Eggplant.place

114d

Happy International Tea Day!

It's always tea time.
Lewis Carroll,
Alice in Wonderland

#teaday #today #onthisday #LewisCarroll #tea #Carroll #Wonderland #books #reading #BookTok #bookstagram #literature #bookstodon @bookstodon

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115d

Here are my bees,
brazen, blurs on paper,
besotted; buzzwords, dancing
their flawless, airy maps…

—Carol Ann Duffy, “Bees”
published in THE BEES (Picador, 2017)

A poem for World Bee Day 🐝

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/carol-ann-duffy/the-bees/9781509852925

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #bees #WorldBeeDay

Bees
by Carol Ann Duffy

Here are my bees,
brazen, blurs on paper,
besotted; buzzwords, dancing
their flawless, airy maps.

Been deep, my poet bees,
in the parts of flowers,
in daffodil, thistle, rose, even
the golden lotus; so glide,
gilded, glad, golden, thus –

wise – and know of us:
how your scent pervades
my shadowed, busy heart,
and honey is art.

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131d

Honoré de Balzac’s Greatest Fear? Being Photographed

Emily Doucet on the Development of the Daguerreotype—and What It Meant For Art and Technology

https://lithub.com/honore-de-balzacs-greatest-fear-being-photographed/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01KQNQVJHETFJ54VG3CZX93QDQ&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

Books by Balzac (including the whole series of La Comédie Humaine) at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/251

#Books #Literature

Honoré de Balzac

Revised daguerreotype taken in 1842.

Early daguerreotype portrait of Honoré de Balzac, French novelist. Heavyset, open-collared, hand resting on chest, gazing sideways. One of the few known photographic images of the Human Comedy author.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor%C3%A9_de_Balzac#/media/File:%E5%A5%A5%C2%B7%E5%B7%B4%E5%B0%94%E6%89%8E%E5%85%8B.png

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131d

After a Poet’s Love Story Was Cut Short, His Letters Mysteriously Disappeared—Until Rare Book Dealers Acted on a Hunch

Eight letters that John Keats penned to his fiancée before his untimely death are “the literary find of a lifetime”

by Mary Randolph

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/after-john-keats-love-story-was-cut-short-his-letters-mysteriously-disappeared-until-rare-book-dealers-acted-on-a-hunch-180988585/

Keats at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/935

#Books #Literature

Engraving of English poet John Keats from title page of "The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899," after a painting by Joseph Severn, 1899.

Engraved frontispiece portrait of John Keats, seated in a chair absorbed in reading, hand raised to his brow. Soft light from a draped window illuminates the pensive, romantic scene.

https://archive.org/details/completepoetical00keatrich/page/n11/mode/2up

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115d

Seven of the Greatest Farts in Western Literature

Elizabeth Zaleski Finds Famous Moments of Flatulence in Classic and Contemporary Works

https://lithub.com/seven-of-the-greatest-farts-in-western-literature/

At PG:

Canterbury Tales

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=+Canterbury+Tales

Inferno

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Inferno

Don Quixote

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Don+Quixote

#books #literature

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131d

It’s living with ships
makes a rough springtime
and who is safe
when they sing and blow
their music …

—Edwin Morgan, “Floating Off to Timor”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Spring #Glasgow

Floating Off to Timor
Edwin Morgan

If only we’d been strangers
we’d be floating off to Timor,
we’d be shimmering on the Trades
in a blue jersey boat
with shandies, flying fish,
a pace of dolphins
to the copra ports.
And it’s no use crying
to me, What dolphins?
I know where they are
and I’d have snapped you up
and carried you away
snapped you up
and carried you away
if we had been strangers.

But here we are care
of the black roofs.
It’s not hard to find
with a collar turned up
and a hoot from the Clyde.
The steps come home
whistling too. And a kettle
steams the cranes out slowly.
It’s living with ships
makes a rough springtime
and who is safe
when they sing and blow
their music – they seem
to swing at some light rope
like those desires
we keep for strangers.
God, the yellow deck

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breathes, it heaves spray
back like a shout.
We’re cutting through
some straits of the world
in our old dark room
with salty wings
in the shriek of the dock wind.
But we’re caught – meshed
in the fish-scales, ferries,
mudflats, lifebelts
fading into football cries
and the lamps coming on
to bring us in.

