Eleanor's Letter: Your Queenager reading list this summer

Greetings from deepest mid-Devon where I am ensconced in an old cottage with foot-thick walls on the northern edge of Dartmoor. My husband’s very kind cousins have lent us their house while they go diving in Mozambique. They are headed to Heathrow, I am revelling in the silence.

All I can hear is my fingers tapping, a wood pigeon woo-woo-ing and the sound of a gentle breeze though the wisteria. The sun is shining and several weeks of life taken at a gentler pace are in store. We intend to walk, stargaze on Dartmoor Tors and – of course – swim…. in the wild rivers which run off the moor, in my beloved River Dart and in the sea both to the south and up in the north where we usually spend a few weeks in the summer surfing. It’s the first time I’ve set off on holiday without the children; the back seat was full not of girls plugged into headphones or “doing the music” but our stuff. A new phase indeed.

London was looking weirdly empty when we left; hardly any cars taking up the residents’ bays and even the pond on the Heath sparsely attended as city dwellers embark for some down time. I know so many who are off for a few weeks, holidaying but also working remotely – COVID’s best legacy. I wish you a well-earned rest wherever you find yourself as July morphs into August.

We broke our journey West with a wonderful stop-off with my fellow Queenager and 100-Year-Life pal Avivah Wittenberg-Cox at her pad in Somerset. We walked, did some excruciatingly hard Pilates (who knew squishy blue balls can be such instruments of torture?) and ate delicious food. It’s always fun to discover a new bit of England and the Mendip Hills with their majestic views, lakes and egrets were stunning.

Avivah and her lovely husband Tim are already several weeks into their summer sejour so they modelled how it is done: Walks, local produce, lengthy meals in the garden, icey G&Ts and lots of chat ranging from property (that is a whole other newsletter) to their gorgeous new puppy Tiger (a spaniel with meltingly cute green eyes). Thanks to them for being such wonderful hosts.

If you don’t know about Avivah, check out her great Elderberries Substack and podcast on Four Quarter Lives. She and I are both obsessed by what she calls Q3 – this Queenager moment of becoming….

What I’m reading this summer (and maybe you should too…)

For me holidays as well as being about nature and rest and swimming are also about my other best thing: Reading. I’ve been truffling out books to keep me buzzing over the next few weeks and my picks are the subject of this newsletter (the great thing about travelling by car instead of plane is that a mighty bag of books is possible, I find when I read on Kindle I just don’t remember what I read in the same way).

This is a mixture of what I am reading, what I am going to read and what I have read recently and would recommend – fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

1. Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Riveting and shocking account of working for Facebook/Meta. Zuckerberg et al hated this book so much they stopped her doing any promotional interviews and I am not surprised. The detail of quite how careless, some would say completely amoral, the masters of our current universe really are is a must-read, particularly as the future of humanity as dictated by AI is in the hands of a similar crew…

Wynn Williams joined the company thinking she could make it a force for good, believing the hype and swallowing the Kool-Aid about how Facebook would connect everyone and be a tool of democracy and free speech. That was before she realised the algorithms were intentionally addictive, the company was selling adds to vulnerable teens (literally a teen would write in “I’m so ugly” or “I hate myself” and they would be served up make-up ads), not to mention the carelessness with which the massacres of the Rohingas in Myanmar were treated (it was running on an early version of the programme and Facebook didn’t have any fact checkers who spoke the language and seemed not to really care even when they did know about it). Highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand how we got to where we are now when it comes to the internet and social media. It’s also v well written, like a thriller. If you take me up on one pick, make it this one.

2. Wellness by Nathan Hill

Good fat doorstopper of a novel in the Jonathan Franzen mould about modern America: Hipsters, the wellness industry, the immorality of capitalism, the secrets we don’t tell anyone, the horrors of demanding small children… I devoured this.

3. The Compassionate Mind by Paul Gilbert

Gilbert is one of the granddaddies of mindfulness. This book was recommended to me by an old friend who is a top psychologist in the NHS. I was talking about a NOON Circle (the one at our last Wasing retreat) where we were discussed the Acquisition Trail (how we can go through life ticking off boxes, jumping through hoops, keeping up with the Joneses in an endless head-led cycle of consumption, biggering and thinking we need to do and get more and more…).

