Hello, lovely people.
How are you all? Me? I’m feeling a bit frazzled, this week. I don’t generally like to complain about being busy (especially when what I really mean by busy is juggling work and parenting) because I know how it is infinitely better than the alternative: when the relative spaciousness of your life no longer feels luxurious, it feels like a reproach. Mostly, I love how full my life now feels, even as I would also quite like an extra hour or two to get everything done.
Anyway, before we get into this month’s grab-bag of recommendations, I wanted to let you know that I’ll be speaking about pregnancy loss and my book at Kicking The Bucket Festival of living and dying on Friday. It’s an online event and it’s pay-what-you-can. See here for more details and tickets.
And now for the good stuff – there’s even a theatre recommendation, which makes me feel FANCY.
Reading/watching/listening…
Rodham, by Curtis Sittenfeld. I loved this counterfactual novel imagining what would have happened if Hillary had not married Bill Clinton. I found it a little slow to start – I wasn’t all that convinced by law-school Hillary – but once the novel skips ahead to a present-day (ish) presidential bid, I could not read this fast enough. At times, gossipy and fun, at others sharply uncompromising about the double standards imposed on women in the public eye, there’s a scene-stealing Trump cameo and an unexpectedly moving ending. It also offers a nuanced portrayal of a woman’s life without children. (Sidenote: once I’d finished, I read a review that found the sex scenes a bit much – whereas I barely noticed them. I’m not sure what this says about me. 🤷🏻♀️)
Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan. I feel a bit sheepish telling you that a novel that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize is Actually Very Good. But it is! In the run-up to Christmas 1985, we follow Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, on his rounds in a small Irish town, when he sees with his own eyes what’s being done to unmarried mothers at the local convent. Deft and – miraculously – hopeful. (And only 128 pages).
Helen Lewis’s Great Wives series for Radio 4, about the women behind history’s great (and often terrible) men. At under 15 minutes an episode, this is a brilliant, short podcast, especially if you like your feminist critique with a side of silly accents. (Listen via the BBC Sounds app).
What if feels like to try IVF at 50.
For my birthday, I went to see the RSC’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet on stage. It’s beautifully done. There is one particular scene that captures the wildness of grief versus the neat boxes society tries to keep it in, as Agnes howls for her son’s body, while the men of the community sing a restrained funeral hymn. I wept.
The rise of the bougie literary t-shirt.
‘I had my children via surrogacy, am I still allowed to say I find motherhood hard?’
Taffy Brodesser-Akner on Taylor Swift’s Eras tour.
Poorna Bell on Matthew Perry and addiction.
‘The fertility wellness industry chewed me up and spat me out.’
On being a body-positive doctor in the age of Ozempic.
Childless, child-free, or areproductive?
If you’ve ever been down a fertility supplements Google-hole about folic acid versus ‘more easily absorbed’ forms of folate, you need to read this.
This is a sensitively written feature about pregnancy loss when you already have a child.
‘We are blind to the reality of what most abdomens actually look like’. I loved this essay arguing that we, as a society, have belly dysmorphia.
Dawn French on the How To Fail podcast – especially the final segment on ‘failing’ to conceive when your friends are having children.
And finally, behold! A world-beating pumpkin.
Other joys…
Taking Edward to the library. Finding the perfect denim shirt. A serious eyeshadow upgrade. Adding a load of Britney tracks to my running playlist. Remembering that this is the ideal, cosy autumn film. Browsing bookshops with Dan on a rare afternoon off together. Naughty otters of Instagram. And this rather extra recipe for rocky road.
Just in case you missed it…
How to stay friends after babies
*conveniently omits link to perfect denim shirt* 👀
So many great links to read here, thanks Jennie!