We take in
the dream, a cloth from the line
the trains fling sparks on
in our city. We’re better awake.
But you know I’d take
you all the same,
if you were my next stranger.

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35d

Who were the Luddites? Their legacy ripples through politics, cultural commentary and literature

by Brian Lewis

https://theconversation.com/who-were-the-luddites-their-legacy-ripples-through-politics-cultural-commentary-and-literature-287473

Books about Luddites at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=Luddites

#books #literature #IndustrialRevolution

Ned is questioned by the justices.

Title: Through the Fray: A Tale of the Luddite Riots

Author: G. A. Henty

It is showing a young man standing before a table where several older, formally dressed men are seated, questioning him in what appears to be a courtroom or inquiry scene.

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114d

Why Everyone is Talking About Salome These Days

Leslie Baird on Exploring Enduring Questions of Patriarchy and Feminine Agency Through Fiction

https://lithub.com/why-everyone-is-talking-about-salome-these-days/

Salome at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/4881

#Books #Literature

Salome and the Apparition of the Baptist's Head, watercolor by Gustave Moreau (1876).

A bejeweled Salome recoils before the radiant, bleeding severed head of John the Baptist floating in a blaze of golden light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salome#/media/File:The_Apparition,_Gustave_Moreau_1876.jpg

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130d

Daniel Kraus Wins 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with Angel Down as a “breathless novel of World War I, a stylistic tour-de-force that blends such genres as allegory, magical realism and science fiction into a cohesive whole, told in a single sentence.”

#books #Pulitzer #PulitzerPrize #literature #book #bookstodon @bookstodon #Kraus #author #DanielKraus #AngelDown #reading #readingcommunity #booksky #bookstagram #writers #booktok

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130d

This Week in Literary History: Lord Byron Swims Across the Hellespont

“I plume myself on this achievement more than I could possibly do on any kind of glory, political, poetical, or rhetorical.”

https://lithub.com/this-week-in-literary-history-lord-byron-swims-across-the-hellespont/

"Don Juan" at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21700

#books #literature #poetry

Portrait of George Gordon Byron. It is an engraving based on a painting by artist George Sanders. His head is turned towards the right, and he is wearing a white shirt with a scarf about the collar.

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Edited 130d ago

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130d

Alan Sharp (1934–2013) is remembered today as a screenwriter, the author of classic Hollywood movies such as Ulzana’s Raid (1972) & Night Moves (1975), as well as the 1995 film Rob Roy, starring Liam Neeson. But his writing career began with the award-winning – & taboo-breaking – novel A GREEN TREE IN GEDDE. Still controversial, it is nevertheless “a flagship of 1960s Scottish prose”. Preorder the new edition now!

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-green-tree-in-gedde/

#Scottish #literature #novel #20thcentury #1960s

Book cover

A GREEN TREE IN GEDDE
Alan Sharp

White lettering against a background of bright green overlapping leaves. Between the words of the title, in much smaller lettering, are the following lines:

Here we sit
Birds in the wilderness
Down in Demerara

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130d

King Dan & the King’s man: Daniel O’Connell & Sir Walter Scott

Dan Mulhall compares 2 towering 19th-century figures: Ireland’s Daniel O’Connell & Scotland’s Sir Walter Scott. But where Scott helped preserve & define Scottish identity through history, literature & tradition, O’Connell was above all a practical political reformer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J94G6Utlek

#Scottish #Irish #history #literature #19thcentury #DanielOCOnnell #SirWalterScott

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114d

The Big Bang Theory of Medieval Scots Literature
10 June, Royal Over-Seas League, London – free

No surviving works in Older Scots appear until the 1370s, when John Barbour – without warning or explanation for the bemused modern literary historian – produced THE BRUS, a vast chivalric biography of Robert the Bruce. Prof Rhiannon Purdie explores the remarkable & seemingly sudden origins of literature in Scots

@litstudies

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/development/making-waves/lecture-series/

#Scottish #literature #medieval #Scotslanguage

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130d

Wistman's Woods, on Dartmoor, Devon, are allegedly haunted by hellhounds. 'Wistman' is a dialect word for the Devil, with 'wist' meaning 'eerie' or 'uncanny'. The woods and their legends are said to have inspired the Sherlock Holmes mystery 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. The woods are one of Britain's few surviving patches of ancient temperate rainforest. #FairytaleTuesday #folklore #gothic #literature #weird #ghosts #paranormal #books #history #mythology

A photo of Wistman's Woods in winter, showing moss-covered rocks and twisting moss-covered tree branches.

