Hello friends! Long time no speak , sorry for leaving you all in the lurch. I took a hiatus from this writing project whilst i dealt with some acute health issues and then moving to Europe in a post Brexit hellscape of paperwork. Anyway, I am back to round up some gems I have enjoyed this summer.
I am also now (tentatively) able to call myself a writer, as my work is being published on platforms besides here, how wild. Most recently I wrote about trauma dumping in online space for Dubblezine and had a brilliant time doing so.
With that being said, I will be moving the majority of this newsletter onto a paid subscription service, which I will share all the needed information for in the next letter. There will still be some free writing appearing once a month to all that are subscribed, but in order to manage my time (and finances) better, I am choosing to adopt the patreon style structure that many other newsletters do, and I hope you will join me on that journey too.
Onto what I have been loving this summer so far
Listening //
My friend Bert turned me onto Marina Allen’s new album, Candlepower. My love for music has dwindled in the last couple of years. Something about having a music nut for a boyfriend, and increasingly severe noise sensitivity due to my health has meant I don’t often listen to music when I am alone, and if I do, it is reliable classics that I return to again and again. However, Allen’s new album reminds me of one of my most loved and most reliable classics, My girl Joanie Mitchell. It is soothing me when the building works outside my new apartment continue during the day, and accompanying me as I cook in my beautiful sunlit kitchen.
Sounds like A cult /
A brilliant podcast series from the author of cultish, coincidentally one of my favourite non fiction reads of the summer. Amanda Montell is joined by friend and comedian Isabela Medina-Maté as they unpack modern cults we are aware of, or a part of. Recent episodes have included: university sororities, Taylor Swift stans and Multi Level Marketing associates. Their friendly rapport comes across in the episodes as they banter back and forth on shared anecdotes. It is insightful but not too serious, with short episode lengths suited for listening whilst you do the chores you’ve been putting off.
Reading //
How can i possible summarise my books of the summer so far, instead I will just quote and direct you to some of my most loved via instagram:
Seven Days in June was one of the first times I had dipped my toe into the contemporary romance genre, and although I am no convert (and will continue to skim read the explicit scenes that make my toes curl with cringe) I had a great time with this one. I picked it up on the premise of its chronic illness rep and was not disappointed as Williams’ explores with nuance what it means to be sick and in love, and to parent with illness as the third member of your family.
Brillant Brillant Brillant Brillant was an essay collection that accompanied me on audio whilst I packed up our England flat. Joel Golby treads the line between vulnerable and hilarious so well that you will be caught off guard in almost all his essays on the life and death of his parents, his rivalry with Wayne Rooney and the ways he has plotted to murder his landlord.
Assembly was a standout literary fiction read, that sits firmly in my favourites of the year so far. I am always amazed at what scope of ideas and character insight an author can craft when adopted a shorter novel form. Natasha Brown is no exception as she delves into the nuances of mixed race relationships, the role of social mobility in the millennial generation and what work culture does to a woman.
Watching //
The three part documentary series on Sky following Ghisline Maxwell and her involvement with sex offender and child trafficker, Jeffery Epstein. As her case comes to trial this November, this series updates watchers on the events that preceded her arrest, and is as devastating as the original Netflix series on Epstein. Throughout this new series they interview a number of ex and current associates of Maxwell, and the tone of argument often leans on ‘she is worst than him, because she has betrayed her gender’ which is wholly inaccurate and frustrating to watch people lean on such simplified answers for such horrific crimes. Nevertheless, it is a well produced series and the final third of the final episode really takes the conversation around Epstein’s death and the involvement of almost every ‘power that be’ to an entirely new, conspiratorial level. It of course also features the famed ‘I do not sweat’ clip, from the Prince Andrew interview, which continues to become more absurd the more you watch it.
