255. READ. LOOK. THINK.

Hello! READ.LOOK.THINK. is an email newsletter for writers and readers by London-based Australian novelist Jessica Stanley. Sent out every three or four weeks, each edition links to scores of essays, books, recipes, podcasts, interiors and more. Explore the Archive. If you've been forwarded this, subscribe here.

READ.

'Whenever I told a friend I'd been single for eight years they acted like I must be mistaken. It seemed an impossibility to them, just unthinkable. But what did they mean? Was there some specific practical thing they would have done that I hadn't, which would have prevented my being single? Or did they think interesting people had been appearing right under my nose but I'd refused to really see them? Nobody had interested me in all those years. I'm sure my friends could easily imagine experiencing one single day of not meeting anyone they wanted to date, so why not three thousand consecutive days? That's what had happened to me.'

'There is a particular type of progressive who wonders what happened to Zadie Smith…' A thoughtful essay. (I admired a lot of Dead and Alive — and, recently, this new-to-me essay from 2009 about voices and how we change them: '… the first step on a typical British journey. A hesitation in the face of difference, which leads to caution before difference and ends in fear of it. Before long, the only voice you recognize, the only life you can empathize with, is your own.')

'Test screenings. Literal on-paper numbered equations that tell you whether or not a joke is funny. Ten people who are over the age of 50 and male weighing in on what my queer character's hair should look like. Completely sucking out the colloquialism, anything specific. Day to day, you watch something with detail and color become gray.'

'But after this book came out, that part of me kind of cut loose. Maybe everyone who's this age feels this. It's like, "Okay, that's done." You can't repeat the same goals, the same wants and needs forever.' Miranda July x Elif Batuman.

I would read anything Laura Marling writes — I love this.

And I loved Lizzy Stewart's beautifully illustrated novel, Alison, about a young artist who falls in love with a older male artist. I have now read her new one, The Wreck, about two couples who share a beautiful big house. Immediately I fell into the confident, timeless narrative voice. 'Ah, someone is telling me a great story,' I thought. The Wreck is out in April but I think read Alison first. I love them both! They would make lovely gifts too. If someone loves reading, they will love Lizzy's work.

I am mainly reading for my work in progress as usual but on Christmas Day I did slam the most recent Liane Moriarty and, of course, not surprisingly, loved!

Sorry to say 'love' so much but my policy is always to share stuff I am 100% on and pretend the rest doesn't exist/maintain plausible deniability that maybe I haven't got round to it yet.

LOOK.

The children are literally obsessed with the Australian gentle comedy/small-scale legal procedural drama Fisk, on ABC in Aus and Netflix everywhere else. It's properly funny yet somehow accessible for all ages, I think because Kitty Flanagan's character has a child-like clarity about how weird everyone in the world is (while also herself being openly, appealingly weird). Lovely family viewing!!

My son is loving Unreal! — Paul Jennings knows exactly the line of grossness, truth, funniness, scariness to walk up to and is exactly what an 8/9yo boy wants to read!

Started watching (and will continue) Flats, a YouTube series about a man who comes out of jail and back to his home in the Fitzroy flats, so charming and funny with amazing first-time actors who really live there.

Will this visual timer change my work and home life? Well? Will it???

Loved this about low stakes sketching.

I downloaded Slop Evader: a browser extension for avoiding AI slop — it only returns content created before ChatGPT's first public release on November 30, 2022.

(Instagram boss — who has ruined Instagram IMO — warns about 'infinite synthetic content'.)

Chocolate rosemary orange cake.

Cabbage with preserved lemon and sesame.

Tim Walker's Hackney cottage.

The brilliance of my friend Dale is exemplified by this Christmas tree she made but everything about her mind. is so unique and special!

MELBOURNE!

I wanted to do a big round up of things I enjoyed so much doing in Melbourne, and to share pics. To be honest though, inserting pics on Squarespace is arduous, definitely harder than on, eg, Substack. Anyway, I will share some reccs anyway!

Little treats.

Get something nice like LED light therapy at Felicity West Skin Aesthetics and have lunch at Ima Asa Yoru. Shop at Mr Kitly.

After coffee and cake at Brunetti in Flinders Lane, check your bag (and phone!) in at NGV Ian Potter Centre in Fed Square and take your notebook into the gallery to write undisturbed. Lunch at Chocolate Buddha.

Go to Brunswick Street Bookstore and get something to read at Fitzroy Pool with an ice cream.

