Creating something permanent, giving visible shape to our thoughts …
As we struggle to keep our heads above the tide of digital overload, putting pen to paper in a letter, a note, a journal is more precious than ever. It signals the luxury of taking time to do something thoughtful and considered. Patti Smith, for example, always writes by hand in a notebook: ‘Every notebook is a possibility … a new adventure,’ she says. Here we have some gift ideas for someone, an old soul perhaps, who you know will really appreciate them …
CLASSIC OF THE GENRE: Virginia Woolf knew a thing or two about writing spaces, and her stipulation, that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” has become one of her most famous quotes. It is taken from a lecture she gave at Girton College, Cambridge, that went on to be published as A Room of One’s Own (Penguin, €8.99) and is considered one of the great feminist polemics. Her insistence on a woman’s need for financial independence and intellectual freedom remains as relevant as ever.
KEEPING A DIARY: Diaries are likewise seen as something of a dying artefact. For the most part, we rely on our phones to ping us into our next engagement through a brutish series of alerts and alarms, and journalling gets squeezed further and further into “line-a-day” confines. But Shaun Usher has followed up his bestselling Letters of Note with Diaries of Note (Faber, €25.99) a collection of remarkable diary writing. The diary entries include a wide range of people, famous and not so famous, from Nelson Mandela and Theodore Roosevelt to Frida Kahlo, Seamus Heaney, David Sedaris and Shirley Jackson. Through the entries, the book reveals what diaries usually keep secret – our most poignant hopes, deepest desires and greatest fears.
WRITERS’ ROOMS: Writers’ spaces have always fascinated me. And I’m not alone in this it seems. In her new book, The Writer’s Room: The Hidden Worlds That Shape the Books We Love (Elliott & Thompson, €16.99), Katie da Cunha Lewin explores why we are so fascinated with writing spaces and how our surroundings impact our written output. Some writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, were shaped by Parisian café culture, while others like Sigmund Freud will be forever associated with their study and their couch (my first book was mostly written in the distinctly less glamorous surroundings of my Nissan Qashqai, while I waited to collect my children from school). In her book, da Cunha Lewin blends cultural critique with history to explore the hidden worlds of writers, answering questions along the way, including why we are so fascinated by writers’ spaces, and how the psychology behind our environments can shape what we write.
LETTER WRITING: In 2019, Juhee Mun opened her stationery shop, Geulwoll, in Seoul and it quickly became a cult favourite. In a world of fast-paced instant messaging, Mun’s shop was a tranquil antidote, a place where people could come to sit and read, write and send letters, as well as a place they could buy beautiful pens and paper. The shop also offered a pen pal service that customers could sign up to. You could even pick up a letter from an anonymous pen pal, but only if you wrote an anonymous letter in return. When Mun realised how much people were enjoying the ancient act of putting pen to paper, she wrote her book The Healing Power of Korean Letter Writing (Canongate, €14) to share the singular joy of letter writing. The book focuses on the joy that comes from the simple act of writing with ink and paper, and the many ways it can bring meaning and connection to our lives.
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