni.us/vanishingearth @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

This week on #TakeFourBooks on BBC Radio 4 I was talking to Maggie O’Farrell about new novel LAND, what it means to map a country, & her 3 influences, including Jospeh O’Connor and Marie Heaney - listen now! 🎧📚📻👇 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Had wonderfully wide-ranging chat with Douglas Stuart on BBC R4 - recorded @hayfestival.bsky.social - about new novel JOHN OF JOHN & the 3 works that influenced it: 3 novels of fathers and sons (and daughters!) by Marilynne Robinson, David Leavitt and John McGahern 🎧📚👇 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

“A dizzying feat of reporting” - delighted with this early starred review from @publisherswkly.bsky.social for my forthcoming book THE VANISHING EARTH from @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social & @scribepub.bsky.social!

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Publishers Weekly @publisherswkly.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Historian and journalist Crawford takes readers on ‘a journey to the literal and ideological frontiers of extraction’ in this sweeping account of the toll the pursuit of endless economic growth has taken on the planet.

buff.ly

The Vanishing Earth: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Extraction by James Crawford

Historian and journalist Crawford (The Edge of the Plain) takes readers on “a journey to the literal and ideological frontiers o...

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

The Catalan Girls is excellent - although it does (unrealistically!) make me want to go and live in a Spanish mountain village…

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John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋 @wjpme.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Learned about this excellent book via BBC Radio 4’s Take Four Books hosted by the irrepressible @jdcrawf.bsky.social. Then saw Colm discuss it @hayfestival.bsky.social & just finished reading it! Loved the Catalan Girls. #IAmReading #JustRead #TakeFourBooks

The News From Dublin

By Colm Tóibín

A woman in Galway hears of the death of her son in the First World War. An Irishman seeks anonymity in Barcelona, haunted by crimes he has committed. A man goes to Dublin from Enniscorthy to implore the Minister for Health for a special favour. A young woman is pregnant during the Spanish Civil War. An undocumented worker finds himself living an illegal life and must leave San Francisco, and his child, after thirty years in America. Three sisters who have been living in Argentina decide to return to Catalonia.

In the luminous stories that make up The News from Dublin, Colm Tóibín delves into the days and nights of those living far from home: lives of great longing, at a great distance from past lives and past selves.

Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including The Master, Brooklyn and its sequel Long Island, and The Magician, and three collections of stories. He has been three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

In 2021, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature.

Tóibín was appointed the Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022-2024.

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John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋 @wjpme.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

This is a very powerful book. It is a difficult read at times but it is - in many ways - a must read for us all. Learned of it via the excellent Take Four Books hosted by the brilliant @jdcrawf.bsky.social

Uprising by Tahmima Adam

Any moment now, we would grow up, and we would become them, waking late and hungry and with a job that had no name.

On a desolate, sinking island, a group of children witness their mothers living lives of cruelty and servitude.

Bought and sold by Amma, the sadistic madam who was once herself sold into slavery, the women have learned to accept their fate.
Yet their children weave fantastic tales of escape, imagining that someday they will leave the island and enjoy a life of freedom.

When Kusum Khan, a young, educated woman from the city, is forcibly brought to the island, she too is subjected to Amma's violent induction.

Yet Kusum refuses to yield, and soon the collective complacency of her fellow prisoners turns into ferocity and defiance. Together, they begin a rebellion that will upend their island, their world, and the very order of things.

An earth-shattering drama of resistance and female power, Uprising gives voice to the silenced through the story of a revolution no one saw coming.

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James Crawford @jdcrawf.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Sultana’s Dream by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic

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