The Good Stuff #9: Monet, the London Library, why tennis is hot, and Rivals
Plus: Bridgerton's Penelope, the six forces of friendship, all things Italian widow - all the flotsam which caught my eye in June
June is such a glorious month - everything so verdant and in full bloom, before the hazy, heady days of late summer. On a balmy evening, a friend suggested an impromptu walk by the river - and it was cool, calm and soul soothing. (Please see photo above and tell me your soul is not marginally soothed?) Impromptu walks are to be recommended.
As is Rose Tremain’s novella Absolutely and Forever. It is witty, charming and evocative - with a distinct sting in its tail.
15-year-old Marianne is relieved of her virginity in the back of Simon’s Morris Minor - an unpropitious start but one which nonetheless results in her falling hopelessly in love. However, Simon fails his Oxford entrance exam and is packed off to Paris in disgrace. (I would love to be sent to Paris as punishment for failing a test.) Heartbroken, Marianne does dismally at school and is sent to secretarial college by her chilly, distant mother and bumbling, disengaged father. She falls into marriage with a friend, Hugo - who is a jolly good egg and the kind of chap who refers to his ‘todger’. But her heart remains otherwise engaged…
It is quintessentially English, full of repressed and understated emotion. Think Remains of the Day (which has one of the saddest lines that ever there was: “Indeed - why should I not admit it - in that moment, my heart was breaking.”) But more hopeful. Tender, funny, and quietly devastating. A pitch-perfect masterpiece.
Regular readers will know my feelings about Shedunnit, so I was thrilled when Harriet Evans turned up on this delightfully named episode to discuss the London Library and her brilliantly Mitford-meets-Sayers new novel, D is for Death.
Thoroughly enjoyed Melvyn and co. on Monet’s love affair with the Thames.
Can a summer read transform your life?
The credentials for the best biographers?
I love
’s Substack, Literary Leanings, and this post on audiobooks and crochet is one of her finest. I find the idea of it enormously soothing - so much it has me googling ‘crochet hooks’. is another terrific ‘stack - this struck a real (painfully familiar vis-a-vis the phone) chord.When neither partner wants a baby - and one changes their mind. What then? Sad, moving, honest and beautiful.
Love this piece by my friend Kat Brown on how the Taylor Swift concert is a safe space. (Even though I didn’t strike gold and get tickets. I swear everybody else did. I read a piece in The Times by a chap who went with his wife and three daughters, and all I could think was ‘FIVE tickets. HOW?’)
The six forces which fuel friendship.
My son is unnervingly sporty, given that many of his genes came from me. But please God let me not become a sports parent.
Lauren Bravo - ostensibly on her sofa, but actually the scars and sacrifices of matrescence and motherhood via
There are no words to fully express how much I once yearned for a Barbie dream house.
I’m off to Wimbledon tomorrow for the first time ever and I am almost as excited as I would have been had I received a Barbie dream house as a child. Last week, I wrote about why tennis is hot for The Times. The headline (which referred to stories that had nothing to do with me, m’lud) occasioned a couple of friends to text me saying, “WHAT???!!!….Which coach?” (Background: my son plays a lot of tennis, so I spend a disproportionate amount of time in my local tennis club.)
This seems as good a time as any to declare the possibly controversial opinion that Carrie Soto is Back is the best of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novels. Discuss.
Oh dear heavens. Rivals. Is. Here. THIS Is the content we need. Take me to Rutshire! (How do we feel about Rupert CB being a brunette?)
You’re possibly aware that The Spectator published a piece about how it’s a ‘big fantasy’ that Colin would fall for Penelope because Nicola Coughlan is insufficiently hot as she’s not a size 8. (I paraphrase, but you get the gist.) Fury rained down upon both the magazines and the journalist (who had to make her social media profiles private). As much as I don’t agree with what amounted to casual cruelty masquerading as loftily clever-clever commentary, nor do I think attacking the journalist is the solution. Although she then complained that the woke brigade were aggressive and unkind. Um, pot? Kettle? Black? Two wrongs do not a right make. What I DO agree with is
’s excellent and witty piece on why Penelope is settling. It made me laugh out loud.“I know the show wants us to believe that they’ve got history, and that they’ve bonded over writing. Except I think Pen’s a talented, observant, witty chronicler of the people around her, and Colin…kept a sex diary.”
HA.
Objects of delight
It all began with this dress (14.) which I bought in Zara in Porto whilst reeling from the horror of the changing room mirrors. It is now in the sale, btw. And looks considerably better when not reflected by Zara’s ageing mirrors. The Italian widow aesthetic soon gathered traction. I think she might wear this pared-back chic skirt (5.) or perhaps this one (1.) if she’s emerging from her widowhood, with a scarf (4.) tied around her lustrous dark hair and a slick of red lipstick (11.). N.B. Having consulted with several red lipstick devotees of my acquaintance, Dior’s Rouge Forever is the winner. This swimsuit (13.) is also - as my daughter would say - giving me Italian vibes.
As is this chair - imagine it on a bougainvillea-strewn balcony from whence the widow can gaze upon the town whilst having her espresso and cantucci (2) by day - served on this platter (10.); and red wine by night, illuminated by flickering candelight from a lantern (3.) to highlight her mysterious allure.
Italian reading: Any of the Montalbano novels - although The Shape of Water is the first. They are witty, shot through with melancholy at times, gloriously atmospheric - steeped in Sicily. I think my husband secretly yearns for Camilleri’s charismatic detective’s way of life i.e. espresso via intravenous drip, morning swims from his beachfront villa, long lunches, a string of impossibly sexy women pining for him….
I also reserve a soft spot for Donna Leon’s cultured, erudite Guido Brunetti - in which Venice plays as much of a starring role as the detective and the murders he solves.
In Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins we are transported to Italy in 1962, when beautiful starlet flees a film set and is spotted by an inn keeper. The decade-hopping action moves between Italy and Hollywood, weaving a narrative of ambition, desire, comedy, pathos and worlds within worlds.
The decadent Sicilian aristocracy are a dying breed in Lampedusa’s classic The Leopard. It’s a meditation of memory, death, tradition and social change.
Do feel free to share, restack, comment or simply drop me a like or a small heart of affection. It is all most welcome and hugely appreciated.
I too would have loved a Barbie Dream house! Absolutely and Forever sounds like a must-read. Have fun tomorrow.
So chuffed to see my sofa ode among these, thank you! But Rupert C-B as a brunette I just cannot compute.