2025-07-10

Julia Armfield

As told to JOUISSANCE

A Literate Passion

Continuing JOUISSANCE’s new series, A Literate Passion, where writers, creatives and thinkers in our circle share their curated personal library – an idea inspired by our forever literary muse Anaïs Nin’s letters and the secret confessions she exchanged with fellow writer and lover Henry Miller.

We begin by checking in with collaborators from our ongoing erotic short story series, The Collector. This week, Julia Armfield, author of Holds talks us through her treasured summer reads, dream sun-kissed spots and most evocative scent. Just in time for your holidays, whether home or away…

Your five ultimate summer reads?

It's hard to define exactly what makes a summer read, it's not that the novel itself needs to be set in the summer (though it helps) but rather that something about it needs to speak to the liminal sense of the summer as a point wholly separate from the rest of the year.

If the novel lends itself to being read by the pool with an icy beer, so much the better.

Jaws by Peter Benchley

It by Stephen King

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

Democracy by Joan Didion

Our Magic Hour by Jennifer Down

Julia Armfield's perfect summer reading spot

The perfect summer reading spot?

I love to read by the river in Cumbria, which is where my wife's family is from. Getting in the river, then getting out, then spending 40 minutes trying to warm up, then reading… that's ideal.

Les Cahiers Secrets photographed by Sophie Jane Kirk

Your favourite JOUISSANCE scent?

I love LES CAHIERS SECRETS, particularly because it reads very differently on me than on my wife. The powdery notes are very femme on her and far less so on me, whereas the spice comes through much more on me, which I find really fascinating!

†As told to JOUISSANCE

Featured Product

Les Cahiers Secrets

£180.00

Jouissance Diary

"It was while writing a Diary that I discovered how to capture living moments," Anaïs Nin wrote. "In the Diary I only wrote of what interested me genuinely, what I felt most strongly at the moment, and I found this fervour, this enthusiasm produced a vividness which often withered in the formal work. Improvisation, free association, obedience to mood, impulse, brought forth countless images, portraits, descriptions, impressionistic sketches, symphonic experiments, from which I could dip at any time for material."

In tribute to Anaïs Nin, one of our foremost inspirations for Jouissance, our DIARY captures our most treasured moments, our obsessions and preoccupations, our research and the lessons we learn, and the work of our cherished friends and collaborators.

An Excerpt

Holds

The technique works like this: if your arms are tiring, stretch them out so your hands have to take the full weight of your body. This can be useful at height – transferring pressure from your biceps to the tips of your fingers, quick shift, delicious loosening of temporary pain.