“There was mud, / and there was the walking, / all the beautiful walking.”

Dear all our loyal customers, authors and friends, It is wit… Karen Mcleod needs your support for Support Jon's Legacy - Raising Funds for Bookseller Crow

Welcome back to The Book Bag. I hope you’ve had a poetic week. I’ve probably asked this about 437 times this week, but how is it October? I’ve had quite the rollercoaster this week. Sunday morning was spent at the allotment, making a bulb lasagne. Hopefully come spring, we’ll have some lovely pastels flowering. Fingers crossed! I also saw Newcastle get (undeservedly) beat by Arsenal. But then we bounced back with a Champions League win. It was also the 2nd anniversary of getting Brody. We celebrated by giving him toys and treats.

Reminiscing about a lost Stamford bookshop , I mentioned Iain Sinclair's novel White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings. This film takes us deep...

I write about nature, but when Milly got sick with a mystery illness, it never occurred to me that a long-forgotten tick bite could be the cause

If elected deputy Labour leader, I would take the fight to Nigel Farage and show him for what he really is, says Labour MP Lucy Powell

Response from leaders and key climate figures comes after PM’s aides advised non-attendance over concerns Reform may attack him

Audition to be part of quarterly poetry journal iamb between the 20th and 27th of September 2025.

A new history of England exploring the ways in which poetry has shaped English identity.

An expert team are resurrecting ice age ponds and finding rare species returning from a ‘perfect time capsule’

Those in top roles are five times as likely to have been to private school than general population, study finds

By Alex Andreou

Senior Labour MPs are urging the government to take urgent action against hate speech, misinformation and violent rhetoric on Elon Musk’s X platfor...