What's got my attention this week #43
Links, recs and whole bunch of things to get you through the weekend
SCROLLING
• “We’re certainly not in the habit of listening to old women who have had life experience.” Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the power of ageing and why youth is overrated.
• Leaving home used to be a rite of passage.
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• Glorious piece about the emotional sustenance of quilting.
• And on that note, why working with your hands is good for your brain.
• The British government has u-turned on blocking HRT implants – but they’re still almost impossible to get.
• “My first date after divorce.”
• This piece on “the Huberman husband” made me howl.
• On while we’re on Huberman: the problem with guruifying male podcast bros.
• These five rules for publishing a book without losing your mind by , could also be titled, five rules for surviving life without losing your mind.
• So you think you’ve been gaslit? Love this piece by The Shift pod alumnae Leslie Jamison.
• More beautiful writing from , this time about the library of unwritten books.
• The rise and fall of the trad wife.
• Young men are more likely than young women to want babies. Hmmm… wonder why?
• French-Caribbean writer (and the oldest person ever to be shortlisted for the Booker) Maryse Condé died aged 90. If you’ve never read her, try her break out novel Segu or her last, International Booker shortlisted, Gospel According to the New World.
• As someone whose partner is ten years older, this article in The Cut about strategically marrying an older man, gave me the rage.
• The mad perfumer of Parma.
• “Going to the shops” is due a comeback.
• Seven inspiring stories of women who made dramatic career changes.
• on life as Jolene.
(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
My Favourite Mistake, Marian Keyes
A new Marian Keyes novel is always a treat, and My Favourite Mistake is A TOTAL JOY. Anna has fallen out of love with her Manhattan life, her relationship did the “covid curdle”, perimenopause has come storming in (the rage! the brain fog! the doctors who won’t prescribe HRT!) and she’s had it with the hoop jumping. Back home in Ireland, she takes on the task of helping her friends convince the locals in a tiny Irish town that a swanky coastal retreat is just the ticket to bring tourism and employment to the area. Marian’s writing is always described as “escapist” and, don’t get me wrong, it totally is. Funny, heartwarming, laugh out loud (which is embarrassing when you’re walking round The Meadows listening to the audiobook and laughing like the local crazy lady), but Marian never fails to get to the heart of the good, the bad and the ugly of what makes us tick. If you want a real treat, do yourself a favour, download the audiobook and have Marian read it to you, too. And bookclubbers! Look out for some very exciting Marian bookclub news in a couple of months… #tease
• Out next Thursday, you can preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org or pick it up at your local indie.
WATCHING
Ripley, Netflix
What? A new Talented Mr Ripley? That doesn’t star sneaky Matt Damon, golden Gwyneth Paltrow and the impossibly perfect Jude Law? Anthony Minghella’s sundrenched 1999 film of the Patricia Highsmith novel may be considered the classic but it’s about to meet its Moriarty in the form of Andrew Scott’s cold, calculating, “reptilian” Tom Ripley. It dropped on Netflix yesterday. I haven’t watched it yet (that’s this weekend’s treat), but already this noir-ish adaptation is being praised from the rooftops for its atmospheric (although some might say pretentious) black and white photography, Dakota Fanning’s much-less-naive-than-Gwyneth Marge and, owning every scene (as he’s wont to do), Scott (above), making Tom Ripley his own, and then some.
LISTENING
• Back in true-crime land I stumbled across Three, and inhaled the first eight episodes in a couple of walks. (Last one drops today so I’m off to listen when I’ve finished writing this.) More than just a true crime investigation into the 2012 murder of 16-year-old Skylar Neese in West Virginia, it’s an insightful look at teenage girls, friendship and the uncomfortable (and in this case fatal) position of being the third wheel in a tight twosome.
• PSA! If Serial was your podcast gateway drug, it’s back! Season four is a history of Guantánamo through people who “survived” its evolution and know how it feels to live through an “improvised justice system”… (If your reaction to this was, “there’s more than one season?!” I’ve got to be honest and say the third season wasn’t a patch on the first, but anyway consider this my present to you.)
AND ON THE SHIFT PODCAST THIS WEEK…
…for the season finale I’m joined by the first female main presenter of Channel 4 news, Cathy Newman to discuss why the so-called “career ladder” doesn’t work for women or minorities, discovering she was paid less than the (junior) bloke at the next desk and learning not to give a monkeys about internet trolls. Plus menopause, heavy periods, HRT and why turning 50 really does feel like a superpower to her. (We’re back with a new season at the end of April, meanwhile I’ll be posting some archive favourites every Tuesday.)
• What are you watching/reading/listening to this week?
* A note: this post contains affiliate links, which means that a very small percentage of any sale goes to help fund The Shift.
Fantastic list! Shift-adjacent — I watched Emma Thompson in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande last night and it was incredible
I cannot wait to watch Ripley - Andrew Scott doing noir Yes Please!!