Trauma Porn at the Olympics /
The Olympics remind me of my grandad. He wasn't sporty in the slightest but the weeks in July when we were home from school but London decided that summer weather was on hold, we would watch athletics sitting on the floor of my grandparents bungalow in a West London suburb, picking through a selection box of biscuits and shouting at the TV. It wasn’t just the Olympics, we watched Wimbledon, The commonwealth games, pretty much any sporting event that held a 5 and 6 year olds interest.
This year I had just arrived in the Netherlands as the Olympics were reaching their peak, It was the soundtrack to a week of debilitating anxiety and physical pain. It accompanied me in A and E, during the tedious hours spent packing up our flat in England and then carried me through the period of most acute discombobulation I have felt. It was the continuity of continuing something I had started in England, and Finished in the Netherlands, that felt somewhat satisfying. On the other hand, I could not manage more than a couple of hours of the Paralympics before I permanently switched off. It was my first year watching as a person who identified as disabled, as someone who has grown in their own understanding of the social vs medical model of disability and the role of representation in the drive for social justice. The coverage from the non disabled (and sometimes disabled) presenters was full of medical disclosure, unnecessary comments on trauma athletes had experienced and stunk entirely of inspiration porn.
F1 drive to survive /
I am now a person who likes F1, no one is more surprised than me. During a week of cat sitting here in the Netherlands, I convinced Tom to watch the entirety of F1: Drive to Survive, a Netflix docu drama style series following the biggest teams in Formula one across their competing season. We consumed all 3 seasons in under 2 days. It was enthralling. I say I am surprised but not entirely so, I can get invested in almost any kind of sport if it has enough drama, and large enough stakes for an individual. I am a girlfriend of a football fanatic and was raised in a football mad household and although I don’t care for match technicalities, I am invested in the the Harry Kane vs Daniel Levy standoff, i care greatly about Jurgen Klopp’s choice to ditch the glasses in favour of contacts and Marcelo Bielsa sitting on that sideline crate brings me great joy.
F1 is full of things I detest, the opposite of my personal moral values. It reeks of money, nepotism and climate pollution. So I cannot say how i reckon with those things whilst shouting at the TV for Pierre Gasly to get it together to stick it to his ex manager Christian (who, for the record, I despise). It is just fun to be invested in something new. That all being said, I now schedule my Sunday plans to be home before 3, and will be settling down to watch Monza this afternoon. C’mon Lewis.
Reading others’ writing //
This piece on Drake is on my mind a lot as I, like most readers or consumers of culture, continue to grapple with the tired question of separating art from artist. I haven’t ever been a drake fan so I have no skin in this particular game but I continue to ponder why some get away with it, and others don’t. If we have a hierarchy of crime or heinous acts that allow some to continue careers and others to be written off. Is it about gender, or something more sinister, power and influence and are we as consumers really in control at all, of who succeeds.
This piece on Sally Rooney as an Irish writer is brilliant and my only takeaway from reading the ongoing hot takes on who she is, a voice for a generation and what it means for a book to reach an international (and most notably) American stage. You can see many more thoughts and discussions on Rooney the Author by me, Here, Here and Here.
This piece on Susanna Clarke experiencing M.E whilst writing her novel was both affirming and gutting. Piranesi just won the Women's Prize and although it is not a book or a prize really that I care for, her acceptance speech talking about the struggle of living with chronic fatigue reached a wide audience of non disabled people and for that alone I am so grateful for her work.
Lucy’s newsletter is another favourite place to read anything related to disability, Politics and feminism. If you like what I write about for other publications, and what I used to write in my ‘living with’ sections, then Lucy’s letter is the one for you. Subscribe for £4 a month or join as a free member to get a taste of what she is all about!
I think that is all I have to say this week, I have also got into Tarot, bought some cowboy boots and got a new blue bicycle but that doesn’t seem very interesting to anyone except my mum who I send daily pictures of my boring life to because I miss her a lot and moving abroad isn’t all sunshine and roses. I also start my masters in 2 weeks which is both terrifying and gratifying to know I will be back in the (virtual) classroom, flexing my mind muscles.
Catch you all on another side of the internet,
Hannah