241. READ. LOOK. THINK.
Working at night, a white tray with a blue border, sandwiches from the garage, Bridget's house, regressing, NPCs...
READ.
I loved this profile of Helen Garner. (Her Diaries will be out in the UK in ten days! They are one combined volume, 800pp of perfection!)
And Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser is coming out in the UK too — I LOVE this book. It’s about a post-grad’s love affair, but also about Virginia Woolf, but also about systems of domination? Also mothers and literary mothers. Features an important cameo by one of these. I was absolutely engrossed.
Currently reading A House in St John’s Wood.
LOOK.
'everything has been altered in some way to accommodate the kids and to put them as the central focus in the home' — no wonder the house in ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’ was so charming, so much thought went into it: AD tour.
My 11yo has just read John Marsden’s classic Tomorrow When the War Began. I knew she would love it!
Apart from White Lotus we are TV show-less, it’s grim.
THINK.
To whom should we have allegiance—the version of ourself making choices, or the version of ourself who will be affected by them?
‘It is not just the fires, floods, zoonotic diseases, and other insignia of ecological emergency. It is also the discomfiting spectacle of a leadership class so extravagantly unfit for the task at hand. Incompetent rulers are nothing new. They are one of human history’s main themes. What feels more specific to our time is the extent to which our leaders have responded to a moment of severe and proliferating crisis by regressing into a childlike state, and encouraging their followers to do the same.’
The seductive promise of fascism, many intellectuals have observed, is you do not have to think about other people. Everyone who you’re not concerned with or dislike gets to be NPC. And in choosing this frame, ironically, you become NPC yourself, flabby and frightened and morally compromised, with an ever-narrowing field of vision.
‘For the last eight years, I’ve spent hours with my children while simultaneously also on my phone. If I read bad news while I’m with my kids, my reaction to their normal kid behaviors is disproportionate; I find myself snapping at them over things that normally wouldn’t bother me. Sometimes, it’s because the news I’m reading is very sad, bad news about kids who are far less fortunate than my own three. In the moment, I can’t fully wrap my head around that disconnect — the fact that some children are suffering or dying while my own children are safe and are not, in that moment, explicitly acknowledging how lucky they are. Instead what they’re doing is acting like human beings, but what I’m reading on my phone is bringing out the worst in me.’
Why your nervous system is the new front line.
Study finds AI atrophies human cognition.
MY BOOK.
So Consider Yourself Kissed is a love story spanning a decade in East London, set against a backdrop of… reality! It will be published in the UK and USA/Canada in May, and in Australia in less than a month.
I was in The Bookseller interviewed by Alice O’Keeffe.
CYK is apparently on Curtis Sittenfeld’s nightstand 👀
My first US review, in Publisher’s Weekly, calls CYK ‘charming and intelligent’ (not-unwelcome school report vibes). ‘Stanley portrays domestic and political developments with wry humor and sharp prose, depicting how the Brexit vote and a family loss each put a strain on the couple and how Coralie finally grapples with her desire to write. Readers will root for Stanley’s endearing heroine.’
I loved this reel by author Gillian McAllister. As well as her kind words about CYK (‘pretty perfect’), I might borrow how she summarises it: that it’s about staying in love.
I’m so happy to be going to Australia after Easter for a little tour. I will share my Melbourne and Sydney launch dates (please come!) here and on my Instagram, but in case anyone is already booking their sessions for Sorrento Writers Festival, I will be speaking at three of them with brilliant authors, please come!
Jess x
Thank you for sharing that Garner profile. What a delight! x
Tomorrow When the War Began - such a lodestar book for me!