239. READ. LOOK. THINK.

🦐, The Art of, three breasts, cabbage and chocolate cake, a sold out duvet cover, I said my shutdown phrase.

The Strand. Look at that beautiful sun! But it was -7 degrees when I took that pic 👀

I want to welcome everyone who joined READ. LOOK. THINK. thanks to the amazing India Knight, who wrote, of my book, ‘I loved this literary romantic comedy by Jessica Stanley so much that I’ve read it twice.’ I died! Twice? In this attention economy!

Consider Yourself Kissed is my big-L, big-S Love Story set in East London over ten years. It comes out in May and is available to pre-order now in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.

I’ve just been in New York for a few days where I was so lucky to have a party with two other Riverhead authors, Hal Ebott (Among Friends: intricate, timeless, chilling portrait of two sets of married couples) and Honor Jones (Sleep: a beautifully-written child POV switches into a contemplative, warm and compelling present day divorce novel).

The party was so fun; I shared a pic of the opulent piles of shrimp on my Instagram. But the key part for me was meeting a bookseller called Emilie who was wearing a top with poodles on it in honour of the poodle in my book. Her (Emilie’s) poodle is called Gwyneth - bless up!

READ.

Incredible profile of SNL’s Lorne Michaels: ‘Michaels adored [an actor] and considered her a star. But, when [a colleague] asked Michaels to give her a little praise, he responded, “I understand what you’re saying, but you’ll find that it’s never enough.” He told me, quoting a former therapist, “A baby looks at the mother and thinks, Why do you only have two breasts? Why do you not have three breasts? It’s an insatiable demand, and you see it in performers, and you see it in writers.”’

In the Strand I found The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story - I LOVE the slim craft-focussed books in the ‘The Art of…’ series.

LOOK.

@BarryPierce.

I’m so sad this Alice and Wonderland duvet set has sold out at H and M.

Carter Were’s home in Byron!

Every child aged…? Seven and over? will LOVE these books. ‘The magic of Raina is real.’

I need to make this chocolate cake (via Highly Enthused). And this increasingly famous cabbage.

Millennial Rebrand Syndrome.

I saw the Bob Dylan movie and I loved it! Timothee is virtuosic in it! I think!

THINK.

The world is falling apart. Should I scrap my plans to have kids?

‘Create a secret, quirky phrase that you say to yourself when you stop your work for the day to shift out of professional mode. (I used to say: “Schedule shutdown complete.”) When ruminations about work arise, you can simply respond: “I said my shutdown phrase.” Over time, the urge to obsess over work diminishes.’

‘After years of people yelling at me in books, think pieces, and tweets (lol) to “break up with my phone,” “delete your social media accounts,” and “f*ck Mark Zuckerberg,” turns out the thing that I needed was a whole conglomeration of quiet arguments and technological shifts that made my phone and the social media accounts on it feel less precious. Put differently, I haven’t come to value it less; instead, it’s become less valuable.’

Six ways to change your attitude to insomnia / ‘Insomniacs seldom just get up, work for an hour, enjoy the silence of the house. This implies a state of serenity that’s exactly what we don’t have; if we could be that calm, we’d be asleep.’

I’ve sent this email a little earlier than I would usually to say hi to everyone who’s joined. The usual schedule is one email about every 3 or 4 weeks. If you are just setting up your Substack account and signing up for lots of new email newsletters, may I suggest setting up a rule/filter in your inbox so all Substacks go to a special folder? Much less annoying!!!

Jess

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