Sasha Drennan

@thebookseller @Marciathewriter @CassavaRepublic @audibleuk @TimRideout1

The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson has won this year's Book of the Year: Discover award at The #BritishBookAwards (@Marciathewriter @CassavaRepublic) 🏆 Sponsored by: @audibleuk

@archer_rs A gentleman was filling up one of these next to me at the petrol station this week - beautiful car.

Every man who has owned one of these has had a time he was asked, "What car do you drive?" and he took a breath, looked up slowly, smiled and said, "An Interceptor"

Must water be brought back back into public ownership? Please RT after voting - thank you.

@LissaKEvans Medusa Gorgon’s Bad Hair Day by Bethany Walker - funny pre-teen diary style but with Greek myth 🐍

Funny Books for Children that Weren’t Written by David Walliams. Please add your suggestions to this thread. I’ll start: Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth - by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Fabulously funny but also thought-provoking. It’ll make kids look at their world in a new way.

@MrPitbull07 @archer_rs This is lovely but it’s fiction; there are several very similar posts doing the rounds atm; probably AI generated

"My name's Hank. I'm 66. I deliver propane to homes. Rural routes, farms, folks off the grid. I fill their tanks, check connections, drive to the next house. Most customers just sign the slip, barely look up. I'm just the propane guy. But last February, during that brutal cold snap, I noticed something at the Miller place. Pulled up to fill their tank, gauge showed empty. Completely dry. In 15-degree weather. I knocked on the door. Mrs. Miller answered, three kids bundled behind her in coats. Inside the house. "Ma'am, your tank's bone dry. How long you been without heat?" "Four days." Her voice was steady, but her hands shook. "Bill's due Friday. We're waiting on my husband's paycheck." Four days. Three kids. Fifteen degrees. "Ma'am, I'm filling it now." "I can't pay until" "I'll mark it as a delivery error. Computer glitch. Nobody'll know." She started crying. "Why would you do this?" "Because those kids are wearing coats inside." I filled their tank. Checked the furnace. Made sure heat kicked on before I left. Drove away thinking about what I'd seen. Kids doing homework in winter jackets. A mom choosing between heat and food. Started paying attention different after that. The elderly veteran whose tank was at 10%, he was rationing, keeping one room warm. The single dad whose payment was two weeks late, he'd been burning firewood he couldn't really afford. I started doing something I shouldn't. When I saw someone struggling, someone who'd run out, someone rationing heat—I'd add 50 gallons. Mark it as "meter calibration" or "pressure test residual." Small amounts. Enough to get them through. Did it eleven times that winter. My boss noticed the discrepancies. Called me in. "Hank, we're showing extra gallons delivered but not billed." I told him the truth. Everything. He stared at me for a long time. Then said, "My daughter was a single mom once. Chose between heat and groceries every winter. I wished someone had helped her." He didn't fire me. Instead, he created something, "Warm Hearts Emergency Fund." Customers could donate. We'd match it. Use it for families in crisis who couldn't afford propane. But here's what broke me, Mrs. Miller came to our office in May. She'd gotten a better job, caught up on bills. She handed me an envelope. Inside, $200. "For the next family. The one you'll find in February, four days without heat, trying to be brave for their kids." She grabbed my hands. "Hank, my youngest has asthma. Four more days in that cold... I don't know if..." She couldn't finish. Last winter, the Warm Hearts Fund helped 23 families. Not with handouts, with heat when they had none. With dignity when they felt broken. And here's the thing, other propane companies heard about it. Started their own programs. Now there are "emergency heat funds" in six states. But the moment that destroyed me happened last month. Got a call to deliver to an address I recognized, the Miller place. Mrs. Miller answered. "Hank! Come in, please." Inside, warm, kids doing homework at the table, laughing. She handed me a check. Full payment, plus extra. "For the fund. But also..." She pulled out a drawing her youngest had made. Stick figure man with a propane truck. Caption in crayon: "Mr. Hank, my hero." "She asks about you every winter. 'Is Mr. Hank making sure people are warm?'" I'm 66. I deliver propane to houses nobody notices. But I learned this- Cold doesn't wait for paychecks. And no child should do homework in a winter coat inside their own home. So if you deliver anything, oil, propane, firewood, and you see someone struggling, someone empty, someone rationing, Find a way. Mark it wrong. Call your boss. Start a fund. Do something. Because heat isn't a luxury. It's survival. And the difference between freezing and living shouldn't be whether your paycheck arrived on time. Be the reason someone stays warm." . Let this story reach more hearts.... . Ai image is for Demonstration purpose only . Credit: Mary Nelson

