What's got my attention this week #47
Links, recs and whole bunch of things to get you through the weekend
SCROLLING
• In a surprise to no-one, access to menopause hormone treatment shows no sign of getting fairer. According to a new study by the Menopause All Party Parliamentary Group in the UK, Black women are almost five times less likely to be on HRT than white women. With almost twice as many women from affluent backgrounds having access to it.
• This piece about mother-daughter estrangement by
• Anne Hathaway is done trying to please.
• The un-conviction of Harvey Weinstein is just one of the many reasons women can’t report bad things.
• Madhur Jaffrey on the tastes of her childhood.
• Is Botox a feminist issue, or an economic one?
• Holding on to what matters in a distracted age.
• Surely everyone’s ex wasn’t a narcissist?!
• Lovely piece about why it’s never too late for love by
• on how to transform your anxiety into action.
• Are you sharing your bed with a stuffed toy?
• In defence of Annette Bening’s face.
• The £5 coffee is here (Wouldn’t you rather subscribe to a great substack?!)
• Lessons from a 20-person polycule.
• There are people who will never like you. 🤷🏻♀️
• Are gardens a safe haven or a symbol of injustice?
• “I have spent hours of my life, and more money than I can bear to contemplate, buying costumes for a play that will never be performed. It’s called ‘The Woman Who Everyone Approved Of’.” Love love love this piece by (which I meant to share last week and forgot…)
• How second-hand fashion became big business. £
• is powerless over the colour blue.
• Cher says she dates younger men because guys her age are “all dead”!
(A note about the links: some are behind a paywall, but almost all (eg The New York Times, New Yorker, The Cut, and many, but not all, Substacks…) can be accessed free by registering. Those that definitely can't are marked £.)
READING
The Details, Ia Genberg (translated by Kira Josefsson)
Is this a novel or is it four inter-connected short stories? Is it both? Either way, it’s a masterclass in less is more. A woman lies ill in bed. As the fever grips her she revisits four pivotal moments from her life, four people who have made and shaped her: an ex-girlfriend, a few-night stand, a long lost friend, a troubled mother. Through 176 taut and delirious pages The Details reveals more about life, love and human connection than most of us discover in a lifetime. It’s shortlisted for the International Booker and won the Swedish literary award the August Prize and it’s not hard to see why.
• The Details is available in paperback from amazon, or support independent bookshops by buying it from bookshop.org.
WATCHING
The Idea of You, Amazon Prime
I’m still reeling from Baby Reindeer. I mean, I don’t believe everything should be an easy, entertaining watch, and I’m not saying it wasn’t amazing, it was. But almost ten days later I’ve still got that lingering queasy feeling I talked about last week. I tried to self-medicate with Capote versus The Swans, but let’s just say I should have listened to the reviews and not let myself be swayed by the costumes and the glamorous faces. Which leaves me here, rewatching The Chef’s Table and Salt Fat Acid Heat on Netflix – because how traumatic can that be? – and reluctant to dip my toe back in my usual preferred scandi-noir/true crime darkness. (I was tempted by Palm Royale but resisted for fear of falling foul of the same duff reviews-big names-great costumes combo as Capote...) So it feels serendipitous that The Idea of You has just dropped on Amazon Prime. In this adaptation of Robinne Lee’s fan-fiction bonkbuster hit, Anne Hathaway plays a divorced 40something mum who has an affair with a Harry Styles-esque pop star when he plucks her out of the crowd as she reluctantly accompanies her teenage daughter to Coachella. Sounds utterly implausible? That’s kind of the point. I don’t know about you, but I’m here for some romcom.
LISTENING
• I know I just said I couldn’t cope with anything too… much, but it seems my ears can still deal with the rough stuff, so I’ve been listening to Sociopath by Patric Gagne. This memoir attempts to, if not normalise, then at least coax you to empathise with the lot of the sociopath – from the inside. Gagne was a grad student when she first heard the term and realised, with relief, that she had a label. Albeit not one the scientific community (or any other community) was very comfortable with. This is her journey from “bad” child to frustrated adult struggling between giving into her “dark side” and finding a way to live a so-called normal life. It’s kind of fascinating.
AND ON THE SHIFT PODCAST THIS WEEK…
…We’re back! And my guest for the first episode of season 14 (14!) is
. I asked Amanda to come on The Shift podcast after I saw her substack about losing sight of herself and what success looked like at 50. (Sound familiar?) We had a fascinating conversation about the traumatising effect of being constantly shamed by the tabloid press, the lifelong project of reclaiming her own narrative, going back to basics after losing her dad and learning to live intentionally.* A note: this post contains affiliate links, which means that a very small percentage of any sale goes to help fund The Shift.
I love this quote from the Botox article you linked: "Getting snobby or judgey about it won’t stop it happening, but it will get people lying about it. Or worse, ashamed. And lord knows if Botox and the like disappeared they’d find something else for women to be ashamed of themselves for, the patriarchy has to put it somewhere after all." TOO TRUE.
If you like Salt Fat Heat Acid, have you tried History of the Taco? Spanish with subtitles and utterly wonderful.