Fanny Hill aka Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure. Think Jane Austen meets Fifty Shades Of Grey. A story about a girl who accidentally becomes a prostitute and all the sexcapades she gets up to. 

The StoryOf O. Very famous, very weird book. It all gets a bit intense and if someone ever tried those moves with me they’d get a swift kick to the nuts, but everyone else in the world is clearly gagging to get beaten senseless by a stalker billionaire. So what the fuck do I know.

EDIT: This is the funniest thing I have read in a long, long time. Thank you Lisa for sending it to me…

Rob Lowe in St Elmo’s Fire. By the way I have watched this film about 80 times.

The Outsiders poster. Look at Tom Cruise trying to buff his guns. Hah. Dork.

Let’s see, what else… I just finished The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John LeCarre. I am totally digging the whole spy thang right now. I also just read Restless by WilliamBoyd and The Expats by Chris Pavone. I decided to go through a spy phase, as it’s so different to anything I would ever write and I thought it might teach me a bit about plotting, but I think I might be already over it. They were great books, particularly the LeCarre, they just lacked a certain something that I like in my novels… (If you have a favourite spy novel, by the way, please let me know. I’m still in the market for them.) Right now I’m reading The Star Machine by Jeanine Basinger, because I like me some Old Hollywood stories and I love her informal, witty tone of voice. And I’m about to start Paris In Love by Eloisa James which looks delicious. (All of those links take you to the Book Depository, by the way, a website that sends books anywhere in the world for free. It rocks. And no, I’m not being paid by them, I’m just tired of paying exorbitant delivery fees for things. Although, while we’re on the subject, if anyone wants to pay me to mention their brand in my books or blog, I’m down with that. Yes. I am a total whore.)

PS: Edit. I read Paris In Love and my friends, I do not recommend it. The writing is fussy and self-indulgent. Every sentence is crafted to be as irritatingly long and flowery as possible. The tone of voice attempts arch and witty but is actually snide and superior. All in all, a cold book that is more in love with the idea of itself than Paris. I got to halfway through, the writer used the word ‘behoove’ and I thought ‘this is a joke’ and put it down. I don’t normally post negative reviews of books, as I know that it is so upsetting to the writer. But this book has had so many bizarre rave reviews, and this woman has such a high opinion of herself, that my little narky one won’t matter.

So, Fox and I stole Tuesday afternoon last week.

So we asked our lovely nanny if she’d work a little late. It would be the first time that I’d miss doing the 5.30pm Hour Of Power (dinner, bath, bottle, story, bed) in the whole ten months since Errol was born, so I was extremely excited about seeing the world at that time. (And predictably worried Errol would implode without my calming, nurturing presence. Apparently he barely noticed.)

“What shall we do?” said Fox.

“PJs.”

Looking out the window of the taxi at early-evening Manhattan, I got a delicious and unexpected tingle of excitement in my stomach. There’s an electricity in the air between 5pm and 8pm in any big city, and most of all New York. The night is very, very young. Everyone is finishing work and shaking off the day, everyone is planning dates or dinners or drinks or blissful nights at home alone with the box set of True Blood. In other words, everyone has something fun ahead of them, time that’s theirs and theirs alone.

And so did we.

Then I had a martini, because I really like them, even though they are a starspangled rocketship of booze that my system is in no shape to process these days. Then we shared a Reuben sandwich. Because we like them, too. And talked and talked and talked.

Then we went to McSorleys, which is a famous old Irish bar in Manhattan.

McSorleys serves light beer and dark beer, and that’s it. It prides itself on being old school, and dude, it is. Sawdust on the floor, the whole bit. This is more of a Fox joint than a Gem joint, but I gamely soldiered on. (I know. I’m such a trooper.)

We rolled home at 8pm, relieved our lovely nanny so she could go home, checked on the sleeping baby and agreed we were extremely clever and talented for making such a perfect child, watched some Family Guy, collapsed asleep by 10pm and woke without a hangover. It was like speeddating, but in a slightly more boring married way. Speeddatenighting.

I highly recommend it.

Below: the mythical Montmartre in Paris. God, I get tired just looking at that photo. Let’s sit down and have a drink.

Sea Salt Soap – the divine Lydia sent me a great stack of these as an early birthday present and I ADORE them. Anything with sea salt is pretty much guaranteed to be on my ‘fuck, yeah’ list.

(Image via @thesocialvixen)

Salty Caramel icecream from Steve’s Ice Cream. See above re: sea salt.

Per-Fekt Skin Perfection Gel in Luminous.
Let’s ignore the ridiculous brand name, shall we? This is like being airbrushed. By God.
In the UK you can buy it here.

Barleans Greens. If you drink this once a day you never have to eat a fruit or a vegetable again.

(Okay, that is a lie.)

These old man pyjamas. Fox, if you are reading this, I would like these for my birthday.

(Actually, can someone please forward this to him? Thank you.)

The Darlings by Cristina Alger. A Madoff-inspired tale with brains, wit and compassion. This book continually surprised and charmed me. Loved it. Just a damn good book.

This bikini. Almost everything that Nasty Gal makes is too slutty-hipster for me, but I adore it anyway. Actually, Fox, can I have this bikini for my birthday too, please?

