Advance copies of 'The Library of Ice"

Book bloggers, book reviewers and journalists are invited to request their advance copies of The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate via NetGalley. Available now!

Poetry on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal

With Canal & River Trust staff and volunteers in Wigan

In July I spent a week travelling along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal - the UK's longest - by kayak, meeting people who live and work on the canal and gathering material for poems for the Canal Laureate project. Huge thanks to The Poetry Society, the Canal & River Trust, and the many individuals I met on the towpath for helping to make this journey possible, and a special shout out to CRT Writer in Residence Jasper Winn and Desmond Family Canoe Trail paddler Greg Brookes who kept me company for a day of paddling, including the passage through the mile-long Foulridge Tunnel.

You can read more about the practical aspects of the journey over at the British Canoeing blog, and a full report is coming soon at Waterlines.

With SLYNCS volunteers outside Blackburn

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Arvon Foundation, Totleigh Barton, Devon.

Back to Nature? at Salon Berlin

I'm delighted to be returning to Germany next week to continue the summer's discussions on the theme of art in the anthropocene with an event at the Salon Berlin of the Museum Frieder Burda in partnership with the British Council. There'll be readings, a workshop, discussions with artists featured in the Back to Nature? exhibition - and pizza in the Clärchens Ballhaus. Full details and booking information on the website.

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My paddle along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal began with a meal aboard Morning Mist, moored in Rodley, before reading a few poems between the acts of Alarum Theatre's performance of Idle Women of the Wartime Waterways. Kate Saffin, one half of Alarum Theatre, kindly let me take a picture of her bookshelf -- full of books used while researching the Idle Women's story.

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In celebration of this month's Tour de France 

here's the single bookshelf at the Broken Spoke Bike Co-op, Oxford,

pleasant to browse while waiting for a spare tyre lever.

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The Library at Stiftung Nantesbuch, Germany.