For your stray attention this weekend...

Briefly: Sarah Krasnostein on my Patreon book club | I do not want to play the trumpet | | Pre-order Enchantment | The day everyone in Faber got an afternoon off to read my book

Hello,

There’s a thread running through this week’s reads that took me by surprise - they take us deep into the hidden world of the domestic, teasing out the golden threads that run through everyday life, and often pointing to the important work of caring.

Sarah Wildman’s essay, I Don’t Need My Life to Be Remarkable is a great reminder of what really matters. Sarah’s daughter Orli has cancer, and she’s learned to value the quiet, boring parts of life rather than aiming for perfection.

Susanna Crossman writes about a different kind of remarkable life for Aeon - in The Utopian Machine, she explores life in an idealistic commune as a child in the 70s. It honestly made me treasure the sheer boringness of my own life.

Tatiana Gallardo’s Brazenface newsletter is always wonderful, but her photo essay, Dear Mom was very special. When Tatiana persuaded her mother to leave her caring responsibilities behind to go travelling with her, it didn’t quite go as planned. 

In this month’s Lunar Dispatch, Will Dowd examines the mind of a man who was extraordinary in so many ways - Neil Armstrong - and shows how his super-human ability to stay calm under pressure might just have emerged from something close to home.

So…yeah. It’s all important, even when it doesn’t feel especially golden. 

I’m listening to…

Angela Barnes on Griefcast, talking to Cariad Lloyd about the loss of two beloved men: her rambunctious dad, and her dear friend Phil, who died on her wedding day. 

Sarah Wilson interviewing Matt Browne about the unedifying rise of the bro-caster guru.

Lauren Ober’s The Loudest Girl in the World (currently my favourite podcast; I could honestly make one of those episode-by-episode fan-podcasts about it), on finding a roadmap for life as a late-diagnosed autistic. 

After reading Emma Beddington’s Guardian piece about the wonders of ‘brown noise’ - the softer cousin of white noise that’s renowned to soothe a busy mind - I turned to my beloved mynoise.net to give it a go. I have to say, it’s lovely. To me, it sounds like the roar of the sea when your head is underwater. Try some brown noise here, or may I recommend my favourite soundscape, Irish Coast, which has got me through many a writing session.

I’m reading…

Bayo Akomolafe’s These Wilds Beyond Our Fences is a stunning exploration of fatherhood as ‘a cosmic event of unprecedented proportions’, hidden in the mundane. It’s a few years old and I think unjustly overlooked. 

On Not Knowing by Emily Ogden, a collection of crisp, winding essays with resounding depths. Each one invites us into our unknowing, which is a space I love to be in. I notice that Emily is in the UK as I write, speaking at the Freud Musuem on Monday 17th October.

On my TBR…

Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence by James Bridle - an exploration of the multiple intelligences that exist on this earth.

I have a pile of Lodestars Anthology back issues waiting by my armchair, and they look tantalising. Each one takes a deep dive into travelling a different country, often touching on the stark, windswept landscapes that I so adore. And the photos are beautiful.

Right, I’m off to apologise to the laundry pile for all the times I’m mean to it.

Take care,

Katherine x

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