Le Fashion blog. I would wear anything this chick told me to wear.

Superbus. My band du jour.

You know what I don’t like? The new Blogger interface. It just took me half an hour to make the images and text line up for this not-awfully-impressive-anyway post. Ricockulous. Am I doing something wrong? Or does anyone know if I can do back to the old way? And how are you guys, anyway?

Edit: It turns out I was using the Blogger thingummy in HTML rather than straightforward Compose. I’m just gonna bite my finger and stare into space bashfully for a while, okay?

Okay, ladykats (and gentlemankats). I need your help.
We’re trying to name my new book series. And it’s HARD.

Naming a book is like coming up with a new name for your best friend. You know your friend so well – how can you possibly pick a name that sums up everything they mean to you, so new people meeting them will think ‘ooo, great name, I bet she’s cool/funny/nice/interesting’, too?

So naming a book SERIES is twice as hard. Make that twenty. Because you can’t just describe one character, or one plot, or one theme. You need to come up with a sort of umbrella title. Like Sweet Valley High, or The Babysitter’s Club, or The Famous Five, or whatever. It has to be big, it has to encompass everything, it has to be memorable and have a little bit of magic.

Then, after you’ve named the series, you need to name the individual book titles. Which is, of course, easier – as you can use that particular book’s plot as a jumping off point. So I’m not too worried about them.

Okay, shall I tell you a little about it?

The basics: It’s a series about five best friends sharing a house as they navigate their early 20s. They’re starting adult life, figuring out what they want to do and how they’re going to do it, having relationship meltdowns, throwing parties, getting drunk, making mistakes, you know. All the good stuff. (And yah, I know about the damn HBO series GIRLS. I first pitched this series idea two years ago*, goddamnit, way before that idea was a twinkle in Lena Dunham’s eye. And mine is way funnier. Way. Funnier.)

The personality: It’s an action-packed wild ride of new adulthood, starring girls you’d want to have a drink with, dudes you want to slap or salivate over, and the kind of storylines that make you gasp and weep and bark with laughter and above all, turn the page. (Is that overselling it? Screw it, let’s run with it.)

Each book in the series is narrated by a different character. So she’ll have her own exciting story to tell.

We’ve been calling it UNION STREET up till now because, well, we just did. But it’s not very exciting. And then for a while I wanted to call it ROOKIES, but I am the only person who is dancing to that particular tune, which is never a good sign. I’m also toying with my original title for it, which was TWENTYSOMETHINGS, what do you think of that? And THE BEST OF ANYTHING, which is a play on THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, which I have loved forever. I fear none of them have that zingthwack! that happens when you hear the right title. Like A GIRL LIKE YOU. That title had an immediate zingthwack! (THE DATING DETOX, not so much. But that’s another story.)

Any ideas, dearest readers?

*It takes a long time to launch a book series. A VERY LONG TIME. Planning and writing it is just the half of it. So, thank you for your patience, my loves, I have been working my ass off, and soon I will have SO MANY books for you to read that you’ll be sick to death of me. In a good way.

Confession.

Despite owning more makeup than I could ever, ever wear (so much in fact that it’s slightly shameful, and friends of friends sometimes say ‘can I see your makeup drawer?’ when they come over, because they’ve heard through the grapevine just how excessive it is), I just bought a new lipstick.

NARS Carthage.

My first thought, after ‘oooo I look nice!’ was ‘hot damn, this would look great on my friend Amy’. Then I thought how great it would look on Susan, and Sarah, and Catherine, and Kirsty, and Lydia, and Andrea, and Trini and Maddy and Eleanor and Victoria and Kat and Fi and my sister and my mother and my agent and oh my God pretty much every woman I know.

Allegedly Emma Stone is wearing it in this shot. She is cool.

It’s a bright hot pink with red and coral in it, super-opaque, smooth, long-lasting. Yah, it’s bold, and yah, it takes a smooth chap-free lip (Lansinoh or Vaseline and an old toothbrush will sort you out). The kind of lipstick you would wear if you were one of those bathing beauties in an Esther Williams movie. It’s incredible with pale skin (I am still pre-fake-tan this year, so I’m milky-white. You know, the kind of white with a bit of blue in it? Yah that’s me), and I saw a very bronzed girl trying it on and she looked breathtaking. It would look amazing on Asian skintones and phenomenal on darker skin. It makes your teeth whiter and your eyes brighter. It’s hopelessly devoted to you. Like a young Olivia Newton-John.

So for Pete’s sake stop reading my stooopid blog and go and buy it. Or at least try it on.

PS Yah I am a writer. Yah I have no right to talk about cosmetics. Yah I’m going to do it anyway.

PPS The other day I found this photo of James Spader on my desktop. How did it get there? I don’t know. I like to think that it found me. Let’s just run with it and bemoan the fact that in this day an age it’s almost impossible to find a man who will rock a sockless loafer, pale grey suit, open-neck shirt, Lady Di hair and come-hither eyes, a lit cigarette and a glass ashtray balanced so perfectly on his knee. I need to re-do my website this year, and get some photos taken, and honestly, I’d be delighted if I could pose EXACTLY like this.