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114d

Celestial Tea!—A fountain that can cure
The ills of passion, and can free the fair
From frowns and sighs, by Disappointment earn’d…

—For International Tea Day: Robert Fergusson’s (1750–1774) “Tea. A Poem” takes a less than enthusiastic approach to the beverage

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #18thcentury #RobertFergusson #tea #InternationalTeaDay

Robert Fergusson
TEA. A Poem

Ye maidens modest! on whose sullen brows
Hath weaning Chastity her wrinkles cull’d,
Who constant labour o’er consumptive oil,
At midnight knell, to wash sleep’s nightly balm
From closing eye-lids, with the grateful drops
Of Tea’s blest juices; list th’ obsequious lays
That come not with Parnassian honours crown’d,
To dwell in murmurs o’er your sleepy sense;
But fresh from Orient blown to chace far off
Your lethargy, that dormant needles rous’d
May pierce the waving Mantua’s silken folds:
For many a dame in chamber sadly pent,
Hath this reviving limpid call’d to life;
And well it did, to mitigate the frowns
Of anger reddening on Lucinda’s brow,
With flash malignant, that had harbour’d there,
If she at masquerade, or play, or ball,
Appear’d not in her newest, best attire.
But Venus, goddess of th’ eternal smile,
Knowing that stormy brows but ill become
Fair patterns of her beauty, hath ordain’d

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114d

“When Jennie first meets the 𝑡𝑜𝑑-𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑒𝑙, she cries enquiringly 𝑄𝑢𝑎𝑖𝑐𝑘? This Scots equivalent of English 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑐𝑘 has been used to represent duck noises since the 17th century”

—Susan Rennie on translating Beatrix Potter’s 𝐽𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑚𝑎 𝑃𝑢𝑑𝑑𝑙𝑒-𝐷𝑢𝑐𝑘 into Scots

https://scrennie.com/2026/05/16/tods-plaidies-and-fairy-thimmles/

#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #translation #BeatrixPotter #childrensliterature #kidlit

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114d

In a little rainy mist of white and grey
we sat under an old tree,
drank tea toasts to the powdery mountain…

—Edwin Morgan, “The Picnic”
published in COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 1990)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781847779656/collected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #EdwinMorgan #tea #InternationalTeaDay

The Picnic
by Edwin Morgan

In a little rainy mist of white and grey
we sat under an old tree,
drank tea toasts to the powdery mountain,
undrunk got merry, played catch
with the empty flask, on the pine needles
came down to where it rolled stealthily away –
you lay
with one arm in the rain, laughing
shaking only your wet hair
loose against the grass, in that enchanted place
of tea, with curtains of a summer rain
dropped round us, for a rainy day.

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114d

RE: https://taonaw.com/2026/05/19/any-recommendations-for-a-good.html

Hi there, friendly #books bubble. 👋🏻 Does anyone happen to have a good recommendation for JTR?

@bookstodon #bookstodon #darkcyberpunk #cyberpunk #literature #askfedi

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129d

Narratives of Illness and Dis/ability in Scottish Literature I: Holly Faith Nelson & Graham Morgan
15 May, free online

The Dis/ability & Scottish Studies Working Group has formed to encourage critical engagement with narratives of illness & dis/ability in Scottish literature & culture. This webinar series will balance 2 15-minute presentations with a lively discussion period

@litstudies

https://scotlit-iassl.org/2026/04/27/narratives-of-illness-and-dis-ability-in-scottish-literature-i-holly-faith-nelson-graham-morgan/

