2025, here we are. How has yours started? I’m feeling good. I have got very into tarot cards. WAIT don’t roll your eyes. It’s basically just assisted thinking: you pick a card and read the little story about it, and then you can decide how that informs your decision or emotions or actions at that given point in time. At least, that’s how I do it. Stories are how we make sense of the world and ourselves. It’s helpful, sometimes, to have someone or something to write with or against.
A few people in my life, actually, are rewriting narratives that no longer serve them - or maybe they are simply just writing new ones. One of my best friends is travelling by herself to South America and that’s scary but she is brave and challenging herself to talk to new people for two months, which is my nightmare! Another is moving across the pond to Canada because she has realised she actually likes nature and the outdoors and is not, in fact, the city slicka she told herself she was. I’m proud of them both.
If you’re up for the some rewriting, too, 2025’s first Little Things is here to get you going. If not, you can read through 11 other nicely curated lists from me, to you.
Read | best books ever.
I was thinking about books which really changed my perspective on the world; honestly, it’s been some time since one did that. I scratched my head to make this list, but it would probably be more useful for you to make your own and consider what, exactly, about those narratives moved you and why.
All of these, either because of their form or story, embedded themselves within me and I feel lucky to have discovered them.
In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Animal by Lisa Taddeo
Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Bark by Lorrie Moore
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Do | your word of the year.
I did this last year for the first time and it made a noticeable impact on the 12 months that followed. Every time I wanted to fall into old habits or unhelpful thoughts, I recalled my word and it made me act differently. And life got better!
I’m not going to share my word for this year because the internet is full of STRANGERS and secrets are more fun - but, it’s pretty good. I hope you find one that guides you, too.
Watch | How To Change Your Mind on Netflix.
Exceptionally sorry to whoever has encountered me in the last few weeks and had to listen to me yap on about this show, but I promise it will make you rethink your relationship with your brain – even if, like me, you’re wary of using psychedelic substances to get there. Michael Pollan is a great journalist and thinker and I appreciate his take on subjects. I expect the book is better than the show.
Visit | look at more art!
Looking at art changes our brains. For reals. Here are some of the best galleries around the world that have moved me in one way or another, if you happen to be close to one of them.
Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town
Tate Britain, London (my favourite painting, ‘The Reading Girl’, has been removed from display for some time but I used to visit her and ‘Eve’ maybe once every three months, just to cheer me up.)
Courtauld Gallery, London (excellent gift shop, I will add)
Musee de l’Orangerie, Paris
Leopold Museum, Vienna
Neue Gallery, New York
Galleria Dora Pamphilj, Rome
Not technically a gallery, but I was so lucky to visit Charleston House in Sussex recently and was deeply moved by every corner of that magical place. It made me want to make things. That’s pretty powerful, in my opinion.
Listen | Doechii’s new album, Alligator Bites Never Heal
Just really liked this album. Reminded me of what it felt like to listen to To Pimp A Butterfly for the first time, or The Internet’s Ego Death, or even Portishead’s Dummy: that music could be weird and brave and rebellious, and a single album could make you feel a spectrum of things, all within in the space of three simultaneous songs. Not fitting into a box! 2025 energy!
Poem | ‘For Desire’ by Kim Addonizio
PG18. But a nice poem to get the blood revved for new adventures.
Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best; and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries, or cherries, the rich spurt in the back of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing. Give me the lover who yanks open the door of his house and presses me to the wall in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I’m drenched and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload and begin their delicious diaspora through the cities and small towns of my body. To hell with the saints, with martyrs of my childhood meant to instruct me in the power of endurance and faith, to hell with the next world and its pallid angels swooning and sighing like Victorian girls. I want this world. I want to walk into the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along like I’m nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass, and I want to resist it. I want to go staggering and flailing my way through the bars and back rooms, through the gleaming hotels and weedy lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks where dogs are let off their leashes in spite of the signs, where they sniff each other and roll together in the grass, I want to lie down somewhere and suffer for love until it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again and put on that little black dress and wait for you, yes you, to come over here and get down on your knees and tell me just how fucking good I look
For those new here, this is the first of my monthly dispatches, the latter being a Long Story which is, you guessed it, a longer essay which you may read with a nice cup of coffee on your Sunday or on a slow commute or whenever else feels good. This year I’m trialling a new format for those. I am looking forward to sharing it with you later this month. Until then!