I missed last Friday’s Bits, and now this one is dropping late, because I started on a new audio documentary (which I am very excited about) and I am very un-boundaried during the research period and forget I have to sleep/ touch grass/ wash, so as a result I have been hunched over my desk till the wee hours with creepy crawly nerve thingies running up and down my spine. I LOVE it, because I love eating 10 books at once, my head fizzing with ideas, but I’m also sorry for neglecting you. I’ll endeavour not to do so again.
Incidentally, if you are new to ‘me’ (i.e. know me only from Books+Bits), I also make podcasts and audio docs, like this one on Britney Spears and this one on reality TV. If you like interview podcasts, there’s Doing It Right; if you love Jilly Cooper, here’s one on Rivals; if you love Bridget Jones, try this; and here’s a series that I hosted for 4 years (which has now come to an end) about long-term missing people, The Missing. And if you’re after a vintage podcast about some things serious, most things silly, there’s The High Low, with my beloved friend, Dolly.
15 things for you today. And more on Friday!
Under the paywall: Gwyneth, clown babies, responsible tourism, feminist art, a celebrity lets rip on beauty culture and why Bonnie Blue is nothing new. (ps: Pam + Liam = the summer romance we all need.)
Would you re-read A Little Life? (Or, indeed, pick it up in the first place?) I contributed to this brilliant piece by Anthony Cummins for The Observer on Hanya Yanagihara’s controversial literary phenomenon, 10 years after it was published.
The Booker prize shared their longlist last week and for once, I’ve read some of them. Jazzed to see Perfection, Misinterpretation (particularly as it’s a debut), Flesh and Universality (the latter two I interviewed at Charleston Lit Fest recently and it was one of my favourite interviews I’ve done—both Brown and Szalay are astonishingly insightful). I’m going to read Endling, next, WBU?
I keep meaning to share this piece I wrote for The Sunday Times Style on my 10 books of the year so far (nb. Flesh and Fundamentally would be on here, but Culture mag nabbed them for their list.) All the books I mention I’ve already covered here, because you guys get the goods first. (Also obsessed with the comment asking why there are no books about war heroes at sea.)
I don’t put much shopping on here anymore as it’s more of a culture rec space, but as anyone who knows me knows, I LOVE vintage treasures and snootling out indie brands, so doing Pandora’s Box for India Knight’s gorgeous newsletter, Home, is all the fun. I’ll be doing one every quarter!
This letter for Fictional Therapy (a newsletter I love) on classic books which make perfect beach reads—feat. a bit of Flaubert and Kundera—is so unique and thoughtful. Consider it a companion piece to my letter on happy endings.
Can’t decide if this is going to fly or flop: EF travel are running trips inspired by BookTok. Romance fans can now spend 12 days on a Croatian cruise inspired by Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation (confusingly known as You and Me on Vacation in the UK; I find it most odd how publishers change titles for different territories—I am sure British people could cope with ‘people’, but I digress), nine days in Switzerland paying homage to Sarah J. Maas’s ACOTAR and 11 days meeting the gods in Cairo, Athens and Rome A LA Rick Riordan’s novel, Percy Jackson & the Olympians. I think it sounds positively exhausting, but I’m a tired old crone.
Yes, yes, yes to this (via Kate Baer).
And I love this: