Notes On: How to Romanticise November

From playlists to reading lists to watching lists to Pinterest boards, here's your ultimate guide to spicing up November <3

“Have you seen my heart, somewhere in your castle of yellow leaves?” – E. M. Forster

“Peering from some high window at the gold of November sunset (and feeling that if day has to become night this is a beautiful way)” - E. E. Cummings

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If November were a book, it would be written by Sally Rooney. All intricate observation and fluttering leaves, meaningful in their meaninglessness. Quiet moments of contemplation, perhaps shaded by peripheral dread, or excitement – that glittering promise of Christmas. If November were a film scene, it would be the one in Notting Hill, where Julia Roberts arrives at Hugh Grant’s door, fleeing from the press, and he becomes her sanctuary. There she sits, in one of his t-shirts, bare feet, and retreats from the world. Toast. Baths. No make-up. Quiet, comical conversations. (“Happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat”). In other words: Peace (with a hint of creeping darkness).

Because when Taylor Swift wrote the phrase, “grey November, I’ve been down since July,” the whole world felt it. Why? Well, November can feel overcast, sometimes. That peripheral fog encroaching over fields, the year yawning to a close as once-vibrant leaves squelch on roadsides and seasonal depression edges in with the darkness.

If September felt flush with the hope of a new year, then November feels tired, aching. But reader: there is beauty, here, too. November is for loafers and chai cookies and sparklers and pumpkins and cinnamon-spiced candles. For the song ‘Coffee Breath’ by Sofia Mills, for long slow evenings reading under heavy blankets, for swirling cinnamon into every coffee you make. Here’s how to make the most of it; from playlists to reading lists to fashion and food.

Welcome to the final chapter of Lit Girl Fall.* I hope you love it.

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Notes On: Spicing Up November

• Let’s set the scene. November for gingerbread cookies and hot toddies and scarves as big as blankets. It’s for long walks in foggy woodlands; for hour-long phone-calls with long-distant friends. It’s for finding pockets of quiet, then swaddling yourself in them. It’s for stillness, in every sense. Find some time to embrace it, this month, if you can. To quiet that buzzing mind, that buzzing phone. To light a candle and let your heart rate drift into relaxation. We spend our lives sprinting so fast we don’t even notice we’re moving: take some time, this month, simply to stop.

• I’ve never been to a Thanksgiving dinner, but I love the concept. I think, at this point in the year, it’s such a valuable thing, to remind ourselves of all the things we treasure in this life – not in an Americanised, over-commercialised way, but in a quiet, completive way. On your notes app, write one thing you’re grateful for each day this month: apples, paperback books, your mum. It’ll only take ten seconds, but it’ll root you in a sense of calm, or joy, or perhaps both.

• Take some time to plan for Christmas, this month. Not in a ‘oh-my-god-ive-got-so-much-to-do-lets-fill-my-calendar-with-even-more-things’ way, but in a ‘wow-this-is-so-fun’ way. Order a peppermint mocha. Spend an evening window shopping. Paint a Christmas card because you love painting and you haven’t done it in a while. Engage your inner child. Go on, I dare you.

• November is for period dramas and flavoured chocolate. Sense and Sensibility with galaxy chocolate; Pride and Prejudice with a terry’s chocolate orange; Little Women with nutella on toast. You get the picture. (This is also a really fun girls night, just saying).

• Go analogue this month. Leave your phone at home. Browse a second-hand bookshop, all overflowing shelves and yellowing pages. Take a magazine to a coffee-shop, or a bar, and spend a few hours reading it, cover to cover. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb, as often as you can. It’ll remind you of all the many wonders the world can offer you, when your attention isn’t being stolen by a screen.

• Spend some time near an open flame. I know, I can hear you saying, this sounds dangerous. But November can feel like a dark month: literally, we hardly get any sun. Now is the time for you to seek out warmth; open fires in pubs, candles, bonfires, even sparklers. It’ll make you feel more alive.

