Straight from the bookshelf, here are a few of our favourite lockdown reads for November.
WORDS — Melanie O’Loughlin
lamplightbooks.co.nz
Casa Cabana
Martina Mondadori
The new Casa Cabana comes in four different cover options, each wrapped in a lush fabric from Schumacher’s. Just like their journals, the books are made when they’re made, and arrive when they arrive. But we don’t mind because Casa Cabana’s singular vision is about much more than the ‘right sofa’. A mix of stylish interiors, personal essays from Vogue’s arts editor, plus perfect notes on how to set a table and of course, what to cook when your nemesis comes to town.
The Illness Lesson
Clare Beams
A girl’s boarding school is beset by flocks of dark birds. One by one, the students begin to succumb to a mysterious ‘hysteria’. Set in rural Massachusetts in 1871, the school is run by a philosopher, once famous for his moving essay against cruelty. In this knowing feminist parable, the treatments that follow are surely worse than the cure. All the fun of a gothic Little Women.
Intimacies
Katie Kitamura
An unnamed interpreter arrives in the Hague for work. Her private life is a loose tangle of unmoored threads, her professional life is one of pin-point accuracy. The book is mysterious and spare; lawyers work alongside brutal dictators and the Hague is as baffling as it is powerful. Katie Kitamura slyly asks if justice is ever really done. A book so good we can practically see Nicole Kidman in the adaptation!
A Dictionary of Color Combinations
Sanzo Wada
Published in 1934, even then it was way ahead of its time, the collected colour palettes of Sanzo Wada are a small pocket of delight. These matching colour panels lead you through all things that work together and are the secret sauce on how to get the living room colour vibe you’ve always wanted. For designers, colour freaks and anyone wanting to soothe their tired eyes.
