In 2015, music presenter Lauren Laverne teamed up with former Cosmopolitan editor Sam Baker to create The Pool, a repository of thoughts and musings on all aspects of life, by top female journalists. The aim was to create a safe place where women could read honest opinions on everything from love, sex, career, children, family, relationships, fashion, health, and more, or as it’s described in Sam Baker’s introduction: ‘A bull-shit free, truth-telling zone. This is how it is. The anti-Instagram, if you like, where the pain, stress, ridiculousness and joy of everyday life was not airbrushed away.’
Life Honestly, is a compendium of those articles. Varied in content, style, and length, it’s the kind of book equally as suited to dipping into whilst you wait in line as it is to curling up with a glass of wine and feeling a sense of solidarity with your sisters. There’s light hearted pieces about the role fashion plays in your life, heartbreaking ones about rape, inspiring reflections on events such as the Repeal The Eighth campaign, and broad articles on gender politics.
Contributors include Bryony Gordon, Daisy Buchannan, Sali Hughes, Lauren Bravo, Natasha Gordon and many other bright and sassy women. I’d like to hang around with them; have a chat. I have a feeling it would be bold, bright, and brilliant. A bit like the writing in this book.