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Reposted by Simon Spanton

Elle @elleisanisland.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The magnificence of the mushroom

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I'm studying biotech and every time someone brings up mushrooms our current professeor will look either extremely excited or pained and go, "listen, mushrooms are neither plants nor animals nor something inbetween. We do not know what they are. Some are immortal. Some produce life-saving substances some are so closely related to humans that eating them may cause an allergic reaction against your own body. I cannot teach you about the mushrooms.

Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 17h

I am not generally one for special editions (my books are for reading not for treasuring) but take a look at this... I've not read Lonesome Dove before so this beautifully put together book is going to get a THOROUGH reading. @thebrokenbinding.bsky.social

A photo of the 2026 Picador special edition of Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

A photo of a spread from the same book including a full page b&w illustration.

A photo of a Broken Binding box on a small table in a living room.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 19h

"There is no passion, no vague desire, no tender longing that cannot find fit type or symbol in the legends of the peasantry or in the traditions of the scalds and the gleemen."

A photo of a copy of the 1993 Penguin Modern Classics edition of Writings on Irish Folklore, Legend and Myth by W.B. Yeats

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"On the beach on the leeward side, little field-mice ran backwards and forwards at the edge of the water, the sand slipping away from under their paws. Boulders turned over heavily, revealing the pale roots of the sea pinks. At dawn the island slept. The trees had reached the lighthouse-rock..."

A photo of the 2009 Puffin edition of Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson. The cover art is by the author.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"Well, what do you think Hell is? Don't hurry, you've got an eternity to answer in. But I know what I think it is. It's the two of us driving on alone. For ever. Just the two of us, Eric. For evermore."

A photo of the 1988 edition of The Virago Book of Ghost Stories. The cover art is "Ophelia" by Gerald Brockhurst. The quote is from Dual Control by Elizabeth Walter.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Paint me like one of your dead medieval knights.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This is the future the Liberals want.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Goop above, sticks below, skullish in-between. Proper.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"If a book were written all in numbers, it would be true. Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together."

A photo of the 1999 Millennium edition of The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. The cover art is by Chris Moore.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Name a film with a female director: Near Dark - Kathryn Bigelow. Near perfect modern vampire western.

static.klipy.com

Paxton Says 'It's Finger Licking Good!'

ALT: Paxton Says 'It's Finger Licking Good!'

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Reposted by Simon Spanton

Ken MacLeod @amendlocke.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Reminds me of my novel The Sky Road! 'How many hundred, how many thousand towns had met the new order in the form of a wild woman on a horse, riding at the head of a ragtag army to proclaim that net was thrown off, the sky was fallen, and the world was free?'

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Cooking tea music. Deluxe extended version (music not tea).

A photo of the cardboard CD slip case for Amplified Heart by Everything But The Girl.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"...the moon floating like a great calm lily pad in that churning river. And presently out of that second moon his love rose up, dead and drowned and standing before the black woman with her hair dripping thickly and her wide blind eyes full of the river's darkness."

A photo of the 2024 Gollancz edition of The Innkeeper's Song by Peter S. Beagle. The cover art is by Tomás Almeida.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"The wind and the sea. Everything else is provisional. A wing's beat and it's gone."

A photo of copies of the Sort Of Books editions of Findings, Sightlines and Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Late to this but can't not repost.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Pagans is a great read and I was a bloody idiot to pass up the chance to try and acquire it when I was at Angry Robot.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

"I hope He feels guilt for what His absence has made of us, for what His abandonment has done to us, for what His indifference has grown in us, which is the darkness between stars and the moment of falling and the conviction that we are broken..." @tinywriterlaura.bsky.social

A photo of a copy of the 2025 Angry Robot edition of Awakened by Laura Elliott. The cover, a monstrous blue-eyed raven carrying the Tower of London on its back, is by Sarah O'Flaherty.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"Empty and peaceful the old house dreamed, with sunlight shifting from room to room and no sound to break the silence, save in one place, where the voices of children could be heard faintly above the rustling of a tree."

A photo of a copy of the 1974 Puffin edition of All But a Few by Joan Aiken. The cover art is by Pat Marriott.

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Reposted by Simon Spanton

Edinburgh Images 📷 @colognuh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Leith from Calton Hill, Edinburgh. The massive yellow structures are parts for a wind farm based at sea off the coast near Montrose.

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Reposted by Simon Spanton

Maudie @maudiestokes.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Friday

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

These two will buddy up on a walk in a way they very rarely do at home.

A photo of tuxedo cat and a golden roan working cocker-spaniel being mates on a pavement.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Charity shop gold. "As they played the mountains trembled about them; great slabs of snow dislodged from their niches and slipped into the gulf, spires of rock trembled and tottered, and as the travellers came to the end of the sonata, the Mysterious Barricades opened to receive them."

A photo of the 1974 Puffin edition of All But a Few by Joan Aiken. The cover art is by Pat Marriott.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The weighted rush from yesterday morning's heavy rain has pushed through to the sea leaving the Water of Leith low and slow again.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Twelve curlews on the Police Scotland headquarters playing fields.

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Reposted by Simon Spanton

Paul Hearn @paulxhearn.eurosky.social · 22/09/2026

From ‘Indeterminacy’, Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage

Text on page “George Mantor had an iris garden, which he improved each year by throwing out the commoner varieties. One day his attention was called to another very fine iris garden. Jealously he made some inquiries. The garden, it turned out, belonged to the man who collected his garbage.”

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"It was generally conceded by the locals that the goings-on at the Rock were over and done with and best forgotten. A last row on the lake. A last light pressure of a hand... Unseen, unrecorded, the pattern of the picnic continued to darken and spread. "

A photo of a copy of the 1998 Vintage paperback of Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay. The sepia toned cover photo, of a young woman lying on the ground in pale Edwardian clothing, is by Bina Winkler.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"And not only the entities themselves, but the stuff of their own weird cosmos was entering the Earth, so that where their power was the land heaved like the sea, or the sea flowed like lava, mountains changed shape and trees sprouted ghastly blossoms..."

A photo of a copy of the 2014 Gollancz edition of Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock. The cover art is by Michael Whelan.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I was lucky enough to be Mike's editor for a while and if there is a writer more in control of every nuance of their writing, more able to illustrate how we negotiate the surreal and bewildering tangle of how we live in the world then I want to read them. An amazing writer, an amazing career.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

So pleased to see Mike Harrison on the shortlist. Long, long overdue recognition for a writer who is, quite simply, one of the very best this country has produced.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"Ebin Willoweed rowed his daughters round the submerged garden. He rowed with gentle ineffectual strokes because he was a slothful man, but a strong vein of inquisitiveness kept him from being entirely indolent. He rowed under a blazing sun; the light was very bright and the water brilliant."

A photo of the 2010 Virago Modern Classics edition of Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns. The cover art is a detail from 'Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta: Dinner on the Hotel Lawn' by Stanley Spencer.

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

More great stuff from Abigail. (See particularly the subtext of Aragorn and Legolas' responses to Boromir.)

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