I mentioned to him that what makes us happy in midlife (in my experience) is the opposite. At this time, we need stillness, time just to be, meditation, a clear-out of our old ideas, time to take and explore the road less travelled and the parts of us we haven’t given as much time to. This book is all about how developing self-compassion and compassion for others literally rewires our brains and calms our threat system – just as a mother’s care and love soothes a baby’s distress and anxiety. It explores the new science of trauma, the vagus nerve and the different systems inside us which shows how learning to soothe ourselves through calmness really is a path to a happier life. I love it when I find a book which explains something I already know to be true. It’s also really easy to read, which not all such books are.

4. Wise Women: Myths and stories for midlife and beyond by Sharon Blackie

I often bang on about how the myths about transformation and possibility in older women have been erased from our Western culture. Here, Sharon Blackie has truffled out the very best European, British, Irish, Welsh and Scottish tales of older women. These are stories which sing back to us a powerful song of self and becoming. I particularly love the one about the woman who leaves her husband and turns into a Fox… literally finding new form for the second part of her life. Every Queenager should own this. I read from it at our retreats. (Listen to my podcast with Sharon – great stuff!)

9. Brooklyn and Long Island by Colm Tóibín

I heard Colm Tóibín talking on Radio 4 about these 2 books and how Long Island is a continuation of the love story which began in Brooklyn, but 25 years on – making it Queenage-tastic! They are my immersive reads for long days on a sunlounger.

 

10. The Treasures by Harriet Evans

No summer holiday is complete in my opinion without a big house, multi-generational immersive love saga. (A pal says this is joyous grapefruit.) I’ll be reading this book as a way of marking that I am on holiday. I am an omnivore when it comes to books: high/low, high culture, page-turning romps – bring it on. I am hoping this is Georgette Heyer-esque in a modern way

 

11. Normal Women by Philippa Gregory

This is 900 years of the history of women, from how the Normans STUFFED us by taking away the common lands which had allowed women to make money from cottage industries such as spinning or cooking for others from home to the witch trials. It also takes in how Victorian women forfeited their rights to their children if they left their husbands and so many other wince-making and jaw-dropping stories of what it has meant to be a woman over the last 1,000 years that I just have to recommend it. I dip in and out of it – it is a LOT in one go – but it should definitely be on your radar.

 

12. Time/Life by Catherine Mayer

This is a dense and satisfying novel by brilliant journalist, founder of the Women’s Equality Party and NOON Advisory Board Member (and a pal) Catherine Mayer. Well worth a slot in your holiday reading

13. Homework by Geoff Dyer

If you don’t know Geoff, this memoir of growing up in the 1970s is a good place to start. He is languid, funny and skewering of all aspects of modern life. I also recommend Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It.

 

14. Ten Trips by Andy Mitchell

I wrote in my book and in one of my newsletters about taking psilocybin in Jamaica for therapeutic reasons and about my interest in the new science of psychedelics in terms of treating depression and other mental health disorders. This hilarious book follows Mitchell taking 10 different hallucinogens in 10 different settings in an odyssey through the crazy world of science, shamans and charlatans which is the modern psychedelic scene. Some of the chapters are more engaging than others (I skipped through some of the science), but if you’re interested in what happens when we go through the doors of perception, or how the brain works, then this is a rip-roaring read.

 

15. The Names by Florence Kemp

This jumped out at me in the bookshop as it is about one of those sliding doors moments – this time about how our lives can change if we have a different name. It has great reviews, I’ll keep you posted on whether I like it.

 

16. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

My husband bought this as it had rave reviews. I’ll report back (am including it here as I put it in the photo). It is all about a boy at boarding school so not sure if it’s for me….

 

17. Thinking about Women by Mary Ellmann

Really “out there” essays by the wife of James Joyce biographer James Ellman, which marked the beginnings of Women’s Studies as a field. This book is all about how women are portrayed going back through literary time – fascinating!

 

18. Dream State by Eric Puchner

Multi-generational family saga set in Montana. Described as Jonathan Franzen meets The Paper Palace (which I loved). A friend said I had to read it…so I will.

So there you go – that is the contents of my book bag. Hope you have a wonderful break and that these are helpful.

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