Weekend supplement
XXL edition, plus free extract from a book by Soho House's global picture curator
Good morning! The first extract from my book Home is in Sunday Times Style tomorrow, along with a piece by me about houses, interiors and the meaning of both.
The second extract will - of course - be right here, next week. And I’m so looking forward to seeing some of you at the special subscriber event on Monday. I’m bringing you these from Molly Mahon!
This revving up to publication business always makes me feel slightly twitchy, a feeling that vanishes overnight once the book is out. It’s a bit like baby donkeys finding their legs - once they’re upright and scarpering about, there’s nothing you, the mother donkey, can do apart from give them an encouraging lick every now and then.
This week we have a bumper edition. It includes an exclusive extract from a joyous and liberating new book that I love. It’s by Kate Bryan and it completely demystifies art - what it is, how to look at it, how to think and talk about it, how to buy it, how to hang it, even how to make it. Kate is an art historian and also the global curator for Soho House, i.e. responsible for acquiring every single bit of art on its walls - some 10,000 pieces.
Her book is friendly, witty and super-accessible, so if art slightly scares you, or if you’ve ever stood in front of a painting feeling gauche and tongue-tied, you’re going to love it (such an inspired idea, this book). Plus David Shrigley!
We also have Traitors fashion, two really good recipes, a new café in central London, reasons to be cheerful, where to buy art online, a graphic novel about the Mitford sisters, molten goldy-green eyeliner, quite a long tangent about Marie Antoinette, cheese biscuits, wallpaper, a skirt that is the very essence of autumn, Christmas (yes), etc. And tons of excellent links.
I write these posts for paid subscribers once a week, and for free subscribers once a month. This is a paid post, but the paywall is low down today because we all need some light relief. The most recent fully free post is here. All posts auto-paywall after 4 weeks.
I should probably also remind you that I’m at Cheltenham Literature Festival next Saturday - once with Bee Wilson talking about the emotional significance of objects (tickets here) and later with Ben Elton and Charlotte Runcie talking about comic fiction and novels that make us laugh (here). Both events are in The Times’ top picks of the festival!
Right, let’s get on with it. Here are some things I liked this week.
Diana Henry’s new book
This was published on Thursday. Diana is one of the great cookery writers of all time, in my view, and a true friend to home cooks everywhere. This one is not a cookbook - it’s essays about her life in food that add up to a fascinating, intricate, highly evocative and often poignant memoir. It’s wonderful, obviously - she is such a good writer. I writhed with hunger reading it, almost cried with hunger, and I’m on Mounjaro.
Diana’s Me & My Desk is coming next week.
Autumn as a skirt
I spent much of the 90s in slip skirts and bought this the moment I saw it last week. I’ve barely taken it off. It is the very essence of this time of year, and also of winter. What do we call the colour - pomegranate, mulled wine, ruby, garnet, poached cherry, fire?
It’s satin, which is always lovely, it’s bias-cut, which means it drapes flatteringly, it’s long, which is chic, and there is just the right amount of fabric, meaning it doesn’t flap about but nor does it cling. It works beautifully in the evening, but also in the daytime with a big jumper and some furry Birks. It reminds me of roaring fires, candlelight, fireworks, parties and baked potatoes.
I’ve been wearing the skirt with a pink cashmere t-shirt plus my trusty red Speedcats, but it is obviously equally gorgeous with sober-er colours. It’s in my shop, along with all of the above and a whole lot more, including these marvellous earrings from Cos.
This new café
St John has taken over the old LRB cake shop, which is next to the London Review Bookshop. It’s an inspired pairing - St John has a certain intellectual rigour - and is the perfect pitstop after buying books, buying stationery or trotting around the British Museum.
From the bookshop website: ‘St. JOHN will be serving a menu that will meander through the day, inspired, as ever, by the philosophy of ‘purpose and simplicity’: open from 8 a.m. for coffee, croissants, Eccles cakes and those doughnuts; at lunchtime, for savoury tarts and sandwiches, alongside their famous baked-to-order madeleines; and on days when we’re open late for an event, they’ll stay open for wine, house cocktails and snacks until 7p.m’.
Art at home
Here’s our friend Lucinda Chambers in her house talking about things in frames.
As previously noted, Collagerie’s new art drop is fantastic and you can win a piece from it, details here.
There is loads about what to put on your walls in my book, btw. (Am I going to shoehorn mentions of my book wherever I possibly can? 100% yes).
How to Art
Or, to give it its full title, How to Art: Bringing a Fancy Subject Down to Earth So We Can All Enjoy It, by Kate Bryan with illustrations by David Shrigley (and signed copies here).
As I was saying above, it’s super-accessible, funny, joyful and completely demystifies what art ‘is’ and how to approach it, buy it, look at it, spend time with it, talk about it and make it. Here’s an exclusive extract to give you the gist.
Names
I loved this, about names. I changed mine as a teenager and although my name is absolutely my name, legally and in every other aspect, I feel like there remains this shadow version, another me, who might have had a completely different life. Changing one’s name does interesting things to one’s sense of self (I wrote about that here).
After the paywall: influencers, naked ladies wallpaper, reasons to be cheerful, a Traitors wardrobe starter kit, the Mitford sisters, buying art from Etsy, insanely good cheese biscuits, the best sausage pasta recipe, Marie Antoinette, a truly beautiful eye pencil, Skye McAlpine’s new book, and a load of links to excellent things to read.
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