#Scottish #literature #disability

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114d

Outwith Reality – Scottish Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror
26 August, Waterstones, Leeds – £5

Hosted in conjunction with the British Fantasy Society, this panel will be a conversation about all things Scottish storytelling, mythology & folklore. With authors Ian Green, Shona Kinsella, Rafael Torrubia & Lorraine Wilson, & moderated by Katie Bruce.

https://www.waterstones.com/events/panel-out-with-reality-scottish-science-fiction-fantasy-and-horror/leeds

#Scottish #literature #scifi #fantasy #mythology #SFF #Leeds

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61d

The room has been emptied for decorating.
White paint, wooden floor and window frames,
sun bursting through summer’s open doors,
a single chair for me to sit and read…

—Mark Russell, “Tabula Rasa”
published in nobody remembers the birdman: New Writing Scotland 40 (ASL, 2022)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws40/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Mark Russell
Tabula Rasa

The room has been emptied for decorating.
White paint, wooden floor and window frames,
sun bursting through summer’s open doors,
a single chair for me to sit and read.

Next door takes the chance to mow the lawn;
rose and salvia stretch and yawn, posturing;
a buzz of far-off traffic settles beneath
birdcall in the ripe mountain’s steep slumber.

Just when I think there’s nothing, nothing
floods the space, pregnant, brisk, swarming.

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114d

“Robert Louis Stevenson was neither a medical doctor nor a dentist, but undeniably, his character and writings were significantly influenced by the medical culture of his time in Edinburgh’s Old Town, with our College having played a central role”

https://www.rcsed.ac.uk/news-resources/rcsed-blog/2026/may/dental-dean-update-incisive-ink-the-curious-connections-between-robert-louis-stevenson-and-rcsed

#Scottish #literature #Edinburgh #EdinburghUniversity #RSCEd #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson

A metal plaque attached to the wall of Number 1 Drummond Street at the University of Edinburgh. The plaque reads:

IN MEMORY OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, 1850-1894, son and student of Edinburgh.

“and when I remembered all that I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford’s in the rain and the east wind; how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, and yet timidly hoped not; how I feared I should never have a friend far less a wife, and yet passionately hoped I might; how I hoped (if I did not take to drink) I should possibly write one little book. And then now – what a change! I feel somehow as if I should like the incident set upon a brass plate at the corner of that dreary thoroughfare, for all students to read, poor devils, when their hearts are down.”

from the South Seas, September 1888

Presented on behalf of all Stevenson lovers ....... September 1995

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129d

NPR Fresh Air: Douglas Stuart

“It’s hard to tell people about grief. It’s hard to talk to people about poverty... and so I’d got very used to the silence in my own life, and my writing is the only thing that allows me to connect with myself.”

Douglas Stuart speaks to Terry Gross about Scotland, masculinity, and the isolation of secret-keeping.

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/04/nx-s1-5810167/scottish-novelist-douglas-stuart-on-the-isolation-of-secret-keeping

#Scottish #literature #novel #writing #Scotland #masculinity

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114d

Für die letzten Tage meines Urlaubs noch ein Graphic Novel ausgeliehen: "Die Frau als Mensch. Am Anfang der Geschichte." Von Ulli Lust @Ullilust

Ein wichtiges Sachbuch! Es sollte in allen Bibliotheken stehen.

@reading
@bookstodon
@comics

#IAmReading #Books #GraphicNovel #Literature #bookstodon #history

The cover of the book "Die Frau als Mensch" by Ulli Lust shows two figures entering a large, vulva-like opening, with the title and author text above on a wooden surface. Foto by Ronja Biernat

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128d

“More decidedly evil is the nosferatu, or vampire, in which every Roumanian peasant believes as firmly as he does in heaven or hell…”

—from THE LAND BEYOND THE FOREST: Facts, Figures, & Fancies from Transylvania, by the 19th-century Scottish author & anthropologist Emily Gerard (1849–1905) – born #OTD, 7 May

1/3

https://crimereads.com/the-scottish-anthropologist-who-inspired-dracula/

#Scottish #literature #Dracula #vampire #Transylvania #folklore #anthropology #19thcentury #Victorian #womenwriters

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