Home By India Knight

This new edition of Forever Amber was published last Thursday, part of the the fantastic Mermaid Collection from Penguin (‘mermaid’ because they made a huge splash when they were first published and are now swimming about awaiting a brand new audience). It is my very favourite historical novel - curiously modern, as you will see, for something published in 1944, when it was considered so immoral, so scandalous and racy that it was banned and burned in various states.

Good morning! I feel like it’s been eons since I did a proper one of these. So much has happened - well, one giant thing - that my perception of time has gone wonky, not least because I feel both quite old and, unexpectedly, incredibly young. I think it’s proximity to that baby - it’s extremely rejuvenating. You hang out with a baby and you think ‘Ah yes, here I am with a baby, therefore I am at least half my age’.

Home is a newsletter about books, food, clothes and house-related things, not necessarily always in that order, plus whatever’s in my head on any given day. It has 85,000 subscribers and is the number one global bestseller in the Home & Garden category . Come and join us! You can read more about why you might want to do that (or not) here. This is a free post. All free posts auto-paywall after two weeks.

Oh my God, what a week. WHAT a week. Baby Cleo was born at 5.09pm last Saturday - she is one week old today and there will be cake - and it’s been a whirlwind of happiness and awe and wonderment and overwhelm ever since. People did warn me about the intensity of emotion, but I hadn’t really understood what they meant until it happened to me. Having a grandchild is WILD. It is EXTRAORDINARY. It is a whole new form of love.

Cover image (if you’re on the web) of Jodie with Charli xcx: photo by Billa Baldwin Jodie Harsh, who is also Jay Clarke, is a legendary DJ, producer and drag artist. Our paths crossed in the 90s - when we bumped into each other again recently neither of us could remember how or where, which must happen to her a lot. Anyway - it turns out that aside from having hung out with everybody from e.g. Kate Moss to e.g. Amy Winehouse, she is both extremely interested in interiors and a serious bookworm.

To give you an idea of what I like: some of my zillions of Pinterest saves over many, MANY years. They never really change - the shape of the trouser might alter a bit from one year to the next, but the basic idea stays the same - liveable, workable, comfortable, nice to look at, nice to wear, not ‘smart’. I am very consistent across the decades. (Oscar Wilde: ‘Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken’).

If you’re new here (hello and welcome!): Lucinda Chambers is the LEGENDARY former fashion director of British Vogue, a position she held for 25 years, and the co-founder of the brilliant curated shopping site Collagerie. Photo of Lucinda at home in London by Rachael Smith Every month Lucinda shares her favourite finds exclusively for readers of Home. They’re not just things she’s seen online and liked the look of - everything below has been personally inspected by Lucinda in the flesh.

This is a free post. All free posts auto-paywall after 2 weeks. Lissa Evans became a novelist following a career in radio and TV comedy. She variously produced and directed Father Ted, for which she won a BAFTA, and Have I Got News For You, among many others. Her bestselling books include Their Finest Hour And A Half (filmed as Their Finest), and my absolute favourites, Crooked Heart, Old Baggage and V For Victory, which are all related, so start with Crooked Heart and thank me later.

This is the 15th instalment of a series called Me & My Desk, which exists because I find other writers’ work routines and work environments fascinating. All the other writers’ desks in the series so far are here. Picture credit: Urszula Soltys James Marriott, who is a mere child of 33, is absolutely stuffed with brains, to the point where you slightly wonder how his neck holds his head up.

Not my actual Home notebook, but might as well be. Image: Pinterest Here is an INDEX - every single thing I’ve written since September 2023, in one place. Every title below links straight to the post. I used Claude to build it. There may be blips, omissions or repetitions. It’s an imperfect index, but then so am I, so is life, and so is this newsletter. I like imperfection. I like things that are real - real houses, real clothes, real bodies, real feelings and real lives.