We just got back from a vacation in London, which was my first time in the city in many years—and the last visit was a quick day trip, so it might have been a decade or even longer since I spent proper time there. London, like all good places, is constantly changing, but I must admit that I was a bit dazzled by some of the transformation. King’s Cross! What??? We went to dinner in what I guess is now called Pancras Square, and let’s just say it was nothing like the place where I used to hop1 on the Tube back in the 1980s, and certainly nothing like the horror show of the 1970s, when “King’s Cross” was short-hand for “the place where runaways are exploited.”
We mostly shopped, ate, and visited galleries. (I didn’t care for the National Portrait Gallery rehang, but I was properly ENRAGED by what they did to the NPG Cafe, which is truly the most inefficient eating establishment I have ever visited. However, I was delighted to get a chance to check out JEB’s work at the RE/SISTERS show at the Barbican.)
I also got to … have lunch with my U.K. publisher, because I am happy to share that A PLACE OF OUR OWN is going to be published by Virago in the U.K. I still can’t quite believe that my name will be on the spine of a book with that classic apple logo, but it is great for the book (and for me!), and I’ve loved learning about the U.K. way of doing things. More info—including pre-order links—shortly!
RECOMMENDATIONS: Believe it or not, one of the reasons we went to London was to visit stationery stores. It’s not that either of us needs any more stationery—if I took up a pen and made shapes on paper every minute I was awake, I’m pretty sure I would be able to keep going until I were approximately 123 years old without restocking—but I love stationery shopping, so off we went. Londoners will surely find this recommendation obvious, but I swear that U.S. stationery blogs and podcasts that talk about where to shop in London rarely mention the London Graphic Centre, and I would say it is the best multi-brand option in London. (No shade on Present & Correct—very amusing, and handily located right next to the fantastic London Review Bookshop—but it reminded me that it is possible for a store’s stock to be too highly curated.) The London Graphic Centre’s inventory is a little eccentric—every Midori product and a ton of Freitag bags in stock, but only two or three pen brands—but I didn’t mind because its strengths were the things I am interested in and its deficiencies products I am already loaded up on. It’s right in the heart of Covent Garden, so if you are a stationery person and you have limited time in London, pop to Covent Garden and visit Muji and London Graphic Centre.
LISTEN TO ME: It’s been a while since I sent out a newsletter, so your playlist is ample! On Working, I talked with Suk Pannu, creator of Mrs. Sidhu Investigates, a desi auntie version of Miss Marple, and with the wonderful novelist Katherine Howe, who is also on the best-seller list for her latest collaboration with Anderson Cooper, Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune. On Working Overtime, Nate Chinen talked about strategies for engaging deeply with art, and Isaac Butler and I discussed building confidence as an artist and helped a listener figure out how to deal with the boom and bust cycles of freelance work.
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Hop seems like the mot juste because I lived in Tube-less Stoke Newington and took what I am pretty sure was called a Hoppa bus to the nearest Piccadilly line station at King’s Cross. I shared the bus with noisy schoolkids, but I was always weirdly glad the bus was crowded, because the seats were super-slippery, and it was easy to slide off the seat when the bus turned a corner if it wasn’t cram-jammed. (I really hope I wasn’t the only person this happened to!) ↩