Over a hundred thousand years ago by which I mean last May I began to see photographs on Instagram of what appeared to be a beautifully-designed book by Molly Young. The cover was a closeup of Jean Honore Fragonard’s “The Love Letter,” in which an ingenue, in an absurd ribbon hat, clutching a bouquet and love letter, hunches forward and grins.
The Things They Fancied, read its buttery yellow title.
It was both not a book and so much better than one: a zine.
The Things They Fancied is a collection of researched essays on the ridiculous things rich people have fetishized throughout history, like pineapples, and rodent pets, and pubic hair grooming. It was a bit of a balm for a moment when the pandemic painfully exposed our stratified world, and it also felt like a diversion (it’s very funny!) and a keepsake from this time (it’s beautifully written). It almost felt inaccurate to call it a zine, with the Xeroxed-page connotations of that word.