Almanac

Almanac is my favourite word as much because of the sound and feel of it as the concept. Though I do like the concept. I live life very seasonally, trying to be 'in tune' or whatever, and I want my site to reflect these cycles and such. So here we are.

One time at the bookshop I heard the staff really laying into almanacs and the people that buy them. While I was on my way to buy an almanac. Fair enough. And this page was in no small part prompted by my buying one recently as a gift. What can I say.

I've been building what I realise now is a personal sort of almanac. Adding year on year: regular events and festivals, the good time to go to the woods to see the bluebells to their best effect, seasonal cleaning, times of year I am likely to be productive (and the inverse). That sort of thing.

This is a collection of bookmarks on the subject, any ideas I might have, as well as my seasonal and monthly blog posts. There's also my Calendar of Fun Web Things I'm working on.

Bookmarks

Time and Tide: the Almanac’s Place in Society and Personal Lives An Illustrated Essay by Joanna Hockey in Introduction to the Signet Library Almanacs Collection. Has all sorts of examples in a collection from the mid 18th century. Apparently it's estimated one in three households owned an almanac by the 1600s.
Robin Sloan's gift guide post includes a lot of almanacs or almanac-adjacent stuff: the Yun Hai lunisolar almanac, discussion of which in Old Yellow Book, Universal Workshop's astronomical calendar, the Abrams Planetarium sky calendar and tidelogs
How, and Why, to Keep an Almanac of Your Own from Earthbound Farm
a medieval guide to winter preparations from the Digital Meadow

Seasonal posts from my blog

Happy New Year 21st March 2026
Springtime 9th March 2026
In like a lion 1st March 2026
Solstice 21st December 2025
Winter is coming 3rd November 2025
Autumnal 14th September 2025
Summertime 24th June 2025

Also my monthlogs

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