Well this looks fun! #ItsNotaCult @joeybateyuk @BloomsburyRaven #iamreading

Today we mark the 80th anniversary of the British liberation of Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Thank you to survivors and British troops like Renee, Mervyn and Stanley for putting the truth of the Holocaust on record for eternity. Never again must mean never again.

Lovely spring walk in the #LincolnshireWolds South Ormsby to Tetford and back Skylarks, hares, pheasants and hawthorn in blossom #publunch

#springbulbs @DoddingtonHall

@TimRideout1 @UniWalesPress Congratulations Tim! x

GOTHIC PRECARITY Very pleased to announce that my book, ‘Gothic Precarity: Fear and Anxiety in Twenty-First-Century Fiction’, will be published late this summer by @UniWalesPress The book offers an examination of twenty-first-century Gothic fiction’s engagement with notions of precarity, the specific form of human precariousness created by neoliberalism. So, be prepared to encounter monsters, vampires and ghosts vying with economic exploitation, war, the climate crisis and issues of migration. More details to follow… #Gothic #climatecrisis #migration #war #precarity #neoliberal

Fox hunting is NOT sport—it's disgusting cruelty. Loopholes let hunters exploit the law and continue killing for "fun." 🦊💔 We must stand up for foxes and ensure this outdated practice is abolished for good. 🐾 Share if you agree!

@WHusseyAuthor I don’t disagree but all the contractual risk then sits with the retailer, as that is who has received the money from the purchaser. And we are just as in the dark as our customers!

It seems to me that buying a book is a contract and that a material term of that contract is—or should be— the identity of the author. If the buyer is mislead about this (ie a ghostwriter is used but not named on the cover) then the contract is void and fraudulent. Am I wrong? 🤷‍♂️

@j_amesmarriott Purchased this @britishlibrary after seeing their Medieval Women exhibition. Not picked it up to read just yet, but looking forward to it!

Have been on a strange magical streak of extremely good books over Christmas. I think this - about a nunnery in the fourteenth century - is one of the best historical novels I've ever read. Possibly the best.

@seatsixtyone No, we definitely haven’t 🤬

No they haven’t.

@SteveReedMP @DefraGovUK now’s your chance to be an environmental champion - the UK public wants you to cut plastic pollution and push for an ambitious Global Plastics Treaty

@KIWitney 😂😂😂💰💰💰

M’gentleman friend is taking up art.

#HappyBirthday to me! Shared with #MattSmith #DylanThomas and the #RoyalMarines apparently… Lovely day out at the #GoldenMile #Leicester and thank you to @bobbysleicester for the birthday burfi!!

@TimRideout1 @TheBookerPrizes Hope you’re travelling from Glastonbury not Lincoln. @LNER buggered today by track damage; hoping I get home! 🤞🏼

On my way to London with a cup of tea and a good book :) #Orbital #SamanthaHarvey @TheBookerPrizes

“I can face the winter with calm. Crisp and sparkling days, long pleasant evenings, cheery fires. Good work shall be done this winter. Life shall be lived well. The end of the summer is not the end of the world. Here’s to October.” ~A.A.Milne #October #October1 #nature

@ChrisK1906 😲