GOSSIP10
Melbourne winter drags on. The Booker Prize 2026 longlist announced. Wrinkles are back.
Hello readers, welcome back to Gossip and welcome back to Pleasure Principle. Sorry to go dark on you lol! Melbourne winter pulled us down and then Euro summer pulled us apart, but we are back and better than ever. Brought to you once again from Brunetti’s, we have a particularly bookish iteration of Gossip today.
Melbourne literary darling Paul Dalla Rosa is set to publish his first novel Your Future is Behind You with Catapult Books. The project, slated for publication next year, follows ‘three gay men who reunite in Melbourne after one returns from London’s collapsing media scene’ (via Publisher’s Marketplace). Okay! Cannot wait…
They got the London Book Review. The LBR website — which, dare I say, is not accustomed to virality — was temporarily down after an overwhelming influx of traffic to classicist Emily Wilson’s review/take-down of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Wilson, known for her fresh and accessible translation of the classic poem, wrote that she ‘would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.’ :/
The Booker Prize longlist is here! And it is weirder than anyone expected. I’m especially keen to read Gwendoline Riley's The Palm House, beautifully reviewed here by Isabella Gullifer-Laurie.
Boobs are back, according to style.analytics. She reports that: ‘Breast enlargement has 335k monthly searches, up 45% since last year. Breast enhancement is at 63k, up 85%; and breast augmentation is at 2M, up 26%.’ In my vibes-based analysis, these statistics also align with this Liana Satenstein article entitled The Ecstasy of Exposed Bra Straps.
I’m excited about the release of James Robert Woods’ The Birthday Trip, out in Australian cinemas this week. Patrick Marlborough positively reviewed the film on his Substack.
Dua Lipa, who has excellent taste, will curate this year’s London Literature Festival. As part of the program, Dua will interview Zadie Smith about her 2000 debut White Teeth. As an aside, I learnt from Lena Dunham’s Instagram that Zadie Smith was in attendance at Taylor Swift’s wedding? Like, what? And, in more Zadie Smith gossip, some are speculating that this short story is a thinly veiled account of an affair the story’s writer had with Smith’s husband Nick Laird? This gossip is old news but it is new to me (via. Kaitlin Phillips’ Gift Guide). And I know that it’s tacky to even bring it up but she’s so private that I can’t help myself…
Good news for fellow lovers of Bard’s Apothecary — a gorgeous tiny taco restaurant has opened next door! With a menu based on chef Jose Angel Delgado Juárez’s family recipes, Super Taco is the newest addition to Crosley St, with Andrew McConnell’s Côte Basque set to open across the road later this winter.
Ivy Wolk — or, as I like to call her, our generation’s Lena Dunham (sorry, Rachel Sennott) — has published a low-key epic short story in Volume 0 entitled EFFIGY GIRL.
I’m probably biased because I work in children’s publishing but is illustration really big right now… or am I crazy and projecting? Perhaps it’s because I’m so fatigued with AI art and obvious, ugly graphic design that I’m more attuned to all that is slow and beautiful. A singular piece of evidence for my hunch — Feed Me alerted me to this Merit illustration.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that New York dermatologists ‘say clients are increasingly asking for treatments that help preserve fine lines and facial expression.’ If I could fully raise my eyebrows at this news, I would!
Is Melbourne winter especially bone-chilling this year? I’m seeing a lot of Bali and FNQ on my Instagram feed, so I suspect it might be. I’m going to Palm Cove next week, so if anyone has FNQ tips for a girl who doesn’t know how to drive, let me know.
MIFF begins next Thursday. I’m particularly keen for Maddie’s Secret and Portrait of Jason.
Australian publisher Scribe is putting out a stunning new edition of Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae, both locally and in the UK! I love this news and I’d love to know how it came to be (if anyone wants to tell me lol).
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry seems to be having a resurgence among young men who come into the bookstore where I work. Thoughts?
That’s all for now <3
Bx