Surprise surprise, another book post. What can I say, umm-I read a lot? This post is a bit of a throwback. The Bookdate was a series I used to run bimonthly and I decided to bring it back in 2019, alternating with my Women+Their Books series. 

recently read: / the ice shelf x anne kennedy: This was the February book for my book club and I for the most part loved it. The things I didn't love so much are more to do with the technicalities and also some of the elements which seem to epitomise New Zealand literature. Rather than get bogged down, or as it may be, buried under an avalanche of my own personal qualms...I did love the way this book unfolded as a series of literary acknowledgements. It morphed and spiralled into a novel which was really a recollection of the fictitious author's life and its essence. It was witty and clever. I laughed out loud at certain passages, most notably, the cook blub aka 'book club' extracts. 

 / essayism x brian dillon: My first dallying with the Fitzcarraldo editions. I want to read more but they're just a bit expensive in lil' ol NZ so I'm holding off. Anyway, essayism, is a form of writing I want to experiment with and hopefully someday master. Dillon's book is a meditation on essays as an art form. As a means of self-expression and escapism. It is also a book about the pleasures of writing. An appreciation of essayists past and present and how they shape a life.  

/ eve's hollywood x eve babitz: Expect to hear a lot about Babitz around these parts next month. I'm rather obsessed with her writing. Confessional tales that seem to oscillate between the real and the fantastical. What actually happened? What is a mere myth? Eve's Hollywood comes under the fiction section in bookshelves but it is a series of autobiographical short stories/essays I suppose about Babitz's upbringing in LA. Her time at Hollywood High, her love of jacarandas, the sometimes eccentric characters she encountered and the many forces in her inner circle. I loved this book and read it somewhat religiously. I read it and fell in love quite simply.

YourShelf: I have to give a mention to this brilliant book-buying service. Each month, or whenever you fancy really you will receive three books, all hand-selected. One will be the choosing of their guest curator, this month's choice was My Year of Rest and Relaxation, which I read last year and loved. I recently received a bundle, see here and I was so smitten with all the books Jay chose for me. More so because one of them was signed (eep!). Know that each book is carefully considered and with no two bundles the same, you are guaranteed something unique and special to you. PS-Florence Welch is a fan so get amongst! Check their Instagram out here and the website out here. 

the wishlist: / this little art: Another Fitzcarraldo beauty, this time about reading. Something I clearly don't already spend enough time doing. I've flicked through this in the bookstore and it looks wonderful and much like essayism, I can see myself whipping my pencil back out to scribble notes throughout its margins.   / spring  The penultimate installment in Ali Smith's seasonal quartet. I'm a bit excited for this. Okay, really excited because Ali Smith's writing makes my heart sing and I quite simply cannot get enough of it. I feel like spring is perhaps going to be more hopeful than winter and autumn. Just because by nature (ha) spring seems to conjure feelings of optimism and change, newness and renewal. 

-What have you read and liked lately?