Welcome to my small part of the internet, my one-person magazine.
Whether you’re in Somerset or San Francisco or South America, I hope you’ll get a little burst of joy or laughter from these notes landing in your inbox or your Substack app.
A firmly held belief of mine is that life is better with books, and good food, and regular letters from friends. So, every week, I’ll send you a chatty letter about some things I’ve been enjoying - exactly what we’d chat about if you walked into my kitchen. I’d pop the kettle on, invite you to pull up a chair, and tell you all about the books I’ve just finished, or offer you a slice of the flapjack I made at the weekend.
I read a lot. Usually fiction, mostly written by women, and overwhelmingly what I call ‘white bread books’. That is, they fill you up and make you feel good in the moment, even if they’re not particularly ‘worthy’ and might not seem all that ‘nutritious’. I love podcasts and audiobooks - having a story told to me makes me feel like a child, like someone else is taking care of me.
When I say ‘good food’, I don’t mean fancy food, necessarily. I mean nice toast and good salted butter, topped with a fried egg and accompanied by a hot cup of tea in a chunky mug. I mean hot chocolate, with unashamedly unnecessary marshmallows swimming in the top.
During lockdown, I was reminded of the joy of real letters, with real stamps, in real envelopes. I can’t send those to each and every one of you. But this is what I would be chatting about if I could. Above all, I hope you, reader, feel that I’m taking care of you in this newsletter.
Paid subscribers get access to the full archive and special midweek posts; free subscribers get my weekly recommendations and most of the chat that goes along with them.
