A reminder to keep going
Plus! Marmite flatbreads and chronic UTIs
Well, hello.
My book – Life, Almost: Miscarriage, misconceptions, and a search for answers from the brink of motherhood – is a week old. How did that happen? Â
I’ll be honest, my head is starting to swim from all the talking and writing about it I’ve been doing. I’m losing track of who I’ve told what, who I’ve replied to, what I’ve posted already…. So I can only apologise if I’m repeating myself. But thank you so much if you pre-ordered the book, or sent me a picture of it in bookshops last week, or of your copy when it arrived (I really love these, please keep sending them!)
It’s also been so lovely to see the first reviews appear. (I’d told myself I wouldn’t read them, but my resolve on that front lasted all of about 0.2 seconds…)
Paying subscribers can still listen to a preview of the book here, and I’m working away on a few things I hope I can share with you all soon, including something about miscarriage and the longer term health implications. For now, I thought I would share a bumper list of recommendations and reads by people who - crucially - aren’t me. Â
In the news….
Chronic UTIs are leading to mental health crises, experts told i news. This is an astonishing story. The waiting lists. The gaslighting. That we don’t really know how to test and treat for this properly. That the NHS website didn’t even acknowledge this condition until last year!
Group legal action against talcum powder manufacturers is being planned in the UK for the first time, alleging that regular use increased the risk of certain cancers, including ovarian cancer and cancer of the fallopian tubes. (I know social media circulates a lot of ‘toxin’ stories in relation to women’s health, and often they end up debunked. But this doesn’t feel like that. Notably, in the U.S., in 2018, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $4.69 billion to 22 women and their families over similar claims).
Are we a step closer to a male contraceptive pill? A new study – in mice – found that switching off a particular enzyme can stop sperm swimming temporarily. (This is distinct from a male contraceptive gel, which is already being trialled in humans, here in the UK).
Things I’ve read/watched/listened to…
Empire Of Pain, by Patrick Radden Keefe. This non-fiction book – about the opioid crisis, OxyContin, and the role of the Sackler family who made money from that drug – has won and been nominated for all kinds of important prizes, so you don’t need me to tell you that it’s good. But, if you are feeling as defeated and exhausted by the discourse and news cycle at the moment as I am (from so many directions….women’s health, maternity care, nurses pay, violence against women, victim blaming, online misogyny, culture wars everything….) can I recommend this book as an antidote? I know that might sound unlikely, but bear with me. I downloaded it on audiobook last summer, but only finally got stuck into it in January.
If I’m honest, I kept putting it off because it seemed like a Very Serious Subject and I wasn’t sure if I had the bandwidth. Then I popped it on while I was doing some DIY and after an hour or so I didn’t want to stop. It might seem an unlikely page-turner, but as well as being a deep history of the opioid crisis, it has strains of Succession-like family drama and intrigue, as well as a satisfying bringing-down-a-Goliath/Erin Brockovich vibe. And something I took away from this book that I hadn’t expected was a reminder of just how much work and how many different voices and tactics it takes to effect any kind of real change. This is not the first book by a journalist on the opioid crisis (as Radden Keefe makes clear). There was no single, heroic moment or action that broke this story wide open. It took lots of separate legal challenges, subpoenas, and many different journalists, sources, commentators, protestors and activists (including the artist Nan Goldin). A reminder to just keep going, if ever there was one.   Â
I’ve also just finished The Muse, by Jessie Burton. Which I very much enjoyed.
What it’s like to carry a celebrity’s baby. A lot is written and opined about surrogacy. Often without actually hearing from the people involved, least of all surrogates themselves, so this piece felt refreshing.
This personal essay by a woman whose husband refused to get a vasectomy.
This reported feature on the gender pain gap – including an interview with the researcher who coined that term back in 2001.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett on longing for a baby. (Her book – on the same subject – is on my bedside table to be read next).
Bit of a change of pace: British nepo babies.
This piece in The Atlantic about the language of fertility and pregnancy, from ‘incompetent’ cervixes to ‘failing to progress’ in labour. ‘The point of language evolution is not to make words so gentle that they become meaningless. But in many cases, the existing language is less clear and precise than gentler alternatives.’
The author Libby Page on the pressure we put on the first moment of meeting your baby. (She has a lovely substack
too).Things you will do in the month before your memoir launches, this was almost eerily well-timed for me, by Katherine May.
I’ve also been enjoying Farrah Storr’s Q&A series for her substack Things Worth Knowing – especially this one with Anita Bhagwandas, whose new book about beauty standards sounds great. (You can read an extract here).
And finally, 52 acts of kindness to spread joy. Â
Other joys…
Yellow flowers. Putting chocolate Oatly in my coffee (as previously discussed with the always excellent Laura Thomas, on her podcast here). Marmite flatbreads. Crocuses. A single, very cold glass of champagne. Seeing my book on a bookshop shelf. Learning that the handwritten descriptions sometimes added to bookshop displays are called ‘shelf-talkers’.  A publication day dinner here. Watching all of Happy Valley in a week and it being every bit as good as everyone said it was.
