What's got my attention this week #68
Links and recs to get you through the weekend
SCROLLING
• The exhilarating brilliance of Maggie Smith. And here are 11 essential Maggie Smith performances.
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• What to do when the first step seems too big.
• “This is a novel about women being written out of history, by men who were writing that history.” interviews the phenomenal Jodi Picoult.
• Melania Trump claims to be passionately pro-choice…
• It’s rare for me to include two posts by the same writer, but then it’s rare for one writer to produce two brilliant posts in a week! This week, is on fire! First she wrote this spot-on takedown of Iceman Wim Hof, last weekend exposed as an abuser by a Dutch newspaper. Then, finally having had enough of the big male guru, she made a decision, she was going to be her own guru.
• “I was told I’d be lucky to work after 40.” How much fun has Alison Steadman had proving them wrong?! £
• We don’t teach women to leave. (On the contrary, we try to force them to stay.) Thank you for this piece .
• Stumbling can be lovely.
• Suddenly breast reduction is all the rage. Why?
• It’s still possible to burn out doing what you love.
• “Why I write my own obituary every year.”
• Love this by on the houses that don’t exist any more.
• Do you have an inner monologue? (Mine is constant!) Thanks to who tipped me off to this post.
• “My mother’s envy has survived her dementia.”
• The long con of pilates culture. TBH, as a pilates-lover, I bristled at this headline, but some of the points are undeniable.
• Loving the idea of a birthday reading, .
• Angela Carter (my hero!) and the so-fucking-what approach to writing.
• Welcome back “fall vibes”. (Dons sweater and woolly socks…)
(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…) allow a few free articles if you register. Those that definitely don't are marked £.)
READING
Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner
Meet Sadie Smith an implausibly gorgeous American spy-for-hire, who finds herself in a remote corner of South West France, where she’s been sent to infiltrate a commune of eco activists and investigate their mentor/guru/elder Bruno Lacombe. For Sadie the whole thing is just another job, until Bruno’s teachings start to get under her skin. Who are the forces at work, and why? And who is really playing who? This is part spy thriller pastiche, part treatise on the history of humanity. Unexpectedly, I inhaled it. “Imagine Slow Horses’ Jackson Lamb in the body of Jodie Comer’s Villanelle in Killing Eve,” said the Sunday Times. If that doesn’t sell it to you, I don’t know what will.
• Buy Creation Lake from amazon or bookshop.org.
WATCHING
The Perfect Couple, Netflix
Right, I know I’m behind the curve with this one, but give me a chance, I’ve been on holiday (did I mention?!) and had to catch up on Slow Horses, Only Murders in the Building, Bad Monkey and the so-bad-it’s-good BBC thriller Nightsleeper. So here I am, with all six episodes of The Perfect Couple downloaded onto my ipad as I wend my way to Cheltenham Literature Festival for a full ten days of interviewing some of my favourite authors (including David Nicholls, Elif Shafak,
AND ON THE SHIFT PODCAST THIS WEEK…
…writer, reader, endurance athlete and former BBC breakfast host Louise Minchin talks about the importance of putting women of all ages centre stage and how she built a new self after leaving a massive job. We also discussed how perimenopause robbed her of herself, the power of adventure, how she learnt to love her body for what it can do not how it looks and why she wants to encourage more women to take a risk in midlife.
• What are you reading, watching and listening to right now? I’d love to know.
* A note: this post contains affiliate links, which means that a very small percentage of any sale goes to help fund The Shift. If it’s orange, it links! (But not all orange links are affiliates…)
Thanks so much for the shout out, I would have put money on you having an Inner Monologue! 👏
I can't imagine life without it. 😳
Honestly Sam, your links & recs always land in my inbox at EXACTLY the right time on a Friday when I'm losing the will to continue tapping (dayjob; commercial copywriter - creatively limited, but pays for food!!) - it's my fave (desk-based!) displacement activity - I see it as writerly "research & development" so it feels guilt-free too! Thank you for putting it together - it's a LOT!!