Gareth
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garethavonb.bsky.social
Gareth
@garethavonb.bsky.social
Love books, cinema & music #freePalestine #climatecrisis. #organise #solidarity 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🇵🇸#libraries 💜
https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/gareth_beniston
Reposted by Gareth
I've been following the "annual pleasures" roundups on the Aqueduct Press blog since they started, almost twenty years ago now (!!!), so it was a treat to be asked to contribute an entry this year: aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...
The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2025, pt.9: Niall Harrison
The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing and Listening in 2025 by Niall Harrison   When I sat down to think about the pleasures I gained ...
aqueductpress.blogspot.com
December 18, 2025 at 2:34 PM
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We asked you to vote for your favorite books, movies, TV shows, short fiction, video games, and more of 2025...and now, Reactor is excited to present the results! Congratulations to all the winners!

#booksky
Readers Pick Their Favorite SFF of 2025 - Reactor
What an excellent year for speculative fiction — in all its many forms!
reactormag.com
December 19, 2025 at 3:05 PM
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Anyway, you should absolutely read Lola Olufemi's essay in this book from @plutopress.bsky.social
December 9, 2025 at 4:49 AM
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Looks like quite a few genre and genre-adjacent contenders in next years Tournament of Books www.tournamentofbooks.com/the-2026-sho...
The 2026 Shortlist — The Tournament of Books
The books, judges, and Zombie Poll for the 2026 Tournament of Books, presented by Field Notes.
www.tournamentofbooks.com
December 11, 2025 at 5:12 PM
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sylvia townsend warner statue!!! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Sylvia Townsend Warner statue unveiled in Dorchester
The bronze statue of the Dorset novelist sitting on a bench is unveiled in Dorchester town centre.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 15, 2025 at 2:53 PM
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Lisa Tuttle offers her “'best of the best of 2025'”—the books that I’d want on the list if I were a judge for The Clarke Award or World Fantasy or similar.
aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...
The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2025, pt.4: Lisa Tuttle
Pleasures of Reading in 2025 By Lisa Tuttle      Because I am still writing a monthly roundup of SF/Fantasy/horror books for The Guard...
aqueductpress.blogspot.com
December 14, 2025 at 1:57 AM
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What Sarah Tolmie's been reading. "Conrad. Weird, eh? Why read Conrad in this day and age? Inexcusable old white guy? Well, it’s because, in my mind, Conrad is a weird writer." aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...
The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2025, pt. 1: Sarah Tolmie
Annual Pleasures by Sarah Tolmie    I spent 2023-4 (I chunk time in academic years) trying to figure out what weird fiction was. For tho...
aqueductpress.blogspot.com
December 10, 2025 at 9:09 PM
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Welcome to THE BEST BOOKS OF 2025: REVIEWER'S CHOICE!! Reactor's book reviewers have come together to recommend their favorite 2025 reads. How many have you picked up?
Reviewers' Choice: The Best Books of 2025 - Reactor
Reactor’s regular book reviewers talk about notable titles they read in 2025
reactormag.com
December 9, 2025 at 3:05 PM
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Please share: I am delighted to release the programme for the July 11 2026, Symposium on the work of Frances Hardinge, at Kings College, London. We can't manage virtual attendance but we do offer cheap conference proceedings. Tickets at Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-one-day-...
A One Day Symposium on Frances Hardinge
Politics, Ethics and the Material World: the Interrogative  Fiction of Frances Hardinge.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 29, 2025 at 9:19 AM
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And another! Stories and interviews with the team behind one of the BBC's greatest ever TV dramas – "a revenge thriller, a mystical nuclear-and-environmental-apocalypse fable, a clear-eyed political document of the mid-1980s, a ghost story" – by me for @thequietus.com thequietus.com/opinion-and-...
Why Edge Of Darkness makes so much sense in 2025 | The Quietus
Judge Rogers speaks to several key members of the team who made the ecologically-minded thriller for the BBC
thequietus.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:38 AM
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This week, I withdrew from a speaking engagement at a public university because they sent me a list of prohibited “words & concepts.” I will not humor this censorship. It does a disservice to the stories I’m discussing & the audience, who deserve unfettered access to information & conversation.
November 20, 2025 at 10:20 PM
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Shabana Mahmood is wrong - Another cowardly attack on immigrants does not hide the incompetence of the Starmer government.

Me, for the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social
www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...
Shabana Mahmood is wrong
Another cowardly attack on immigrants does not hide the incompetence of the Starmer government
www.newstatesman.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:51 PM
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🫰SNAP!🫰

My latest column for the excellent @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org, on Tochy Onyebuchi, Joy Sanchez-Taylor, and what to read to understand what you’re reading.

How might we fill the “imagination gap” in our fictions?
Snap! Criticism: Sanchez-Taylor and Onyebuchi
Dan Hartland What should you read if you want to understand what you’re reading? Gang, this column would of course advise that you read criticism. But there are other, and less eccentric, answers. …
ancillaryreviewofbooks.org
November 12, 2025 at 7:02 PM
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If the government really intends to seize jewellery and other valuables from refugees,
either
- it is staggeringly ignorant of the historical precedents
or
- it's aware of the precedents, and thinks, yeah, we'll have some of that.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
No 10 tells Labour MPs it expects support for tough new asylum policies
Some backbenchers already opposing planned immigration crackdown seen as ‘economically and culturally illiterate’
www.theguardian.com
November 15, 2025 at 11:41 AM
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I spoke to two dozen BBC journalists, from frontline reporters to senior staff, about how the BBC came to symbolise the West's failure to prevent genocide in Gaza - and how the row over its coverage fed directly into its current meltdown.
www.equator.org/articles/ins...
Inside the BBC’s Gaza Fiasco • EQUATOR
How the world’s most trusted media organisation fell apart
www.equator.org
November 14, 2025 at 8:01 AM
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I have a new interview about RAKESFALL up at Reactor! In which I am quite verbose reactormag.com/author-inter...
A Conversation With Vajra Chandrasekera, Author of Rakesfall - Reactor
"I think writers, like all artists, have a responsibility to act as human cultural workers in an actual society"
reactormag.com
November 11, 2025 at 3:17 AM