Hi, it's me, I'm a tortured poet

Welcome to this week’s roundup of three things I’ve been enjoying, and a short piece about something that’s on my mind. This week: The Tortured Poets Department

• 📕 The Persephone Code - Julia Golding. As a teen I adored Julia Golding’s Middle Grade Cat Royal series, full of historical shenanigans and intrigue amidst the back streets of Covent Garden and theatreland. So when this popped up on NetGalley I immediately requested an advance reader copy. Friends - I loved it. The inciting incident is a murder in West Wycombe’s Hellfire Caves, which are pretty near to where I grew up, so it was especially exciting to read (Most exciting thing to ever happen in Buckinghamshire???). The central mystery is gripping and full of twists and turns, and takes our main characters all over the country, including - of course - to the back streets of Covent Garden, and up a lighthouse. And right now it’s 99p on Kindle! (ad, affiliate links)

• 🍌 Banana bread. Don’t worry, you haven’t slipped and gone back in time four years. Bananas are pretty much the only fruit I will reliably eat, but even so I ended up with a glut of overripe bananas in my fruit bowl, so I made a double batch of Olivia Potts’s Banana and Rolo cake. It’s so good!

• “A Beginner’s Guide to Dying” by Simon Boas. Simon Boas, the 46-year-old Executive Director of Jersey Overseas Aid, has only a few months left, according to his oncologist. He’s written an absolutely beautiful piece all about what it is to live, from the perspective of one without much time left to do so. It’s a tough read but very much worth doing so, if you can.

You all know I’m a Taylor Swift fan as well as a total bookworm. So when the imagery and track list for this new album, seemingly full of literary references and vibes, came out, I was immediately bought in. And then, at 7am (UK time) on Friday, it turned out to be a double album. (!).

There are tonnes of jokes going around about how, if this album hits for you, you probably have depression, or anxiety, or you’re neurospicy and an expert at masking.

From @ashtoncreates on Instagram/Threads

From @sendhelp on Instagram

So it probably goes without saying that I love it.

bustle

A post shared by @bustle

What I find really interesting, though, is the way we’ve all been called out. There was so much chat over the last weeks - will the album be about Joe? Will there be a track in there about Matty? Will it allude to Travis?

All of those. And yet, also, none of them. It’s about Taylor.

It’s a bit of a cliché that women can’t write novels without people asking how much of the story is about them, I know. But there’s also the aspect that people have been so obsessed with gossiping about Taylor, and who she’s dating, whether she’s in the closet, how much she’s using her jet.

She just took all of the pain of being so constantly perceived and put it in this devastating masterpiece of an album.

If you haven’t gasped yet at the clarity of the stories she’s telling us, this lyric video, using footage from the Eras Tour concert… that’ll get you there.

For me, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, Down Bad, and imgonnagetyouback are my top tracks so far - but I bet that will change. Have you been listening?

Speak soon,

Lily

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