Weekend supplement

summer IS coming

Everything linked below

Good morning! I was so pleased with myself for putting all my warmer clothes in vacuum-sealed bags and hauling them to the attic/chest freezer (precaution against Big Moth). I didn’t think I’d have to fish some of them out so soon. But the forecast shows signs of cheering up, maybe even today, so I’m just going to carry on in expectation of that.

6pm on Thursday. JUNE. Not shown: socks and jumper (this one, which is cotton and therefore not suffocatingly hot - I wear it ALL the time, it’s one of my best recent buys). I don’t actually mind a rogue cold day in summer, for the unexpected cosiness. But not a rogue WEEK

Onwards to the sunshine! Here are some things I liked this week.

It’s Independent Bookshop Week

I mentioned last week that Katie Clapham’s Receipt From The Bookshop now exists as a wonderful, funny, touching book. Today also marks the start of Independent Bookshop Week. Katie works in an independent bookshop. Do you see where this is going? Yes! I have 10 copies to give away to paid subscribers.

If you’d like to win one of them, recommend your favourite indie in the Comments and tell me/us exactly why you love it. The deadline is 12 noon on Monday and this is UK only. My 10 favourite answers win a copy of Katie’s book - I’ll message you privately to alert you and the publishers will post the books out to the winners. Thank you very much to Phoenix/Orion.

This is an imperfect method of choosing winners because I know all your recs will be brilliant. But it’s more fun than picking names at random, and at least we might discover interesting new bookshops or especially great booksellers. A good independent bookshop is more precious than gold - I trust recommendations from mine more than I trust recommendations from professional reviewers.

Aside from inspiring a bestselling book, Home has over 85,000 subscribers and is the number 1 global bestseller in House & Garden, where all the lifestyle-ish stuff lives. Come and join us! You can read more about why you might want to do that (or not) here. PS If you’re on an iPhone, don’t pay-subscribe via the app, it’s more expensive because Apple take a cut. Ignore this button and do it from the web page, here.

These lipsticks

Lisa Eldridge makes brilliant makeup (some personal favourites: this, this, this, I could go on). She’s now collaborated with Marilyn Monroe’s estate - it’s the 100th anniversary of MM’s birth - to make a small collection of Monroe-esque cosmetics. These include Lisa’s famously fabulous lipsticks, which I think are among the best lipsticks money can buy.

These ones come in three shades - Norma Jeane, an orangey-red; Amagansett, a pink; and Strawberry Blonde, a proper scarlet. They exist as both lipsticks and as airier, less dense liquid lip colours. Do have a look, even if you think you ‘can’t’ wear a red lip. There is no such thing and the photographs of the shades against various colourings and skin tones demonstrate that perfectly.

People who think they can’t wear red are either choosing the wrong red or choosing the wrong texture, meaning too paste-like and pigmented, or too dry a formulation, which looks awful and dated on everyone. No risk of that here. But a blurrier, sheerer finish is an easier way in, especially if you’re very fair (although I LOVE a very defined, very pigmented, red-red lip on someone really pale, with no other makeup, or the illusion of it. Divine with ginger hair, for e.g, but you have to wear it like you mean it).

Here is Lisa explaining the collection, which also includes this highlighter and this mascara.

There are all sorts of very nice things in my shop - lovingly curated clothes, accessories, home things, a ton of stuff I can’t fit in this newsletter. Everything in there is either something I already own or something I deeply covet. Some links are affiliate, meaning I get a minuscule kickback from the brand at zero cost to you.