See something at Cinema Nova then have a Hawaiian pizza at Tiamo (or tortellini in brodo if you are feeling sophisticated). Followed by shopping at the small Mecca and the big Readings.

Buy picnic things at Piedemontes and eat in Edinburgh Gardens Fitzroy North, or walk around the Gardens and have a nice brunch at Mitte.

The walk that takes you in a long oblong around Brunswick Street Fitzroy, Gertrude Street (lunch at Builders' Arms?), Smith Street Collingwood and Johnston Street.

Eating alone.

In the city, efficient staff at Superhiro direct you to a table and your sushi is brought quickly by robot.

Thai food at Cookie has been the same for twenty years (very good).

In Fitzroy, Marios of course, as featured in Helen Garner's diaries. Breakfast until 5pm then pasta. (You can also have pasta for breakfast.)

Kid's stuff.

Poppyshop toys in Carlton followed by the Readings Kids' Bookshop. That Paper Joint in Brunswick and Pinky's in Preston for stickers, hair accessories, etc! Jasper's Toys in Fitzroy. There's a big Jellycat shop in the city called Meeq. Luna Park!

Lovely half-day excursions.

CERES community garden in Brunswick — walk along Merri Creek to get there. Delicious 'Korean breakfast' with gochujang mayonnaise, potato rosti, avocado, geeens and halloumi at Merri CERES cafe. Lovely bookshop, nursery and organic foodshop.

Heide museum of modern art — home to a sort of Bloomsbury group of Australian art, see art, the Reeds' houses, walk in the beautiful gardens, bring a picnic or there's a fancy café.

Collingwood Children's Farm — charming small farm next to the Birrarung/Yarra River. Breakfast at the farm café if you have kids, or at Cam's at Abbotsford Convent if you don't. At the convent, check out Dragonfly Toys, heaven. In the evening, Julie is a beautiful restaurant.

Okay this is going on too long! I will have to leave it there. Love you, Melbourne.

THINK.

'In literature and myth, people don't cut down or otherwise mess with proscribed trees because they are idiots. They do it because they cannot help themselves, because it is like hammering away on a big red button with a sign above it that says do not press. They do it because they know that it is bad.' (I was stunned when reading Barry Humphries' very funny, profoundly prejudiced and antisocial memoir to find that he destroyed saplings as a young man. Who does that! Seemingly many people.)

'The political challenge facing Britain today is, of course, systemic rather than merely personal. Between 2008 and 2016, the country's settlement collapsed in a way that no one has worked out how to replace [...] our leaders are routinely broken on the wheel of this reality, becoming lost and purposeless, unsure how to protect Britain's dying prosperity.'

'There is this belief that you can combat fascism and combat income inequality if you combat loneliness first.'

'The first thing to say about fascism's Cassandras is they're usually women.'

'But surely there is something to the idea that some people, by virtue of the place they are allotted in the world, do see things more clearly than others – indeed, sometimes see others more clearly than those others see themselves.'

'It is admittedly a bitter pill to hold space for and try to understand the emotional experience of the perpetrators.'

A study where nearly half of young people said they'd rather be young in a world without the internet and 27% would rather social media did not exist.

'…imagining something more conscious and iron-willed than a planned break, something more tactical. Strategic. Refusing to be tracked; refusing to be known, refusing to let our nervous systems get hijacked.'

'And so I decided not to make an IG reel, and instead, to finally read Swann's Way.'

'People are half-dead for want of an imaginative, dream-filled, symbolic life that doesn't nail our wings to the wall.'

'Yes, I wanted so badly to be free of her that I wore a reminder of her every single day.'

The 'Doordash lifestyle'.

WRITING.

Genius Ella Risbridger was in The Guardian writing in defence of romance. ('2025 has also seen books such as Jessica Stanley's widely acclaimed Consider Yourself Kissed sweep bookshops across the UK…' Widely acclaimed! I died.) She is so right on the happy ending: 'The problem with real life is that it goes on; the joy of a book is that it can stop at the perfect point.' I loved her virtuosic book-length expansion of this essay, In Love with Love.

And then CYK got a mention in this Guardian editorial (!): 'Without romantic fiction, the book world would be much poorer in every sense. No wonder it is being taken seriously at last.'

I am grateful to be in the conversation!!

I've been hearing from my publishers that many people have bought my book on e-book (why? are you embarrassed of it?!). I do understand about hardbacks though. Don't worry, in UK at least, the paperback comes out in Feb 😊 😊 Pre-order now from Waterstones, Amazon, Foyles and UK Bookshop.org or with your local bookseller!

Jess x