Get your bookworm on with a rotating roster of, um, bookworms. Including Jenna Todd & Suri Reddy from Time Out Bookstore, bringing us a different book to talk about each week.
Jenna's brings in the latest from Ali Smith, Winter, a startlingly topical piece of narrative weirdness. A favourite of the Time Out staff, Jenna offers: also a great holiday gift.
Just in time for nervous present buyers, Kiran's here with a great (if not highly contentious) Christmas gift recommendation for anyone who takes even a passing interest in the ol' liquorice frisbees*, The Vinyl List: 100 Albums You Need on Vinyl and Why.
Jenna's been living in a printed word flurry of late, but she's still had time to bring us in Meet Me in the Bathroom, Lizzy Goodman's oral history of the 2000s NYC indie music scene. A hefty tome covering The Strokes to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem to Interpol, Goodman captures a very particular scene from the mouths of the very particular characters that made it happen. But do you have to be a fan? Or does the book stand on its own?
To grossly misquote Terence McKenna: "don't diddle the Didion dose." Kiran takes heed of that non-existent advice and discusses the author's career with Mikey, with special reference to Joan Didion's latest collection of journal excerpts, South and West.
Kiran talks to Mikey about the new book from Spacemen 3 member Will Carruthers, Playing the Bass with Three Left Hands. Containing forceful minimal music, literal metal and maximum drugs, how did Kiran find Carruthers' snapshot of a burn bright / burn out moment in English music?
Time Out bookstore's youngest employee, Eli, takes us through his personal books-on-the-go and his review of New Zealand bibliopole Gareth Ward's young adult steampunk mystery, The Traitor and the Thief.
Kiran Dass from Unity Books reviews music journalist Sylvia Patterson's account of her life and encounters with musicians in her book I'm Not With the Band: A Writer's Life Lost in Music.
Kiran talks to Mikey about Uniform, a limited-run zine (only 30 handmade copies!) made by a collective of Auckland multi-disciplinary female creators. Having contributed herself, Kiran gives Mikey some insight as to what the lucky 30 owners can expect.