Currently reading: Slouching towards Bethlehem

My fervent passion for writing is rooted in my enduring love affair with reading. 

I am currently reading Joan Didion's book Slouching towards Bethlehem, taken out from the library on recommendation from British Vogue editor, Alexandra Shulman when she recently appeared on BBC's My Life in Books.

Joan Didion is an American writer who worked at American Vogue as well as having pieces appear in Life magazine, Esquire & The New York Times among others. 

I find her writing really inspiring as her style fits under the category of 'new journalism'. New journalism is a way of telling facts through a more narrative storytelling angle, as I too enjoy writing creatively as well as my enjoyment for all things Sixties/Seventies I was eager to approach Didion's work and give it some of my time. This book, much like her others, are filled with essays and her articles collated from different periods. Slouching towards Bethlehem focuses on California and San Francisco in particular, during the Sixties. From where I have read to currently, the book has covered a picket fence family murder, John Wayne, Joan Baez to name a few. It is a very personal insight in to stories Joan chose to cover and explores the cultural chaos of Sixties, golden state California. You can really feel when reading how much Ernest Hemingway has inspired Joan's writing and with a penchant for all things Hemingway myself it is such delightful easy reading with a terrific insight to a bygone era. 

Are any of you reading any great books right now or have any suggestions?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright.

Today I woke beside the sun and travelled to London for an interview with Zara. 

Besides from the interview I had a feast fit for a king, visited William Blake and Daniel DeFoe's graves, caught sight of a Banksy (which had infact been graffitied on - graffiti on graffiti...the mind boggles) and a Shepard Fairey (my favourite street artist) and read Ghost World in the Barbican. 

Instagram: pickletreat

Today was a good day.

Had two phone calls today inviting me for job interviews, enjoyed a marathon of Black books, read some more and went on a nice long walk through the woods and a cornfield. 

Battered but not lost...

I am drawn to the past and romantic eras that have been frozen in time.

I often look back through films, words on a page, items housed in glass cases deep inside museums and through faded photographs to admire and fantasise over bygone moments that always appear so much more glamorous than the present. I often wonder will people look back and think this of us and of the world we are shaping today, shaped yesterday and will shape tomorrow? History isn't just made up of facts but also of fiction, often an elaboration of what we desire it to have been. We choose to forget the mundane and the boring. 

Literature aids our fanciful imaginations and today I dug out my copy of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises , having already started it I was determined to immerse myself back into a generation lost in Twenties Paris & Pamplona. 

The look of the Twenties has been set in stone and is so distinguished within the world of fashion.

Books allow you to stretch your imagination, deciding for yourself what characters look like and how they dress without any rules or restrictions, just some guidance from the author.

The character within the book, Brett Ashley, is such a liberated woman with two divorces already under her belt, sexually promiscuous, she is unable to commit herself emotionally to the antagonist Jake and other men who lust after her. She is native to the Parisian nightlife and the primary social butterfly within the book although a lost and lonely little girl sometimes subtly reveals itself through small cracks in her personality. 

This publicity shot of Kay Francis for the 1934 film, Mandalay, I believe fits perfectly alongside Hemingway's description of the Circe, Lady Ashley.

Absent from the surrounding company and carouse, captivated by her reflection longing for a way out and a transformation of present society to a world where she can break free from this rigid exterior and performance and display her true emotions the beau monde had forced her to closet.

What I love about the Twenties youth is how they rejected the generations that came before, abandoning antecedent attitudes and freed themselves of prior constrictions of youth.

This Kate Moss for Topshop flapper dress adorns my wardrobe but I have just been unable to wear it despite owning it for a couple of years now (the label is still attached). It is one of my most treasured items but the length just makes me feel so fraught with unease that I haven't been able to wear it outside the confines of my bedroom walls. 

I hope one day to build up the courage and embrace the spirit of Twenties youth, pump it through my veins and step out in this coruscating number and maybe even indulge in the Charleston.

You know I've been to sea before, crown and anchor me.

Image via lets beyond the stars

'Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same colour as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated'

- Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and The Sea

Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture

'You can fake the words I miss you, but you can't fake getting some a book'

I can't think of anything better than receiving a book from somebody as a gift. I was fortunate to get this book, Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture bought for me by my boyfriend, having watched the trailer for the film online it's release date seemed a lifetime away so I was eager to know more. I always enjoy reading a mix of fiction and non fiction and my obsession with bygone eras left me feeling ecstatic when this came through my door. It is quite a hefty book and as of yet, I haven't finished it but I definitely would recommend it. I won't review it without finishing it but I suggest, if you are intrigued, to watch the trailer below!

Teenage