summer fertilisers

Dearest Worms,

Straight from the brains of Worms HQ, we bring you a summer round-up of our favourite summer fertilisers; best reads, best watches, best listens… Don’t know about you, but I’m certainly ready to welcome the autumn and leave record-high temperatures in the past (don’t remind me it’s only going to get worse).

Enjoy, and remember that our new and first Worms Publishing book Nothing But My Body by Tilly Lawless is available now, get yours here

Also: Burning House Books has picked Nothing But My Body as their book club choice for this month, open to people living in the UK, you can sign up here <3

Arcadia, Ella & Clem

SUMMER 2022 CLICKS

This excellent review of last month’s bookclub pic ‘Glitch Feminism.’ It covers everything from cyborg politics and gender binaries to the back-to-the-land movement and The Whole Earth Catalogue. I particularly like when they write about the internet attempting to be a place for self-actualisation and the ways in which it fails to do so.

“Now, we all sign off ‘Best regards’, and many of us check our work emails all the time, but not so long ago we wrote eMaILs LiKe tHiS**”

Also this by Andrea Zittel for Apartamento. I love how despite the tiny scale of her projects, she always has space for her books. The Island she built and lived on in Scandinavia reminded me of Elvia Wilk’s book ‘Oval’ which I read and loved in 2019.

THIS youtube interview with Nicole Krauss is v inspiring. -

Summer 2022 Reads

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

Quirky, odd, surreal, this book traces the events leatweding up to a stay-at-home mother being convinced she’s turning into a dog. Best bits: how unashamedly weird this was. Worst bits: felt like there wasn’t the socks-off climax the book kind of builds up to.

Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner by Jasmine Lee-Jones

I read this as part of the Worms Bookclub (which you can join here)! This play was a refreshingly original blending of twitter and real life that leaves no prisoners in its discourse around race. Reminded me of Patricia Lockwood’s No One is Talking About This, the only other book I’ve read that treats The Online with such an acutely original voice.

The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

I absolutely loved these. Shirley Jackson is such a great writer and I loved how she weaves a subtle sense of eeriness into everyday encounters. Obsessed. You can read or listen to her famous story, ‘The Lottery’ in the New Yorker, or by clicking here.

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

Really enjoyed this. I love how Tolentino writes, and I find her insight into “the spheres of public imagination that have shaped my understanding of myself, of this country, and of this era” educational and revelatory.

Liarmouth by John Waters

I went and saw John Waters' 90 minute monologue at the Barbican earlier in the year and it was unreal. He is hilarious. Maybe a bit dated, and at times definitely a bit un-pc which definitely comes across as a sign of his age...

Honey Mine by Camille Roy

Another 5-starer. I laughed so much during this number. Lesbian coming-of-age book. I could really 'see' a lot of the scenarios playing out.

Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris

This blew my little socks off. It's a one-sitting read. A story within a story within a story. I won't give anything else away. 10/10 recommend.

Summer 2022 Watches

Hereditary by Ari Aster

Every second of this was spooky as fuck and I loved it. Not for the faint of heart.

The Sandman TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s comic

I read the comic, or one of them, a couple of years ago and vaguely am aware of the great cult following that surrounds the series; the show does an excellent job of world-building that reminded me of the adaptation of Dune. Tom Sturridge as Dream/Sandman is the cool, brooding God that lives up to the high-stakes role.

Elephant by Gus Van Sant

I’d actually seen this before but didn’t realize until that scene when the boy says “Get the fuck out of here, some fucked up shit is about to go down” iykyk. The fact that I don’t remember having watched it perhaps is a clue to the slow-paced, mostly unaffecting scenes of the entire film, but this time my experience of it was a tense one, where those interminable corridor shots were fraught with impending danger at every step.

Shirley by Josephine Decker

I saw the biopic of the author Shirley Jackson because it was part of an ‘Editor’s Pick’ list on Filmin (a curated version of Netflix) and wasn’t let down. A very original take on the now tired trope of the biopic. Elizabeth Moss killed.

Shoplifters by Hirokazu Koreeda

I belly laughed and then ugly cried with this film. Winner of the 2018 Cannes Palme D’Or for a reason.

Summer 2022 Listens

The Japanese House

One of her songs came on suddenly on shuffle and I rediscovered all her music. I remember seeing her live in a cathedral in Norwich years ago; a magical experience, with all those synth manipulated voices bouncing off the cathedral walls. I love her lyrics.

Deforme Semanal

My favourite podcast of all time, featuring two smart and INSANE women talking culture, feminism and all things funny. Been keeping me company on long drives and long walks.

Worms Weekly