The Margins

Our obsession with beauty has started to look less like self-care and more like ritual. From Botox to beauty algorithms, we’re tending to our reflections as if they were the real self. But when did the mirror become the measure of who we are?

Set against the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams examines language, power and the women history tried to forget.

Ever feel like you’re falling behind in life? House, career, marriage, travel, friendships, financial security. The list seems endless. But what if the timelines we’re comparing ourselves to were never realistic in the first place?

A witty and refreshingly accessible history of the English monarchy, Unruly by David Mitchell proves that non-fiction can be both rigorous and wildly entertaining. Structured by monarch and full of sharp insight, this is history that refuses to be dull.

From Paramore’s After Laughter to Olivia Dean and Sabrina Carpenter, these are the five albums currently spinning on repeat in my living room this month.

From teenage Paramore frontwoman to one of modern music’s most emotionally honest artists, Hayley Williams has spent two decades evolving in public. For our very first Margins Muse, we celebrate the voice, the defiance, and the journey behind one of alternative music’s most compelling figures.

For years I thought I was just bad at January. It turns out I was just trying to bloom in the wrong season.