• And finally: do something you’ve been putting off, this month. For me, it’s going to the dental hygienist. Once you’ve done the thing, buy yourself some flowers. You deserve it.

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A November Reading List (according to the ‘lit girl fall’ playlist):

• “I Hate It Here”: Propulsive books that you won’t be able to put down. Perfect for rainy Sunday afternoons or moments when you need to feel as though you need to jump into a world entirely different to your own.

  • The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

  • The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

  • Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

• Writer(s) in the Dark: an autobiographical love letter to a best friend and his art; soft and beautiful poetry; and literary recipes perfect for autumn.

  • Just Kids by Patti Smith

  • New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver

  • Sylvia Plath’s Tomato Soup Cake (a wonderful book of literary recipes, sent very kindly to me by Faber)

• “Dear Reader”: There’s nothing like a classic in autumn; they remind us of the timelessness of the seasons.. There’s beauty in decay (I promise)

  • The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

  • Autumn by Ali Smith

  • Persuasion by Jane Austen

• “Waiting Room”: Books I’ve heard great things about and can’t wait to read this November

  • She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark (full disclosure: I was so lucky to receive an advance copy of this - I’m half way through and obsessed).

  • Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik. I could not be more excited about reading this book.

  

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Some November Lit Girl Fall Recipes:

Taylor Swift’s Chai Cookies

Emily Dickinson’s Coconut Cake

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

• 1 cup milk

• 1/4 cup softened butter

• 2 eggs

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease a loaf pan or small cake pan.

2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each.

3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add to the butter mixture, alternating with milk.

4. Fold in the shredded coconut.

5. Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool before slicing.

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One Final Note:

You may be someone who finds darkness hard; who retreats with the fog and the nightfall into messy bedrooms and teenage habits (scrolling, drinking, not getting out of bed, a combination of the above). You may be experiencing a period of loss, right now, or just feeling overwhelmed at the state of the world (as I write this, US pre-election results, it feels like we’re teetering on a precipice). If this is you: know that you are not alone. That you cannot be happy, all the time. That to read the news and to feel heartbroken about it is to be human. That to be engaged with this heartbreak is to be brave. If all you can do is eat three meals a day and step outside once and watch a TV show that comforts you, know that you are not the only one. You’re doing the best you can. And that is really quite admirable. 

I hope you read something that makes you feel inspired, this month. That you spend at least half an hour walking through the kind of autumnal landscape that Keats would have loved. That you listen to your favourite song and take a really long shower and breathe in the steam like a medicine and curl up in clean sheets and feel safe, and whole, in a cocoon of your own making. I hope you light some sparklers. I hope they light something in you. I hope you read at least one really beautiful poem and find a leaf shaped like a heart and take it home to store between pages. I hope you tell someone you love them, because this life is for the living, and - I’ve said it before - this month will pass, whether or not you make the most of it. In years to come, you’ll remember moments not yet lived; the taste of marmalade, perhaps, or overwhelming stress (accompanied by instant coffee) or maybe - just maybe - a sense of peace, of stillness, like hot breath drifting on cold air. Of gold November sunsets. Leaves piled high to protect hearts. Cats curled, purring on knees. The sound of a smile through a scratchy phone, kettle boiling in the kitchen. These poignant, evanescent moments of absolute contentment.

Because yes, reader, it’s true: there really is beauty here, too.

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P.S. There won’t be a newsletter this Sunday - I wanted this one to spring into your inbox at the very beginning of November! Normal scheduling will resume next Sunday <3

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*Lit girl fall is for those who find great joy in simple things (cinnamon-spiced lattes, finding an antique copy of your favourite novel); for the grown-up Tumblr ‘thought daughters’ who read The Bell Jar once and never looked back, because it made them feel seen, and inspired, and also slightly self-indulgent. It’s for those for whom the album ‘RED’ is almost a religion (it is – quite literally – holy ground). It’s for reading bell hooks as the rain patters and the candles flicker and articulating the thought – even if it’s just in your own notes app – that you are the adult your teenage self aspired to be.