Notes On: How to Romanticise September

From playlists to reading lists to watching lists to Pinterest boards, here's your ultimate guide to Literature Girl Fall <3

Sep 01, 2024

And so August slips away like a bottle of wine as the world slowly tips us into autumn. Auburn streets. Mists rising like steam. Students gossiping outside bars, sharing cigarettes and opinions about Foucault, or Rooney, or Big Brother. Bonfires. Huge jumpers. The kind of melancholy that feels almost romantic; as though passed down from all the writers who came before us. Sylvia Plath. Emily Dickinson. Donna Tartt. bell hooks. Nora Ephron.

There’s something so fresh about September: it feels more like the new year than the new year does. An opportunity to re-invent. To line fresh notebooks with fresh ideas. To reclaim this year, that might feel as though it’s been running from you. To remind yourself that this is your life; that you can do whatever you want with it. (Yes: you).

And because of all these things (and also because it’s fun), I’m re-naming the season. Welcome to Lit Girl Fall.*

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. Here’s how to make the most of it; from playlists to reading lists to fashion and food.

Notes On: Spicing up September

First, embrace September as a fresh start. Get yourself a calendar, if you don’t already have one. Re-organise your space. Organise your wardrobe. Book the appointments you’ve been putting off all summer (smear test, dentist, I just know there’s something you’re putting off). And then: write a letter to your future self. I want you to put it on the fridge, and set the ‘open’ date to January, 2025. Write your goals, your dreams, your wildest hopes for the next few months down. Every time you pass your fridge, you’ll be reminded. Write with love, and compassion, and hope for the life you’re building for yourself.

I also want you to do something you’ve been putting off, this month. Maybe it’s starting a new fitness class, or driving lessons, or cleaning all the empty bottles from the shower. Whatever it is, I want you to set aside some time to do it, this month. Afterwards, buy yourself flowers. You deserve it.
September is for cinnamon, and the colour burgundy, and ink pens. So: make something with cinnamon in it (coffee, buns, banana bread); wear something maroon (scarf, lipstick, handbag); write something with an ink pen (a birthday card, a poem). Simple.
Plan something to look forward to. September is the beginning of the dark months; and the dark months can be hard. Plan something for late October, when the winter blues might just start kicking in. A dinner party, a paint and sip evening. Invite your closest people. Decide on a dress code. Make it special. Events like these make the mundanity of dark weeks slightly brighter. Don’t underestimate them.
September is for tasting. So taste something new: wine, or gin, or garlic butter. I want you to grab life and squeeze it. Make yourself Stanley Tucci’s signature cocktail, or Nora Ephron’s key lime pie (recipes at the end). Visit your local gallery: ingest art like it’s a medicine (it often is). This world is full of specks of beauty. All you have to do is find them.
September is for following in the sartorial footsteps of Meg Ryan in 90s rom-coms. Chunky knits. Blazers. Loafers. White-collared shirts. Earthy tones and contrasting textures with a side of sarcasm. Sally Albright is your style icon: bright reds, side glances, ice cream on the side. Act accordingly.

And finally: I want you to embrace your basic, this month. Do you remember the ‘basic bitch’? She loved autumn, and Ugg boots, and bottomless brunch, and Taylor Swift, and anything pumpkin-spiced. She was endlessly ridiculed (because, uh, The Patriarchy). I want you to embrace her, this month. Do things because you love them, not because of how ‘cool’ (or not cool) they are. Life is too short to worry about whether or not you’re ‘cool’ (there’s no such thing, tbh). Sip the damn pumpkin-spiced latte.

A Lit Girl Fall 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 someone else has it worse than you (these characters do).
- The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffengger
- Penance by Eliza Clark
- The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
“Dear Reader”: There’s nothing like a classic in autumn; they remind us of the timelessness of the seasons. The Brontës saw these leaves, too. There’s beauty in decay (I promise)
- To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Writer(s) in the Dark: Heartburn is a semi-autiographical novel about the break-up of a marriage, by the voice who brought us When Harry Met Sally (aka, the queen of autumn). bell hooks’ essays will open your heart and your mind. David Sedaris will make you laugh, and think, in equal measure.
- Heartburn by Nora Ephron
- all about love by bell hooks
- Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
“Love Me In Chapters”: There’s something uniquely autumnal about the campus novel; perhaps because first term starts in September. These are three of my favourites.
- The Idiot by
  Elif Batuman
- Groundskeeping by Lee Cole
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
“I Love You, I’m Sorry”: Books about complicated relationships crafted with beautiful prose.
- Normal People by Sally Rooney
- Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
- The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

Your Ultimate Lit Girl Fall Watching List:

Gilmore Girls
Gossip Girl
HBO’s GIRLS (do you see a theme emerging?)
Mean Girls (the Halloween Scene, c’mon)
Sleepless in Seattle
Friends (don’t at me)
Wednesday
You (especially after watching Gossip Girl)
Pretty Little Liars
Dead Poets Society
You’ve Got Mail
Twilight
Good Will Hunting
And the ultimate: When Harry Met Sally

Some Lit Girl Fall Recipes:

Dolly's Hangover Mac and Cheese recipe from Everything I Know About Love

INGREDIENTS

350g pasta - macaroni or penne works well
35g butter
35g plain flour
500ml whole milk
200g grated Cheddar cheese
100g grated Red Leicester cheese
100g grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp English mustard
Bunch of spring onions, chopped
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
1 small ball of mozzarella cheese, torn into pieces
Salt and black pepper, to season
Olive oil, to drizzle

Method:

In a large pan of boiling water, cook the pasta for eight minutes, so it is slightly undercooked - it will continue to cook when you bake it. Drain and set aside, stirring olive oil through so it doesn't stick together.

In a separate pan, melt the butter. Mix in the flour and keep cooking for a few minutes, stirring all the time until the mixture forms a roux paste. Whisk in the milk little by little, and cook over a low heat for ten to fifteen minutes. Keep stirring all the time and cook until you have a smooth and glossy sauce that gradually thickens.

Off the heat, add around three-quarters of the Cheddar, Red Leicester and Parmesan into the sauce, along with the mustard, some salt and pepper, the chopped onions and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, and keep stirring until all is melted.

Preheat the grill as high as it will go. Pour the pasta into the sauce and mix everything together in a baking dish, stir in the mozzarella, then sprinkle over the remaining Cheddar, Red Leicester and Parmesan. Grill (or place into a hot oven at 200°C for fifteen minutes), until the mixture is golden and bubbling with a crisp top.

One Final Note:

This September will pass, whether or not you make the most of it. You’ll look back on it and remember very specific things you don’t know about yet: perhaps a new lead single you’re going to be obsessed with, or the taste of a cookie from your local café you haven’t tried yet. Your heart might swell or break; you might read things that bring tears to your eyes; from joy, or pain, or both.

I hope you get really drunk and text your best friend about how much you love them. I hope you see one starry night; I hope you find joy in the sound of leaves crunching underfoot. I hope you read something that makes you feel seen, and experience a taste that dances on your tongue, and fall in love with a song, or a lyric, or a poem. And if you’re having a hard time, for whatever reason, I hope you find it in yourself to be kind. You contain multitudes: it’s okay if all you can do is eat toast and weep. In the words of Kim Addonizio: ‘listen, I love you, joy is coming.

*Footnote: (I just wrote an entire essay about how these aesthetics aren’t real; they’re curated, two-dimensional, and unrealistic. But they’re also beautiful, and they’re kind of crucial when it comes to romanticising the mundane. So take Lit Girl Fall with a pinch of salt. Right now, I’m writing this on my sofa, hair scraped back in a greasy bun, second coffee perched beside me because I’m on a deadline, and also at the tale-end of a migraine, so writing looks less like Carrie Bradshaw, today, and more like rat-girl-frenzied-writing-fuelled-by-toast-and-coffee. Such is life.)